After spending some times on SA, I was suddenly struck by an idea which I thought might help people, and was something (novel) to my life. I live in an apartment complex and we have a laundry room. I'm constantly taking mindless trips down there for no apparent reason, and I figured I might as well make myself useful. Why not start a community coupon bin? It could be hung up on the wall and people could add and take coupons as they needed, and should someone find an expired one, we can put a note on it asking everyone to throw away the coupon. (You have time to kill at the laundry matt anyways).
The benefits I figured would be that people tend not to take advantage of things not easily accessible, and for those who don't have computers to visit Coupons.com, having some sort of option would still be nice.
But where was I going to enough coupons to kick this thing off? I went next door to my neighbor who regularly gets the paper. Our apartment complex has just started a recycling center and I knew he'd have some batches of newspaper, and their shiny glossy ads with them. I was right. Two whole batches and 3 hours later I had over 40 coupons and offers valid, cut, and ready to be used!
I grabbed on envelope, wrote a nice message on the front (including Do Not Throw Away Please!) snuck out (at 3.am) and posted it in the laundry.
I climbed out the next night, and discovered the papers ruffled, which meant someone has at least looked at them.
Mission accomplished.
Community Coupons
December 20th, 2009 at 08:37 am
December 20th, 2009 at 10:32 am 1261305153
December 20th, 2009 at 02:28 pm 1261319338
They set it up now where people bring the magazines to the front desk and they decide what goes into the bin, but now the bin is in another section. Either it got too junky-looking for their taste, or someone dropped off some "inappropriate" magazines and kids grabbed them. That's my guess! Anyhow good luck with your coupon swapping.
December 20th, 2009 at 02:29 pm 1261319393
December 20th, 2009 at 11:10 pm 1261350623
December 21st, 2009 at 02:51 am 1261363916
Yes. I am worried people might not even contribute, but since I will, I'll keep it up. Someone will appreciate it.
It would be nice if the grocery stores had it! Oh well.