I use my iPad for everything,and when we moved, we moved into a tiny mobile home, so I no longer have a printer. Even when I had a printer, it was often out of ink, or the cartridge malfunctioned, and it cost the price of a new cheap printer, just to replace the ink cartridge . So now, I get coupons emailed from my grocery stores, but I can't use them because I can't print them out ! Some places have figured this out, and will let you show them the coupon on your smartphone or iPad, ad they scan them, but most places are still in the dinosaur age when it comes to coupons. If you have a printed coupon, they scan it through the cash register, so what is the big deal that they can't scan them from your smartphone or iPad ?
Printable coupons sometimes tick me off too because the coupons get sent to your printer. So if your printer has a paper jam or runs out of ink ,you lose the coupons that were in queue to be printed. The coupon site assumes you printed them successfully and won't let you print them again. After losing 15 coupons that were in queue because of a paper jam, I've learned not to print more than 3 coupons at once. That way if I have a paper jam, at least I lose 3 coupons and not 15.
If your personal printer jams, could you download them to a file and print them later...like at work, where the printers are usually more jam-proof? Just a thought.
I'm self employed so my home printer IS my work printer. On the occasions that I take on outside jobs, they're usually domestic gigs like babysitting or dog walking, so no printer there either. The DontPayFull.com software is set up so that you can't save or download coupons because if people could print unlimited coupons, companies would lose millions of dollars.
Ugh, yes, they are a real pain. I have to sneakily print mine out at work when nobody's around! It's not ideal...
Just download from your local library after you email the coupons to yourself or something. I do that with coupons and movie passes.
I hate printable coupons! For one, ink isn't cheap. But also some stores do not accept internet coupons. I have a free product coupon from Rice Works from the manufacturer and tried to use it at Metro and they wouldn't accept it. But I also don't have a smart phone. However, I would consider getting one if it was extremely easy to redeem coupons and save the paper.
Yup! And lately my java hasn't been working, so it wouldn't let me get them. I have no ink right now, so I can't print them. Target has good mobile coupons.
When I first started trying to use the printable coupons, I could never get them to print! I think what happened was that I had installed the "coupon printer" program and that may have corrupted the installation. I didn't figure this out until later on after uninstalling everything out of frustration. A few weeks later, I tried to get some printable coupons (had to install the program again) and it all worked perfectly. So, I'm thinking the problem had something to do with the software installation. I use an old laser printer to print the coupons because laser printing is more efficient than using my inkjet. Printing black&white with an inkjet on cheap copy paper is a waste of ink. With the laser you don't have to worry about not being able to print due to one of the cartridges being "empty".
I have been using a relatively new website that allows you to load electronic coupons to your store loyalty cards. The upside is, no printing is required, you just register your store loyalty cards and then select the coupons you want, or select them all. You can also register your CVS and Riteaid cards, which also accept coupons. The downside is that there is not an abundance of options and you won't immediately get your discount. The grocer will charge you the full price for the item and the coupon amount gets credited to your Savingstar account. You can redeem your savings once you have a balance of $5. There is also a similar site called Cell fire, but I have not used them.
Wow ! I see that about everyone feels the same way as I do abut the inconvenience of printing out coupons. I think as stores realize that they are losing business with coupons that don't get used, they will change over. After starting this thread, I also posted on the Facebook page of the store (Belle Foods) where I do most of my shopping; that they send me coupons, and I have no way to use them. They responded with two things: first, they told me that they print out the coupons in the store, so all I have to do is ask for the page of coupons at the customer service desk, and they will give them to me. He also said that they are working on updating their computers to scan the coupons from a smartphone, so they will be able to do this before long. So try asking the store if they have some printed out for shoppers. If you shop at Krogers, and have their smart card, you can look at the coupon specials, and download them to your Loyalty Card, and it scans them out when you pay for your groceries.
I love printable coupons because of the savings, but keeping printer ink in the printer? Ummm, not so much. I'm all for the smartphone thing, but what about people who don't have smartphones? They deserve to be able to save money too.
