Spokane Prime Magazine Article – Coupon Crazy

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Spokane Prime Magazine Article – Coupon Crazy

Using coupons might be the latest fad, but saving money never goes out of style

In today’s downturned economy, everyone is looking for ways to save money. Carpooling to save gas, turning down the heat a few degrees in winter and doing small home improvement projects yourself. But one of the latest trends to come back in to fashion so to speak, is couponing. Using coupons to save money on everything from groceries to clothing and even trips. Whether your goal is to save $50 a month or $1000 a month, there are lots of easy and simple ways that you, too, can jump on the coupon bandwagon.

It was about three years ago that Tammilee Tillison found out her job would be ending, leaving she and her soon-to-be husband that she was marrying that very week, with the prospect of only one income.

We came back from our honeymoon and had to figure out how we were going to save money and live the life we wanted, says Tammilee. That’s when I went on the internet to do research and discovered how much money could be saved by using coupons.

What started with one paper and a sale at the grocery store, has now grown in to a full time job and the launch of Tammilee Tips, a website dedicated to helping people save money on their own. Because of her success, she was even featured on a recent episode of TLC’s Extreme Coupons. While Tammilee managed to save well over $10,000 using coupons last year, she believes everyone can save money using coupons with just a few simple tips and tricks.

As with virtually anything, you’re going to experience the most success couponing if you first arm yourself with knowledge. Avoid some of the common mistakes and pitfalls by doing some research and getting to know your stores and the products you use the most.

When I started, I made all of the mistakes beginners make, explains Tammilee. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not understanding prices.

She goes on to explain that knowing the price of the goods you most want to buy before they go on sale will help you avoid spending more money on something that only appears to be on sale.

Stores have different tiers of sales, and what might appear to be a sale, often times isn’t she says.

When you go to a store and see a sale thats 3 for $5.00 or 10 for $10.00, sometimes the store has increased the base price of the item to make up for the “loss” in the sale. You might end up paying more per individual item than if you had purchased it last week when it wasn’t on sale. Thatss why you need to know the everyday price of your items that you intend to buy on a regular basis.

To get the most out of your coupon, pair them with a regular sale of the item you want to buy. If the item you want to buy is normally $1.00, but is on sale for 75 cents and you have a coupon for another 25 cents off, then you get the item for 50 cents. Even better if you find your item on clearance or marked down for quick sale.

Most sales are on a 12 or 16 week cycle, says Tammilee. What you want to do then is use your coupons when those items are on sale, buy enough to get you through to the next cycle, and you save just that much more.

If you’re willing to spend a little bit of time on the internet, explains Tammilee, You’re going to be amazed at what you can get for 95% off or free with rebates.

She goes on to say that you can often times write to a product manufacturer and they will send you numerous coupons. All you have to do is ask. Same thing goes for your local store. Many grocery stores make coupons available to their customers if you simply ask.

Even with all of the benefits of using coupons, the misconceptions about it still linger. Tammilee thinks the biggest misconception is the amount of time people think they have to dedicate to it.

A lot of people think you have to spend 20 to 30 hours a week to save with coupons,she explains. You can sit down with your Sunday paper, go through the flyers and save a significant amount just by doing that.

While it seems like common sense, another tip from Tammilee is to go to the store with a list in hand and not stray from that list. Don’t be wooed by the fancy store displays or buying things that you really don’t need.

Before I started doing this, I would go to the store four or five times a week without really having a plan, Tammilee continues. I can’t tell you how much time, money and gas was wasted because I never really knew what I needed, and I really never knew what I bought.

According to Tammilee, organization is going to help you realize the most success when it comes to shopping and saving money with coupons.

Saving money immediately with your purchase doesn’t necessarily have to be your ultimate goal when using coupons. Many people are using them to help fund travel plans, pay off debt and many other things they want to achieve in their daily lives.

Through my blog I’ve gotten to know a lady that used coupons to help set aside money for her grandchildren’s college education, she says. She knows she was going to spend the money anyway, so she takes the money she saves by using the coupons, and puts it in an account set aside for the college fund.

