Newspapers

Common questions I get about newspapers...

Which Sunday paper is best to buy for coupons? The Greenville News & Spartanburg Herald Journal are almost always identical! The SHJ has more weekly ads in it, and the Parade magazine (which often has Qs in it!). The GN has fewer ads, and the USA Today, wchich sometimes has Qs in it. If there is going to be a difference in who has what, the GN usually has more.

Where do you get your Sunday paper? I buy mine on Sundays at Walgreens. They sell the GN for $.88 (compared to $1.50 elsewhere) and the SHJ for $1 (compared toe $1.25 elsewhere). If you buy yours at the store, be sure to always grab from the middle of the stack - and/or check to see if the inserts are in there before you buy it!

How many Sunday papers do you get? Some people recommend buying 1 per person in your family. I have a family of 4... and I typically buy just 2 newspapers. Rarely is there a coupon I want more than 2 of. And if there is, I can buy 10 of that coupon for $1.99 on ebay! OR I can go to The Coupon Clippers to purchase more. If I know there will be a lot of Qs I want multiples of, I'll buy 4 or 5 papers. How do I know what will be in the paper?? SundayCouponPreview.com gives a list of what to expect in each insert. This is regional... we get about 75-80% of what she says we'll get.

Do you clip out all your coupons? NO!! I don't have time, patience, or the organizational ability to do that! I clip the ones I KNOW I'll use - even if the item never goes on sale. I put those few in my coupon binder. Then I leave the rest in the insert and file it in a file folder with the date on it. Then when blogs tell me what's on sale and where to find the coupon-matches, I know right where to look! Blogs might say theres a "$1/1 Q in the 2/21 SS" that means I pull out my folder from 2/21 (Feb 21) and look in the Smart Source insert for that Q, find it, clip it, and put the rest back in my folder.

Do you save all the coupons - even ones you know you won't use? YES! Why? Because there may be something I'll never use, but when partnered with a sale, and stacked with a store coupon, I might get overage for using it. That means that coupon will help pay for my meat or milk. Of course I'll buy it then!! And I can always donate the item to Miracle Hill, Operation Christmas Child, Christian Woman's Job Corp, etc.

One last thought... When I first started getting the paper, after a month I started wondering if it was worth it... I wasn't using enough coupons to more than pay for the cost of the paper! Then around the 5th week, all of the sudden the sales caught up with the coupons! And I started using them left and right. So start your newspaper collecting now, if you haven't already. And then be patient - wait to use those Qs on a sale item, and it may take a few weeks before the sales start matching what you have. Just keep collecting them!