artofthecoupon.com

Welcome back!

Inspired by the delightful quizes I used to partake in in Seventeen Magazine back in the day (and which I think still adorn the pages of Cosmo and other magazines I am too cheap to buy) I bring you the Are You a True Blue Coupon Shopper quiz.  Enjoy. (more…)

I mentioned before that I took a balance transfer, and transferred some of my student loan debt onto a card that was 3.99% for the life of the balance.  The student loan debt was at 6% so it was a nice drop in interest but not a huge one.  So, why did I do this?  It hurt my credit quite a bit, bringing my FICO score down almost 100 points because of the new inquiry and the credit utilization on this new card.  And, it isn’t saving me a huge amount in interest.  But, in the long run, for me it seemed like the best option. (more…)

A lot of people who are in debt are not sharing that information.  People hide debt, sometimes even from their own family and friends.  For example, in the movie Maxed Out, one woman hid her massive credit card debt even from her husband and son.  Unable to pay and with creditors breathing down her neck, she took her own life.  This is perhaps an extreme case, but the practice of hiding debt from our loved ones is not a new practice and I don’t think it is entirely unusual.  A lot of people are ashamed of the fact that they got themselves into debt- especially if it is credit card debt and/or the purchases seem foolish to the borrower in retrospect.  Debt doesn’t necessarily make you attractive to a perspective mate, and so people may try to hide the fact that they owe money when they are dating (I know, my ex did).  And, in a society where money  seems to equal success, people may just be unwilling to let others know that their Kept-up-with-the-Jones’ lifestyle is sponsored by Mastercard. (more…)

My Couponers Creed was an editors pick in the Festival of Frugality at Always The Planner.

Carnival of Debt Reduction at Man Versus Debt included my post, Debt Forgiveness and the Tax Bill

Carnival of Personal Finance at Weakonomics included my post, Why is it so Much Harder to Thrive in America Today.

The Money Hacks Carnival at i pick up pennies also included my post Why it is Worth my Time to Argue for my Coupons.

When shopping online or buying anything online, you should never ever click the Purchase button without doing a quick search to see if there is a coupon available.  Unlike paper coupons for brick and mortar stores, which some people find a hassle to cut, find, store, carry with them, and remember to use, there is almost no excuse for not using an online coupon.  All you need to do is copy the coupon code into the relevant box on the website, and you could get yourself free shipping, save yourself a percentage off the purchase price, earn a free sample, or get yourself any number of discounts.  Of course, the key is finding a good place to look for these online coupon codes, so you never miss anything and so you are using the coupon that benefits you the most.  To that end, I’m reviewing Coupon Chief, a site that claims to be one of the fastest growing coupon sites, with over 200,000 visitors/month and over 40,000 coupons for use in over 8000 stores, giving them one of the largest databases of online coupons on the net. (more…)

For those of you, like me, who do Walgreens Easy Saver rebate- this is the end of that free ride.  Walgreens has officially discountinued the rebate books, having switched entirely to a system of Register Rewards.  This is bad, bad news!  The Walgreens Easy Saver Rebate program alowed shoppers to get a 10% bonus for putting the money on Walgreens gift cards- this nice little bonus covered tax on the free items plus a little extra, which reduced the amount of money spent at Walgreens by a lot (since, for free items, most people only pay tax).  The program always allowed you to convert register rewards to gift cards by buying rebate items- a very useful thing to do since RR’s expire in two weeks, don’t roll (i.e. you can’t use a RR to buy another item that generates that same RR) and can’t be used to pay for tax.  All of these factors, plus the fact that you have to make sure you have as many items as RR’s, plus the resistance some people find towards RR’s from the staff and managers at the stores, all add up to suggest that shopping at Wags may become more of a chore than a pleasure.