Because of the money I’ve learned to save, I’ve been able to save enough for my husband and I to travel which we dearly love to do.

You also don’t have to have those huge stockpiles that you hear about people having when they use coupons. Thats another negative connotation of couponing. You don’t have to have 100 bottles of laundry detergent or 700 rolls of toilet paper. Using your coupons wisely and on a regular basis, you can buy the items you need at a deep discount without having to build a storage room at your house to keep all of the goods you saved money buying.

Along with that, there is some couponing etiquette that people should adhere to as well. Just because you can get 50 flavor packets for free doesn’t mean you should and clear the shelf of that product. It’s basic etiquette to get only what you need and will use, and leave the rest for the other people that need that product as well. Same goes for the coupons that you might see made available by the manufacturer in the aisle at the store or affixed to the product. Take only what you need, don’t take them all.

Using coupons isn’t just a passing fad. Coupons are a legitimate way to help you and your family save on the products you use every day. Whether you’re trying to cut back on your weekly or monthly grocery bill or trying to save money for a special event, use coupons to help you reach your goal. With a little time and a little effort, you can also get in on the saving money craze!

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Video – Interview with KXLY last night.

September 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Here is the video of last nights interview with KXLY.

You can also read about the interview on their homepage.

 

 

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Spokane Inlander Article – Super Saver

September 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The 10-pound coupon binder gives Tammilee Tillison away. The behemoth black book is one of two that she carries wherever she goes. Today, it serves as the command center of her cart, beneath a purse and pile of re-usable bags.

The binder was originally built for baseball card collections. Instead, Tammilee collects coupons. She organizes them in individual plastic sleeves labeled “yogurt,” “Pillsbury,” “hygiene,” “produce.”

At 9:30 am, she cruises a Spokane Valley grocery store (which asked to keep its identity unnamed in this article) in flip-flops and floral-painted toes. Her husband, John, wears a T-shirt that reads “Have you hugged a park ranger today?” The store manager runs up, greets them by name, and hands them a coupon he just received today: $1 dollar off Starbucks Frappuccinos.

“We’re pretty excited about this one,” John says. The Medical Lake couple are extreme couponers, and this store is one of six in their “regular loop” of stops. “I’ll go anywhere if the deal is good enough,” Tammilee says.

Technically speaking, Tammilee is the couponer. Her husband is a park ranger for Washington state whose “specialty is beer rebating” and today, they’re drinking for free.

John found a coupon on a pyramid of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The coupon offers free beer with the purchase of $100 in groceries. Tammilee can do that.

“Free beer tastes so good,” she says. Getting deals has become a lifestyle for Tammilee, a stay-at-home coupon blogger. She’s analytical, impeccably organized, and bubbly. Two and a half years ago, her job as a risk management specialist relocated. She chose to stay at home instead and put her MBA to good use by penny-pinching and clipping coupons.

“I started with one coupon that was worth a quarter at the Safeway on Sprague. Afterwards I walked to my car and told my husband I saved a quarter and he thought I had lost my mind.”

But last year, the couple saved more than $10,000. Tammilee inputs her receipts in an Excel spreadsheet that calculates her savings, and the couple puts a percentage of their savings to good use: a new house, trips to Maui, the Baltic Sea and the Caribbean Islands.

And last year, the couple also donated almost 500 pounds of food to the Medical Lake Food Bank. Their goal this year is 1,000 pounds; the $1.50-per-pound tax write-off is a nice incentive, too.

In May, the couple was featured on TLC’s Extreme Couponing. In the episode at the Fred Meyer on South Thor Street, Tammilee flipped a $640.84 grocery bill into $17.71. John says he ate food from that shopping trip for lunch just yesterday.

“We don’t normally do massive shopping trips,” Tammilee says.

“Shopping for the show was definitely not normal. I lived in Fred Meyer for about a week and a half before they filmed to make sure my coupons were in order.”

