Couponing Basics 2025 — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:02] everybody's showing us the couponing deals but no one's teaching us step by step how to do it then you have 100% come to the right place I'm going to me stop you right there this is not

[00:15] did or that they showed you on TLC Extreme Couponing this is going to be really easy super seamless couponing that you can do on your phone nine times one's going to ever know that you're

[00:28] save so much freaking [Music] beginning because it is usually a very good place to start so what is couponing

[00:41] couponing is essentially using a manufacturer's offer to get an item for a discounted price now usually traditionally people are thinking of the newspaper or the coupons that you sometimes getting the inserts that come

[00:55] in the mail no God please no but over the past like five 7even eight years we have seen a surge in digital coupons which are coupons that are found on manufacturers apps and platforms that can be applied digitally to your

[01:10] to find them and what kind of coupons there are but that's kind of like the basics the basics of couponing is using a manufacturers or sometimes a store's offer to get an item for a discounted price there's nothing wrong with the

[01:24] item the item is still just as usable usable and just as good it's just going to be a way to get get the item for a discounted price so the big overarching Concept in couponing is something called stacking you will hear a lot of

[01:37] couponers talk about stacking so what is stacking the ideal stacking situation looks something like this a you take a stores sale so let's say for example Target is having a sale on Tide laundry detergent and the detergent that is

[01:51] normally $12.99 is on sale for $10.99 this week only that would be a stores sale then you're going to take b a coupon this can be a manufacture Ur coupon or a store coupon or both and you're going to apply that to that item

[02:04] so let's say for example if we had the $10.99 tide then we had a $3 Tide coupon so that's going to be stacking a sale with a manufacturer's coupon the third that stack is going to be something called a store reward so in Target's

[02:20] the targets running the spend 50 get a $15 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

[02:34] you spend 50 on household essentials 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

[02:47] platform on the purchase that you made so again going along the lines of the tide example that we're talking about you're going to have the $10.99 tide with the $3 coupon you're going to get the $15 gift card back for spending 50

[02:59] and then maybe you submit 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

[03:14] going for where we're stacking all of these offers together utilizing every single discount and moneys saving Avenue that we have at our advantage and putting it towards these items that we're going to get anyways but now let's

[03:26] single one of those pieces I want to break and kind of talk about what those 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

[03:40] different stores and how you coupon at places like CVS and Target and Walgreens into those stores but this is just kind of an overarching explanation of how to coupon if you're looking to like dip your toes into couponing for the first

[03:54] first thing that I want 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

[04:09] seeing the same sales from 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 stock up when we know we're going to have a sale on them so like for example

[04:24] I know in July right before we have the 4th of July Target is always going to run a big promotion on their pop their chips and their pizza because that is a time and they're looking to get a lot of people to buy product at their store

[04:38] Fourth of July parties and stuff like that right 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 those things they're trying to

[04:51] sale is going to be a cyclical sale that'll be happening at the same time rewards sales happening at the same time so think target they have their spend 50 so think target they have their spend 50 get a $15 gift card that deal pops up

[05:05] another deal that they run all the time is going to be the diaper deal spend 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 that they're going

[05:19] to be coming up all the time so you can kind of time your buying and time your spending to be in line with the store sales the second thing we want to talk about are coupons so there are two main types of coupons the first type is going

[05:31] to be a manufacturers coupon now you're going to want to look e if it's a paper coupon or if it's digital coupon for the word manufacturer it's going to always say manufacturer's offer manufacturer's coupon and that's going to let you know

[05:44] that it is not a store coupon but a coupon being provided by the manufacturer through the store or through a paper version of the coupon important to differentiate from a store coupon is that manufacturers coupons are

[05:59] used as a form of payment now what does that mean because the manufacturer is 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

[06:12] using this example but it's a really great example so let's say again spend 50 get a $115 gift card at Target it's important to know that your manufacturers coupon count as a form of payment because you don't have to spend

