How to Make Money Couponing

By now you know that you can get huge savings on your groceries, resulting in tons or free our extremely cheap items. Did you know that you can actually make money couponing? Everyone from manufacturers to distributors to stores wants to give great deals to move products, especially during different seasons (i.e. BBQ sauce during the summer, and baking supplies around thanksgiving or Christmas). When all of these great deals come together in the prefect storm, we get to take advantage of mega savings. Sometimes, these perfect storms end up being so great that they end up being money makers!

1. Store Rewards
These are almost always exclusive to drug stores. Every week, drug stores have a couple of items that are FREE after store rewards. For example, buy Colgate toothpaste for $3, get $3 back in store rewards for future purchases. As amazing a deal add this is, there will frequently be a corresponding coupon as well. When combining this deal with a $1 off coupon, that means that you will make $1 for every tube of toothpaste that you purchase!

Colgate is $3.50, and the store is letting us know that there is a $0.50 coupon in the newspaper. We will also get back $3 in store rewards, which means that this item is free!

The in store ads are helping to show us how to save tons of money already!

These even show in the ad that they are free after the store rewards offered.

Quite frequently, the freebies will even be identified in your store ads, so make sure to take a look at those every week. When you see free or near free items, it is always a good idea to peruse your coupons, or even consult a coupon database to see if there are any coupons available for the product. I have even noticed many stores advertise the fact that there is a matching coupon available, giving us another big hint that they really want us to try their product!

If we purchase 4 of these, the original cost is $4. Use 2 of the manufacturer's coupons and the 1,000 points offered to make the Carmex only .25 each, or all four for just $1!

This is such a great example of how stores are helping us save money, and several of the discounts that can be applied to one item. Here, we have the $5.99 price, less the coupon in the photo for $3, less a manufacturer's coupon found in the newspaper. What this ad doesn't show is the printable Rite Aid coupon for $2/1, which would make this free.

2. Overage
Another great way to make money is through overage. Most stores do not allow this, but sometimes it will be up to the discretion of the cashier (CVS and Target), and some have it written explicitly in their coupon policy (Albertsons and Walmart). No stores other than Walmart actually offer cash back, but all of the stores that do not exclude it will allow you to apply the overage of the coupons towards the other items in your basket. If you believe that you might get overage, always have enough items in your cart to cover this overage, so that you do not lose the money. Overage occurs whenever the value of the coupon exceeds the cost of the item. Because coupons from manufacturers often coincide with store sales on items, there will frequently be higher than usual value coupons. When accompanied by store sales, the coupon value often exceeds the price of the product, resulting in a negative balance, referred to as overage.
My favorite place to get overage, however, is Walmart. Walmart actually states in their coupon policy that any overage may be applied towards the remaining items in your cart, or may be given to the customer in cash. I have seen people save this money for the holidays, or I like to just put it on a gift card to use on a future purchase at Walmart, as I shop their so often. I will normally use this money for things like meat and produce the next time that I go to Walmart (need more information about how to save money at Walmart? See How to Coupon at Walmart!). Although overage is not as frequent as store rewards, it can make up a significant amount of your earning potential with coupons.

I usually just consider this one free, since it does have tax, but it is a $0.03 overage.

One of my favorite forms of overage; for every pack of razors, get $1.03!

Notice that this coupon specifically includes makeup removers. If we purchase the $5 or $7 bottle, this is a great, high value coupon. If we purchase the $1.14 bottle, however, we will receive $2.72 for every two bottles purchased. YAY!

3. Mail In Rebates
Mail in rebates are great ways for manufacturers to get customers to try their products. Customers feel that since they did not have to spend money to purchase the product (as they are getting the money back), they are willing to take a risk by purchasing something new. I have noticed that mail in rebates are usually on new products, as well as more expensive products (like electric razors, vacuum cleaners, or pet food). In addition to mail in rebates, the manufacturer or the store will usually have concurrent coupons or promotions, which can be used in conjunction with the rebate offer. Always read the offer to make sure that the rebate does not exclude the use of coupons. Rebate offers will usually say that the product is free after rebate, or get $12 back when you purchase the item.
This means that you are already are getting the item for free, and if you can find a coupon, the deal gets even sweeter. Often, the store will offer rewards back for purchasing the item, or gift cards good on future purchases (a great tactic that Target runs every week!). This means that your item that you are getting your money back for trying is now earning you money, and you get to try a new product!

This rebate makes some of the bottles extremely cheap. Add coupons, and they become free or even money makers.

4. Smart Phones
I hate to stand on my soap box, but probably my newest favorite way to make money couponing is by all of the great apps that are available to smart phone users. In addition to the great savings that you can get with the offers above, smart phone apps will give you cash back on top of your purchases. That means that free, or near free, items, which may already be money makers, can now net even more dollars back into your pockets!
I review these in much more depth in the my post (see How to Save Money Without Coupons; Smart Phones!), but my favorite app by far for this is Ibotta, which gives you back money for purchasing items, regardless of how much you actually spend on the item. This app has paid out over $4 million in the past year or two that it has been around, and is quickly gaining in popularity and rapidly increasing its variety of offers to everything from grocery store purchases to fast food to movie tickets. As all of these are items that we can get steep discounts on, or even get for free, it is definitely worth my time to submit my purchases to get bash back.

Get money back with great apps like Ibotta on items from your shopping list!!!

Our family has been able to save thousands of dollars a year by couponing and shopping smart, but I never imagined that we would be able to earn anything along the way. Every month, we purchase about $1200 worth of household products, and spend around $50. That kind of savings was unheard of for us, but by earning money at the same time, we are able to cut that down even further. Every month, using the tactics above, we earn an average for $20-$60 back, meaning that our household expenses are negligible. If you could get all of your household groceries and toiletries, and even more, for free, what could you do with all of that extra money back to your household every month???