Guest Post: Smart Shopping with Coupons (Part 1)

Now that we've rounded the Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada, the push is on to Christmas. No doubt you'll be squirrelling away all your extra pennies to make it through the holiday season without racking up debt. Here's some help.

This guest post comes from Cassie Howard at MrsJanuary.com. Cassie's website updates daily with new Canadian deals, coupons and freebies. She also posts personal finance and frugal living articles. See the end for a contest. Ooooh, a contest!  Here's Cassie:

When the holidays roll around, how do you feel? Excited? Nervous? Stressed out?

If your answer was stressed out, or even nervous, join the club. Many people feel this way when the holiday season hits. How will you pay for presents? Can you afford to host a Christmas party this year? Some of you may even still be paying off last year's credit card bill!

The good news is that it is possible to enjoy the holidays and not break the bank.

Use coupons: Coupons are an amazing way to save money. You can save on all of your holiday food items – but why not take it one step further and save money on cleaning products, health & beauty items and food for your pet(s), as well? It's not that hard to use coupons in Canada, I promise.

There are so many places available to find coupons. They're not just in newspapers, anymore!

Online Coupon Companies: Websites such as save.ca, brandsaver.ca, gocoupons.ca and websaver.ca are amazing resources for coupons of all varieties. You can find cents and dollar off coupons for food items, cleaning products, health & beauty items and many more. Sometimes these sites even have coupons for FREE items – just order the coupon and redeem it for the free item at a store near you.

Tear Pads: I find many of my coupons from tear pads that you can find in most grocery stores and pharmacies. On your next shopping trip, take a closer look at the shelving and display cases and you're likely to find some valuable money saving coupons. You can use them right away, or you can take a few and put them aside until a great sale comes along.

Newspaper: Of course, you can often find coupons in your weekly newspaper. However, unlike in the US, you will not find coupons every single week. You can expect to find Smart Source coupon inserts every 3 weeks, Redplum every 4 weeks and Brandsaver every 3-4 months (sometimes more often). Want to know which newspapers carry these coupon inserts? Where to find Smart Source & Redplum coupon inserts in Canada. (You can find Brandsaver inserts in these papers as well.)

Printable Coupons: There is a bounty of Canadian printable coupons available to consumers nowadays. You can find them by visiting the websites of your favourite companies, or you can visit the link above to see my long list of current printable coupons available to Canadians. Please keep in mind that you can not photocopy printable coupons!

You can also find them on or inside packaging of products you may already be purchasing (such as cereal, milk, taco kits and more) and by emailing the companies of products your family regularly uses and flat-out asking them for coupons (they will usually say yes, and mail some to you). You can even get great coupons from your dentist? Simply ask if they have any to spare at your next visit.

Coupons really are everywhere when you actually start paying attention and actively looking for them. By investing just a bit of time once a week or once a day and seeking out new coupons to use, you can definitely use them to your advantage and save some serious money on your next shopping trip.

Interested in winning a copy of Cassie Howard's eBook Money In Your Pocket? Leave a comment on this post, letting us all know how you save money during the holidays. Two winners will be drawn this week.  This contest is available to residents of Canada only.

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