Do your homework before using coupons

NEW YORK – Coupons are everywhere. Everyone loves a good deal, and it’s just like free money, right?

Well, not exactly. First, you’ve got to realize why coupons were created: to get you to spend.

“We’ve always said that coupons often encourage people to spend more than they have to and buy more than they want to,” said Tod Marks, with Consumer Reports. In recent years, a big coupon trend has been offering savings that only kick in if you buy, say, two or three cans of soup instead of just one.

Coupons steer your shopping behavior in other ways. Companies use coupons to get you to shop at a particular store, buy a particular item, try a new product, or encourage you to spend more than you otherwise would.

A few tips for using coupons wisely:

• Carefully and honestly evaluate your eating habits. If you use coupons to buy a lot of food you won’t eat, you’re wasting money.

• Do your research. Coupons on many foods come and go in cycles, so you may want to learn the patterns at your local supermarket.

• Read the fine print on coupons and be conscious of expiration dates.

If coupons aren’t for you, Marks recommends shopping at warehouse clubs like Costco, which have annual membership fees and regular low prices instead of constant sales. He also suggests buying store brands, which can be much cheaper than better-known national brands.

“There’s no reason to pay full price on name brand staples that you buy week in and week out. If you pay attention to the store’s flier, the trends and the sales cycles become eminently clearer,” he says.