Saving Money with Accessible Coupons
Contributed by Joel Zimba, MDTAP Special Projects Coordinator
If my Mother knew I didn’t use coupons, I would never hear the end of it. Every week, she would have a stack of coupons paper-clipped to her shopping list. It’s probably what paid for my college education.
Why don’t I follow in her thrifty footsteps? Well, organization is certainly an issue. I could barely remember to make a shopping list, much less find all of the coupons, get them grouped together and use them in time. Then there’s the accessibility side of the equation. Whether you’re cutting them out of the paper, or just sorting through the Saturday circular, coupons are an accessibility nightmare to the blind. Assistive technology is not much help. Using the KNFB Mobile Reader is tedious and often unsuccessful given the low resolution and complex layout of coupons.
All this changed when I found Grocery Pal. It’s a simple app which finds all of the coupons and weekly sales for stores near you. In fact every major pharmacy and grocery store was listed when I typed my zip code into grocery pal. Every coupon I selected was put into various lists–based on store name, type of merchandise and expiration date. And yes, I even bought things I didn’t know I needed thanks to Grocery Pal.
When you’re ready to go shopping, you can redeem your coupons in several ways. They can be connected to store loyalty cards, which apply the coupons when you swipe the card at checkout. If you’re feeling retro, you can E-mail them and print them. Some stores can even scan the codes right off of your phone, which works best of all if you ask me.
I have not checked out the options which can track your savings and connect with social networking and budgeting apps but I bet I could find a way to print a graph of my savings to show my Mom.
