There is a new coupon available from GoCoupons.ca for $1 off the purchase of Allegro Cheese. Coupon is available to residents of Quebec and Ontario only. Click here to order your coupon by mail.

It’s a new year and there are new mail in rebates for thirteen different Physicians Formula products. Thank you salady for posting this in our forum. Rebates are available for the following products:

1) Organic wear® 100% Natural Origin FakeOut™ Mascara $6 Mail-in-Rebate
2) Super BB All-in-One Beauty Balm Cream $7 Mail-in-Rebate
3) pH Matchmaker pH Powered Powder $9 Mail-in-Rebate
4) Youthful Wear™ Youth-Boosting Powder $9 Mail-in-Rebate
5) How-To-Wear™ Bronzer & Bronze Booster Airbrushing Bronzing Veil $9 Mail-in-Rebate
6) Sexy Booster™ Sexy Glow Bronzer $9 Mail-in-Rebate
7) Endless Color™ Nail Polish Trio $5 Mail-in-Rebate
8) Super BB All-in-One Beauty Balm Concealer $5 Mail-in-Rebate
9) Super BB All-in-One Beauty Balm Powder $9 Mail-in-Rebate
10) Youthful Wear™ Youth-Boosting Dark Circle Corrector + Concealer $5 Mail-in-Rebate
11) Happy Booster Baked Bronzer & Illuminiting Bronzing Veil $9 Mail-in-Rebate
12) Sexy Booster™ glow Blush $7 Mail-in-Rebate
13) Sexy Booster™ Sexy Glow Glossy Lip Stain $5 Mail-in-Rebate

You must include:

• The REBATE which was affixed to your Physicians Formula product.
• Your original sales receipt with purchase price circled

These labels are affixed to specially marked products available in limited quantities while supplies last. Click here for more information on qualifying products and to download rebate forms.

Save 50% on George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones 4-Book Boxed Set from Amazon.ca. It is currently selling for $21.98 and includes A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows. Shipping from Amazon.ca is free on orders of $25 or more. Click here to order.

Foxy Originals Canada is now offering 50% dozens of pieces of jewellery in their sale section. Shipping is free on orders over $75, and $8 flat rate on orders under $75. Enjoy a free pair of Wisteria earrings with orders over $100. Click here to shop the sale.

Chapters-Indigo Canada is currently selling the Leapster GS Explorer for $55.96, a 30% savings off the regular price of $79.95.  The Leapster GS Explorer has a built in camera and video recorder, 2 GB of memory, and comes with three apps: Pet Pad, Escape of the Sillies–an exclusive LeapsterGS game and one app of your choice. Additional apps and games sold separately (over 300 LeapFrog Explorer downloadable apps and action-packed educational games available!) The Leapster GS Explorer is recommended for ages 4-9, and 4 AA batteries are required. Click here to order from Chapters-Indigo Canada.

There are so many misconceptions to couponing in Canada, from people thinking you must be poor or on welfare to coupon to people who have watched Extreme Couponing and think it is that easy to get hundreds of items for free at one time.

Canada does not have the same rules as the US, few stores allow store coupons with manufacturers’ coupons, double and triple coupons are a special event that may happen a few times a year – if that and most of our grocery stores do not give you coupons on your receipt.

That being said, you can save a lot by couponing if you are willing to give up your brand loyalty and spend the time doing it – and for some, the time just is not worth the savings.

If you are brand new to couponing, my first piece of advice is don’t go crazy. It can be so tempting to buy things just because they are cheap. By couponing, you can build a stockpile when items are cheap (or even better, free) but if you won’t use them – why buy them?  Don’t buy stuff you do not need just because it is cheap with coupons.

My second – no coupon is too small. Ever seen a coupon and thought it is only $0.50 off a $3 item and not bothered picking it up? If you buy that item anyway, why pay $3 when you can pay $2.50. You by one every week, you save $26 over the year – do that on 4 items and you have an extra $100 by the end of the year.

Getting Coupons – you will need coupons to start, you won’t start saving until you build a stash of coupons.

• Check your stores – now is the perfect time as many people are finding the newest coupons in stores (don’t bother with Loblaws banner stores or Walmart – they rarely carry manufacturers’ coupons). The ones I found this week include $2 off any fruit or produce when you buy 2 loaves of Dempster’s bread which we buy regularly anyway.
• Many traders on SmartCanucks will trade ‘newbie packs‘ with an assortment of coupons, others will trade based on your wishlist or if you see coupons you are interested in, you can contact that trader to arrange a trade (I will cover trading in-depth later this month)
• Online coupons – check our coupon page to find the coupons you can order. Many come from sites such as save.ca, websaver.ca, smartsource.ca, or gocoupons.ca – you will need to sign up for these sites – one per address (smartsource is a limit per computer). Some will be available to print, others will be mailed to you. Many companies offer occasional coupons on their sites or from their facebook pages.
• Check your newspapers – occasionally there are coupon inserts in newspapers, this weekend was one of them!
• Contact companies and ask – tell them you love their products and ask if they have any coupons available. Be polite, many will say no but ones sent directly from the companies are often great coupons that can be used on any product they sell.
• Check packaging for coupons, cereal often has coupons in the box and this will be advertised on the box.

