Newbie Talk on Monday

Hey there,
I wanted to remind you all that Michele will be giving a newbie "How to start couponing" talk this coming Monday March 1 at The Clipper Chicks meeting. The talk will begin at 8:00 pm at Chic-fil-a on Airport Road.

If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about how you can save money using coupons and reduce your weekly shopping bill. Come and join us. I'll give a broad overview of organizing your coupons and using coupons at stores like Publix and CVS. We'll talk about internet coupons, helpful blogs and give real life examples of great shopping trips.

If your a seasoned couponer come add to the conversation and encourage others to take the time to use coupons too.

See you then!

SwagBucks birthday

Today is a good day to join swagbucks. It's their birthday and they are going to give away a ton of bucks. I'm close to earning my second $5 Amazon gift card this month.

If you want to sign up, click here

Coupon Trends

Jennifer K. sent me this e-mail with this info. I thought it was interesting and wanted to pass it along.

The numbers are out for the entire year of 2009 and coupon use. It’s staggering in many ways, but at the same way not surprising.

Coupon Trends

Coupon use rose 27% with $3.5 billion in redeemed coupons! This was the first annual increase in redemption since 1992. Companies saw this increased redemption and they stepped up to the plate with more coupons! Brands issued 367 billion coupons with an average value of $1.44 ($528.5 billion total). This was the highest number of issued coupons ever recorded.

Manufacturer Coupon Changes

Manufacturers did alter the offers they released to help compensate for the increase of coupons. The face value of coupons decreased by 1 penny on average and expiration dates were shortened by 10% over previous years .

Future of Couponing

The economic downtown in the last 18 months has drastically changed the way that people look at shopping. Many wonder if we all start using coupons, will they stop releasing them. I think this past year is proof that the companies are not looking at ending this system but instead are putting more of their resources into it!

For me it is great to see so many using coupons, but at the same time look at all the coupons that were not used. We redeemed $3.5 billion but they issued $528.5 billion, that’s only 0.7%. It’s my goal that we can at least break 1% for 2010!!

(source Coupon Info Now)

SwagBucks

If you are a follower of all the great couponing and deal blogs, you have no doubt heard about Swagbucks. I signed up a while ago, but I didn't really do much in the way of trying to earn them. In fact, I did nothing. Recently though I decided to put a little more effort into it, and I just "cashed out" last night for my first $5.00 Amazon gift card. My "goal" is to earn 2 $5.00 gift cards per month, which would be $100 in gift cards by Christmas (since I sort of missed the month of January). That's not a bad little start to my Christmas shopping budget for doing nothing but searching.

What is Swagbucks some of you are asking? I'm not a great expert on it, but I'll try to explain. You earn Swagbucks in several different ways by

a) using their search engine instead of google. You randomly earn between 1 and 5 swagbucks (or more), just for typing in a search (this is how I earned almost all of mine) You can install a toolbar to make it easier to search.

b)You earn them by finding Swagcodes that are released. I just put a widget on our side bar. You can check for random Swagcodes on that widget. If a code is published, type it into your account and earn a Swagbuck

c) Earn them by signing up for offers....you earn lots of Swagbucks for that

d)OR earn them by viewing offers and saying no thanks. You may only earn one...but you don't have to worry about canceling offers later (this is the only thing I've done so far)

e) Earn them by having people sign up under you.
This is the part I feel weird about because I don't usually ask people to do things like that. BUT....if you've been wanting to try Swagbucks out and haven't yet, click the little icon to the right and you would sign up under me. Basically, for the referral, I would earn 1 Swagbuck for every Swagbuck you earn up to 100 Swagbucks. So, there is a real benefit in having people sign up under you. So...if your going to do it, do it under someone from our group and not a random coupon blogger I guess. Or...sign up on your own, whichever you please.

f)You can also find Swagcodes by following them on their blog, on facebook, on twitter and all those other social network things. I don't do those, so I don't know how many codes are out there.

g) There are other ways to earn too like being a random hourly winner, giving them your old cell phone...etc....

I kind of thought Swagbucks would be to hard to earn to be worth by time, but I read a comment somewhere recently that said they try to earn 3 Swagbucks a day, either by searching or by looking at no obligation offers. They should get to the 45 Swagbucks needed to earn a $5 Amazon gift card in 15 days....so that equals 2 cards a month. That sounded do-able to me...and it even took less than 15 days to get to my 45 Swagbucks for my gift card.

I guess I've jumped on the wagon. If you want to jump on too...then click the box to the right or above this paragraph that says Swagbucks and join today. Don't forget to use your "junk/coupon" email address! And...let us know when you earn a gift card (or there are A TON of other things you can win if you want. I just like money for Christmas)

Publix Video

Hey guys...I wanted to send you over to Hip2Save. The blogger, Colin, just traveled to to Tampa and did a Publix video with one of her readers. It's really good and should get you pumped up about great ways to save money at our favorite grocery store.

Click HERE

Newbie Talks....Coming Soon!!!!

Hey there Clipper Chicks - Michele here.

So, I'm pretty sure that most of you know that Teri has stepped away from The Clipper Chicks for a while, and I stepped away also with the arrival of Nathan. However, our family is finally starting to fall into somewhat of a predictable schedule and he's sleeping pretty well...and I'm in need of adult contact:-)

My dear husband has given me the "OK" to commit to coming back to The Clipper Chicks to present a basic Coupon "How to" newbie talk the FIRST Monday of each month.

From what I understand, there is still a group of you meeting to socialize, clip, eat and chit chat each Monday still. Woohoo...glad to hear it! I've had several people over the past few months e-mail and ask if we are still doing the newbie talk...so that's one reason why I'm going to pick it up again. I'm excited about seeing you all again. I'm excited to help teach other ladies how they can save their family money on items they would be buying anyway, and I'm excited to encourage and be encouraged by others who are trying to live a more frugal lifestyle. So....here's the scoop!

Newbie Talk
The FIRST Monday of the month (the first one is Mon. March 1)
8:00pm
Chic-fil-a at Naples Walk (near Hollywood 20)

If you have any questions e-mail couponmama08 (at) yahoo (dot) com

Invite your friends or ladies (or guys...we had a clipper dude one time) who are interested in learning.

I'm sure people will continue to meet the other weeks of the month (I just can't commit to it right now), so come then too....but if you want to learn clipping, or know someone who wants to learn, send them on 3/1.

See you then!

Naples Daily News

Hey girls,
So I've heard from several of you that you are having problems finding NDN with coupon inserts. I think it's been 3 weeks with NO inserts. Has this been happening to you too?

Yesterday I was able to find the News-Press and there were 2 inserts in there. But every NDN paper were empty of coupons.

I'm going to contact the NDN and try to find out why they aren't putting the coupons in as of late (unless someone else already has and can inform me). Please take the polls to the right so I know what's been going on with your coupons too. Thanks!

Michele