For quite some time, many retail stores offered a Senior Day, a day that seniors could get a discount on a purchase. The age for a senior varies according to store. For example, at age 62 you can get a senior discount at Kohl’s department store. The day is generally Wednesday.

Museums, hotels and attractions may have a senior day as well. The discount and the age vary according to the venue. Some start at age 55, others 62 and still others 65. The discounts usually start at 5% and generally don’t go above 10%.

Local restaurants offer senior savings as well. Just take a look at IHOP, The International House of Pancakes. They have senior discounts as well as kids’ discounts.

In my latest A&P store flyer, I found an advertisement for Senior Appreciation Day. The age: 55, and the discount 5% with a $30 purchase. A coupon is required to get the discount and can be obtained from either the store flyer or from the online enewsletter from A&P.

I’m thrilled, in addition to double coupons and great sales I can now take advantage of Senior Day.

To take advantage of these bonus savings, check with all of your local retailers to see if they have a Senior Day or discount. Get to learn the different rules and regulations so you’re never disappointed, and if you find some new ones, send them along so we can all share.

Coupons as we have already determined are a great source of savings and is one of the most powerful marketing tools, if not the most powerful. Retail stores have come to realize this and are issuing coupons in record numbers. Every event, season or opportunity brings a whole array of retail coupons.

On a given Sunday, I’ll find upwards of 6 or 7 coupons inserted or printed in my newspaper. Some are mailed directly to my home. Clothing and department stores are among the tops: Bloomingdales, Macys, Kohl’s, Lord & Taylor, have a steady stream of sales and coupons. Old Navy, Banana Republic, and The Gap (all under the same umbrella) have coupons as well as a loyalty program. These include a registration process for your register receipt that nets you an extra 10% off your next total purchase. Last year during the holidays, I got 3 extra $5 coupons good on any purchase.

Stationery and office supply stores offer coupon savings, dollar days, loyalty programs and an entire rebate center. Sign up for the programs is easy and secure, and once you’re signed up your savings begin. I’ve been receiving $25 off a $75 purchase at Staples on a regular basis. Each time I use the coupon, I’m mailed a new one.

Other retail outlets include: Golfsmith, Brookstone, Bye Bye Baby, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace, Truvalue, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical and Bed Bath & Beyond. In all of these cases you can and should buy the product when it’s on sale and then use the coupon. With Bed, Bath & Beyond they not only offer coupons but have a rebate sheet found behind the courtesy desk. Combine both the coupon and rebate for a fabulous savings.

I love eating out, but not as much as I love using a coupon to help pay for the meal.

Many chains offer coupons, distributed in a variety of ways. Probably the most widely used medium is the Sunday insert.

Splashed throughout the flyer are coupons for Olive Garden, Subway, Quiznos, McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Domino’s Pizza, Pizzeria Uno, TGI Friday’s and more. The discounts vary
from a BOGOF entrée to a free appetizer or dessert or a % off an entire meal. Just a note of caution: most of these coupons on not accepted at the highway version of these chains.

Some like IHOP offer free kids meals. Others like Panera Bread have a loyalty program for beverages. For every 8 beverages, the next is free. Some offer a senior discount too.

The internet is another source of restaurant coupons. By signing up for the various enewletters, alerts for discounts come through on a regular basis.

Virginia Ann Senyk sent email coupons for TGI Friday’s, which offers a loyalty program called ‘Stripes’. Other restaurant internet coupons boasted savings at:

• Quiznos
• Subway
• Wendy’s
• Taco Bell

Many local chains and restaurants have discounts too. Spiga, a locally owned restaurant, has a BOGOF lunch up to $11.00 from Monday to Thursday.

The Entertainment book offers many meal discounts. Some of the repeat offers can be printed off the internet once you own the book and sign up on the site. These savings vary from $5 off a meal to one free lunch or dinner entrée.

Two sites I found very helpful are www.idine.com and www.restaurant.com. These work in entirely different ways.

Idine gives a % back on your dining experience. Just sign up your credit card or cards, and you’ll start racking up the saving. The savings start at 5% and increase to 15% depending upon usage. Once again loyalty counts. The more you spend the higher your savings percentage.

Restaurant.com sells certificates. The regular cost is $10 for a $25 certificate or $20 for a $50 one. However, there are always sales of 70 to 80% off the $10 or $20 bringing the cost down to $3 or $2 for the $25 certificate or $6 or $4 for the $50. I find the best is to buy the gift certificates and use them as I want.

As an example, we celebrated Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Mark’s birthday at a restaurant in Manhattan. I found a $50 certificate off a $100 purchase, and we brought our own wine. For the 6 of us, our final cost was $53 or $8.50 per person (plus tax) for dinner. I think that was pretty darn good.
There are a few local restaurant web sites. The best is to try and google them for your local area. I find tastes better when I pay half price. I bet you will too.

Many retail outlets now offer discount coupons either online or part of a sale flyer. I love browsing through my paper to see all the savings and the variety of stores that have jumped on this money-saving bandwagon. Each week the sales change, and so do the coupons. So it pays to be patient and wait for that needed item.