What you will need

• Scissors: Many mailed coupons and coupon inserts require the coupon to be cut out.
• Some type of coupon organizer – many of us started with an envelope, then a little accordion file from Dollarama then moved up to binders or coupon organizers. I will cover organizers in-depth soon too.
• Paperclips (great for sorting coupons and holding stacks together – never staple coupons)
• The simple stuff (paper, pen, envelopes (great for throwing a few coupons in for a small shop or mailing trades) and a calculator (use it on your phone or computer if you don’t have one)

You can get all of these at a dollar store if you don’t have them.

• Printer – if you don’t have one, it can be a bit of an expense but many coupons are now printable and are time limited so you can miss out if you need to wait for someone else to print it for you. It is best to get a colour printer as cashiers may claim they are photocopied if black and white.
• A mailing address (easy right) Some coupons will not be mailed to a PO Box though.

While you are building a stash of coupons, start working on a price book. Make a list of all the items you usually buy (including competing brands) with their prices. Many stores put items in their flyers that are not really on sale, they just hope people buy them because they are advertised. Couponing is most effective when you know your pricing.

Once you have some coupons, you are ready to start.

• Check store flyers for prices that are lower than usual (we do this for you, check our coupons to use with flyers thread in the deals & flyers forum each week).
• Make a list of items you want to buy and clip your coupons to your list (I find it easier to put my list on an envelope for each store with the coupons in the envelope)
• Bring your extra coupons with you in case you see clearance deals while shopping.
• Sort your items when checking out to make sure you can give the cashier the coupon for that item – ask them how they prefer the coupons. Watch to make sure all the prices ring up as advertised.

Some tips

• Unless it is a really great sale you will make the most of your coupon by buying the smallest size you can. If you only have one of a coupon, it may be worth buying the bigger size (If you need 10 of something, buying a cheap pack of 4 but still needing to buy 6 more may not be economical).
• Check what your local stores’ policies are on printable coupons and coupons over the amount of an item – they may not accept it. Many couponers favour Walmart for their generous coupon policy.
• Make sure you read the terms of your coupons carefully. Many exclude certain products or sizes or are only available on a certain size.
• Some cashiers do not like couponers, you will eventually get to know the coupon friendly ones.
• If you have a list of items that are cheap at various stores, you can save time and money by price matching at one store (Walmart, RCSS, FreshCo or No Frills plus some smaller ones).
• If you live in Western Canada, certain stores allow the use of more than one coupon per item (stacking).
• If you are new to couponing, and especially if you want to trade coupons, I recommend signing up to Adopt-A-Newbie (which you can find here). You will be paired with a senior trader who can help you on your couponing journey. When you sign up, let them know if you live in Western Canada so you can be matched with someone who can teach you about stacking.

Over the coming weeks, we will cover some of these points more in-depth but this should give you an idea of whether couponing is for you.

For the couponers reading – what is the one piece of advice you would give someone starting out?  Feel free to sign up as an adopter in our Adopt a Newbie thread too.
This blog is part of our New to SmartCanucks series, click here to read more blog posts in the series

Request your free sample of Nikwax Waterproofing Wax for Leather by completing the short quiz. Answer correctly, and a free 50ml sample of Nikwax Waterproofing Wax for Leather will be on its way to you. Click here to order your sample.

Alokozay Premium Tea is giving away free samples. Click here to request yours while quantities last!

JYSK are offering a printable coupon and promo coupon code for 25% off a single item. Excludes previous purchases, sets, Best Price/Smash Hit items, gift cards and services but seems to work on most items, I tried it on a queen mattress and box spring set priced at $399 and the code worked.  If shopping online, enter JYSK-25-SAVINGS at checkout, or print a coupon for in-store purchases.

Click here to shop online or print your coupon

Chapters are selling the Toy Story Trilogy Box Set for just $15.  They are sold out online but check to see if a local store has any in stock or price match elsewhere.  Best Buy and Futureshop sell it for $89.99 and will match the price plus give you a discount of 10% of the difference.

Click here to check stock status at your local stores (I found some in Toronto so there are some available)

Thanks for letting us know couponmummy (find her post including Chapters in-store receipt here if you need to show it is an in-store deal)

Cure those Sunday blues with 25% off your entire purchase at Old Navy (excluding active and uniforms which have their own promos) today only.  To take advantage, enter ONFLASH25 when shopping online or print this coupon to save in store.

