[00:01] again. Everybody is telling you what to coupon, but no one is teaching you how to coupon. And if you want to learn the step-by-step basics of how to coupon in 2026, you have come to the right place. Now, if you didn't know, I did this
[00:13] video last year, how to coupon in 2025. And most of that information is change, things come to an end, and there are a couple things that have changed that I need to update you on going into how to coupon in 2026. Now, I'm going to
[00:26] I'm going to watch it all the way through with you, but I'm going to stop myself as myself throughout the video. Existential crisis, and I'm going to give you the updates on couponing in 2026 that you need to know so you don't
[00:39] have any mess ups at the register. So, we're going to go ahead and hit play on this guy right here and see what we can update in 2026 on how to couponing 101.
[00:54] because it is usually a very good place to start. So, what is couponing? Couponing is essentially using a manufacturer's offer to get an item for a discounted price. Now, usually, traditionally, people are thinking of
[01:07] the newspaper or the coupons that you sometimes get in the inserts that come IN THE MAIL. >> NO, GOD, PLEASE NO. BUT OVER THE PAST like five, seven, eight years, we have seen a surge in digital coupons, which
[01:21] are coupons that are found on manufacturers apps and platforms that can be applied digitally to your transaction. Now, we'll go over like coupons there are. But that's kind of like the basics. The basics of couponing
[01:34] is using a manufacturers or sometimes a store's offer to get an item for a discounted price. There's nothing wrong with the item. the item is still just as usable usable and just as good. It's just going to be a way to get the item
[01:47] for a discounted price. So the big overarching concept in couponing is something called stacking. You will hear a lot of couponers talk about stacking. So what is stacking? The ideal stacking situation looks something like this. A
[02:00] you take a store's sale. So, let's say, for example, Target is having a sale on Tide laundry detergent, and the detergent that is normally $12.99 is on sale for $10.99 this week only. That would be a store's sale. Then, you're
[02:14] going to take B, a coupon. This can be a manufacturers's coupon or a store coupon or both. And you're going to apply that to that item. So, let's say, for example, if we had the $10.99 Tied, then we had a $3 Tide coupon. So, that's
[02:28] going to be stacking a sale with a manufacturer's coupon. The third thing stack is going to be something called a store reward. So in Target's case, cuz we're going with that example, the Target's running the spend 50, get a $15
[02:41] gift card on household essentials. So you have your Tide laundry detergent that's on sale. You've got a coupon that stacks with it. And then you're going to be getting that $15 gift card back when you spend 50 on household essentials.
[02:53] The last piece that you have in the stack is a rebate. This can be a manufacturer's rebate, a rebate from a platform like Ibata. it. You're going to be basically getting money back from this rebate platform on the purchase
[03:06] that you made. So again, going along the lines of the Tide example that we're talking about, you're going to have the $1099 Tide with the $3 coupon. You're spending 50. And then maybe you submit
[03:18] to the PNG website for a $15 Visa gift card for spending 50. Now you have stacked four different offers to get your tide to get your PNG items for dirt cheap. That is the concept of couponing that we are going for where we're
[03:32] stacking all of these offers together, utilizing every single discount and money-saving avenue that we have at our advantage and putting it towards these Future Kirsty here, just watch that. Yes, all of that is still true, but I
[03:46] did want to add that last part about rebates. You can actually use multiple rebates at the same time for the same item. So, we'll talk a little bit about that in a different video, but I just want you to know a lot of the times you
[04:00] don't have to pick just one rebate. You can actually stack multiple rebates from save the most money. Okay, let's keep and break this down. Every single one of those pieces, I want to break down and
[04:13] what you can look for, and how you can utilize those to the best of your advantage. Again, this is going to vary from store to store. I'm going to go more in depth in other videos about different stores and how you coupon at
[04:25] Walgreens, Dollar General. I will do a deep dive into those stores, but this is just kind of an overarching explanation of how to coupon if you're looking to the first time. So, let's talk about
[04:38] to mention when it comes to store sales is they are always cyclical. What do I mean by that? Store sales happen at the same times at the same frequency every year like clockwork. You are constantly going to be seeing the same sales from
[04:54] the same retailers over and over and over. The benefit of this is that we can plan for deals and plan to get things when they're at the cheapest sale price have a sale on them. So, like for example, I know in July, right before we
