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| Gotta love free $$$ |
I'm sure all of you have seen a rebate form before. Yet, how many of you actually buy a product and send in the form? No, I'm serious. How many of you actually take the time to find a stamp, keep your original receipt, and send the form in the mail the very next day after your purchase. I'm sure many of you are thinking that rebates are a waste of time. You have to buy a specific product and wait what seems like years until you get something in the mail. Well, after this post I'm hoping you will change your mind and try to rethink your grocery shopping strategy.
See the pic above? A few months ago, I bought a first aid kit. Nothing fancy, just a small kit for my car, my house, and one for my boyfriend's new apartment. Johnson & Johnson had a rebate deal where if you buy at least two of their first aid products, they will send you a free first aid kit bag. All you need to do is send in your original receipt with your purchases circled and the UPC from your first aid items. In approximately 6-8 weeks, they will send you a first aid bag. Yippee right?
Wrong. ((Shakes head solemnly)) The reason why you should be excited is because of the coupons included in the first aid bag or any sample you request from a store or manufacturer. Manufacturers want you to try their product and they want you to continue to use it. The whole point of coupons are to draw the customer to the store and to get them addicted to buying their product so they will buy it full price the next time they run out. Fortunately, you are much smarter than the manufacturer and you will NOT buy anything full price. You'll just buy 10 of them at the sale price WITH a coupon.
Manufacturers also want to reward you for your loyalty by giving you money back. I'm talking cold, hard, CASH. (well actually a debit card, but you know what I mean). A few weeks ago, I purchased Cascade Action Paks for my dishwasher. Before the good old days of couponing, I would go to Sam's Club ((cue horror music.. will explain hatred for Sam's Club another time)) to buy dishwasher detergent in bulk quantities. I would drop $6-8.00 for a product I can now, thanks to the manufacturer's rebate, get for free. Just send in the original receipt and the UPC from the dishwasher detergent and they will send you back the money you spent on your purchase. The FULL price of the purchase, regardless of whether or not you used coupons. So for a product I bought for $2.00 (I had a Target Q and a Manufacturer Q), I just got back $3.49! Yup. That's a profit of $1.49!!
There are a ton of rebate opportunities out for many of the products you already by full price. Let's use the M&M movie ticket rebate as an example.
1. M&M/Orville Redenbacher Movie Ticket Rebate- Every time you buy two packs of M&;M 9.9oz size and purchase the Orville Redenbacher popcorn, you get a free movie ticket voucher ($9.00 value). For example, last week CVS had a great deal on M&M and Orville Popcorn. Unfortunately, between work and being sick I wasn't able to completely take advantage of the deal. But for illustration's sake, here's the math:
Orville Redenbacher Pop-Up Bowls (my favorite!) 2/$4
M&M 9.9 oz bags of candy 2/$5 (not a great price, but not bad)
Buy 2 M&Ms (use $1.00/1 pretzel or $1.00/2 any flavor) and 1 Orville Redenbacher Pop-Up Bowls
$5.00+$2.00 = $7.00
-2.00 (buy 2 pretzel bags flavors)
=$5.00 total (total comes out to $6.00 if you use the $1.00/2 coupon)
Send in the rebate form for the movie ticket, wait patiently and you'll get a $9.00 voucher in the mail
=$3.00 profit !
Popcorn has a pretty long shelf life and you can always freeze M&Ms. I love to bake cookies with the plain M&Ms so this is a great deal for me. There's always the option of donating excess goodies to the local food shelter. The limit is 4 movie tickets per household. It's a win-win situation for me. If you're interested in this deal, check it out at:
http://www.mms.com/us/mmsatthemovies/
Be sure to buy the M&;Ms and popcorn when they're on sale. The M&M coupons should be available on eBay or from an online coupon clipping service. This deal is until 12/31/2011, so you can always wait for Orville Redenbacher to issue a popcorn coupon. Well, I'm going to get back to work (Fellowship work that is). I hope you're having a Funday this Sunday. (hahahaha? ok, well at least I'm laughing)
P. Manolos
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