I read somewhere that we can send our expired coupons to wives in the military. Does anyone know of an address where to mail them to?
By Rhetta Domingue from Lumberton, MS
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Overseas military bases will accept coupons up to 6 months after their expiration date. It takes several weeks for the coupons to be processed before they reach the hands of military personnel. Only manufacturer's coupons, no coupons that have been printed from the internet, and no 'in store' coupons.
This website should have all the information you will need:
www.grocerysavingtips.com/
Just the other day the Everyday Cheapskate newsletter had some information on this:
Dear Mary,
I heard that you can send expired coupons to military families because they still can use them on the base. Do you know if this is true? If it is, how can we go about sending these coupons if we don't personally know a military family, but want to help? Lori W., email
Dear Lori,
What you hear is true, but only overseas military base commissaries accept expired manufacturer's coupons up to six months past the printed expiration date. Don't start sending willi-nilly. Only certain bases are set up to receive coupons. There's an organization run completely by volunteers, called the Overseas Coupon Program (ocpnet.org). This website will give you all the information to adopt a specific military base that needs and wants your coupons. It will tell you what to send, what not to send and how to send. Even the smallest donation of manufacturer's coupons will make a difference in the lives of many military families serving our country overseas. Just imagine if every EC reader jumped on board and adopted a military base. Together we could make a big impact!
www.couponstotroops.com/
Some suggestions are checking with your local veterans organizations (such VFW, American Legion, Marine Corps League) or any service organization (Lions Club, Rotary, Kiwanis, Moose Club, DAR, etc) to see if they are currently running any coupon collecting projects where you can physically drop off the coupons to them.
If you cannot find a project in your area, then you can talk to your friends and neighbors, co-workers, to see if they know of any military families stationed overseas who might want to be on the receiving end of coupons and you can mail directly to them.
Remember that it costs the same amount of money to send coupons directly overseas as it does to send to a local group, so if you're going to be mailing, you might as well just mail direct, otherwise the group doing the collecting is paying postage for a 2nd time for the same batch of coupons.
HI! For those interested in helping military families overseas. I am a military wife stationed in Italy and although you can send the coupons directly to the commissary I still have never heard or seen of these. I just found out about the use of expired coupons a few weeks ago. So, if any one is interested I could give my APO address to receive the coupons, and I sure could not use all of them I just have a family of 2, but I would disperse them between the ladies in my church (15-20 families) I know they would appreciate them and most of them have between 2-5 children.
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