[05:09] going to run a big promotion on their pop, their chips, and their pizza for them at that time. And they're looking to get a lot of people to buy about to prep for big Fourth of July parties and stuff like that. Right
[05:24] around the holidays, when everybody's about to be baking, a lot of retailers are going to be putting on sales for things like flour, sugar, butter, all of to shop at their store. So, that sale is going to be a cyclical sale that'll be
[05:38] also going to see store rewards sales happening at the same time. So, think Target. They have their spend 50, get a $15 gift card. That deal pops up for Another deal that they run all the time is going to be the diaper deal. Spend
[05:53] $100, get a $20 gift card. Sometimes it's a $30 gift card. But those are sales that happen and pop up very frequently that you can time and know the time. So you can kind of time your buying and time your spending to be in
[06:07] line with the store sales. Future Kirsty here again. Now I will say store sales 100% work like clockwork. But I will say over the past year things have changed significantly. This has been the first year that I as a couponer have not been
[06:22] able to time up all of the sales that all of these stores are running. Now the things aren't. Clearance prices aren't going down as quickly. Certain items that always clearanced out aren't clearanced out. Certain coupons that we
[06:35] always got, we're not seeing anymore. So, be prepared for change because like So, be prepared for change because like Scar said, be prepared.
[06:49] change in that nice little clockwork we have going on. Okay, let's keep going. The second thing we want to talk about are coupons. So, there are two main types of coupons. The first type is going to be a manufacturers's coupon.
[07:02] if it's a if it's a paper coupon or if it's a digital coupon for the word manufacturer. It's going to always say manufacturers's offer, manufacturers's coupon. And that's going to let you know that it is not a store coupon, but a
[07:14] coupon being provided by the manufacturer through the store or The reason that this coupon is so important to differentiate from a store important to differentiate from a store coupon is that manufacturers coupons are
[07:27] used as a form of payment. Now, what does that mean? Because the manufacturer is going to be reimbursing the retailer for the value of that coupon. The retailer takes that coupon and counts it as a form of payment at the register. I
[07:42] really great example. So, let's say again, spend 50, get a $15 gift card at Target. It's important to know that your manufacturer's coupon count as a form of payment because you don't have to spend that full $50 at the register in order
[07:56] that full $50 at the register in order to get that $15 gift card because the $3 Tide coupon or the $400 PCIL coupon or whatever you're using, if it's a manufacturers's coupon, it's as if you were handing the cashier $3 or $4 in
[08:11] cash because they count that as money back from the manufacturer at the register as a form of payment. So, you don't have to spend $50 out of pocket because you're spending money with your manufacturer's coupons. Hopefully, that
[08:24] more it'll make sense. I promise. The second type of coupon that we have is a store coupon. And these are coupons that the store puts out themselves that are only available at the store and the store is responsible for reimbursing
[08:39] themselves. So, these ones do not count as a form of payment. They essentially count as a discount. So, that's going to be things like CVS. They have things called CRTs, which stand for cash register tape. Those are CVS store
[08:52] the manufacturer. They are simply put out by CVS to reward you for shopping. Target has Target Circle offers, which again are just offers that are coupons available just for the store, sometimes just for you, and do not count as a form
[09:07] of payment. It's important though to differentiate between these two because nine times out of 10 you are able to stack a manufacturers's coupon with a different types of coupons and because they are not both put out by the
[09:22] manufacturer or both put out by the store, they will layer together as double the savings. So another stack that we are adding to our already pretty big stack is going to be store coupons, manufacturers coupons, stacking them
[09:34] together to get double the savings. Now, there's really no good place to put this go ahead and put it in here. Now, one of the things that we've added in recently is an app called Coupon 24. Now, it isn't a rebate app, but it also isn't a
[09:49] store app that you can use, but it is a coupon that you can use at the register, but only at certain stores. Let me just explain it. So, Coupon 24 is an app that allows you to use manufacturers coupons at checkout at CVS. Now, there are a
[10:03] couple other stores that it also works at, but they aren't as easily accessible and they aren't stores that we coupon at frequently, so I'm not going to mention that it does work at if you want to look into those. Now, Coupon 24 is an app
