Best Coupons and Deals
Being completely honest- my family are cavemen (cave people). We like meat. Chicken, beef, pork – it’s on our menu almost every night. We do have meat less meals to help reduce the cost- but we like meat and that’s why we strategically shop: To buy the items we like by saving on the items we need.
That said, meat is expensive. So one topic I am asked about quite often is “How to save money on meat”.
I think that this is one product 99.9999% of shoppers buy at some point each week/month. Of course there are alternatives (corn cob anyone?) But I think that most of us prefer the convenience (and feel) of toilet paper.
The problem comes in when we have regular rolls, double rolls, mega rolls, single ply, 2 ply and cashmere (just kidding about the last one- maybe- who knows what they will come out with next!)
The problem comes in when we need to know “Is this a good price?“. There are two ways to make that determination: per sq foot and per single roll.
Reminder: if this deal is something you want to do you HAVE to start tomorrow Tuesday 2/19. If you don’t get the next 6 weeks worth of tickets you will not get the $20 coupon to use on groceries. This deal is not for everyone. Personally I plan to get much of my birthday and Christmas gifts done using this promo! Plus it lets me spread out my spending on gifts!
So I am really excited about this promotion at Food Lion because I can turn gift cards into free groceries.
For the next 6 weeks Food Lion is running a promo: Each week when you spend $40 in one transaction you will get a Shop.Collect.Earn ticket. Collect 6 of 7 tickets (this started last week so you will have to do this every week for the next 6 weeks) and get a $20 coupon to use on groceries.
This is what I have done the last 2 weeks:
Buy $40 (or more) in gift cards. (Food Lion gift cards will not count towards the $40).
I felt safer having one non-gift card item in my cart when I ran this deal. Gift cards are non-refundable and non-returnable so I wanted to be 100% sure that my catalina printed for my week.
Collect that week’s ticket.
We had a Free Coupon Class yesterday and one thing I always try to tell people is that your budget may go UP before it goes down. Many times when this happens- people quit trying to strategically shop because they think “Hey- I’m spending MORE than I was- obviously this doesn’t work!” And they go back to their old ways.
The reason why it goes up first is that they have no stockpile- so they are buying the items to create a stockpile PLUS buying what they “need” to feed their family (and keep them clean) for the week.
There is a way to keep that from happening but it takes discipline and effort. This is my suggestion for not seeing your budget go up too much while starting out. And if itdoesgo up anyway- analyze why and make adjustments.
One of the most common issues I am asked about is “What do I do when my cashier refuses my coupon? Can they do that?”
The answer to the first part is “It Depends” and the second part is “Probably”.
It’s important to understand that most cashiers are not anti-coupon. But in our Coupon journeys will we all interact with some who see couponers as people trying to get something for nothing (and we ARE!) but they see it as scamming or they just don’t understand how it works. So are are my tips for dealing with a cashier who just doesn’t want you to get that deodorant for free! Sometimes they are just afraid of coupons because the store has cracked down on cashier who were/are accepting coupons inappropriately. Regardless of the reason here are my tips for avoiding leaving the store empty handed and angry.
When I saw this coupon I honestly (sadly) wasn’t surprised! In a red box in red letters it says “Cashier- Please verify purchase. Use of this coupon without proper purchase constitutes fraud.”
This coupon is very specific about which Crest 3D WhiteStrips the coupon is valid for use on. P&G has added lots of verbiage to their coupons to specify how their coupons are to be use:
One of the biggest issues we face as couponers, is what do we do when our store is out of a product?
Often we have two choices: a raincheck or a substitution. Both have their pros and cons.
Using our coupons to maximize our savings sometimes takes a little bit of math.
Keri sent over this tip: She was looking to use the 50¢ off Mahatma Rice Coupon from the RP 1/27
She noticed that the 1 lb bag of Watermaid was $1.29 and the Mahatma Rice was $2.59 for 2 lbs.
So my friend knows that I think using ebay is a bad idea when it comes to obtaining coupons (I promise not to rant about that today- we’ll save that for later- and as much as I love her I won’t ask her why she is looking at coupons on ebay!) and so she sends me a link to the above listing:
(10) 50¢ Tropicana 12 oz Mini Bottles expiring 6/2013.
The current bid was up to $6.16 plus 45¢ shipping…..Let me do a little math here…
50¢ times 10 coupons = $5.00 = value of the coupons
The current bid is $6.16…that’s MORE than the value of the coupons!
Even if you count in using it at a store that doubles or triples and EVEN if you get 10 of those 12 oz bottles FREE, that is 120 oz for $6.61…..I try to spend under $2.50 for a gallon of OJ so they are paying twice as much for LESS orange juice than we’d even consider a decent price!
So my point, sadly the people who are bidding on these coupons (again not starting my normal rant on how buying coupons is NOT a good idea) are not thinking about the fact that they are going to go shopping and say ‘I got these bottle of OJ FREE!” when in fact they just spent WAAAAYYYYY to much money on just a little bit of OJ.
Aim to spend less, not save more. What do you think are these ebay shoppers getting a good buy?
We’ve had a lot of new friends join us lately and I’ve been getting questions about how to start so here is my Couponing 101 Guide. I am currently working on videos to accompany each of these but hopefully this gives you a place to start!
Strategic Couponing 101
