Help me play Robin Hood?

Okay, so I buy-for-free from the big retailers rather than steal from the rich — but the fruits of my crazy coupon labors find their way to the poor much as Robin Hood’s booty did, so I’ll draw the self-aggrandizing parallel anyway 🙂

Quite a few of my readers have expressed an interest in helping me with my efforts, and a few have even been mailing me envelopes of GREAT coupons, so I figured it was time to compile a more focused list of what coupons would do the most good. Generally speaking, anything for shampoo, dental care (especially Colgate and Reach!), first aid and OTC meds/products, deodorant, cereal (Kelloggs puts out the best and I never get them!), fem hygiene, razors (I never get the ones for Bic). The regional variations on my Sunday coupon inserts always leave out Unilever (Ragu, Hellmann’s, Knorr, Skippy, Lipton, Dove, etc), Colgate-Palmolive (in addition to the obvious, they also put out Softsoap and Speedstick, which are often on special promo), Procter & Gamble BrandSaver (they come out about once a month, and I usually get my hands on 1-2 copies), and as of this month, it would appear that all the Garnier lines are no longer in my regional insert. That one particularly sucks because there are always deals on their hair products – the broke folks like the shampoo, my mom likes the dye.

Some of the best coupons out there are internet printables (IPs). Most of them are limited to 2 print-outs per computer, and I only have one computer. I can occasionally get my mother to help, but her inkjet is very low-res, which means they don’t always scan. Some of the coupons I’ve linked below require a “sign up”, but I’ve already signed up for them all using a throw-away email, but that wasn’t as necessary as I’d thought — while some require you to subscribe to their monthly newsletter or something (like Colgate), they’re all reputable companies that don’t sell their email lists. So no spam and no junk snail-mail either when I’ve had to include that for some reason. If you’d like to help me out, here are the “hot” coupons I would LOVE :

Sobe LifeWater BOGO Degree Fine Fragrance Mist or Deo $1.50 *Kotex $1/1 Trident Gum $1 off 2 packs (this doesn’t reset, grr) *Assorted Colgate (Total, Sensitive, Max Fresh/White) – must print from FF or old IE  *Carefree Ultra Protection $1  Right Guard FastBreak $1 Stayfree $1 *Speedstick $1.50 – www.coupons.com, enter area code 33907 *Colgate $3-off-2 – www.coupons.com, enter area code 85031 Classico Pasta Sauce $1/2 Dove Ultimate Visibly Smooth Deo $2 Kashi Go Lean Cereal $1.50 Land O’Lakes Butter .55 Robitussin Cough Syrup $2 (this doesn’t reset or disappear) Tylenol 8-hour $2    * = could use asap for deals this week and next

A few things to know about this:

• To print the second one, it’s best to use the back button. Sometimes you have to go back more than one page (I often find it’s 3). In the case of coupons.com, you’ll just go back and “clip” – after you print it once, it goes to the last page of available coupons, fyi.
• You might be asked to download a coupon printer, which I’ve never had issues with. Just make sure you don’t download the coupon bar – not the end of the world if you do, but there’s no point.
• If you have trouble printing, paste the link into a different browser (Internet Explorer -> FireFox). Some coupon sites don’t work on IE8.

Now for a truly key point:  print before the end of the month! Many of them either reset (meaning you can print them again!) or disappear completely on a monthly schedule.

If you decide to help me, leave a note in the comments and I’ll send you my snail mail address.