Magazines can be a good source for saving

Another, less thought of way to get coupons in Alaska is through magazines. The best magazine to buy in order to get more coupons to ad to your coupon stockpile is All You magazine. This magazine is full of coupons, usually anywhere from 60 cents to $120 and is full of other useful articles on how to save money. I particularly like their recipe section. All You is sold in one of two ways, via subscription or via store purchase, like any other magazine. The catch is that the only store that sells All You is Wal-Mart because they own a share in the magazine. It is still worth going to Wal-Mart to purchase the magazine even if you don’t like shopping at the store. Mainly because All You is the second-best source for coupons for Alaskans next to the Internet.

If you are going to subscribe to All You there are a couple of things to keep in mind. One is that subscriptions tend to not come with certain coupon inserts in them that the newsstand copy does, so sometimes you’ll have to buy two copies to get all the coupons you may need. The best way to get a discount subscription on this magazine is to wait for an online promotion through a Southern Living at Home consultant. Every once in a while they will have a promotion where you can get two years of the magazine for the price of one and sometimes even cheaper (my current two-year subscription cost me $17.99). This, to me, is the most cost-effective way to get the magazine.

A couple of other magazines you might want to purchase that I like and would recommend are Woman’s Day, Parents, Kiwi and Body and Soul magazines. Now, I have received subscriptions to all of these for free through via online promotions, so I would encourage people to be vigilant in checking the coupon blogs and wait for an opportunity to get these magazines for free. Woman’s Day usually has a coupon insert in it once every two months or so. Parents has coupons sometimes, but they tend to be decently high-value coupons. Kiwi, an organic-friendly magazine, is sort of Parents for green parents. I like it because it comes with a coupon page every issue on organic products, which can lead to some pretty cheap groceries. Body and Soul usually has at least two or three coupons in it every month.

The best free magazines you can pick up for coupons is the Fred Meyer Extra Savings booklet (the monthly ad found at the registers) and the Naturally Preferred booklet found in the organic foods section. This magazine comes with organic product coupons in it, changes every month, and sometimes has a combination of store coupons and manufacturer coupons. It is a great, and most importantly free, resource to get coupons.

Erika Buswell runs a blog dedicated to bargain hunting in Alaska (alaskanbargainhunter.blogspot.com) and lives in Palmer with her husband and two children.