Tired of trying to arrange your schedule around the days your favorite store is having a big sale, or when the weekly circular starts? Can’t seem to find time to get to the store before your coupons expire?

Instead of missing out on big coupons and sales, what if coupons and sales could put themselves on your calendar, and tell you exactly when you have the time to fit them into your busy schedule?

That’s the aim of the latest coupon-related patent application. IBM’s proposal, entitled “Optimization of Redeemable Offers Based on User Available Calendar Dates“, would do just what the title suggests – organize coupons and offers for you, based on your calendar and when you’re available to shop.

“Where once store circulars, newspapers, and TV advertisements were the norm for redeemable offer communications, users are now bombarded with a plethora of digital advertising campaigns that fill their e-mail inboxes, overload their senses, or otherwise overwhelm the user’s ability to sort through all of the promotions that are actually relevant to them,” the patent documentation reads. “Identifying the best deals that match with a user’s available calendar days to shop for the product or products in questions may be near impossible for a user.”  Read more from Coupons in the News here.

Target will once again be offering Two-day Free Shipping with No Minimum Purchase Beginning Nov. 1 – no REDcard required (although that extra 5% is nice) and expand services like same-day delivery and curbside pickup to more stores for the holidays.  Read the entire Bloomberg article here.

If you’re a fan of saving money on natural and organic products, you may be a fan of Mambo Sprouts, the website and marketing company whose mission is “making healthy living affordable for everyone” via print-at-home, direct-mail and in-store coupons, budget-friendly wellness tips and more.

But you may have noticed that things have recently slowed down at Mambo Sprouts. They’ve become a lot less active on social media, and the printable coupons have vanished from the Mambo Sprouts website.

Turns out Mambo Sprouts is moving away from coupons and savings, in a move that the CEO explains is partly economic, and partly personal. The entire article from Coupons in the News can be read here.

While supplies last (they’re going fast) get the Free 20190 Perdue Recipe Calendar. . You don’t have to sign up for emails or newsletters.

The cost of doing business is rising, so the prices of some products from one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies are rising as well. But at least Procter & Gamble offers plenty of coupons to help offset those higher prices, right?

Oh, about that…

P&G has announced that it’s raising prices on more of its popular products, while simultaneously acknowledging that it’s cutting back on coupons. But whether any those changes stick, remains to be seen.  For more from Coupons in the News, click here.

Griping about self-checkout machines has become as cliche as complaining about airline food or snarking about those “Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law” tags on mattresses. Yet, as though we’ve been transported back to the 1990’s, some people still feel compelled to do it. “Self-checkouts are so annoying! Why would I want to bag my own groceries? Unexpected item in the bagging area! Amirite, folks?!”

Yet it appears that self-checkouts have quietly become more popular than ever.

A new survey of grocery professionals finds that the percentage of shoppers using self-checkout is the highest it’s ever been. Among the many insights in the Food Marketing Institute’s newest annual “The Food Retailing Industry Speaks” report is this little nugget: “Consumer self-checkout usage gained slightly to 15 percent of transactions, which marked a new high for this activity”.  Read entire article from Coupons in the News here.

Whether it’s because shoppers are so good at seeking them out, or retailers are so inclined to offer them, a new study says we’ve officially gotten to the point that “deals are an expectation rather than a gift”.

The study, based on a survey conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of the online couponing company RetailMeNot, found that two-thirds of shoppers will either not buy anything without a discount or will look for discounts before they even begin shopping. Savings are “influencing every decision they make,” the study said.  Read the entire article from Coupons in the News here.

Fascinating article about extracting fuel from spent Dunkin’ Donuts coffee grounds to completely power this tiny house in Nahant, Massachusetts, which includes a full kitchen and jacuzzi!  Rent it for two nights for $10 a night from Airbnb.  Read the entire article here.

If you’ve saved up a stash of Shop Your Way Rewards points at Sears or Kmart, now might be a good time to start using them.

Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection shortly before 1am Monday. The company plans to sell “a large portion of the Company’s store base” while it begins store closing sales at 142 other as-yet unidentified “unprofitable stores”.

“The Company expects to move through the restructuring process as expeditiously as possible and is committed to pursuing a plan of reorganization in the very near term,” Sears said in a statement shortly after the filing. “The Company intends to continue payment of employee wages and benefits, honor member programs, and pay vendors and suppliers” through the bankruptcy process – assuming it manages to come out of the process intact.

The entire article here.

The whole idea of personalized coupons is to offer you discounts that are likely to appeal to you. And the better the retailer knows you, the more relevant the coupon offers can be.

So, taken to its logical conclusion, the most appealing coupon offers could come if the retailer knows you really, really well – maybe a little too well.

Continuing its recent run of coupon-related patent applications, IBM is proposing a system that will analyze you as you walk into a store, immediately assess what you’re likely to buy, and offer you personalized discounts accordingly.