The birthday goodies continue

And from Soft Surroundings, a favorite clothing site for me: $20 off a $75 purchase, good in the store or the outlet. Of course, what I've an eye on is under $70, so I'll have to scout around for a little something extra. Clever folks. Coupon expires Aug. 31.

An email from Starbucks saying there's a coupon coming for any drink/size I want. Don't know the expiration since the coupon hasn't shown up, but it's usually into the next month. That one is as good as cashed.

And from Chamberlains, a half price entree with the purchase of entree. Alas, it expires on my birthday and I don't think I'll have time to cash it.

Zipcode profiling strikes again

In January 2009, I blogged twice about zip code profiling, the idea that manufacturer's released their coupons according to where one lived. I live in a small town, but have access to the Dallas paper, so I could compare their coupons. Often, I found I wasn't offered the same deals as those living in the Big City.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

A couple weeks ago, I'm merrily trimming out the coupons I want from the Sunday inserts. I find one for a product I might use for 85 cents off in the Dallas paper. That's an unusual number, but the product looked interesting (it was for a recycled version of something I already buy), so I clipped. As I made my way through the stack of inserts, I looked for it again in the small town version. Sure enough, I found it: only it was 75 cents off.

Same product. Same enticement ad. Different amount of savings.

I was really put out by this. I even sat down and wrote the manufacturer, then dished the letter because as good ol' advice columnist Ann or Abby used to say, don't write a mean letter in haste. The next day I decided it wasn't worth it and wouldn't change a thing. My husband, in the meantime, said it was because there was more competition in the city.

Humph!

Anyway, I looked for the product on my big box's shelves and it wasn't there so I couldn't have used it within its short use-by date anyway.

Then today (heeheehee), I see the product. ON THE CLEARANCE SHELF! Now it could have been on the real shelf last week for all I know cause I only looked once, but it was being clearanced! No one else had bought it either! It was marked to 2/3 its original "value." Now, had I had a decent coupon or two, I might have relieved them of one. Or two. As it is, it'll have to be 2/3 off before I spent real money.

Zip code-profiling, part II

As an avid coupon-clipper, I walk over to the convenience store each Sunday morning and pick up a copy of the Dallas Morning News for its weekly TV guide and its coupon inserts. Occasionally, the latter are not in there, but I get a paper anyway for the former. I've found that before big holidays, the coupon supplements are usually not included.

We also get coupon inserts in the area newspaper, the Herald-Democrat out of Sherman and Denison. I merrily clip away and file them and sometimes notice that where I usually have two of any one coupon, sometimes I just have one. But not until last weekend did I make a study of it.

There are two major players in the insert game around here, Smart Source and Red Plum. Once a month (I think), Proctor and Gamble has a special insert. The P&G inserts are the same, no matter the paper. The other two are not.

Printed on the spine is a listing of the papers they are inserted in. In each case, the Dallas Morning News was on one and a grouping of smaller papers on the other. Let's start with the least interesting of the two, the Red Plum.

Put out by Valassis of Livonia, MI, this insert had different covers, but the same back page (Eye Masters). The cover of the DMN was from Unilever and began an 11-page section of their products. This was not included in the H-D supplement. The remaining coupon ads were in a different order and there were a few in the DMN that were not in the H-D.

While small town/rural areas had been left out of the Unilever (think Dove soap) ad, we were offered much more in the Smart Source supplement from News America Marketing. Not more in the way of manufacturer's coupons, but more in the way of services and devices. None of the following appeared in the DMN version: Amish mantle, hearing aids, foot pain remedy, commemorative plates, bedwetting, compression hose, home security, acne meds, butter cookbook. On the other hand, urbane Dallas was treated to an upscale-looking hair product I'd never heard of. (How would I? It's not advertised in my paper.) Again, the front pages were different, but the backs the same, this time from Pearle.

I think this interesting. Where I live determines what advertisers think I need or want. For what it's worth, I wouldn't order/use any of the "extras" listed above. Both of the Smart Source inserts advertised Inaugural coins and postal covers. I wonder how effective this all is.

I emailed Valassis, and while I received notice that they are received my query, I've never had an answer.

So, I continue to be zip code-profiled. At least I can walk to a C-store, pick up a paper, and know what all I'd be missing if I lived Dallas. Except... we get an different edition of the DMN, too.

Signs of the times

I'm an habitual coupon clipper. I learned it from my mother and have done it throughout my married life. Over the years I have honed my skills and impulses: I clip only what I think I'll really use and realize that large monetary coupons for ultra-new items may go to waste because the coupon will expire before the item makes it to my stores' shelves.