A couple of months ago my printer started acting up. I decided to buy a new one, get the $50 recycle printer credit at Staples and wait for the best deal. I found the HP 6100 series on sale for $129. With my $50 recycle credit, and a $25 coupon, my final cost was $54.

Lord and Taylor is one of my favorite stores for 2 reasons. They always have sales and coupons, and I think they have the best petite department among all my stores. So with the 50% off the already reduced price I purchased 7 items: 6 tops and 1 pair of pants. For all the items combined with my 20% coupon I paid $93.

In my Sunday paper I found the following store flyers and print coupons:

• Bed Bath & Beyond
• Kohl’s
• Sports Authority
• Michaels
• Lord & Taylor
• Mavis
• Macy’s

By going online, I found an entire batch of others. Some printable and others to be used when ordering online. I was looking for Chicos and found an online discount. Same for Best Buy and Old Navy. The savings vary from free shipping to a percent off the total.

As a matter of fact, there are whole web sites dedicated to coupon codes that help save on online shopping. While some of these tasks may seem time consuming, it’s like everything else. Once you develop a few good places and become accustomed to using them, it only adds a minute or 2 onto your shopping experience. There are a some very good ones out there. A few of my favorites are:

• www.couponcabin.com
• www.retailmenot.com

But you can also google coupon codes and find a few other sites you might like as well.

Retail outlets have created another ingenious way to get you coming back to the store. It’s a sort of loyalty program

The other day at Petco I bought a new leash. At the bottom of the receipt was a short survey with a promise of a $2 coupon on your next purchase at Petco. I haven’t done the survey yet, but I will shortly and head back to Petco for another purchase.

I did reply to the survey at Old Navy. I was offered 10% off my entire purchase with a short and I do mean short, survey (maybe a minute or so). At the end of the survey is a code that gets written on the receipt for your next purchase and a 10% savings.

So check before you shop, a 10 or 20% savings can really add up.

Happy Holidays! Here are a few sales, coupon codes, discounts, special offers and more!

• Walmart Value of the day
• Other Walmart Sale Items
• Best Buy Deals
• Home Depot
• Macys in Store Savings pass
• Lord and Taylor in store savings pass
• Toys R Us Cyber Sale
• L.L. bean Free shipping plus Free $10 gift card
• L.L. Bean Sale Items
• Old Navy Savings Circular
• Gap Take $25% off today (December 7^th take 20% off and December 8^th Take 15% off)
• Godiva Enter Code “Merry” for free shipping on orders $60 or more
• Babys R Us Weekly Sale Circular
• Diapers.com get cash back on Diapers

Plus a few more!

• Additional Diapers.com Sale items
• Amazon.com daily deals
• B&H Photo holiday offers
• Saks 5^th Avenue Deals
• Williams Sonoma $20 off cookware
• American Apparel Free HolidayGift When you spend $175
• Footlocker 25% with coupon code IPFLFFTD
• Kenneth Cole Sale Items
• Ralph Lauren Sale

As part of my union health coverage I’m entitled to eyeglasses every 2 years with a value of $100.00. Since I now wear reading glasses this was perfect.

I checked my health brochure for local participating optometrists. Quite a few were listed including Pearl Vision and Vision World. Both included the eye exam and I chose Vision World on the recommendation of my friend Eileen.

I took the exam, and found that I also needed glasses for distance, To solve the problem 2 possibilities were available. I could get bifocals that had both options (reading and distance) but there would be a visible line. If I wanted to avoid the line I could get progressives lenses.

With my $100 certificate, the progressive lenses were an additional $250.

At home I found a Pearl Vision coupon in a Sunday flyer offering Progressive lenses for $150, but they would not accept my insurance certificate as part of the payment.

I made the following decision. My distance vision is barely affected. I really just wanted the reading glasses and felt that in the future if I wanted to get a combination pair, I’d look for a special as in the case of Pearl.

I got my reading glasses, and realized how important being informed can be. Rather than being upset or disappointed because I had the $100 voucher, I felt I took the best advantage of the options available to me.

Over the years I have heard this request many times: Eliminate Coupons—Reduce Prices. It will never happen.

Manufacturers have an advertising budget that is used in many different ways. Television and radio commercials, newspaper advertisements and other promotions that include coupon distribution are all part of getting their product out there.

Television gives the product instant recognition as do radio and newspapers. But commercials are expensive, and that adds to the cost of the product. But, a coupon, although part of the advertising budget provides the shopper with a savings, the only money-saving form of media out there. Match that coupon to a store sale and you have a double savings.

For the manufacturer a coupon is a way to get you to try a product, and to keep you using that product. Savvy consumers take advantage of these discounts. After all you can’t take TV commercial to the supermarket and ask for a 20% discount. You can take coupons and get a 20-50% reduction each and every time you shop.

The idea might be to eliminate all forms of advertising; that would surely reduce prices. But with 50,000 to 75,000 products in the average market manufacturers use whatever tools available to get you to buy their product. It’s all part of our competitive system which is not likely to change.