Combine A Coupon With Clearance Prices
Use Overages
Free Samples
Mail In Rebates
Coupon Stacking
Double Coupon Days
Provide Feedback To Your Favorite Companies
Use Swagbucks!
Combine A Coupon With Clearance Prices
This is the most common way to get something for free. Every store has a clearance section, usually at the back of the store, or for larger stores it will be a certain part of each section. For example, Walmart typically puts clearance items on the ends of aisles and on the bottom shelves. Know where to find the clearance items, because if you are looking for free, these sections will be a gold mine!
Simply check every so often for the new clearance stuff (the more frequently the better, or the good deals will go before you knew they were there!) and match them to your coupons.
This is a great way to stock up on things, just make sure to check expiry dates on applicable items. Yes, its free, but you dont need 20 of it if its expiring in a week!
Check the Weekly Matchups for the BLUE items to know what coupons combined with flyer sales will get you the item for FREE as well:)
See the Weekly Matchups here
Use Overage
Using overage to pay for other items you have no coupons for is a great way to get them for free! The stores that will award you overage if your coupon is valued higher than the cost of the item being purchased are Walmart, Giant Tiger, and Zellers (up to date as of Jun 1/2012)
Please do your fellow couponers a courtesy and only take what you need when shopping for overage items. Clearing the shelf for yourself just for the overage is going to make it harder for everyone else to stick to their list!
TIP:If you are looking specifically FOR overage in order to pay for something else, look through your coupons for ones without size restrictions and check out your store's travel size items. This is a great place to score overage as most items are usually around $1-$2.
Free Samples
Ordering free samples is a fairly obvious way to get free things! There are a couple of great and reliable sites that you can get these from:
Brandsampler.ca-Offers a variety of samples/full size products from P&G.
Samplesource.ca-Offers a variety of samples 2 or 3 times annually.
Shoppersvoice.ca-Sends out coupons and samples based on your answers to their seasonal surveys.
The added bonus of taking this route is usually when you recieve a sample of a product, the company will include a high value coupon for said product, making it more likely you can get a full size version for free by getting it on sale, or even earn overage on it!
Try typing "FREEBIE" into the Save Big Live Better search box to see what free offers were posted recently to make sure you dont miss any!
Mail In Rebates
Mail in rebates are a great way to get full size items for free! You do have to pay for the item up front, but are reimbursed at a later date (usually within 6 weeks) for the full cost of the product!
It is very important that you follow all instructions laid out on a Mail In Rebate form in order to ensure that you do get your money back, so read the fine print carefully before shopping!
See the available mail in rebate offers on the Coupons page!
Coupon Stacking
Stacking is allowed at very few stores in Canada, one in particular comes to mind, and that is London Drugs. Coupon stacking basically allows you to use more than one coupon on a single item. However, they must be different coupons, with different UPCs.
The coupon terms and conditions must also not be violated, so it must not say "cannot be combined with any other coupon offer" or anything along those lines, or you may not use it to stack.
If you can get together 2 or even 3 coupons that are different but for the same item, you can absolutely knock the price of that item down to ZERO!
Check your Store Policy before planning to stack coupons.
Double Coupon Days
Doubling coupons is fairly common at retailers across the United States, but not as much in Canada. Double Coupon Days are instead what we have, so it doesn't happen all the time, but is rather treated as a special event.
Sobeys West has double coupon days, as does Pharmasave. This means if you have a coupon that says "Save $2.00 off this item", it becomes "Save $4.00 off this item". Doubling the value of your coupons can almost always get you FREEBIES, especially if you can combine them with sales!
Pharmasave had a double coupon day in September where I got about $70 worth of items and paid only $4.57 for the remaining taxes! Check out my shop on the Bragging Rights page from September 30, 2011!
Save Big, Live Better! will always let you know when any of your local retailers will be having double coupon days, so visit regularly, or "LIKE" us on Facebook to receive real time updates!
Provide Feedback To Your Favorite Companies
A little feedback can go a long way in this respect. Many of us dont hesitate to register a complaint when something goes wrong with a product, which is all the more reason why providing positive feedback stands out so much!
If there's a certain brand or item that your family is thrilled with, write a quick email or make a phone call and tell that company how much you love their products and ask if they have any coupons they can send you to get some more.
Sometimes they will send you coupons for a FREE item, but if not, they are usually still high value coupons that can render an item free if you combine that coupon with a clearance price!
Check out our list of companies that will mail you coupons!
Use Swagbucks!
Swagbucks is a program that rewards you with "swagbucks" for searching the internet, taking daily polls, watching videos, pretty much anything and everything you're already doing for free! All you do is sign up for FREE and use their search engine to find whatever you're looking for.
There's an article on the Savings Articles page with tips on how to maximize your Swagbucks earnings, so make sure you check it out to get your FREE stuff faster!
I joined in September 2011 (I'm writing this in September 2012) and have already earned over $860 in Amazon.ca gift cards and Paypal cash! Not too shabby if you ask me!
You can use your "swagbucks" on any "swag" in the "swag-store", so gift cards are only the beginning!
Sign up for Swagbucks and start earning right away!
Already a Member? Learn how to earn Swagbucks faster!
Know of a way to get free things that isn't mentioned here? Click the CONTACT button and tell me all about it!
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