Buying coupons can be a big money saver

Are you aware that you can buy coupons? If that isn't the perfect marriage of the Internet and the American capitalist spirit, I'm not sure what is!

I found out about this one day when I Googled "Lowes promotional code" for an online purchase. Next thing I know, I'm on eBay where there's an entire Coupons on eBay section.

Hmmm. I hadn't done this before, but I thought, "Why not? I'll give it a try." I needed to buy siding for a shed I'm building and there were lots of Lowe's and Home Depot coupons on the auction block. Sounded like an easy way to save some cabbage. So I bid on eBay and won an auction - $24 for a 20%-off-your-entire-purchase-at-Home Depot coupon.

Lowe's honors competitor's coupons, so after the coupon I arrived, I headed to Lowe's for the moment of truth - and was a little nervous for a couple reasons: 1) The Home Depot fine print specifically excluded vinyl siding. Since I was there primarily to buy siding for the shed I've built, I knew this would present a problem if Lowe's terms were the same; 2) Lowe's didn't stock the color I wanted, so I was going to have to place a special order.

I had been burned by Lowe's before when I bought several garage storage chests online (because they didn't have them in stock in the store) and then wasn't eligible for the promised rebate because it wasn't an "in-store" purchase. I wasn't sure if this special-order siding would somehow fall into that same category.

Anyway, I placed the special order for the siding, got my paperwork, and started to head to the cashier's desk up front. But wait. I decided to use the coupon on something else, as well. After all the coupon was for an entire purchase, not a single item. So, being the good steward that I am (and the good husband that I am), I decided to go ahead and get a new dishwasher for my wife (she was in a daily struggle with the old one). I knew which washer I wanted, so I told the guy, signed some papers, and I was ready to check out.

I went up front to pay for everything at the customer-service desk. I explained I had two orders in the computer and that I wanted to apply a Home Depot coupon against my overall purchase.

The customer-service rep looked up the orders and started reading over the coupon. I started wondering if I blew 24 bucks.

One minute turned into two, then five, then ten. At this point, I'm thinking I'm toast and my shed will forever remain vinyl-less. But I was wrong. She told me that the hangup was that they couldn't invoice the orders on the same ticket and that I would have to pay for them separately. No problem-o. She also told me that the labor charges to install the dishwasher wouldn't get the 20% off. I wasn't counting on that anyway.

So a couple of card swipes later and I scurried out the door before they could tell me they messed up and couldn't honor the coupon. Whew!

Bottom line: $132 (siding discount) + $70 (dishwasher discount) - $24 (cost of coupon) = $178 savings.

So, the next time I build a shed, buy an appliance, or know that I'm going to spend enough money to more than recoup the cost of the coupon, I'm heading to eBay first to buy some cheap money.

Sniff sniff, sniff sniff. Hey! I think I smell the next great work-at-home-in-your-jammies business model! Or maybe not...
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Matthew Pryor in his 8th year with Sound Mind Investing, now serving as Director of Operations. Visit www.soundmindinvesting.com to learn more.