The Top 10 Grocery Coupon Websites for Cheapskates
The first step in the process of saving a fortune on your grocery bill is simply accepting the fact that you’re a cheapskate. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about and it’s certainly nothing to hide. Back in my University days I would surf the Internet (which was very young at the time) for whatever grocery coupon websites I could find, in addition to scrounging through the Sunday newspaper for a very limited collection of grocery coupons. The problem back then was that any grocery coupon websites you could find had probably less than a dozen offers, and most of the websites amounted to nothing more than email collection buckets so that they could turn around and resell your email address to spammers.
Fortunately, the Internet has evolved since then. Today, not only do you not have to put scissors to newspaper anymore, but most of these online grocery coupon sites accumulate manufacturer offers from everywhere and provide them to you in a convenient list that you just select and print in minutes.
Selecting the Best Grocery Coupon Websites
Considering the volume of websites out there that tout themselves as the best money-saving website for groceries, I’ve decided to put together a simple list of sites that are truly the tried-and-true spots that you should check every week to save a fortune on your grocery bill. For starters, MakeUseOf has already covered a number of top coupon websites including:
- GroceryGuide, which lets you find the best grocery deals from stores and malls in your local area
- ShortCuts from AOL, with the convenience of electronically loading all coupons directly to your grocery store loyalty card (no need to carry coupons around!)
- CouponChief, with thousands of retail store coupons. Why buy baby products from a grocery store when you can save $5 off diapers or formula at Diapers.com?
Check out all of MakeUseOf’s grocery resources for other offers and tools for saving money on groceries.
While those resources are excellent, I wanted to put together a definitive guide of grocery coupon websites for other cheapskates out there like me. I no longer bother with using scissors on the Sunday paper – there are much better money-saving resources on line, and they take far less time.
The Big Three
Coupons.com
Every grocery coupon hound should know that currently there are three major resources for most of the coupon deals on the Internet. These are three of the earliest websites that started the online coupon craze, and they are now the three that “feed” most of the offers for other, smaller offshoot websites. If you want the access to all of the deals, it’s best to just go straight to the source. Coupons.com is the first major site you should always check for the best manufacturer coupons. These are mostly non-location specific, meaning they’re available nationally (U.S. only).
Coupons.com is the place anyone should begin their quest, since this is the site that feeds most others. One brief search just now turned up 112 offers to sort through and print.
SmartSource
The next major grocery coupon site that feeds data to other sites is SmartSource.com. The cool thing about SmartSource is that you can type in your zip code and get offers from the local “circulars” that are normally sent inside local newspapers.
It just doesn’t get much more convenient than that. If you click on the “Coupons” tab at the top, you can review nationally offered coupons as well, but the thing that really sets SmartSource apart from the other “big three” is the fact that you can get these offers from local circulars.
ValPak
The final major coupon site that’s been around for quite a while is ValPak. ValPak, like the other two, offers its own list of national manufacturer coupons customized by zip code.
Letting Others Do Your Research
So why don’t people just visit the big three coupon sites and call it good? Because the Internet is so filled with information now, no single website holds all of the best deals. To save the most on your groceries, you’d need to hunt through all three “source” coupon sites, as well as hunt the web for exclusive coupons and offers that are only offered at manufacturer websites and nowhere else. That can take a lot of time and effort. Luckily, there are people out there who love doing this kind of research so much, that they’re willing to do it for you and offer you the fruits of their research.
PPGazette
The Penny-Pincher Gazette is one of those resources. All data at the PPGazette are collected from the three major sites listed above. Membership is free, and every week you can quickly review the best deals (including from local circulars) without having to visit multiple websites to find them.
CouponMom
Another very popular website that I am not ashamed to admit that I visit very often is CouponMom.com. CouponMom is run by Stephanie Nelson who was featured on Oprah, The Today Show and other talk shows, because she offers the service for free as an effort to help stamp out world hunger. By helping people save money on groceries, she’s hoping to encourage people to donate to hunger organizations through her “Cut Out Hunger” initiative.
Her website is easily one of the most comprehensive collections of deals from not only “the big three,” but also many hard-to-find offers from all throughout the Internet. If you choose only one website to visit before you do your grocery shopping, this one should be it.
Unique Grocery Coupon Websites
Sometimes, the standard coupon sites don’t really offer what you’re looking for. Maybe you have different tastes than most people, or you’re more interested in natural products. There are specialized sites that offer coupons for you too, if you know where to look.