Today’s trip is different than that. “Raw shrimp for only $5.99 a pound!” a woman blares from the speakers. The entire store smells like seafood. Tammilee “soaks in the air conditioning” on the hot day and heads first to the hygiene aisle for four bottles of Pantene Pro-V. She flips through her binder and fans coupons in her hand like a deck of cards.

John follows, two steps behind. “When she first started using coupons, she would accidentally leave a trail just like breadcrumbs behind her,” he says. “It was a lot easier to find her.”

Now he mostly knows to follow and to ask questions. “How many do I get?” he asks, referring to frozen Italian meals.

“Four,” she says “Sweet,” he replies. She giggles.

Tammilee says that couponing has changed her perception of money.

“I used to be the woman who bought $200 shoes,” she says. “Now I know that a dollar doesn’t have to be a dollar.”

Her goal is to make couponing easy for someone who works 40- to 60-hour weeks like she used to. Tammilee’s website, Tammileetips. com, posts links to online printable coupons. She explains coupon terminology, coupon scams, and the easy mistakes to make. Viewers can even print her shopping list and the associated coupons for the day.

“I probably check 10-12 daily deal sites a day,” she says. “I have a special email for coupons and rebates.” Websites like Facebook, Groupon, LivingSocial, SaveMore, and Restaurants.Com are among her favorites. She also receives four copies of the Sunday Spokesman-Review and mentally files away the sale dates.

“She has a memory like you wouldn’t believe,” John says. “Unfortunately for him,” Tammilee says, giggling. She clips and organizes coupons while they watch TV at night. She blogs about couponing. She teaches couponing classes for free at local libraries.

She wants to help families save a buck whenever and wherever they can. “I truly believe the average person could save $25, on average, per week,” she says. “That’s $100 a month, $1,200 a year.”

She tosses two bags of salad greens and a bunch of bananas into the cart. The couple make their way to the cashier and place frozen pizzas, Propel Water, Coffee Mate, shampoo, pasta and soy milk onto the circular black belt at the register.

They make small talk with the cashier about his upcoming fishing trip. Tammilee doesn’t look at the price on the screen until the end — not until all the coupons register. Her eyes dart from coupon to price screen, coupon to price screen.

Her $141.84 bill has fallen to just $19.45. “Perfect,” she says, as she slides her card.

 

Spokane Inlander article from September 7, 2011

 

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Article in the University Place Patch

May 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Check out this great article that was published in the University Place Patch

Tammilee Tillison remembers the first time she clipped a coupon.

She saved 25 cents – and was so excited that she called her husband.

“He was like ‘You saved a quarter?’ ” she recalled. “I said ‘I saved a quarter,’ and he said, ‘And you’re calling me?’ He thought I had lost my mind.”

Just the opposite, in fact.

Tillison, a 1994 graduate of Curtis High School who now lives in Medical Lake near Spokane, will share her couponing prowess with America tonight on TLC’s “Extreme Couponing.” (9:30 p.m., PST)

Her skills are the stuff of couponing legend, buying $1,300 worth of groceries in one day – for a mere $15.

But while she has myriad of tips to share, deciding to do “Extreme Couponing” didn’t come easily for Tillison and her husband, John.

“I had huge qualms,” she said. “It took us about a month to actually decide to do it. I had only ever been videotaped for my wedding, so it was a whole new experience.”

Eventually, the desire to show how couponing could be done in the Northwest won out. Unlike many of the coupon gurus featured on the show, Tillison, by virtue of living in Washington, does not have access to stores that automatically double coupons up to $1.

She instead watches sales and matches store coupons with those from manufacturers.

“I so wish I had known two years ago how much you can save with coupons,” she said, “because I would have done it while I was still working.”

Tillison, 34, admits that as recently as 2008, “I was the person who, when I saw $200 shoes, I bought them. We had an amazing combined income and we did whatever we wanted to do.”

Then came the week of her wedding – and the news that her job as a risk manager for a Spokane company was being moved out of state.

