So, in Lesson Three, I told about how I arrived at my current method for organizing my coupons. This lesson is a step-by-step guide on using the website that I use for doing this. If you want to try this method, I would suggest opening their website, http://www.dealseekingmom.com/ in a new tab so that you can jump back and forth between my blog and the site.
**Note that even if you decided NOT to use this method for organizing coupons (which is a silly decision, but yours nonetheless), this website contains a main database of all available coupons nationwide. So, if you are needing a coupon for something (anything!) and you want to see if there might be one available to you somewhere, this is a great place to do that search! Just go to their home page, click on COUPONS, COUPON DATABASE, and MAIN DATABASE. It will bring up the search engine and you can look for anything and everything! The rest of this lesson is on creating a personal database for the purpose of organizing your coupon stockpile and may not pertain to you since you made that aforementioned silly decision not to use this method of organizing. Continue at your own risk.**
Now, back to organizing your coupons:
First, you must log in to your personal coupon box (assuming you signed up for a membership during Lesson One. If you did not yet do this, you will need to register for a username and password). Across the top of the home page, there is a tab menu where you will find the "COUPONS" tab. When you hover, it will give a drop menu. Hover down to "COUPON DATABASE" and it will give you a sub-menu. Click on "PERSONAL COUPON BOX." It will prompt you to login. The login link is in small print under the big words "COUPON BOX." Click "LOGIN" and you can enter your username/password. It will take you to your coupon box and you can see what coupons you have entered. By default, it lists them starting with the most recently entered. Obviously, when you login for the first time, there will not be any coupons in your box.
Now that you have logged in, you can navigate back and forth between your box and the main database and it will remember you.
Let's start with a Sunday Coupon Insert. Do this tutorial, and then you will know how to enter your coupons and maneuver the website. By the end of the tutorial, I will have you delete the "sample" coupons you entered and you will be ready to enter your own information.
We are going to do the Red Plum insert that was in the September 18, 2011 newspaper. It's abbreviation is RP 09/18/11. So, now that you have logged into your coupon box, the computer has recognized you and will put your selected coupons into your database. You will notice that it says your username's Coupon Box at the top of the page. Right under that is "Main Database." Click on "Main Database." You'll now notice that your username is NOT at the top of the page. This is a great way to distinguish where you are. You move back and forth between these two pages often, and they look alike, so you want to make sure you can tell where you are.
Ok, so put your insert abbreviation (RP 09/18/11) into the search engine on the Main Database page. It will pull all possible coupons from that insert. You have most of these coupons in your insert, but you don't own all of the coupons that the search engine will pull up. You have to go through your insert and check off the coupons that you have. First, though it is important that you sort the database results. You will notice that each column has a heading (Description, Value, Expiration, Source, etc.) You can click on any one of these headings and it will sort by that heading. We want our coupons in alphabetical order, so click on "Description." The first item in the list should be the "Ahh Bra." If you ended up with "Whiskas Tray" as your first item, then you have the items sorted backward. Just click "Description" again, and it will reverse the order to where the list starts with "A."
Now, it's time to start flagging your coupons. Look in the insert. In my insert from "The Oklahoman" newspaper, the first coupon inside is $1 off of any bag of Pedigree Dog Food, 3.5 lbs or larger. On the database, scroll down and find that item. Remember, you've sorted the coupons alphabetically, so just go down to "P" for Pedigree. Put check in the checkbox. The next coupon I have is for Buy Three Get One Free on Pedigree Canned Dog Food. You will see that coupon near the first one. Put a check in that box. Take a second here to notice how they are labeled in each column. Values are labeled as the dollar amount and how many items you have to purchase. For Buy One Get One coupons, they are labeled B1G1 (or in this case, B3G1 since you have to purchase 3 cans of dog food.) The more you use this database, the easier these abbreviations will become to use.
Ok, so my next coupon is for $1 off of any box of Smucker's Snack'n Waffles. This item is on the next page. At the top and bottom of the columns is the option to go to the next page. Click "Next" to get to the second page of options. Notice at the top of the page, there is a yellow bar that says "2 new coupons were just added to your coupon box!" Any time you navigate between pages of the database, it will automatically drop your checked items into your personal coupon database. Checkmark your Smucker's coupon. Now, let's say that you come across a coupon that is in your insert but not in the database. In this case, I have some IHOP restaurant coupons that are for a local IHOP location. It is common for local retailers to include coupons in these inserts, but since they are localized merchants, their coupon is not included in the national database on the website. You will need to manually enter the coupon. First, you will need to scroll down to the bottom of the column and click on "Add to Personal Coupon Box," or you can navigate to the previous/next page of the database and the computer will automatically drop your coupons into your box. Although the database drops coupons when you move from page to page of the same list, it will not drop your checked coupons if you navigate to somewhere other than another page of that list. You can always tell if your coupons dropped because it will give you an alert at the top of the screen. Now that you have dropped your coupons, you can click on "Personal Coupon Box" up toward the top of the page.
Now you are back in your personal box. You should see that your Pedigree and Smucker's coupons are there. Hooray! Now we need to manually add a coupon that wasn't found in the search of the main database. My IHOP coupon is for a Buy One Get One Free Breakfast entree. Right under the box that says "1 coupon was just added to your coupon box" there should be an option to add a coupon. Click that link, and it will open up a bunch of fields for you to fill in. I don't use the "TYPE" category, so I start with "DESCRIPTION." You will want the first word to be the brand of coupon you have. In the category field, I'm going to type, "IHOP Breakfast Entree." Under "VALUE" I will put "B1G1." Expirations are in MM/DD/YY format, so I'm going to put "11/04/11." Under "SOURCE" you want to put where the coupon was found, and in this case it's RP 09/18/11. This piece of information is important! You not only want to be able to find your coupon using the search engine, but once you find it in the computer, you will need to know where to physically locate it! Don't forget to include the source! The rest of the fields are pretty self-explanatory. I put "Restaurant" in the category field, and "Breakfast Entree" in the Product field. I don't use the Blogging or Keywords fields. Click on "ADD COUPON" and it will put it down with your other coupons.
Sometimes, if I know that a newspaper is going to be rich with coupon inserts, I will go buy a couple of extra newspapers so that I have extra coupons. If you have multiple inserts, the nice thing about this is, when you get finished inputting an insert, go into your personal coupon box and just change all the quantities for that insert. So, if I own 3 of that insert, my quantity of each of the coupons gets changed to 3. It's easiest to change the quantities after you finish inputting each insert. In other words, go in and change all the quantities of the Red Plum you just entered BEFORE you start entering the Smart Source for that day.
If you make a mistake, simply delete the coupon(s) from your personal coupon box by going into your personal box, checkmarking the coupons, and clicking "Delete Checked Coupons" at the bottom of the column. Do this now for those three sample coupons we did during the tutorial.
So, this is how you enter your coupons into the database. It will be a little slow-going at first, but you will get a rhythm going and it will become easier. I usually get some little post-it flags and just flag the pages that have coupons I will have to enter manually (there are usually 2 or three coupons per insert that you will have to do that way), and then I do all of my check boxes first, then all the manual entries at the end. That saves me from having to go back and forth between the main database and my personal box. I try to enter them on the day that I get them, so that my database is current. It usually takes me about 30 minutes each Sunday afternoon to put them in. 30 minutes a week is a pretty minimal time investment! I hope I didn't leave anything out of this. Let me know if you have questions!! Happy data entry!
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