While adding value to pennies and selling them is a good baby step to get the Penny Experiment started, this approach alone will make it difficult to reach the goal of $1 million in food for food banks. Just as I needed to add value to the pennies and the leverage that to raise money to spend on food, I will also need to leverage each and every dollar I spend to get the most that I can from each.
In other words, I would need to raise $1 million if I went and purchased all the food at retail prices. If I shop smart and buy the food when it goes on sale, I might be able to buy the food for half price meaning that I would only need to raise $500,000 to purchase $1 million in food. If I use coupons in addition to sale prices, I may be able to save even more money meaning I can reach the goal of purchasing $1 million worth of food for far less.
The problem is that I’m not really a coupon expert. I know some of the basic strategies because of my personal finance writing, but I have never used coupons, sales and rebates to significantly reduce the cost of food. To increase the chances of Penny Experiment succeeding, that is something that I will have to do.
I have asked Flash who writes the Grocery Coupon Guide blog to help teach me how to purchase food for pennies on the dollar. My hope is to get anywhere from $5 to $10 worth of food for every $1 I spend at the store.
To be able to take the best advantage of the deals out there, I need to have coupons to do so. The more I have, the more deals I will be able to take advantage of. I am already picking up coupons left and right at every opportunity I have, but the more coupons I can get, the better chance I will be able to take advantage of grocery store sales to reduce the amount that the food costs, and ultimately the more I can give to the food bank for every dollar I spend.
I have a big request for anyone that feels that Penny Experiment is worthwhile. If you have coupons that you are not going to use, could you please send them to me instead of throwing them away? Any and all coupons are welcome and I will use as many as I can to leverage every dollar I spend. Please also tell anyone else that you know who might be able to help out. It would be greatly appreciated.
Even better, any coupon that I don’t use will still not go to waste. All coupons that I can’t use for this project I will send overseas so that military families can use them.
If you have coupons that you don’t need and are willing to send them to help out the Penny Experiment, please send them to:
Penny Experiment
10470 Orange Ave
Cupertino, CA 95014
Thank you for taking the time to read this far and your consideration of my request. Feel free to ask any questions or leave any comments you may have.