[10:17] that you're able to go on and add coupons to your digital wallet. It presents a barcode and then you can use that barcode at checkout, at the register at CVS, and you will automatically save money. So, let's say,
[10:30] for example, we go on coupon 24 and we find this coupon for a Tide item. Now, we want to go ahead and add that coupon by hitting the plus sign. And that will you'll look and see a barcode that you can scan at checkout. When you get up to
[10:44] cashier, they will scan that barcode. And once they hit total, it'll instantly come off and save you whatever money you had added in the value of that coupon. It's a great resource. I absolutely love using it. I will say it follows the same
[11:00] rules as manufacturer coupons. One manufacturer coupon per item. So, if you have that same Tide coupon clipped in your CVS account and you have the same coupon clipped on coupon 24, but you only bought one Tide product, it's only
[11:16] not both. Hopefully, that makes sense. Now, the third thing that we talked about were store rewards. Now, these are going to be kind of tricky, and again, I talk about the stores individually, but this is a great spot to talk about a
[11:29] concept called rolling. And if you've never heard anybody explain this to you, it's a concept that basically says you want to take rewards that you already have and use them in your next transaction to lower your out-ofpocket
[11:42] cost while still getting store rewards back. So, we'll keep on the spend 50, get a $15 gift card target example. So, let's say you were going to do the spend 50, get a $15 gift card deal, and you had a $15 gift card already. You use
[11:58] your $15 gift card to lower your out-ofpocket cost. And then the register prompts you to get a $15 gift card right back. You are rolling that reward from one deal to the next to constantly be lowering your out-of pocket and getting
[12:12] rewards back. This is a really popular concept at CVS where they have extra bucks rewards where you can take and use all of your extra bucks to get your items for pretty much nothing and still earn your extra bucks right back. Now, I
[12:25] just want to caution you. There are some stores where this concept of rolling is really tricky. And one of those stores is Walgreens. And they have two different forms of rewards. And you can sometimes use your rewards and sometimes
[12:37] going into different stores to roll your rewards. Always ask the cashier. Don't will I get this back?" They nine times out of 10 are more than happy to help rolling is basically to get your lowest out-of- pocket cost humanly possible and
[12:53] still be recycling your rewards from one transaction to the next. The store will differentiate, the amounts will differentiate, but that concept of rolling is something universal to all stores that we shop at. The last thing
[13:05] that we want to talk about in our stack are rebates. Now, there are so many rebate apps, and they are constantly coming up and going away, so this will constantly fluctuate, but I want to talk about the ones that have been around for
[13:17] a while that are the most reputable that you will see most frequently. The first one's going to be Ibata. Ibata has been around for years. It is one of the most trustworthy rebate apps and the easiest rebate app to use. Basically, what Ibata
[13:31] stores, you look at the rebates that they're offering, you add the rebate into your rebate app section, submit a picture of your receipt, and then you are given credit back into your account. Once you hit $20 on IBATA, you are able
[13:44] to cash out in the form of a gift card or directly back into your bank account. So, it is one of the few rebate apps that allows you to cash back out into direct cash, which is another really big benefit because there are some rebate
[13:56] apps that do not give you cash back. they just give you gift cards or rewards. So, Ibata probably the number one app that I can recommend if you are The second rebate app that you're going to see most frequently is going to be
[14:09] Fetch Rewards. Fetch Rewards is really popular because of this. You do not have to go through and add each individual deal into your account in order to be Rewards, go to the bottom, hit the plus button, take a picture of your receipt,
[14:24] all of the deals that are available and give you credit. The downside of Fetch Reward is is Fetch Rewards is one of the apps that does not give you direct cash back for using their rewards and rebates platform. You're going to be getting
[14:38] rewards points back and then you can transfer those rewards points and turn them into gift cards. They do not offer any kind of like Visa or PayPal option. transfer into gift card. Now, they do have some really great stores that they
[14:51] offer gift cards for like Chipotle, Walmart, Target, Amazon. So, you can turn them into really great rewards back, but again, it's not direct cash, Reward. The third rebate that you're going to hear a lot about isn't an app.