Over the years, coupons have become larger in denomination. Gone are nickels and dimes. Quarter ones are out there, but they're for the cheaper items. Yoplait's 40 cents off 6 cartons of their product is one I regularly clip, small savings that it is. Also, it would be unusual to find a coupon good past Nov 30 of this year. Their shelf life has shrunk into weeks, not months, or even the end of the next year which was once quite common.

But in last Sunday's paper (my main source for coupons), I was quite caught off guard by the number of 'buy 1, get 1' offers. There's usually one or two, but not the plethora I was seeing/clipping.

What gives? Manufacturers are understandably reluctant to give the consumer anything, but has a drop in sales prompted this largesse? Are we being wooed? Because these offers weren't just for new products, but for established ones.

Not a complaint. I clipped away.

My mother and the clerk

I tend to shop at the same time of day (late morning, early afternoon) and so usually see the same check-out clerks at my favorite grocery and big box stores. I normally pick the shortest line, but after consideration, I'm no longer going to do so. I'm going to pick a favorite clerk.

This trait always bugged me about my mother. She had favorites and would wait in long lines just to have them check her week's shopping. So we'd stand and stand and stand and my sister and I would fidget and once we got there, Mother and the clerk would enjoin in a gabfest of monumental proportions and we'd have even more time in line. While Mother always said it was because certain clerks were more competent than others (this was way before computers put the little white price tags out of business) and made fewer mistakes, I maintained--to myself--that it was merely a case of gossip overload.

However--and I'm way past the age to be imitating my mother on this--I'm beginning to see what she was talking about. I had a handful of coupons the other day, many of which were for free items. I'd had one such the previous week, it had been for nearly $6 (a ladies' razor system) and the inexperienced clerk had had a time making the computer cash register take it. I wasn't about to play that game again, so I sought out a line belonging to a clerk I knew had experience. Sure enough, the free item coupons breezed right through.

It was then I realized I was playing Mother's game. Shock and horror: it was a late in life realization that she was onto something.

And if that wasn't bad enough, I did it again today.

Coupon addict

When new products show up in our house--the more expensive and less useful the better--my husband looks at me and asks, "Coupon?"

Well, now that you ask, yes.

I love coupons, the little items which show up mainly in Sunday inserts now, although I remember a time they would be scattered through the newspaper itself or in magazines. I rarely cut one from either place now, but the Sunday inserts and I always have a tete-a-tete after church. It's a habit I developed from watching my mother clip and take to the grocery. While the coupons x-years ago were a dime and twenty cents, a quarter being a big savings, I haven't noticed one for under 25 cents in years. They're larger, many times 55 cents so as to beat the "double coupons under 50 cents dictum" at some stores, but you might have to buy two of the item.

I am not particularly brand loyal if I sense a bargain, but I'll not buy just to use a coupon. If it makes the product cheaper and I either already use it or am willing to try, sign me up.

So three new items have made it into the house, one of which I'll buy again maybe even without a coupon, one of which I will not, and for one the jury is still out.

I'll buy: Electrasol PowerBall Tabs. Well, aren't these nifty little items. (And they were practically free, the coupon was so large.) No more sifting powder or pouring thick liquid into the dishwasher. They seem to do a wonderful job.

No way: DelMonte Fruit Chillers. Interesting concept and something I wasn't going to buy without a coupon again no matter how good they were. Found in the fruit aisle (a bit confusing but well-advertised on the coupon), they are four small cups of "fruit" that you freeze, setting them up to be just-right portions of sorbet. I liked the concept, but the price (at Wal-Mart) of $1.98 (or so) was entirely too much for such portion control. With a dollar off coupon, it became a quarter a serving and I was all about that. I tried out the mango today (raspberry and strawberry are the other options). It was fair, but what really bothered me was the main ingredient: pear puree. Next up: corn syrup. Finally, we get to mango puree, followed by pear juice concentrate. I had also bought raspberry and the ingredient list is the same, subbing raspberry. I like pears, but if I'd wanted frozen pear puree, let's call it such. I'll eat what I have and that will be that.

Trying to decide: Mars has put out a new entry in the dog/cat food market called Goodlife Recipe. BIG coupons at first, i. e. free. Grabbed that for a trip to Wal-Mart. My housecats are on a restricted diet, but the outside population takes what I have coupons for. They will, quite simply, eat anything. (Note: I only own one outside cat, Little Girl. However, the neighborhood population has found where there's a full bowl at 5:45 a.m. and they're there.) In searching for the website (which didn't immediately make itself evident), I came across two reviews for this healthy product, one for cats and one for dogs. Neither were complimentary. Hmmm... Goodlife Recipe was affordable for outside cat dining only if I had coupons anyway, so it may be off the menu since the good coupons go away rapidly once a product is introduced.

But I'll keep cutting and looking. After all, how else did we find the Bertollis?