Mambo Sprouts
One of those is Mambo Sprouts, a website dedicated to offering you coupons on organic foods.
At last glance, Mambo Sprouts offered two pages of coupons, as well as some cool articles and an entire community section where you can hook up with other folks who are into natural and organic living.
RedPlum
A last site that deserves mention, simply because it’s giving “the big three” a run for their money, is RedPlum.com. RedPlum offers visitors with free exclusive offers based on your zip code.
In other words, if you can’t find it elsewhere, you might find it at RedPlum. As you can see, the Internet now offers an abundance of opportunities to shave hundreds off of your grocery bill every month. It seems inconceivable that anyone would go grocery shopping without coupons when there are so many free offers out there (free money, basically) available for the taking.
Shop online? Be sure to check out a list of sites by Sharninder to help you save money while staying on your couch!
If you shop with coupons, do you know of any other great free grocery coupon websites? Share them in the comments section below.
(By) Ryan, an automation engineer on the East Coast (U.S.) who enjoys discussing the latest trends of online writing and freelancing. Visit his blog at FreeWritingCenter.com to read up on the latest online writing trends and freelance money-making opportunities.
lol, listing the top 10 coupon websites without mentioning http://www.retailmenot.com is insane. they have thousands of coupons for every store.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Retailmenot is simply wonderful but for groceries I don’t think it’s that great – they specialize mostly in tech and hardware and shopping online, not for printable coupons.
I think you may of missed this:
http://www.retailmenot.com/printable/
I challenge you to find a more comprehensive source of printable coupons online.
how about a comprehensive database of all coupons? Printable, snail mail, Sunday paper, and more… http://www.afullcup.com provides a complete database of coupons and sale & coupon match ups for every grocery store.
There are actually a lot more sites out there that offer retail coupons – for this article I really tried to stick with sites that exclusively offered (mostly) grocery coupons. Although I definitely agree that retailmenot.com is a fantastic site for coupons overall.
You missed one of the best sites out there for saving money – not by providing coupons, but by telling you which coupons to use when, at what stores. Sounds odd, but it works – at one point a couple of years we were buying carts of groceries for 20 to 30 dollars.
Anyway, check out http://www.thegrocerygame.com
(Comments wont nest below this level)Thanks Andy – I almost did add thegrocerygame.com to the list until I got to the membership page. For this article I wanted to focus on free websites, it appears that thegrocerygame.com charges a membership fee.
If you like freebies then I would like to recommend my site:
(Comments wont nest below this level)http://www.mrcheapstuff.com
I actually use RedPlum for getting local stuff like Pizza coupons. In my area they have more than ValPak
(Comments wont nest below this level)I selected grocery coupons but before printing needed to install software. No thanks!! This software is not necessary to print the coupons; I don’t know what the deal is but one cannot be too careful.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Hi Judy – yes, that’s coupons.com, and they do make you install software. While I don’t see it as necessary, I’ve used it and as far as I know the software isn’t malicious, however your approach of avoiding downloading and installing just any random software from websites is a very smart approach.
There are so many more small coupon sites that list the coupons and promotions for the local smaller franchises and private owned local stores.
The site list above either charge expensive fee or simply make profit by listing the affiliate links. They are nice, but small business don’t get list.
One of the new coupon site targeting local stores is
Print Local Coupons! Shop Local Stores!, which don’t discriminate any local businesses in terms of size and location. It’s all about buy local for local.
If you look closely, RedPlum includes local coupons from ValPak and MoneyMailer and other local coupons, which will be my first choice to locate local coupons. However, they seem to ignore some local coupons in certain categories. Not sure why.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Unfortunately, my local grocery store has a no-internet printed coupons policy. They flat refuse anything that even looks like it was printed at home. So, none of these sites do any good for people around here.
But, they do have some great coupons, if you can use them!
(Comments wont nest below this level)I agree with Franko. http://www.retailmenot.com is the first website I check when searching online for coupons or coupon codes.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Hey Ryan, this top ten list is fantastic, thanks for all the recommendations. Coupons.com is the obvious choice and I find that they generally ave the widest variety and user friendly website. You can post this to our site http://www.toptentopten.com/ and link back to your site. I noticed that you writing other top 10 lists and top whatever lists. We are trying to create a directory for top ten lists where people can find your site. The coolest feature is you can let other people vote on the rankings of your list.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Hey Vince – cool, thanks for the heads up on your site.