[15:06] It is just a website, and that is going to be the pgood everyday.com website where they have a rebate. Nine times out of 10, they will have this rebate. It's going to be on PNG products. It's basically when you spend $20 on PNG,
[15:19] you're going to get a $5 Visa gift card. Or if you spend $50 on select PNG items, you're going to get a $15 Visa gift card. And these rebates are constantly popping up, and you're able to do them either once or twice per rebate. It'll
[15:32] or two, you'll have a new rebate that pops up. The reason that this one is so popular is because PNG items are constantly a part of other gift card deals and store rewards promotions and have high value coupons that are
[15:45] available digitally. as well as rebates on I I bata fetch stuff like that. So, it is a really popular rebate that we are constantly cycling through and stacking into all of our deals and promotions on PNG items like Tide,
[15:58] Pampers, Dawn, Downey, stuff like that. The question that I get probably the most out of all other questions is where the heck do I find coupons? So, because coupons, where you find them is going to kind of vary, but I want to go over kind
[16:12] where you are more than likely going to see them. So again, the first place that most people traditionally think of in the newspaper. Now, I will say I live in an area where the newspaper coupons are few and far between. And by that I mean
[16:25] almost non-existent. So I don't have an area where you can get coupons in the newspaper as easily. You might have an area where you can. I would that's just a place to kind of look and see if you can find them. But again, that's not the
[16:37] coupons because they aren't available to me. But it is an option if you want to couponing route. The other spot that people find them is going to be in the mailbox. So, a lot of times, probably once or twice a month, you'll get an
[16:50] insert of some kind of like Smart Source or Red Plum. I don't know if that's really old. What? I don't know. I've been couponing for a really long time. You'll get some kind of insert in your mailbox. It's free. The mailman just
[17:02] of coupons in there for you to flip through. This I still do get in my area. have like B&G coupons or you'll have coupons on like medicine, stuff like booklet kind of one or two coupons for you to flip through. It'll have an
[17:17] it'll just be some coupons for you to cut out and use at the register. The last place to find coupons is store apps and that is my favorite spot of all to find coupons because it is so easy to grab them, put them on your account, use
[17:31] clipping involved. I don't have to think about will it attach or not attach because nine times out of 10 you can see it on the app itself that it's attaching guesswork out of the concept of
[17:44] couponing and made it so easy for everyone to use. Now, where to find them on the app varies greatly. So, I kind of just want to go over a few of the apps that you're going to see and where you can find them most easily in those three
[17:56] literally pulling up my phone so I can walk you through this here and then I screen so you can see it, too. So, we're going to start with Target. If you're looking kind of like at the main screen of Target, what you're going to do is
[18:08] where it says hi and then your name, you'll click on that and it will pull up an area where it says circle deals and it'll kind of show you some new deals or You're going to go ahead and scroll down. Keep scrolling down until you come
[18:22] to a page that looks a little bit like this and it says shop circle by category categories. You can click show all and it'll show you all the categories where they have like baby, beauty, health, home, household supplies, stuff like
[18:35] which is my favorite way to do it. Or you can click show deals and it'll show you literally every single coupon that Target has available. Well, one of the things that they have changed is Target made their app a lot more complicated in
[18:48] previous information is still relevant and is still the same, but now when you click on those categories, it no longer just pulls up the coupons. It pulls up all of the deals. And so you will have
[19:01] screen. You have to scroll all the way down and you'll see where it says like deals available, a number, and deals available. And then it'll see coupons to apply, circle deals, newest, trending. And so when you click a category and you
[19:13] scroll down, you're going to have to click where it says coupons to apply in order to see the coupons and not just the sales that Target has going on. So mind. Again, this is a really great spot to just kind of bring your attention to
[19:27] the fact that there are Target Circle manufacturers coupons and Target Circle that say manufacturers coupon underneath. And then you'll see other ones that say auto applied target circle offer. The auto applied target circle
[19:42] Circle store coupons and the manufacturers coupons are manufacturers coupons. Again, you can stack both of those at Target and still be able to get Moving on to the second most common store is going to be CVS. Now, this
