Keep Track Of Social Shopping Coupons

Here’s an effective way to keep track of all your social shopping purchases so they’ll never go to waste.

WASTE NOT | Some digital deal behemoths like Groupon, Living Social—and now Social Shopper—alert purchasers when their social shopping deals are about to expire, but other sites do not. This puts the onus on the purchaser to make sure their deals don’t slip through the cracks. If you’re like me, you may have forgotten about a few things you bought on impulse (social shopping is impulse buying after all), or just plain allowed coupons to expire. When this happens, social shopping becomes a gargantuan waste of money.

After squandering money on two offbeat deals that I totally forgot I’d purchased, I devised my own two-step program to keep track of my coupon cache. (There may be an app for this, but my old school solution works just fine.)

My Two-Step Redemption Program

1. First I set up a desk top folder and put all my certificates in it. This is so DUH! that I can’t believe I didn’t put them all together sooner.

2. Next I created a red alert system on my computer calendar.

While Groupon starts to send warnings several months before deals are set to expire and Living Social lets you know one month out, I use a two-month reminder system. Then I put two red coloured alerts on my computer calendar so I cannot miss them. (I told you it was a simple solution.) —Ruth Rainey

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