Do Your Newspapers and Coupons Cost Too Much Money?

Back in NW Arkansas I paid just over $.60 for each of my two Sunday paper subscriptions.  A pretty good deal, so imagine my shock when we moved to Tyler, TX and I discovered the Dallas Morning Newspaper Sunday edition would cost me over $4 delivered! It’s between $2.50-$3 off the rack – and DMN will not guarantee the correct inserts to be included like my old paper!  Discounts for multiple subscriptions with the DMN is a joke, so I began looking right away for other options to save money on newspapers and inserts. Here’s what I came up with:

• Ask your friends and neighbors for their inserts if they don’t coupon, or just use a few.  Most people are more than willing to save their inserts for someone who will use them- especially if you give them some of your freebies from time to time 😉
• Call your local newspaper office and ask if they sell leftover papers at a reduced price after Sunday (I recommend buying off the rack any weeks you’re not willing to miss a popular coupon and they’re sold out)
• Pay a coupon service to find you whole inserts at around $.50 each plus shipping.  This is especially useful when there is only 1 insert in the paper.  It would cost about $7.50 to order 4 inserts vs. $10 to buy 4 Dallas newspapers.  Team up with a friend and order 4 each- you’ll pay about $9.50 total for 8 Dallas papers (instead of $20) I have used both Coupon Dede and Whole Coupon Inserts.  Be sure to look over the list of included coupons, as inserts are regional. I have also used CouponsYouNeed.  The only drawback to ordering whole inserts is that you won’t get them until about 4 or 5 days after Sunday. Depending on how expensive your other options are it may still be a good choice.
• Use a coupon clipping service to do your coupon cutting for you.  Most Qs run about 1/10th of the value of the coupon to clip.  I can recommend Coupon Dede from experience and have also heard good things about My Coupon Hunter and Kuntry Klippers. Keep in mind that the minimum to order clipped coupons is usually $3 with around $1 shipping.  It is nice to have someone else do all the flipping through inserts and cutting for me when I want to find multiples of a great coupon.
• If a friend or family member lives in an area with low newspaper prices, consider asking them to get multiple subscriptions for you and mail you the inserts. Offer to pay for all of your subscriptions and theirs- prepaid through the newspapers office.  You can settle up once a month or so on shipping costs.  Depending on how often you have them mailed to you, it could be even cheaper than hiring a service.  (anyone back in NWA willing to get me 6 papers??)
• Consider getting a mail subscription to the newspaper.  I called my former hometown paper and found that I can get a years subscription at $49 and was assured that the coupon inserts would be included.  This will provide an easier option than hiring a service each week or getting to the store every Sunday.

Have I missed any other great options that you have used?  If so please share so that perhaps someone else can benefit too.

This post was originally published on February 11, 2011