@Doug:
I think local businesses have the rights to not honor the coupons. You won’t believe that there are people faking the coupons in order to save money. They use photoshop to change 10% to 20% off or reprint the coupon over and over again.
Some of the grocer coupons found on those top 10 sites don’t work well. They are either expired or can not be used twice or even require to download priority software to print coupons.
There are two other recommended soruces. If shopper don’t mind to spend a small fee every month, they can print tons of coupons from couponsense.com with paid membership. Over all, it will save some money. Not sure how local businesses pay for those services though. SmartLocalShoppers.com on the other hand is free to shoppers and no software to download. It’s also free for local businesses at the moment. It’s a geo location (zip code) based coupons site.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Please consider promo code, coupon code search engine DrasticDeals.com.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Wow! a lots of coupons out there! I will try them.
(Comments wont nest below this level)For Publix BOGOs matched up with coupons, check out http://www.fiddledeedeemom.com. She also matches sales with coupons for Target and Winn Dixie. AND she provides the links for printables right there with the entry. Convenient and free.
(Comments wont nest below this level)This is an awesome list. Maybe another one for coupon sites in general like , and others.
(Comments wont nest below this level)What about the literally hundreds of blogs that match up coupons with sales? It’s great to have the coupons, but even better to know how to use them to get the absolute lowest price. For anyone in NC, my blog, http://www.thedealscoop.com lists deals for Harris Teeter, Food Lion, and Ingles, as well as deals for national stores like Wal-Mart and Target. Check out http://www.becentsable.net and their Grocery Gathering for a list of blogs that do coupon match ups for other stores.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Hello,
Personally I think it is called being smart rather than a cheapskate as you can certainly save a lot of cash with coupons.
Regards, Roger Hicks
(Comments wont nest below this level)ArticleFalls.com and FirstOpp.com
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(Comments wont nest below this level)Swoopup.com also provides some great freebies discounts and though still in it tender stage i think its a great site with huge potentials for free coupons and promo offers
(Comments wont nest below this level)There are some sites out there that you can buy coupons at a very minimal price. One of the best is http://www.coupondede.com
(Comments wont nest below this level)If you didn’t know different parts of the country get different coupons and/or different amounts on the coupon. If you go to this site you can find coupons for almost anything and get super fast shipping.I take the sale ads on Sunday make my shopping list.I match up the coupons from my local paper then I go to http://www.coupondede.com and see if they have coupons for things on my list I don’t have coupons for.In a few days I have the coupons and then go food shopping and save tons. If you hit a triple coupon or a coupon special where you can double up to a $2.00 coupon then you can really make out with this site. Check it out>
Try http://www.coupondede.com its a great site.
(Comments wont nest below this level)My favorite one coupon site is-http://printable-coupons-cmc.blogspot.com/ here you can get free printable coupon.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Coupons are a way of life for me, if i don’t have a coupon, i feel like I’m just throwing money away! Thank you very much for the list! Another website that i find myself using all the time now is http://dealassasin.com they post some pretty hard to find grocery coupons, promo codes, and other free stuff. Does anyone else have any websites they use all the time that arent listed?
(Comments wont nest below this level)I love coupons..basically free money! Which is why I also built a site which I highly recommend. Free and spam free! Coupon Fan
(Comments wont nest below this level)Have you ever heard of Becentsable.com they have a ton of coupon and the grocery match up.
(Comments wont nest below this level)my top 3 for this holidays is:
1: http://www.pocketdeal.com
2: http://www.savingpass.com
3: http://www.priceant.com
And of course for books:
(Comments wont nest below this level)4: http://www.bookpricecheck.com
If you are located in the southeast region southernsavers.com is the most helpful i have come across. Jenny really works very hard for us so show her some love..I guarantee you will love this site.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Simply i give one suggestion to choose this http://online-free-coupon-codes.blogspot.com/ for discount coupons.Enjoy the shopping.
(Comments wont nest below this level)The Brands you Trust and Use Everyday costs less with My Harvest America!
sam @ groceries
(Comments wont nest below this level)If you would like coupon match ups for grocery stores and drug stores to save 50-90%, deal scenarios to get cheap or free items, and daily posts on the best deals in town, then head over to http://www.caringwithcoupons.com
(Comments wont nest below this level)This site is dedicated to helping you save money so that you can help others. There’s never a charge.