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Stop throwing away your expired coupons! Instead send them to military families overseas to use for up to six months after the manufacturer’s expiration date.
You’ll be helping service men and women save money on groceries when they shop at their on base commissionaires. This is not time consuming, difficult, or costly since you’re already clipping coupons.
Organizations like
the Overseas Coupon Program and most veterans groups accept coupons and send them to troops. Coupons to Troops is a directory you can use find persons that collect coupons or military families. You can also mail out the coupons yourself.
Whichever way you decide to help, make sure to follow these four tips to save time and money when sending your unused or expired coupons.
- Cut coupons to size to save money on postage.
- Only send manufacturers coupons like the ones from the Sunday inserts no later than two months after expiration (keep in mind that it takes time to send and process the coupons). Do not send store coupons or online coupons.
- Contact the base or organization where you are sending the coupons to ask how they want you to organize the coupons. They’ll usually have you divide the coupons into food and non-food coupons.
- Make sure to address your envelop correctly and include a name when mailing to military bases as the postal service will not deliver the letter or package without a name.
- If you’re sending a package, use flat rate Priority Mail. It’s only $4.95.
Getting others involved can also help you collect more coupons and you can split the cost of the postage. To further show your appreciation and support to the men and women serving this country, you can also send them military packages.
Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price.
Thanks, Yazmin. I’ve been tossing expired coupons, as they’re useless to me. However, a very close friend of my son’s is serving yet another tour in the MIddle East, so I’ll send coupons along to David, as I’m sure he or some of his fellow military personnel will be able to make use of them.
That’s great, Ellie!
Thanks for including CouponsToTroops in your post!!
If anyone wished to send your coupons directly overseas to a military family, please contact us at admin@couponstotroops.com and we’ll be glad to put you in touch with a family!! We are constantly adding new overseas families to our contact list and currently have several who are hoping to receive coupons soon.
For more info you can also see our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/Couponstotroops
I applied to adopt a base a couple of months back from ocpnet.org but never received any type of response as to whether it was accepted or not or if I should just start sending coupons. I just sent a message using their contact page and am hoping on a response.
@Claudia Many of these organizations are run by volunteers with little time so that may be why you haven’t received a response.
@Yazmin ~ Just thought I’d let you know that I’d been contacted by someone involved in contacting military families interested in the coupons program, and in fact got an e-mail from one of the women who’s in Japan. I checked it out with the “admin” site above.