They had to find a way to save money – fast.

“I didn’t even balance my checkbook before I lost my job,” she said, adding that hers was the larger of their incomes. John, 40, is a park ranger.

Now, they still live the good life, but three weeks in the Caribbean last year and an upcoming trip to Europe were made possible by coupon clipping to buy everyday goods.

Last year, the couple saved more than $10,000.

Tillison said that in addition to shopping for themselves, she and John do about 90 percent of the grocery shopping for his mother and grandmother, both of whom are on a limited income.

And since January, they have donated 477 pounds of food and health and beauty products to the Medical Lake Food Bank – nearly halfway to their goal of 1,000 pounds.

“I found out that 15 percent of the local community uses the food bank, and that was just amazing to hear,” Tillison said.

They donate anything that they can get free. Cocoa. Diced tomatoes. Toothbrushes. Body wash. You name it, and Tillison will buy it.

Her mother, Nancieann Anderson, of Lakewood, is definitely impressed.

“Tammilee’s couponing skills are all self learned,” she said. “She is awesome in the fact that she is helping the food bank and her family.”

Tillison’s usual haunts include Safeway, Walmart, Albertson’s and Fred Meyer, where she was filmed for “Extreme Couponing.”

“It was amazing,” she said. “So much fun. The crew that came out from New York was wonderful. I wanted them to stay longer.”

Still, after two days of filming, “I ended up sleeping for 12 straight hours. I was pretty wiped out.”

While Tillison won’t divulge how much she saved during that trip – “you’ve got to wait and see” – she did say that the receipt is taller than her 5-foot-5 frame.

“It was a good trip,” she said with a laugh.

Unlike many of those seen on the show, including one controversial shopper who cleaned the shelves of mustard bottles even though no one in her household used it, Tillison did not buy more than 25 of one item – her husband’s favorite snack – and most of her purchases were in increments of two or three.

“We really tried to show that you can get a variety,” she said. “You don’t have to buy 75 mustards.”

Her favorite coupon items are shampoo and conditioner, which is “not something I ever (realized) that you could get for free.”

Still, rolling up to the checkout line with an overflowing cart can be a daunting experience – for both cashier and shopper. Tillison said that she always asks if the cashier would prefer she go to another register.

“For the most part, people are pretty good about it,” she said. “But sometimes people are like ‘oh my goodness …’

“You definitely learn to pick which cashier you want to go with and at what time.”

Her enthusiasm has rubbed off on her family. Her husband will join her on shopping trips – “he loves rebates” – and her mom is getting in on the act.

Most importantly, Tillison said, the latter gets the primo coupons in the Sunday paper.

“I have her get me newspapers sometimes,” she said, explaining that the Spokane newspaper lacks the same variety. “I love it. I call my mom on Sunday and say ‘What’s in your paper?’ Because I can guarantee it’s better than mine.”

Tillison said that she also attracts a fair share of attention from other shoppers. During a trip Monday, her coupon binder caught the attention of several inquisitive customers. She is no stranger to giving advice, though – her blog, Tammilee Tips, provides coupon links and other advice.

Her No. 1 tip?

“Just start,” she said. “Look online, look in social media – there’s coupons for almost everything. Just save the money, and ignore the stigma of what couponing is. Just try it.”

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Welcome Spokesman Review Readers!

May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Welcome Spokesman Review Readers!
We really hope you enjoy the website. Please let us know if you have any questions about coupons.
You can also find us on Facebook. We love interacting with everyone and talking about coupons.
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Spokesman Review Article – Her passion for coupons lands her a TV spot

May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Her passion for coupons lands her a TV spot

If using coupons is an extreme sport, Tammilee Tillison just made the all-star team.

Tillison – a Medical Lake woman who became a coupon demon after losing her job – was featured this week on the latest reality show, “Extreme Couponing.”

In the episode, she does what all the show’s subjects do – lands a huge haul of groceries for pennies on the dollar. In her case, she paid just $17.71 for $640.84 worth of frozen food, aspirin, hot sauce, paper towels … while the cameras rolled and spectators gawked from the second story of the Fred Meyer on South Thor Street.

