Saving has always been second nature to smart moms, but because of the economic crisis, saving should not just be an option to some but a necessity to everybody. With the economy going down, every penny should count. Sites like CoolSavings and Coupons.com help one work their way to better savings, giving out printable coupons and online coupon codes. CoolSavings and Coupons.com are free to join and one does not need to register to start benefiting from the great offers but both sites reward registered members with more perks and benefits that make it incredibly wise to simply enroll one’s self to the program.
Grocery coupons have been around for a long time, but before the internet, such were to be found mostly in newspapers and magazines. Now anybody with internet connection can find them all in just one place. These sites do make it so much easier to save. There’s no more need for you to buy newspapers and magazines, and then ending up with just a few grocery coupons. CoolSavings and Coupons.com give you access to many printable coupons and coupon codes and all these are just in one place.
That’s savings in the age of the internet!
#1CoolSavings http://www.coolsavings.com
The best thing about CoolSavings is that it’s more than just a place where you can print printable coupons. Its Community Page is loaded with blog posts, links to forums and group pages and helpful tips. You need to register to the CoolSavings Community to participate or take part in the activities in the community, you’ll be able to find what’s on it even you are not registered yet. CoolSavings’ competitor, Coupons.com, also has a Community Page but to access it and see what’s going on, registration to the Coupons.com Community is a must.
CoolSavings’ Product Deals tab is very useful when searching for the lowest prices of certain goods. Powered by Pricegrabber, the Product Deals tab links you to sites where you can find the best deals on a variety of products from appliances to video games.
CoolSavings, is a great place to save on groceries and other essentials, no doubt. With more than 80 printable coupons (they change every week, by the way, and there are featured deals every day), you could be raking in savings between $50 and $100. I’d like to point out several disheartening features of the site, though such as that the 3rd party ads showing up on the CoolSavings website are a huge distraction, and that the process of enrollment to CoolSavings in order to get access to exclusive deals based on their preferences is quite lengthy. You have to go through many pages of special offers and surveys before you can proceed with the next step. In fact, I really thought I’d never get past Step 2! In addition, there is no indicator to show how far you’ve gone in the enrollment process. Because of the numerous pages of special offers, I would have preferred a registration indicator so I can more or less figure out how long I need to put up with before I can enjoy the exclusive deals.
Pricing
CoolSavings is a free site. Other than your time, you don’t need to spend anything else to start saving on groceries, household essentials, health care needs, personal needs, and pet care needs. How much you save at CoolSavings is essentially the same as what you would save on other sites, like Coupons.com, maybe. I’ve compared a few similar items from both sites, and there’s actually no difference at all.
#2Coupons.com http://www.coupons.com
Coupons.com appears to have more printable coupons available than CoolSavings, although not by a big margin. There are currently 99 printable coupons at Coupons.com, while there are only 87 at CoolSavings. And, whereas CoolSavings lets you share the coupons with your friends via email, Coupons.com allows you more ways to deal with coupons:
Cons
Coupons.com requires installation of the Coupon printer, a software program that guarantees you print the coupons the right way. CoolSavings, on the other hand, only requires Java application.
But I would have wanted Coupons.com to have a Pricegrabber feature like CoolSavings that instantly links you to merchants where you can find the lowest prices of a particular item.
Pricing
Coupons.com, like CoolSavings, is free. You do not pay anything and anyone to print the printable coupons and take them with you when you go grocery shopping.
The Bottom Line
Saving on groceries is a big thing, especially nowadays when the economy is not yet very stable. And using printable coupons and online coupon codes of either CoolSavings or Coupons.com is a great way for US residents to save, indeed. You’ll get to earn the same amount of savings, either way.