I find the same thing to be true. Here are a few of my strategies.
1. Ask for things I really want for gifts.
2. Join every scrapbooking store mailing list. For example, I am on the Archiver's mailing list and every month we get a coupon for something free, like 5 sheets of paper, a hot spot item or this month we got $3.00 to be used on anything!
3. Join freecycle. You can pm me for more info, but there seems to be a lot of people always getting rid of scrapbooking stuff on there.
4. Make friends with a creative memories consultant
5. This one's not free, but my Michael's every week has a 50% or 40% off one item coupon. I ususally by something that's a dollar or less.