Take a look through your receipts from the previous month, chances are all of your purchases came from just a few stores, whether it be the Wal-Mart down the street, Home Depot, your favorite fast food restaurant, or the gas station on the way to work. It’s amazing how just a few different places get so much of our money. Since these places get so much of our money, it would be really nice to be able to get some sort of deal when we go there. Companies are usually unlikely to give you a discount because you go there very often, but there is a way you can create your own discount system.

Even though these are the stores that you frequent on a regular basis, this might not be true for everyone else. Personally, I love McDonalds, but there are some people who absolutely hate it and can’t stand the food. If I had a friend who hated McDonalds, do you think they would care if I got the coupon for McDonalds out of the local paper, or a free McDonalds gift certificate their grandmother gave them? In most cases, they’ll just give it to you. But what if they were able to score all sorts of great coupons and had no use for them, then what would they do? Often times people will put very excellent coupons on eBay, and you can stuff that you would have purchased any way for a great discount.

Open a new tab in your web-browser, and go on over to eBay. Type in the name of your favorite retailer, and then type in the word coupon. For example, I cannot get enough McDonalds, so when McDonalds was doing their monopoly promotion, a lot of people had extra “free food coupons” I was able to get my favorite bacon, egg, and cheese bagels which are normally $3.20 with tax, for about 99 cents each! I ordered 6 free breakfast sandwich coupons at for about $5 + $1 shipping. It wasn’t a bad deal at all! This works for practically an store that you frequent though.

There are a few things that you should look out for when doing this though. A lot of coupons are regional so be sure that the coupons you are buying will work in the stores near you. Also check the person’s eBay reputation before clicking “buy it now”. Often times people who don’t have a reputation are selling counterfeit coupons, so make sure you are buying from someone with an established reputation.