Money doesn’t grow on trees. You work hard all week, to provide for yourself and your family. Do you pay attention to the bills you pay, and the things you buy at retail?
No? Well, you should, read the first line again, and you will see why. The first thing to understand about couponing, is that you have a simple goal, to save money, or to put it in even simpler words, every single dollar counts.
It doesn’t mater if you are rich or average like me, you should save money. It really is a good habit to get into. But it is not easy as it sounds like. There are many hurdles, which may prevent you from saving money.
The biggest culprit of them all, is impulse shopping. Some people buy things randomly because they either thought the ad for the product was good, or the package looked cool. Some look at a poster and assume the product is good. Some look at a list of features and buy the product without doing the homework.
And what homework would that be you ask? There are three things you need to do. First, sit down and give this some thought. Do you really need to buy the product you have in your mind. If the answer is no, i.e., you are not going to use the product much, or you think you may put it to use rarely. Don’t buy it. This is a challenge, but you must remain strong, and avoid splurging.
Second, check the product description thoroughly, multiple times if needed. If you are confused, you can Google and find something relevant to it, like a YouTube video. The best source however is the manufacturer’s, or the software or game developer’s website. Does the product look like something you will use or like? Do you buy a phone because it looks shiny and colorful? No, you check for reviews from other users, and read what they have to say. And then you note down the pros and cons as required, right? Do this for anything you buy and you will save a lot of money.
And finally, Google the price of the product. This is the most important step, and you should not be lazy to do this. Don’t get fooled by fake discounts. A lot of stores put a banner saying sale, or an ad which says big sale, or something. If you look closely, they will not mention all the products but only a few. And the one you want may or may not have a discount on its price tag. So pay attention to the price carefully.
Hey, I do all this already. So how is this Extreme Couponing? It is not. We haven’t gotten to that part yet.
Let us take for example, you want to order a pizza, What do you do ? You open the pizza store’s website, or the mobile app, and browse the menu. You look around, adding toppings, sides, etc, and then decide to checkout. It is on the payment screen, that you notice a sentence which says “Enter Coupon code” or “Redeem your coupon”.
You usually do a quick search on Google, and see if you can get a pizza coupon which allows you to save a few dollars. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact you should be proud that you are taking time to save money, no matter how little the amount is, that you are saving.
Whenever I browse reddit or some forums, I always see people arguing about prices. There are always 2 sides to a coin, but the most common comparison factor in these rants, is a cup of coffee. The argument goes like this, someone says $4.99 is expensive for this product, and that they will wait for a discount. Another person immediately attacks with a reply saying, it’s cheaper than a cup of coffee, get over it.
Which of the two people, do you think is the smarter one? The logic behind the person who says the product is cheap is correct, but his advice is actually wrong, both in the tone, and also when it comes to saving money. It is the person who said that he will wait for a discount, that guy is really the smart one here.
An easy way to prevent yourself from spending money, is to make some goals to achieve. Keep it simple though, like “I want to save this amount of money in my bank account”. Or you could divert your savings to buy things too, like “I want to build a PC, or buy this particular phone, and I need to save money for it”. You could put the money in a piggy bank, or a jar to save up too, and maybe wait for a sale to come like on Black Friday or Cyber Monday and save even more. If you think you are getting good at it, make the goal bigger, like saving up for a car or even a house.
An excellent way to save up even more on your expenditure, is to use coupons whenever possible. You can collect coupons at stores, restaurants, newspapers, fliers, etc, and use them to save money.
But, more importantly you should really consider applying the same principles to online shopping too. Nowadays people buy everything from food, stationery, electronic devices and other goodies on their phone or on the web. This also adds up to the impulse buying problem. We advise you to resist the temptation, and instead follow the tips we give.
Tips for Extreme Couponing:
You should really make it a practice to add products to your wish list, instead of buying them right away. Patience is the key here. Observe the changes in prices as they happen over time. Compare the prices on different stores, and you will quickly learn how to save more money. Most products drop their prices over time, usually applies to hardware, which the retailer wants to get off the shelf, instead of it gathering dust.
But the same cannot be said about software. Usually the majority of software are sold directly through the developer’s website, and are made available as digital downloads. The thing is, discounts or sales on these stores happen rarely, if not never. This is because of lack of marketing usually, more than anything, and also because the developers need to cover their computing and other operations.
But you don’t have to absolutely pay the full price for the software, after all saving is our goal here. And that is why we are here to help. You see, there are a lot of software companies, or developers, who offer a coupon redemption option on their store. Using which you can buy their premium software at an affordable price.
For example take a look at the screenshot below:
It shows you how much the software originally costs, which may be considered as a high price for some people. But then again, look at the discounted price, and you will nod in agreement that it is an incredible offer, because you are saving a lot.
And that is possible, thanks to a coupon. This is actually just a small example of one of the coupons we offer.
Think about the software which you use. You may have to buy an antivirus, a graphics editor, a multimedia player, a video converter, an office suite, or a video editor, a screenshot and video recording tool, encryption utilities, plugins etc.
Imagine if you pay the full price for all these. It could easily cross a thousand bucks or more. Now, what if you had coupons for each software, and buy them using the discount which the coupons give you. How much money could you save by couponing? You can almost cut the prices by half. But the thing is, it depends on the availability of the discount and the price of the product really. Sometimes the software you want to buy may not have a discount immediately, and you will have to wait for it. But hey you are actually saving money by simply waiting, right?
This is what we call extreme couponing. By saving up a little on every software, you can literally save hundreds of dollars, which you can use for anything you want.
Coupon Buffer partners with many developers, to offer you the best discount on an incredible library of software. As affiliates we earn a little money, developers get more sales, and you get a quality product at a discounted price and save your hard earned money. It’s a in-win-win situation, if you look at it that way.
A lot of third party websites try to offer similar deals, but are those genuine stores? Besides looking for the https connection and the lock symbol in the address bar, while purchasing something online, pay attention to the URL itself. Some websites are shady and take the payment on their own store on insecure connections, leaving you no clue for contacting support in case of any issues.
We at Coupon Buffer, sell software through reliable third-party services, and whenever possible, via the payment page, and the gateway of the software developer themselves.