Today is Top Ten Tuesday and we’re featuring a list of ten ways you can save money this summer. The list is in no particular order. If you have any suggestions to share with our readers on other ways they can save money, by all means please leave a comment!
1. Subscribe to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Use a few coupons a week and the cost of the paper is easily recouped.
2. Read Frugal Gossip for the low down on what is on sale at stores like Pick ‘n Save, Sendik’s Market, and Target. Frugal Gossip makes it easy to match up sales with coupons from the paper and online printable coupons.
3. Don’t feel like turning on your oven for dinner? Dine out in the Milwaukee area and use a gift certificate from Restaurant.com or coupons from RedPlum, Money Mailer, or Valpak.
4. Looking for cheap tickets to a Brewer game? Check out StubHub.com or all the Brewers promotions we’ve written about.
5. Think about how you can save money on your energy bill. Establish your account on WEEnergies.com and get personalized money saving tips to reduce your energy consumption – and your bill!
6. Shop at a consignment store. Milwaukee College Life has a great compilation of local consignment stores.
7. Enjoy one of the local Milwaukee County parks or Waukesha County parks.
8. Buy locally grown produce and much more at a local farmers market.
9. Follow Milwaukee Consumer on Twitter or watch our Twitter widget in the right hand column of our website. We often “retweet” deals that local businesses are offering. Usually there is a link on the “tweet” that you can click to for more information on the promotion. You do not need to join Twitter to click on the links that are displayed in the widget.
10. Last…but not least…read Milwaukee Consumer! We’ll continue to keep you up to date with various promotions throughout the Milwaukee Metro area. Whether you are a business owner or a consumer, please contact us with any promotions you see in your neighborhood! Also, we’d appreciate it if you spread the word and share our website with your friends and family.
On July 23, 2008,
JSOnline reported that a new study from Scarborough Research found that 40% of households in the
Milwaukee metropolitan area clip
grocery coupons once a week or more.
The article stated that the internet ranked last as a source for coupons, with only 11% of households using the internet to find coupons. However, it was the fastest growing source – up 83% over the past two years.
With this study in mind, we thought we’d search Google for online coupons in Milwaukee and see what is available out there. The bottom line is there weren’t a lot of coupons that we found useful. However, we’re sure that more business owners will advertise coupons online over time.
Here are some of the websites we found with online coupons, ranked in order of usefulness:
Valpak - This was the most professional, easy to use website. The coupons were from businesses that we’ve patronized before. Coupons are recognizable from coupon mailers received via US Mail. It might just be easier to browse the online site once every week or two and not even bother opening the Valpak coupon mailer when it arrives in the mail.
Hotcoupons – This was another website where we recognized the coupons that were sent to me from the
Money Mailer. The website is fairly easy to use, but not as user friendly as Valpak’s. There were a few good businesses that we recognized, but the businesses did not seem to be as well known as the companies on Valpak’s site.
MerchantCircle has a large number of coupons on the website for Milwaukee. Many seem to be small, local businesses. However, when a certain zip code was entered in to narrow the selections, only three businesses were displayed, all of which were not well known businesses. The website was professional and legitimate.
Oodle appears to aggregate feeds from Valpak and MerchantCircle. As of October 14, 2008, there were 783 coupons and offers in Milwaukee on Oodle that you can browse or refine by keyword.
KeyMilwaukee sports a handful of coupons you can print. Some of the vendors are great Milwaukee names – Buca Di Beppo,
ComedySportz, and Usinger’s. The
Buca Di Beppo coupon is a good deal – get $10 off any food purchase of $25 or more. The Buca coupon appears to expire on 12/28/08, but it is very difficult to read the expiration date on the PDF.
InsiderPages - This page is not very useful. It appears local businesses can post coupons for free on the website.
