A Tale of Two Cities (City Newspapers, That Is): Why Don’t All Newspapers Have the Same Inserts?

You all know that I am a couponer. I pick up several copies of the Sunday paper- usually 3-5 copies depending on how much I like the coupons that week. When I first started buying multiple copies of the paper, I bought The Intelligencer. The Intelligencer is a local paper that serves the northern parts of my county. I started to become extremely frustrated on a regular basis.

Here’s what was happening: I would find a good coupon matchup online. I dug through my inserts and found the correct one. I would page through the insert once, twice, three times: the coupon that I was searching for was NOT in my insert. OR, the coupon that WAS in my insert was for a different value than the one noted in the matchup. Perhaps the matchup listed a $.75/1 coupon. That’s a great coupon because my grocery store will double it to $1.50. Much to my dismay, I would find that the coupon in MY paper was for $1/2. Wowee- $.50 off of two products and no doubling.

What gives?

The bigger the city, the better the coupons. Remember that. If I wanted to find the best coupons in my area, I would have to buy one of the Philadelphia papers, NOT the local paper. Great, I was set. I stopped buying The Intelligencer and started buying the Philadelphia Inquirer. It was a blissful 6 or 7 months.

Then Red Plum decided (moronically) to pull their weekly coupon inserts OUT of the Philadelphia Inquirer. ARGGHHHHH!!!!

For the past couple of months, I have refused to buy two different papers. But either way, I’m losing: if I buy the Inquirer, I don’t get a Red Plum. If I buy The Intelligencer I get the Red Plum, but sacrifice the better coupons.

I knew that last week’s (3/7) inserts were going to be good ones- especially as the rumors of Kmart Super Doubles are starting to solidify. So you know what I did? I bought 4 copies of EACH paper. For once and all, I wanted to see what the differences really were… and wanted to share them with you of course. Now keep in mind, these are Philadelphia area papers… HOWEVER, this story is the same everywhere– bigger cities get better coupons.

So here we go- a picture tutorial of Big City vs. Small Town coupon inserts:

Right away, note the coupon values on the front page. That should tip you off that there are definitely differences.

Big city paper: $564 in savings

Small town paper: $278

Let’s take a look at the inserts in each paper. You’ll notice that the big city paper is missing my precious Red Plum insert.

The Big City paper doesn’t have the Red Plum insert, so we obviously can’t compare that one. The Proctor and Gamble inserts are exactly the same in each paper.

Alright, let’s dive into that SmartSource insert, shall we?

Only a couple of pages in, the coupons start to differ. Big City paper offers a $1/1 coupon for Hebrew National Beef Franks. Small Town paper is missing that one.

Same story on this page- my Small Town paper does not offer any Oscar Mayer coupons while the Big City paper has two.

And here’s one more… the Big City paper has this great $1.50 Lysol coupon, Small Town paper- nothing. This coupon is a great one for Kmart Doubles- it will definitely lead to a free or very cheap product.

All in all, my Small Town paper was missing 22 coupons that the Big City paper contained. They were:

Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh Meats $1/2

Oscar Mayer Cold Cuts $1/2

Jergens Natural Glow $1/1

Jergens Moisturizer $1/1

Ban Deodorant $ .75/1

Ban $.40/1

Curel Lotion $1/1

Biore BOGO

John Frieda $3/1 and $2/1

Bic Soleil $2/1

GE light bulb $1/1

Colgate Toothpaste $.35/1

Airwick: $1/1 $4/1 $4/1 $5/1

Lysol Neutra Air Spray $1.50/1

Resolve $1/1 x 2

Air wick Aqua Mist $1/1

Finish Electrasol $1/1

So, that’s the deal. And I’m still left in a quandary. Do I buy 2 papers each week, as ridiculous as that sounds? I’m not too worried about the money aspect- I more than make up for money spent on papers with coupon savings. But still, it’s a pain. I really don’t WANT to buy two papers. But either way, I would miss out on something: either the better coupons or the entire Red Plum insert.

In any case, hopefully this will help you get to the bottom of coupons and how they differ from paper to paper. If you have access to a Big City paper that hasn’t yet had the Red Plum pulled, that’s probably going to be your best bet.

What do you think? How do you decide what papers to buy?