[06:26] that full $50 at the register in order to get that $15 gift card because the $3 Tide coupon or the $4 pale coupon or whatever you're using if it's a manufactures coupon it's as if you were handing the cashier $3 or $4 in cash

[06:44] 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 makes sense the

[06:57] 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 themselves so these ones

[07:12] 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 coupons and they are not reimbursed by

[07:26] 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 of

[07:39] payment it's important though to differentiate between these two because nine times out of 10 you are able to stack a manufacturers coupon with a different types of coupons and because they are not both put out by the

[07:54] manufacturer or both put out by the store they will layer together as double the savings so another stack that we're adding to our already pretty big stack is going to be store coupons manufacturers coupons stacking them

[08:06] the third thing that we talked about were store rewards now these are going into this more in detail when I talk about the stores individually but this is a great spot to talk about a concept called rolling and if you've never heard

[08:21] 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 outof pocket cost while still getting store rewards back so we'll keep

[08:35] 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 card deal and you had a $15 gift card already you use your $15 gift card to

[08:49] lower your out-of pocket 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 out of pocket and getting rewards back this is

[09:02] a really popular concept at CVS where they have extra BS 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 just want to caution you

[09:15] 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 Awards and sometimes not so just be mindful when

[09:27] you're going into different stores to R roll your rewards always ask the cashier don't be afraid to say hey if I use this will I get this back they nine times out figure it out the concept of rolling is basically to get your lowest out- of

[09:39] pocket cost humanly possible and still be recycling your rewards from one transaction to the next the store rewards will differentiate the deals differentiate but that concept of rolling is something Universal to all

[09:52] stores that we shop at the last thing 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

[10:04] that are the most reputable that you will see most frequently the first one's going to be iata ibata has been around for years it is one of the most trustworthy rebate apps and the easiest

[10:17] rebate app to use basically what ibata does is you go through you look at the 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

[10:30] hit $20 on ibata you were able 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

[10:44] do not give you cash back they just give you gift cards or rewards so ibata probably the number one app that I can rebate app to start with the second rebate app that you're going to see most

[10:56] frequently is going to be fetch rewards fetch Rewards WS is really popular because of this you do not have to go through and add each individual deal rewarded all you have to do with fetch rewards go to the bottom hit the plus

[11:11] and they will automatically search for 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

[11:25] platform you are going to be getting rewards points back and then you can TR transfer those rewards points and turn them into gift cards they do not offer it is just going to be a straight transfer into gift card now they do have

[11:38] some really great stores that they offer gift cards for like cholle Walmart Target Amazon so you can turn them into really great rewards back but again it's downsides of fetch reward the third rebate that you're going to hear a lot

[11:54] about isn't an app 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

[12:06] $20 on PNG 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

[12:21] week 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 part of other gift card deals and store rewards promotions and have high value coupons that are available

[12:34] digitally as well as rebates on I iata 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 Pampers Dawn Downey stuff like

[12:49] that the question that I get probably the most out of all other questions is where the heck do I find coupons so because there are so many different going to kind of vary but I want to go over kind of the easiest way to find

[13:02] 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 almost non-existent so I

[13:15] don't have an area where you can get coupons in the newspaper as easily you might have an area where you can I that's just a place to kind of look and see if you can find them but again that's not the place that I usually

[13:27] aren't available to me but it is an option if you want to go back to the 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 insert of some kind of

[13:40] know if that's still around anymore that might be really old what I don't know time you'll get some kind of insert in your mailbox it's free the mailman just of coupons in there for you to flip through this I still do get in my area

[13:56] have like b& coupons or will have coupons on like medicine stuff like that kind of one or two coupons for you to flip through it'll have an expiration some coupons for you to cut out and use at the register the last place to find

[14:11] 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 them at the register there's no clipping involved I don't have to think about will it attach

[14:24] or not attach because 9 times out of 10 you can see it on the app itself that it's attaching into the item it just has taken so much guesswork out of the concept of couponing and made it so easy for everyone to use now where to find

[14:37] them on the app varies greatly so I kind of just want to go over a few of the you can find them most easily in those three apps that we're going to look at I'm literally pulling up my phone so I can walk you through this here and then

