Bowling couponsWhy would anyone go shopping, for anything, anywhere, without first checking online for coupons? It literally takes 30 seconds, and if you haven’t tried it you might be amazed by what you can find.

Yesterday I determined that I would finally get the oil changed in my Toyota. Since I live in a one-horse country town, it’s a good drive to just about anything, so I was indifferent as to where I went for the oil change, so long as it was (1) cheap and (2) I could get it done on my lunch hour.

I went to Google.com, typed in “oil change coupons” along with my town, and up came about 10 different shops within a few miles. Sure enough, most of them had a current special (Firestone, Meineke, Speedy) or better yet an Internet-only coupon (Midas, Jiffy Lube).

Then there are the host of sites that specialize in providing coupons: www.slickdeals.net, www.coupons.com, www.hotcoupons.com, www.valpak.com, www.coolsavings.com, etc. etc. The thing to watch out for is what you must do to get the coupon. Some of these outfits seem to generate revenue by the advertising you see while on the site (which is fine by me). Others require you to register, which I assume means they install cookies to track what you look at.

Still others require you to install something, including Coupons.com. Their privacy notice actually admits they share your personal data with third parties (!) and they can’t be accountable for what those third parties do with that data (!!). That doesn’t sound very appealing to me.

The site HotCoupons.com is very simple, it just asks you to pick a category (automotive, say) and lists the names of stores in your area”some of which have special deals going, some of which don’t. It’s easy to see what’s what.

With SlickDeals.net, you select a category (clothing or home & garden) and up come coupon codes for stores offering deals. You then must go to the website of the actual store and type in the code when you are about to make your purchase.

Others, like Valpak.com, allow you to send some coupons from their website directly to your printer. But some of the coupons aren’t printable and clicking on them takes you to the store’s website where you can use them online.

I don’t mind sharing that I left the house with a $5 off oil change coupon from Midas. But when I got to the store they had an even better deal going: $10 off oil change, fluid check and tire rotation (which I needed). Sometimes real life is better than coupons! But never, ever pay full price.