“I have never had this much attention at the grocery store, ever,” Tillison said. “It definitely was not a normal trip. I would hope people don’t see the show and think that’s a normal trip.”

And yet Tillison’s coupon evangelism is as real as it gets. She’s turned coupons into a passion and an avocation – and now a fledgling business, the website Tammilee Tips. She says she saved more than $10,000 last year using coupons, enough to pay for two trips to the Caribbean for her and her husband, John. The former guest room in her nice little home in Medical Lake looks like a stock room at a small grocery store, with neatly lined rows of Froot Loops, spaghetti sauce, hot chocolate, bottled water, Hamburger Helper and ketchup – more than 1,000 items in all. And, while her televised shopping trip may have been goosed-up for TV, it wasn’t the biggest haul she’s made. Her record was a $1,300 bill at Albertson’s that she couponed down to less than $15.

On Valentine’s Day, she and John used a coupon for dinner and one for a movie – and then stopped off at the grocery store to snag a couple deals on the way home.

“Very romantic night with coupons,” she said.

If you, like me, are the kind of person who swings by the store for a couple things every other day, responds to an impulse or two in the aisles, and can’t figure out why the grocery bill’s so high, then all this may seem slightly crazy. Or extremely crazy. Most of the people on the new show make Tillison look rather tame by comparison when they do their stunt shopping: In Wednesday’s episode, a Seattle woman hauled away some $1,800 in groceries for around $40.

But it’s hard to argue with Tillison’s results. She saves a ton of money, and she’s donated almost 500 pounds of food to the Medical Lake Food Bank.

Three years ago, she learned she’d be losing her job as a risk manager for a company that moved her position to another city; the Tillisons chose to stay here because John loves his job as a park ranger based at Riverside State Park, she said.

But it was a blow. She was the bigger earner in the family. Together, they were bringing in six figures and living the DINK lifestyle – dual income, no kids. They traveled a lot – photos from around the world hang on the walls of their home – and ate out several times a week and didn’t worry much about saving a buck on a bottle of shampoo.

“Prior to this point, I was the girl who, if I went out and saw a pair of $100 shoes, I bought them,” she said.

But now she was looking for ways to save. She began gathering coupons from all over – she subscribes to two copies of the newspaper, scours online and social media sites, looks in magazines and other publications. She uses her organizational and professional skills – she’s got an MBA – to organize, track and plan purchases.

“There are coupons almost everywhere, once you start noticing them,” she said. “You can get everything. I’m vegetarian, my husband’s not, I get fruits and vegetables and organics – all with coupons.”

Tillison acknowledges that it’s harder to get fresh food using coupons. But it’s possible, she says, to be aggressive about saving money without eating an all-Froot-Loops diet.

Tillison started her website almost two years ago. News that TLC was airing a new show spread through the coupon world last year. Tillison watched the first episode of the show at the end of 2010 – it included an appeal for people to contact the show if they were interested in being featured.

“My husband and I talked about it and talked about it and talked about it,” she said. “Our hope was that by doing this we can maybe get someone else to start with coupons and save some money.”

They contacted TLC early this year, and the film crews arrived in Spokane in March. Tillison had planned a trip to Fred Meyer – scouted prices, organized her trip with a spreadsheet, coordinated with store managers. It was a long, grueling day at the store. At one point, Tillison sat on the floor and taped her feet; the “cute shoes” she’d picked for the show were killing her.

The show aired Wednesday night; she and John had around 20 people over to watch. One of the themes of the episode was that the Tillisons were trying to use their shopping trip to stock up on free food, in order to save for a cruise to the Baltic Sea for John’s 40th birthday.

“That was 6, 8 weeks ago,” she said. “We’re still eating that food.”

But the payoff is coming soon, in the form of the cruise.

“We leave Saturday,” she said.

Spokesman Review Article from May 13, 2011

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