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My Precious Pennies

I will be AWAY until late February as we do this moving thing...again.

Ginger from Attention Target Shoppers & Tricia from 1stopmom
will be holding down the fort in the meantime - thank you so much, ladies!

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Coupons for Troops (and for you!)

UPDATE: I have created a list of FAQs to answer some of your questions.  Read it here.  If you have any other questions, feel free to email me.

UPDATE:
Please request mailing addresses/further information by filling out the form below. For privacy and security reasons, I am unable to distribute address via a post, but I will get back to you in under 24 hours via email with the information. Thanks!



Military families stationed overseas can use expired coupons at the commissary, but some bases don't have commissaries and all they're left with is the Exchange. And let me tell ya...those Exchange prices are steep. They had a Labor Day mega sale where everything was 60% off, and I still had a hard time finding things that were worth the money. Can you imagine if that was the only store you had? I know I would go nuts. And broke. And then go even more nuts about being broke.

Here is where you can step in and help out our military families! Send both your expired AND unexpired coupons! Obviously you wouldn't do it in the same envelope because that'll just be a big old confusing mess, but you can send it directly to a deserving family overseas and help them out with basic living necessities.

Postage to all APO and FPO address is the same as state-side, so it costs no more than a stamp for you to send some coupons overseas. If you have the right amount of stamps on hand, you don't even need to make a trip to the post office.

Here is a picture of the coupons that I'm sending overseas today. The pile on the top are my unexpired coupons - total value $60.22. That letter weighs 1.4oz, so it will cost me all of $0.59 to mail it off. Since I have some $0.17 stamps on hand, I don't even have to go to the post office.

The bottom pile are my expired coupons - total value $39.75. That letter only weighs 0.8 oz, so all I need is a regular old $0.42 stamp.

I do two mailings a month - one towards the end of the month, and another in the middle of the month. I've found that this process helps me keep my coupon box neat and tidy, and also cuts down on the chaos at the end of the month. I had over $500 of coupons at the end of September, so by doing mailings twice a month it really helps me cut down on the clutter and mess.

For a total of a single dollar, I am sending nearly $100 in coupons to families stationed overseas. I'm sure we can all spare a single dollar to help out our military. We all have expired coupons, and we all have unexpired coupons that we just don't use.

And just in case you're still not convinced that you can help our military families out, I'm going to give you some added motivation. I'm having a giveaway for $200 in coupons, and the usual design goodies (address labels, blog button/graphic, or picture enhancements). Oh, and I'll throw in an "Arm & Hammer Carpet & Fabric Refresher" Try-Me-Free rebate too. You get an entry by simply requesting information! And if you can email me proof that you've mailed some coupons off, I'll give you an extra entry AND some personalized goodies.

The giveaway will end Friday 10/17/08, so gather up those coupons and send away!


9 comments:

Shynea @ Penny Pinching Diva said...

I made a post about doing this exact same thing not too long ago. It was also brought to my attention by one of my readers that you can also send your expired coupons to military families here in the US. I didn't know that the US commissaries will take expired coupons up to one month. I plan on doing this every month.

Jean-Marie said...

Do you have a general address we can send the coupons to or can we mail them to you to go with your group :) ?

seesawstar said...

Hi Jean-Marie,

Please fill out the form above so I can get your email address - I will be emailing you the information directly, since for safety and privacy reason I will not be posting addresses on my blog.

Thanks for understanding.

Brandy said...

I have been very interested in doing this and have saved my unexpired coupons recently in order to do this, but I had a hard time finding out all of the information on it. I was happy that you had a little more info than the different websites had. Especally about being able to use them at the commissary. I don't have anyone in the military so I didn't know they had a special store.
I still have another question about this that maybe you would be able to help with.
What types of coupons can be used and what kinds of coupons do they want? For example do they take store specific coupons? What about MIR? do they have all of the different brands? what about brands that are only at certain chain stores?
I am sorry that I am so ignorant of these things, I just don't know.

Also, because of problems with scams that have arose here close to home in trying to help, I am interested if you have actually know someone who has recieved the coupons and was able to use them? You do trust that this is not a scam, right?

I don't know why people would do an evil thing like that, but all the stores and people from here were collecting bottle caps (plastic ones) to help with children's cancer chemo treatments and found out recently it was a hoax.

seesawstar said...

Any type of coupons would be appreciated! Commissaries (and exchanges) carry a huge variety of brands and products. There have only been a handful of occasions that I have not been able to find the brand that I was looking for.

I've heard that pet-related coupons are tremendously helpful. Being a military pet is VERY stressful with all the moving, and overseas the prices are mind boggling, so any coupons for pet food or pet treats help out.

If by MIR you mean mail-in rebates, they're an "iffy" one - I would suggest reading the fine print. If they say specifically US only, they probably wouldn't work. Expired rebates are a "no" as far as I know, but if they're not expired and nothing says "US addresses ONLY", I don't see why not.

As far as if this is a scam, I genuinely believe 200% that it is not. The program is ran by Toni over at the Happy Housewife, and she's never given me any reason to believe this is a scam. I don't personally know any of the recipients, but I think Toni does.

Brandy said...

Thank you so much for your responce. It has really helped and I will definately make sure to send some.

Holley V said...

I just found your blog. :)
I had heard of using expired coupons but didn't know where or how--thank you sooo much for the info. I know I'll be back to your blog.
Holley V.

Penny said...

Thanks so much! I used to have a family overseas that I used to send my coupons to - but they've returned home and are no longer near a commissary... so I lost my "connection". I know that the family I used to send to used to distribute coupons that they didn't need to other families in the same base... so these are usually well used!

Theresa N. said...

I actully have an envelope addressed and ready to send out. I'm all for helping out the military families.
Theresa N
weceno(at)yahoo(dot)com

 
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