SUPER COUPONING: Reader roundup

I prefer to buy my newspaper on the newsstand instead of subscribing, but I get frustrated that there are no coupons some weeks. How can I know ahead of time when we won’t have coupons so I don't waste my money?

Bryan C.”

There’s actually a method to the coupon-absence madness. Typically, the weekends that fall over major holidays will not have coupons in the newspaper. Why? Marketers take a multitude of factors into planning their yearly promotions, and one of them is the likelihood that people will shop and use the coupons they’ve just received in their newspaper inserts.

What makes people unlikely to head to the supermarket? Holidays. Whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter or Independence Day, we usually buy lots of food. Family and friends come by, we entertain, and then … we eat leftovers out of the refrigerator for a few days. I’ve long joked that our non-insert weeks simply come down to leftovers. Once the holiday week comes around, people typically don’t go to the store as frequently. If you’re home eating leftovers, you may not be at the store using that week’s new coupons.

Typically, store traffic takes a dip after each holiday, and manufacturers don’t want to waste money publishing coupons that shoppers may not use. While skilled coupon shoppers save their coupon inserts week to week, casual coupon shoppers don’t – they clip the coupons they’ll likely use in the week ahead, and then toss the insert. From a financial standpoint, it’s not worth the expense of printing and inserting coupons in the paper during these weeks that many shoppers are less likely to use them.

Of course, if you’re serious about couponing, you’re likely saving your inserts week to week, so you’ll still have coupons to use on these non-coupon weeks.

If you’d like to know what weeks we won’t expect to have coupons in the paper, I’ve got a copy of the 2016 coupon insert schedule on my blog at www.jillcataldo.com/2016-coupon-insert-schedule. Keep in mind that manufacturers may change the schedule at any time.

“Dear Jill,

With manufacturers downsizing products, please provide some tips on unit pricing. For example, if unit pricing of paper towels is per sheet, what about the towels where the sheets are perforated at half the size of the usual ones so you can choose the size? If that unit price is per sheet, it's not really reflecting the same unit as a full-sized paper towel. Do you have other such tips to offer?

Marv S.”

When I first started couponing, I spent more time comparing the square inches of paper towels and bath tissue than I do now. It’s gotten difficult to compare sizes of sheets between brands, as many brands have been downsizing everything from the number of sheets on a roll to the width of the sheets. Eventually, I started calculating a range of best per-roll prices to pay for these items.

My rule of thumb for bath tissue is this: I will pay no more than 25 cents per regular-size roll, 50 cents per double-size roll, 75 cents per triple roll and so on. For paper towels, I don’t like to pay more than 75 cents per standard-size roll (and yes, each brand’s standard rolls are going to be different.) I have favorite brands that I like to buy (as most people do) and I also balance quality into this equation. For example, a dollar store near me sells 4-roll packs of bath tissue for $1, which fits my 25 cent per-roll benchmark, but the rolls are smaller than the name-brand rolls I often buy with coupons for the same price. Rolls of paper towels are often 2-for-$1 there, but they too lack the quality of the name brands.

My advice with paper products is to make a mental list of the brands whose quality equals your expectations, and then watch the per-unit prices on them. When they fall into the price ranges I’ve outlined above, it’s time to buy.