[14:49] 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 you'll click on that and it will pull up an area where it says Circle deals and

[15:03] deals that you can have on your own you're going to go ahead and scroll down keep scrolling down until you come to a page that looks a little bit like this and it says shop Circle by category and it'll be a bunch of different categories

[15:17] you all the categories where they have like baby Beauty Health home household shop by category which is my favorite way to do it or you can click show deals and it will show you literally every single coupon that Target has available

[15:32] just kind of bring your attention to the fact that there are Target Circle manufacturers coupons and Target circle circle coupons so you'll see different underneath and then you'll see other ones that say Auto applied Target Circle

[15:47] offer the auto applied Target Circle offers are you guessed it Target 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 both of them to

[16:00] apply on one item moving on to the second most common store is going to be CVS now this 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

[16:14] going to teach you so we can do it together um basically what you're going there's no mention of any coupons whatsoever you're going to go down to the bottom right hand corner where it says menu you're going to click that and

[16:26] see where it says savings and M memberships and then under that it says deals and rewards you'll click on that and then it will go ahead and pop up all of the CVS coupons that are available

[16:39] for you in their app again it's a little clunky there's really not a great way to 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

[16:53] barcode if you'll see at the top there's like a little Barcode Scanner here you click that and then oh look I can scan myself um basically you can scan stuff applies to it it's it's the easiest way to search for things I found in CVS

[17:08] because the interface is just really hard to use otherwise the last place this is another place that is really easy to find their coupons they've made problem about Dollar General that we will talk about but we'll get there when

[17:23] 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 so you'll look in coupons and cash back you'll click on that and then literally every single

[17:36] coupon pops up you can sort you can sort by category you can sort by coupons or cash back deals you can sort by food baby price all of it it is very user to if you don't want to go that way is going to be at the very bottom where it

[17:50] says my DG wallet and then that will pop up all of the coupons that you have saved on your account so you can see which coupons you have have clipped which ones you have added the cash back offers that you have added it's really

[18:03] see what do I have on my card already what do I need to add the one problem with Dollar General be ye warn once you have clipped a coupon you cannot uncp a have clipped a coupon you cannot uncp a coupon once it's added to your account

[18:18] it's there and the problem with that is is Dollar General does not give you the if you have say a 50 Cent coupon clipped and a $3 coupon clipped you know which one dollar general is going to take off first right the 50 Cent coupon the $3

[18:33] Cent one is so be careful when you are clipping your coupons in Dollar General because once you clip them they aren't unclipping until you use it or you lose it so that's the basics I know it sounds like a lot for me to be like oh that's

[18:46] the basics that's kind of the basics as long as you can think of the concept of stacking I want to take a sale I want to take a coupon and I want to take a store reward and I want to put them all together and get the cheapest possible

[18:58] 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 hard and I want to encourage you if you

[19:11] are going into 2025 and you're wanting to save your family money and you're to do that start with couponing and start small start with just clipping a coupon on the things that you need go to your favorite store find the app

[19:25] you're already going to grab in your cart and see what you can save next week see if there's anything there that you can use the week after that maybe you're going to get a free toothpaste deal at CVS and you're going to try to get your

[19:40] toothpaste for free go slow take little bites because life by the inches a CCH 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 perseverance

[19:53] this didn't happen overnight I have this huge stockpile I've been couponing for 17 18 years I think so it takes time but once you figure out the basics and once you figure out how to do this for your family you will never ever ever go back

[20:05] so that's it for now that was couponing 101 the basics of couponing in 2025 like I said things are changing constantly it is constantly evolving this was a doing 5 years ago so I'm sure things will change throughout the year but if

[20:19] know how this is kind of the basics don't forget to like And subscribe I bunch of different places like CVS Target Walgreens Dollar General all of it I'm going to take you around show you how to coupon show you how to shop the

[20:32] deals let me show you what I got in 2025 you will not be disappointed you will not be disappointed [Music]