Tips for Printing Coupons

I’ve had at least one person contact me and seen several posts on other sites about how expensive it can be to print coupons! It doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of money printing coupons just to save at the store. Ink can be expensive!

Here are some tips that I’ve used to help cut down on costs!

1. If you are able to, set your printer’s default to “draft”. I was able to do this by going to my control panel, choosing my printer, opening the “properties” box and changing the printer preferences. (I really don’t want to go into more detail than this as I’m not a computer guru and your printer software might be different!)

By setting your default mode to draft, your coupons will print in black & white and will use the least amount of ink. Most stores that accept internet-printed coupons do not require them to be in color.

2. Only printing one coupon but you want to print it twice? I’ve found that often, the coupon will print at the top or the bottom of the page. What I’ll do is print one coupon, take the paper out of the tray and reload it. Then I print the other coupon. I’ll end up having two coupons on one piece of paper – one at either end. This is a great way to save on your paper usage.

You have to make sure that you know how your printer works. You don’t want to load the paper so that the coupon will print on the backside of the first one. If you do, you won’t be able to use both of them!

3. Recycle your paper. Have a pile of paper laying around that is only printed on one side? Use the other side to print your coupons! It doesn’t matter if something is printed on the back of the coupon. It also doesn’t matter if it’s printed on colored paper. The coupon will still be usable!

4. Make sure you keep track of what you’re printing. I have had several occasions where I’ve printed off a great coupon, stuck it in a pile, and found it later – after it’s EXPIRED! Find some time of organizational method that works for you so that you don’t misplace your coupons or let them expire.

5. If you see a coupon that is available and you think you’ll want it, go ahead and print it. There have been instances when I knew about a coupon but wasn’t near a printer. By the time I got home, it was gone! If you want it, go ahead and print it!

6. Facebook is an excellent source for coupons. Most companies require that you “like” them before allowing you to print the coupon. Don’t want to tie up your news feed on facebook, though? You can change your settings on FB to show only posts from certain people or you can “unlike” them.

7. Most times you’ll be able to print a coupon twice. For “bricks” type coupons, you usually just need to hit the back button on your browser and refresh and the 2nd coupon will print automatically.  Other times, you’ll need to go thru a coupon database to find what you need.

I hope that these tips have been helpful! Let me know if you have any others!