At one point in time, you may have had a great coupon that you intended to use. So you stashed it away, waiting to combine it with a great store or sale promotion. However, when you were pulling the coupon out, you were horrified to realize that it had already expired. What did you do? Well, it is one of the couponing mistakes that happen to most people.
So, do expired coupons make you shy away? Taking note of the following ways will help you avoid having your coupons expire before using them. So keep reading.
Keeping them in a central location
Misplacing coupons or forgetting them is among the primary couponing mistakes that make many coupons reach their expiry dates before redeeming them. Most people scatter their coupons, stashing some in their vehicles, purses, and others in different areas at home. This way, it becomes easy to lose coupons that they had best intended to use on a later shopping trip.
Here the ideal solution is to strive to maintain your entire coupons together in a central location or a single organizer. The chances are high you will find particular coupons that you intend to use, and use them when you want.
Finding an appropriate organizing method
Organizing your coupons using a technique that best works for you is critical to ensuring they don’t expire before redeeming them. Couponing mistakes like using a cumbersome method or one that doesn’t fit your lifestyle make it more challenging to keep up with couponing. So, if clipping all your coupons and storing them in a binder works for you, go for it. Alternatively, if you prefer filing away your inserts in one piece until you have excellent shopping trip plans, go for it. In simpler words, the key is to settle on an organizational technique that works best for you. Ultimately, you will better manage your coupons and redeem the valuable ones for products you consume before expiring.
Use an app to keep track of your coupons.
Are you tech-savvy? Then keeping tabs on the expiration dates of all your coupons should be an easy task. You can try out an application like Coupon Keeper 2 Lite or SnipSnap. You can scan your paper coupons and track their expiration dates with these app types. Some of these apps even go to the extent of alerting you of upcoming coupon expiration dates, thus ensuring you don’t allow any high-value coupons to expire before using them.
Sort Coupons by Expiration Date
Keeping the coupons with the closest expiry date upfront is another excellent technique to ensure you utilize your coupons before their expiration date. Depending on your preferable organizing method, you can sort your similar coupons by product’s category or manufacturer by expiration date. Suppose you keep your inserts intact. In that case, you will want to file by date, keeping the most recent newspaper inserts in the back of the file while leaving the front for the older ones.
Donating expired coupons to overseas military bases
Unfortunately, your coupons might end up expiring before redeeming them. But are you unsure if you can donate and where to donate coupon? You can donate your expired coupons to military families to use in commissaries (up to 6 months after the expiry date). Usually, military base commissaries in the United States of America and overseas accept up to 6 months of expired manufacturer coupons. So, although these expired coupons won’t do you any good, donating them to our dedicated military and their families is an excellent way for redeeming the coupons and avoiding actual expiration.
Bottom line
Almost everybody has the clipped paper pieces lovingly cut out, hoping and expecting to save them some cash in the future when on a shopping spree. And there is nothing wrong with using your coupons for this purpose. But it is essential to note that you are simply trading time for money when you coupon. Whenever you engage in any exercise involving exchanging time for money, you need to ensure that the invested time makes sense for the return you are expecting to get.
For each coupon you clip and then throw away due to expiry issues, you generally get zero return for the time you invested. So, we hope the above five tips will help you avoid having your coupons expire before using them.
