NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — By day, Richard Colosimo of Niagara Falls is a financial crimes investigator at M&T Bank. But for fun, Colosimo is a couponer.
"In 2020, I saved $8,000. I saved enough to put the down-payment on this house," he said.
Not only that, but he has a stockpile of paper products, cleaning supplies and personal care items in his basement that he bought for nearly nothing, or even got for free by using coupons, that he gives away to charities and homeless shelters.
"I love being able to help people," he said.
Colosimo also helps by sharing his tips, and his daily coupon finds, on his Facebook page, Couponing With Richard. He'll post multiple times a day with deals he finds online and in stores in Western New York, along with exact links and instructions on how to stack savings using Ibotta, Rakuten and other rebate sites.
Colosimo said he started couponing as a teenager, when he was being raised by his grandparents on a fixed income, and he wanted extra cash for spending.
"I think I started saving $20, and now I have gotten entire shopping trips for free," he said. "There are ways to do it, you just need to know how."
He also says the way he coupons nowadays has changed.
"It's come from 80 percent paper coupons and 20 percent digital coupons. And that's really flip-flopped. I would say 70 percent digital now and 30 percent paper."
The first thing he does weekly is comb through the ads in the newspaper and then combine the paper coupons with digital coupons. He does that by making his shopping list, and Googling each item to search for a coupon. He says Wegmans and Tops will double those coupons up to $1.
Colosimo says shoppers should also sign up for loyalty programs through their grocery store and everywhere else they shop. Downloading their app can also give you access to specific coupons or savings.
Colosimo uses the store's app to scan each and every item before he puts it in his cart to find digital coupons in the store.
"There's usually a barcode scanner right on the app. Just click the barcode scanner and scan your barcode," he said. "Wegmans, Tops, Dollar General- all of your big name retailers have digital coupons right in their app."
Next he suggests downloading cashback apps like Ibotta, Fetch Rewards and Checkout 51. These rebate apps can give you cash back and you can upload receipts for even more rewards.
"Ibotta is a great one. That's a rebate app, which also allows you to use a coupon with it. So if you're going to Tops, buy something for $1, you have a 50 cent coupon, and you get $1 back from Ibotta, you can stack those. There's nothing saying that you can't," he explained. "Rakuten pays you cash back for your online shopping. Everywhere from Walmart, to Best Buy, to Target, to Home Depot, to Lowes, to 1-800-Flowers, almost everything online will give you some sort of cash back."
Another tip is to try browser extensions like Honey, Coupon Cabin, and Retailmenot Deal Finder. They finds promo codes and coupons when you shop online.
Colosimo also says shoppers should not be afraid to ask for savings.
"Almost every company has a "contact us" form. A lot of companies will just simply mail you coupons. Chobani mails me coupons every month. DiGiorno, too. Actual brand name companies will just mail you coupons because you ask for them," he said.
He also asks for price-matching at the register to stack savings.
"People don't realize you can walk right into Target and go, 'Walmart has this for $8 cheaper.' They'll price match it right at the register and then you can hand them a coupon. And if you use the Target Red Card you get extra savings."
Colosimo is a coupon pro. But an average couponer, like Sara Cole, a wife and mother of two teenage boys from East Aurora, uses many of his tips and saves $40 to $50 each month. Cole says she finds it difficult to save on meat and produce, so she focuses on couponing for household and beauty items. The apps in which you upload your receipts for cashback are her favorites.
This is how Cole does it:
"First, before I go shopping I make sure that I scan my stores app (Tops/Wegmans/CVS/BJ's) to see if they have any digital coupons that I could possibly use. I select all that I may want. I also quickly scan Ibotta, Checkout 51 and Coupons.com apps to see if they have any rebates/digital coupons I am interested in and select those.
"Once my shopping is complete and I am back home, I scan my receipts into the many receipt apps I have. These include Fetch, Coinout, Receipt Hog, ReceiptPal and ReceiptJar. These can all be used together and I will receive points for my receipts across all these apps. Points vary for each app, but once you reach a certain amount they can be redeemed towards either a gift card or on some apps may be deposited directly as cash into PayPal or your bank account.
"Fetch is by far the best of the receipt apps as they will reward you with bonus points for buying certain items and I can reach a reward faster.
"I like to use my Fetch rewards to redeem for CVS gift cards. When I have a 40% off coupon I will purchase household/personal products that are essential and use the coupon and gift card to pay. This gets me these basic items for free and I can utilize my grocery/household budget on the food that is good for us," said Cole.
Western New Yorkers often debate which grocery store has better prices, Tops or Wegmans.
Colosimo says with normal prices Wegmans is cheaper, but with proper couponing, he finds Tops to have better deals than Wegmans, especially because he can save on gas when filling up his tank at Tops. Couponing at Tops earns gas points, and every 100 gas points is 10 cents off per gallon.