I'm sorry to say, I witnessed the following interaction at my local convenience stores a few weeks ago.
Customer (flipping through copies of the paper, obviously to see if the coupons are in there): I AM SO TIRED of looking through these papers and not seeing all the coupons. PEOPLE ARE STEALING! DON'T YOU CARE????
Cashier: (speechless)
Customer (looking through another copy of the paper): OH LOOK - Another copy without all the coupons! Why do you have the papers so close to your registers if you aren't going to stop people from stealing???
Cashier: Ma'am..I don't know what...let me call my manager
Customer: YOU BETTER, because there are supposed to be 3 inserts and...
Me (2 customers back in line and interrupting her): Wait - you are looking for 3 inserts?
Customer: YES!
Me: Well the 3rd insert you are looking for is a Redplum insert and the Redplum insert hasn't been in the Philadelphia Inquirer for 7 months! Instead of looking in that stack - try the other 2 stacks over there with the Pottstown Mercury or Reading Eagle....and stop yelling at XXXX...it's not HER fault!
Customer: (silently goes over to check the other stacks, flips through them, and grabs 4 copies of those papers and checks out with another cashier)
Did I tell you this story to make myself look good? No - I told you this story to inform you that knowing which newspapers carry which coupons can save you time, money and potentially stop you from looking like a complete idiot!
The woman at my local convenience store threw a complete snit fit. In her mind, she was completely right. The reality was, her ignorance made her look like an idiot!
(Note: "ignorance" is not a bad word in my mind. Ignorance can be cured...just add knowledge and stir!) I have had a bunch of readers email me and tell me that they were missing the Redplum insert...until they realized that they were buying the wrong papers
So Hennyway.....
You need to know where to find coupons!
In most cases, you will be able to find the Smartsource insert as well as the Proctor & Gamble Inserts in most of your weekly local papers.
As for the Redplum insert? It's a little tricky! In January, 2012, many major newspapers stopped carrying the Redplum insert. In many areas, the Redplum insert started to be delivered to you via your weekly mail....but what if you want more than one copy of the Redplum insert? In my case, you need to go out and buy that paper with the Redplum insert and need to know where to get it (hint to my local readers...it is NOT in the Philadelphia Inquirer!)
Head to Redplum.com to see if your local newspaper carries the Redplum insert...and if they don't, where the nearest local paper to you will have it!
Looking for more Extreme Couponing tips? Make sure that you check out all the posts in my Coupon 101 and Coupon Ethics sections!
Ruth
This story sounds very familiar. People tend to jump to conclusions and sometimes they look like idiots. Some couponers act like total idiots. The other day a couponer rushed to the shelf where I was to get a product before "you get them all". I calmly left the area so that I wouldn't lose my temper and went to the endcap where more product was stocked.
Some small towns have local papers that also have Sunday inserts and they are published usually on Fridays. These papers are usually cheaper and have all the inserts, including Redplum. In Rising Sun, Maryland and vicinity, there is The Record which costs 1.00 and the Cecil Whig which is now 1.50, used to be .75 a year ago but since the coupon crazy started, they doubled the price. The coupons are not used as good as the Philadelphia Inquirer