Help troops overseas, send them coupons

The next time you are staring at a pile of expired coupons you’ve sorted and thinking it is such a waste to throw them all away, I’d like to suggest an alternative. Send them to troops stationed overseas.

I learned about the program “Coupons for Troops” last year and have sent a couple of packets of coupons over time to a couple of different charitable programs to send to families that need them overseas. And yes, coupons do help military families when they are stationed overseas. The prices in overseas commissaries are significantly higher than those in the U.S. and military families do not always have access to coupons in newspapers and inserts. Those of us, even in Alaska that doesn’t get many coupons, can help by sending any coupons we don’t use to military families who will.

Yes, expired coupons can be donated, and most times that is the bulk of what people send. In a way it’s recycling. You can’t use expired coupons here, they can use them there, so why not send them?

Why are expired coupons accepted? There is a six-month lag for coupon redemption from overseas military bases (for obvious reasons), so manufacturers have a six month “forgiveness” on expired coupons for any military stationed overseas. Since this is the case, the commissaries overseas accept coupons six months past their expiration date. To give families time to actually use the coupons, however, most programs ask that you only send coupons up to three months past their expiration date.

Only manufacturer coupons can be used, however. Any coupon marked with a store logo tends to not be accepted and no store coupons can be used.

There are various resources to learn more about this program. For one, you can sign up with “The Happy Housewife” (who started “Coupons for Troops” back in 2008) and she will send you the name and address of a family stationed overseas. You then send coupons either quarterly or monthly to that family that can use them. For more information, or to sign up for the program, you can check out “The Happy Housewife’s” blog post on the matter at thehappyhousewife.com/donate-expired-coupons-to-military-families-overseas.

Another great web resource that has been donating coupons to overseas troops for a long time now is the “Overseas Coupon Program” (ocpnet.org). This site does tend to have downtime due to the fact it is run by volunteers with families, so please be patient when waiting for a reply.

As a side note, if you are worried about the cost of shipping coupons overseas, don’t worry. The postal service waives fees when you are shipping to an overseas military address, so it is just like shipping coupons in the United States.

Erika Buswell runs a blog dedicated to coupons and deals in Alaska (alaskanbargainhunter.blogspot.com) and lives in Palmer with her husband and two children.