At the end of each month many people end up with a lot of expired manufactured coupons that have been collected over the past month. Many will throw the expired coupons away; whereas others try to find a way to reuse them.
Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle Coupons
When people throw away manufactured coupons, these items usually end up in the landfill. To reduce the amount of garbage or in this case expired coupons, individuals should consider finding new ways to reuse them. Listed below are some ways to find new uses for expired coupons:
- Recycle them (i.e. many communities either have a weekly pick-up of recyclable items or a recycling site; include them with recyclable paper products).
- Shred and use either for composting materials or bedding for guinea pigs, hamsters, etc.
- Share with local schools to be used as either a teaching material (i.e. teachers can use them to teach students how to save money and stay on a budget) or as an arts and crafts material (i.e. used for collages, paper mache, etc).
- Send to overseas military bases for military families to use (many expired coupons can be used up to an additional six months).
- Use for arts and crafts projects for children at home.
- Develop a shopping list for children on index cards (select five coupons that show a picture of items that is purchased weekly for the family, glue and label all five items on the index card, have each child responsible for finding the five items on the list).
- Create money or number flashcards (use larger coupons due to the larger print; cut out numbers from the coupon and glue on an index card or piece of scrap paper).
- Cut out words or individual letters to use for making cards, scrapbooking, flashcards, etc.
- Keep old coupons and place into a small plastic storage box to let children use when playing store.
- Use to make a pinata (use the small coupons to wrap around a pencil and glue to the pinata base or shape).
- Use the pictures to make labels for canning items or envelopes to organize items.
- Make labels by cutting the pictures from the coupons for canning jars or organizational containers (i.e. envelopes, small plastic containers, etc).
Various Ways to Reuse Expired Coupons
There are so many ways to reuse and recycle expired manufactured coupons. Coupons can be used as teaching materials, composting, arts and crafts material, or simply to help military personnel that are stationed overseas to save money. Either way, reusing old coupons can also help save trees and space at the local garbage facility.
Tracy Criswell - Tracy Criswell is a stay-at-home mother of four, ages two to nine. Prior to becoming a stay-at-home mother over a year ago, she was a ...
