Fifteen years, and then the mail stopped

For about fifteen years, Sunday Coupon Inserts was a very big part of my life.

Every week, we mailed coupon inserts to people all over the country who wanted more coupons than they could find in their own Sunday paper.

Some of you were there with me.

You had the binders. The scissors. The envelopes. The grocery lists. You knew which stores doubled coupons. You knew when detergent was actually a good deal. And you probably had a very strong opinion about how much anyone should ever pay for toothpaste.

It was a whole thing.

And then, slowly at first and much faster toward the end, it changed.

The Sunday-paper coupon world we had all built our routines around was shrinking fast. The long-running P&G BrandSaver newspaper insert ended its original run after January 2023, and SmartSource disappeared from Sunday papers in 2025.

Paper coupons did not vanish altogether. You can still find printable offers, coupons on products, direct-mail offers and occasional inserts.

But the big, predictable newspaper-insert system that Sunday Coupon Inserts was built around was no longer what it had been.

We all felt that happening before the industry numbers confirmed it.

There were fewer inserts. The deals were different. Grocery prices kept climbing. The old routines stopped working the way they used to.

Eventually it became pretty clear:

The couponing world we had built Sunday Coupon Inserts around wasn’t coming back in the same form.

And for a while, I wasn’t sure Sunday Coupon Inserts should come back either.

I wasn’t planning to start this again

After that many years in the coupon world, I was ready to do some other things.

I didn’t immediately think, “Great. Time to reinvent Sunday Coupon Inserts.”

But people kept asking me the same kinds of questions.

• Where did all the coupons go?
• Is couponing even worth it anymore?
• How did my normal grocery trip get this expensive?
• What’s actually a good price now?
• What am I supposed to be doing instead?

And those questions stuck with me.

Because people still wanted help saving money.

They just didn’t need the same kind of help they needed fifteen years ago.

So no, I don’t want to bring the old Sunday Coupon Inserts back.

I do think there is something useful we can build in its place.

So what is Sunday Coupon Inserts now?

It’s still about helping you keep more of your money.

We’re just doing it differently.

We’re not going to ask you to spend Sunday afternoon chasing 37 deals across six stores. There are already plenty of places that are very good at finding deals.

I’m much more interested in what happens after you spot a sale.

• Is $2.99 actually a good price?
• Should you buy one or six?
• Are you stocking up on something you’ll actually use?
• Are you buying it because you need it, or because the sale makes it feel too good to pass up?
• Why did you spend $200 on groceries and somehow still have nothing for dinner?
• Did that warehouse membership really save you anything?
• Did all those “deals” actually lower your grocery bill?

Those are the kinds of questions we’re building Sunday Coupon Inserts around now.

So you’ll find calculators, printables, guides and simple systems here to help you make better decisions without spending hours chasing savings or trying to figure it all out.

Because saving money should save you money, not take over your week.

Also, we’re not going to scold you about your grocery bill

This matters to me.

Groceries really did get more expensive.

The coupon landscape really did change.

A lot of the tricks that worked ten or fifteen years ago don’t work the same way anymore.

So if you’ve looked at your grocery receipt lately and thought, How on earth did we spend that much?, you’re in very good company.

Sometimes there will be an easy place to cut $20.

Sometimes we can help you spot something you’re buying out of habit that really isn’t worth it anymore.

Sometimes you’ll discover you’re already doing pretty well.

All of those are useful answers.

The goal isn’t to become perfect at grocery shopping.

The goal is to spend a little more intentionally, waste a little less and keep more of your money for the things you actually care about.

Not every problem needs a spreadsheet and a 47-step plan.