Click here to shop online or find a store

When we tried the cash jar method, it was something that both of us agreed to and were pretty careful about making sure the budget would work, but this was not the case with all of my ideas for saving and paying off our debts.

No money management idea will work if your whole family are not onboard with the idea.  Meal planning gets ruined by a child crying for pizza, your cash jars go out the window when someone comes home with a large purchase not discussed beforehand, someone goes to the bar after work and your entertainment budget for the month and more is gone.  For me, our biggest issue was getting the small spending under control, the coffees and donuts and grabbing a sandwich for $7 in Toronto because you didn’t make a lunch.  Once those were under control, we looked for ways to cut our budget further to pay off debts quicker and save more.

That was when I started couponing, and when we had the most issues with family disagreements over budgeting.  Although he seemed to be onboard with the cash jar idea from the start, deep down he felt like a child waiting for Monday for a new allowance when he knew money was sitting in our accounts.  He liked the idea of saving money more than actually doing it.  Couponing just pushed him over the edge.  He thought, like many, that people would think we were poor and look badly on us because of it, he was embarrassed standing in line with a coupon.

So we came to an agreement, our budget was already where we wanted it to be, we were paying down debts, saving and the majority of the time, staying within our jar amounts (with some borrowing from other jars) but he wanted that freedom we had before – so we agreed to a non jar allowance on top of the money we had allotted to ‘everything else’ as a personal allowance of 20% of whatever we saved or earned extra.   As many on the SmartCanucks’ forums know, I have a nail polish addiction – that ‘reward’ money pays for those ‘wants’ that I don’t need.  So if I want to buy that extra $10 nail polish, I need to find $50 in savings from our budget or earn an extra $50 that month and he gets a matching $10 too.  The other 60% gets divided between savings and debt.  He was soon offering to work on Saturday or asking why don’t I have a coupon for an item when it went directly into his pocket.

For others, the hardest is giving up a certain name brand, especially for kids.  One week it is Quaker granola bars because they were on sale, the next it is store brand, one week iogo yogurt, the next Astro.  You have all seen the kid crying in the grocery store because it has to be a certain kind, but giving in will not help you long term.  If your children are old enough, explain that their allowance or hockey equipment comes from the savings. Give them some reward for helping you in your goals.

Meal planning works well, especially if you have a treat day, as they can look at the plan on the fridge and know they can have that pizza tomorrow.  It is not just a no.

A friend pays her daughter $1/week on top of her allowance to help clip and sort her coupons and look through the flyers and match them up with her (and her younger brother’s) favourites.  Her daughter is learning from a young age how to budget and about earning money (I think she gets more excited than me about the flyers being early).  She has a folder with their favourite items and how much she will pay for them. Once the proper grocery list is done, they are given $10 to spend on treats from that price sheet.  If they can find them in the flyers, they can have them.  She updates this monthly or so according to coupons she has so they just need to look at the flyer price and she worries about the coupons.  If they don’t spend it all, it goes into a ‘fun jar’ and they use it for movies and towards their next Disney vacation – something they never could have afforded several years ago before saving and couponing.  Then if she does have to take them to the grocery store with her, ‘their job’ is to find their own items which distracts them from the usual ‘mommy I want this’ arguments.

“I realize this may not be for everyone, but after years of “helping” me grocery shop by throwing whatever they wanted in the cart, it is a happy medium. Amelia really does enjoy helping and is learning great tools for the future.”

Obviously this is not for everyone, but as she mentions, her children were used to the choice and choosing what they wanted at the grocery store – so if you are starting out in the same situation, it may help you ease your children into the couponing/saving lifestyle.

Yes, saving is not meant to be fun, but you will be more likely to stick to it if there is some reward at the end of it all (other than savings and paying off your debts).  It is all about what reward works for you.

What advice do you give to those starting out on getting their families into the SmartCanucks lifestyle?

This blog is part of our New to SmartCanucks series, click here to read more blog posts in the series

Complete this form if you are a dog owner and Nutrience will send you a coupon good for up to $4 off Nutrience Original, $5 off Nutrience All Natural and $6 off Nutrience Holistic. Complete this form if you are a cat owner to receive a coupon good for up to $2 off Nutrience Original, $3 off Nutrience All Natural and $4 off Nutrience Holistic.

Save $5 on the purchase of Purina Pro Plan Shredded Blend with this hidden coupon available by mail through Save.ca. Click here to order yours!

Not many coupons available for gluten free products so is nice to see one that is not product specific.  Their last Canadian one was just for Plentils.  Save $1.50 on two Enjoy Life products when.  Requires the smartsource printer to install.

Click here to print your coupon