[19:57] one's a little bit more complicated. Their app, I've got feels about it. Um, it is definitely not as user friendly as some of the other apps, but again, we're teach you so we can do it together. Is the app still clunky? 100% yes. Did they
[20:12] make one really good adjustment that makes it a little bit easier? Yes, they did. Now, when you pull up the CVS app, it looks like this. And if you go to the very bottom right where it says shop and save, you click that and then it just
[20:25] pulls up all of the coupons for you to be able to scan and sort and do whatever all of them. That was a very nice change. The app is still very clunky and it's a 50/50 chance of whether or not it's going to work on a Sunday, but they
[20:39] clunky. There's really not a great way to sort this. You can either like search through it just by scrolling or you can go up to the top and there's a little you can click if you're looking for a specific item. The other thing that you
[20:53] barcode. If you'll see at the top there's like a little barcode scanner here. You click that and then look I can scan myself. Um basically you can scan coupon that applies to it. It's it's the easiest way to search for things I found
[21:07] in CVS because the interface is just really hard to use otherwise. The last General. This is another place that is really easy to find their coupons. There is one problem about Dollar General that we will talk about, but
[21:22] so you're going to be on Dollar General. You'll see that there's two spots that you can go to get coupons because Dollar General really wants us to save money. corner where it says coupons and cash back. You'll click on that and then
[21:35] literally every single coupon pops up. You can sort, you can sort by category, you can sort by coupons or cashback deals, you can sort by food, baby price, all of it. It is very user friendly. The other place that you can go to if you
[21:47] don't want to go that way is going to be at the very bottom where it says my DG wallet. And then that will pop up all of the coupons that you have saved on your you have clipped, which ones you have added, the cashback offers that you have
[22:01] through and sort and see what do I have on my card already? What do I need to add? The one problem with Dollar General, be ye warned. Once you have clipped a coupon, you cannot uncip a coupon. Oh, no, that didn't change.
[22:16] That's still a problem. Sorry. Keep going. Once it's added to your account, it's there. And the problem with that is is Dollar General does not give you the If you have, say, a 50cent coupon clipped and a $3 coupon clipped, you
[22:32] to take off first, right? The 50cent coupon. The $3 coupon is not going to go off. The 50 cent one is. So be careful when you are clipping your coupons in them, they aren't unclipping until you use it or you lose it. So that's the
[22:46] basics. I know it sounds like a lot for me to be like, "Oh, that's the basics." That's kind of the basics. As long as you can think of the concept of to take a coupon. And I want to take a store reward. And I want to put them all
[22:59] together and get the cheapest possible price that I can for my family. I want to leave you with this. My mom told me the thing that I remember all the time growing up that she told me was life by the inch is a cinch. Life by the yard is
[23:13] you're wanting to save your family money and you're looking to figure out how you're going to do that. Start with couponing and start small. Start with that you need. Go to your favorite store, find the app, download it, and
[23:28] going to grab in your cart and see what you can save. Next week, add in a rebate anything there that you can use. The week after that, maybe you're going to you're going to try to get your
[23:42] toothpaste for free. Go slow. Take little bites because life by the inch is a cinch. Life by the yard is hard. Do little deals at a time and I promise you will eventually get it. This is an act of patience. It is an act of
[23:54] overnight. I have this huge stockpile. I've been couponing for 17, 18 years, I figure out the basics, and once you figure out how to do this for your back. So, that's everything. That is the basics of couponing in 2026. Now, I said
[24:11] it again. Things are constantly changing, as is evidenced by this video change. A lot of it stayed the same, but things are constantly changing. The couponing that I'm doing now is not the couponing that I was doing when my kids
[24:26] were babies. And it's definitely not the coupon that I was doing when I was with my mom in 2008 2007 listening to Backry Boys in the Car. It's constantly to get into the basics of couponing, this is pretty much how you're going to
[24:39] subscribe. We will be doing lots more of these how to coupon videos into 2026, like how to coupon at specific stores, how to roll your rewards, specific rebate apps to use, and maybe a little Disney on a dime in the near future. If
[24:53] answered for you yet, please leave it in the comments. I would love to answer it for you. But until our next video, I just want to encourage you, start small, got this, my friend. Until next time, scoot your beating over to your favorite
[25:07] scoot your beating over to your favorite store and go