Features of the PYP Website

As promised, I’m finally taking some time to list some of the features of the Pinching Your Pennies Website (PYP Website Link). There are some features that are not available on other sites. Personally, I use the Grocery Smarts and Pinching Your Pennies Websites together because each has different features that are useful to me. If you’re interested in seeing the Grocery Smarts Website, see the following link for an earlier post on it’s features: Grocery Smarts Features

When you first get to the PYP website, you’ll notice that the homepage contains a welcome as well as advertisements and other information. Across the top of the page, you’ll notice a menu containing different items. I’m going to take some time and explain each of these in a bit of detail for you. The site can be a bit confusing when you first get on to it, so hopefully this will help you understand what is out there and how it can be useful to you.

The first item on the menu is the HOME button. Obviously this will take you back to this first page at any time. If you’re navigating around and get lost, this can be useful to get yourself back to the “beginning” so to speak.

The second item on the menu is the FORUMS button. In addition to grocery stores, PYP also contains information on a lot of other items such as: welcomes, registering, grocery guides, online deals, deals at stores around town (such as ShopKo, Target, Walgreens, Walmart, etc.), and a whole lot of other things! There is so much information and you can find almost anything you are looking for. I’ve only looked at about half of it and been very impressed with the information I’ve found. I especially like the online deals and deals around town myself, I tend to use these two the most in my shopping. You’ll really have to browse around these forums to see what they have to offer you.

The third item on the menu is the PYP BLOG. This is a very useful blog where they sometimes explain different things that they think will be interesting to a lot of people. I’ve referenced this blog a few times in some of my posts. Items such as: How to file an online Walgreens rebate, Why using PYP is easier and better than other similar websites, etc. have been ones I’ve found useful and used in my posts to share. This is not something that is updated every day, but does contain useful information.

The fourth item on the menu is SCREAMING DEALS BY STATE (OR STATE FORUMS). This is where you find all of the grocery deals at stores for a specific state. If you click on this menu item, you can see that each state has it’s own sub-forum. Since the PYP website was actually started by 2 ladies here in Utah, the Utah forum is obviously contains the most and is the most visited. But I know that there are other states where PYPers are starting to provide information on sales and other items. Once you click on the state, such as Utah, you will see the forum items listed. For Utah, there is a small upper box containing other miscellaneous information such as: Getting Started in Utah, Utah off-topic/fun stuff/ help, and Local referrals – Utah. These provide information not related to groceries per say, but useful in other areas. Below that first box is a listing of the threads for the forum. This is where you find your grocery lists for certain stores. Usually, you can scroll down and find the thread for the store and dates you are interested in. When you click on the link, it pulls up the forum and the first post contains the information on the sale for that store during that time frame. There is usually a link to the list, which when you click on the link, it will take you to another window containing the list. As I mentioned in the Grocery Smarts post, this list is exactly the same as the one on their website. You will notice sometimes that when you click on thread, you will see 2 links: One might say that it is a link to the Grocery Smarts or Printable list, the other says it is a link to the old style list, which is the PYP version. The Grocery Smarts and PYP administrators work together to provide these lists to us, so they often reference one another on their sites. Unlike the GS lists, the PYP lists can’t be shrunk or printed with just the items you want (see the Grocery Smarts Post for further explanation). The one benefit to using the PYP lists is all of the posts and comments from the administrators and other PYP users. Sometimes additional deals not in the ad will be posted or other coupons will be listed that weren’t available to the administrator or at the beginning of the sale. I find it very useful to scroll through these regularly to pick up useful information during the sales.

The fifth item on the menu is the COUPON LIST. I just recently started using this menu item and I love it! When you click on the menu item, it takes you to another screen with a scroll box. If you scroll down to your state and click the go button, you will see a complete listing of coupons available in that state. Now you’re asking yourself, how can this be useful? Well, say you’re still working on getting stocked on things, so you run out of a particular item. You decide you can’t wait for that item to go on sale, so you decided to head to the store to pick up 1 or 2 to have in the meantime. The first thing that usually comes to my mind at this point is: “Is there a coupon out there for this item so that I might be able to save at least a little bit when I pick it up?” Well, instead of pulling out your coupons and looking through everything for a coupon for this item, which may or may not exist, you can just come to this page and scroll down to the item (they are all listed alphabetically) and see if there is one that exists. Takes about 30 seconds and well worth the time savings! This coupon list contains listing of paper as well as online coupons, so it’s very complete. The only drawback to this menu item is that the coupon lists are only available for a handful of states. They are adding more states all the time, so hopefully the state you are in is either listed or will be shortly.

The sixth item on the menu is COUPONS 101. This is a basic explanation of how to use coupons, use them effectively, getting organized, experiences, tips, shopping online, shopping around town, etc. If you’re new to the system, this can give you a bunch of information to help you get started. Even if you’ve been doing this for a while, I would recommend reading this section just in case There are always useful tips and such you can pick up.

The seventh item on the menu is the GROCERY GUIDE. This is a section done by someone other than PYP and is very similar to the grocery lists you find under the Screaming Deals by State menu item. It does have more stores, but the format is not very user friendly and I don’t tend to like it much. That’s just a personal preference, so feel free to use it if it fits your style better. The coupon links are very hard to use and aren’t always complete.

The eighth item on the menu is REGISTER HERE. This is where you register to be a member of PYP. For a while, I was just a guest user on PYP and didn’t have any issues. After a couple of weeks, I decided I wanted to be a member and signed up. It was completely easy and free! I believe you can view the forums and such for a while for free, but after a while you might start to get messages about not being able to view things because you aren’t a member. There are other uses to being a member too, you can post different comments on the forums for deals you find and want to share with others or post other comments. Honestly, I haven’t regretted being a member one time and recommend it to everyone who plans to use the site.

The final item on the menu is CONTACT US. This is self explanatory, but if you find you need to the contact the PYP administrators, it contains information on how to get a hold of them.

I hope this helps you become familiar with the PYP website a bit more. To really understand all of what’s available, you really have to play around and see what you can find. If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this post or email me at jjzhawks@hotmail.com and I’ll try to answer your question. Have fun!