OK, so we're back.

Last time someone took down my Coupon envelope. For what reason, I'll never know. This time I have a strategy.

I'm going down to the main office and speaking to the person who is in charge of managing the laundry rooms, and this the fliers boards. I'm going to ask permission to "install" a permanent enevelope, the tin one I've been looking at. The last one I did in fact order I gace to my neighbors to use as an outgoing mail holder. Works great. Anyways.

Going down there and asking to install it permanently and hopefully next to the board instead of on it. I'm getting permission so that I can then do this: ask for a note that can be photocopied and posted NEXT to the envelope to let everyone know that I am allowed to have it there, and no, they may not simply remove it since it's made of paper and I paid for it. I'll prolly post a paper explaining how to use the envelope and some coupons.

I've partially put this motion in plan by going next door to my neighbors and gathering all the ads they don't need or use, to cut the coupons out. I also happened to get some from my friends mom, a nice good batch too. Overall, I've cut them and I have a LOT of coupons. I mean a lot. Basically, so many that I had to get a mini box to hold them all, and I'm still cutting.

Of course afterwards I purge them to make sure they are all valid and if there's any I might use. This is where a lot of science comes in, involving getting the coupons and applying them to personal use.

After I cut them, I trim them because no one needs access blockage. Then I purge them to make sure that they are all valid. Anything still good even two days from cutting day gets put in. Anything still good only for one day is not worth the time. I check the validity while cutting, and again after cutting.

When I'm done, I go through them to see if there's any I could use and this is where it actually got complicated.

First, you have retailer coupons, and then you have manufacturer coupons. Retailer coupons can only be used a certain store. Manufacturer coupons can be used anywhere that product is sold, for the most part.

Coupons are completely useless unless you know how to use them skillfully. (Yes, it is an art.)

Let's say I have a coupon for product Planet. But actually, I usually buy product Starfish. If product Planet isn't equal to or less than in price value compared to Starfish, I'm not really not saving any money. For example:

Planet: $3.00
Starfish: $3.60
Coupon: $0.50

I'd still be paying $3.10, so, I'm not saving anything.

Unless I intend to sample product Starfish.

So we have that. Next, I had some coupons for meal deals at various restaurants. This became pretty tricky since I can't just go eating all whenever I want, so I have to factor various things to determine which coupon is best to use:

When I'm going out.
The area I'll be going to.
Am I going out with another person?
Which location might be closer
Which location regularly has cheaper meals?
Do I want to try going to a different place anyways?
Can this coupon be applied to me and my friend if we eat out? (That way, we both might as well get a decent deal, since we can split the bill anyways. Many meal coupons require an extra entree or beverage to be purchase to get any value out of it.)

Wow, complex. Coupon moms, you should be teaching a class on this! American college kids NEED you.

I'm still working out it.
Howeve,r i nthe midst of all this, I did notice something. I personally think that instead of constantly making consumers keep up with various sales, deals and advertisements (and wasting SO many trees), it would be so much easier if Sears, and Best Buy and others could just put out COUPONS instead. But that's just me. I'm sure there's another side to it I'm not seeing, yet.

Happy Coupon Cutting!