FED UP with the coupon run around!

[usnuzuloose]

Have you thought about joining one of the coupon trains?

 

[aliceindisneyland]

It doesn't matter whether you eat a purely whole foods diet or eat junk food 3 meals a day - you can still save a lot of money with coupons. I just concentrate on the household items like shampoo, deodorant, paper towels...and get those for free or with overage most of the time. With the money I save on household items I can buy as much junk food or whole food as I like! The coupon matchup sites make it foolproof - what used to take me hours now takes about 10 minutes each Sun morning. I use Chrome - no problems with coupon sites/printing.

 

[Bete]

I really feel this a geographical issue. Some areas of the country coupons may still pay off, but other areas it's a waste of time and effort. The stores here have gotten very strict about it all.

I'm an Aldi fan and we are fine with generic brands at stores like Kroger.

At one time I felt the newspaper coupons were good, but it's been at least 4 years now since I felt this way. Our coupon flyer is mostly ads now with an occasional coupon of an item I don't buy usually.

I do make sure to buy whatever is on sale. If I can use a coupon I will, but it's just not as good that way as years before. I use expensive items sparingly. We do casseroles, soups, stews and so forth and we spare the meat and add more beans. I will buy clearance items and sometimes stock up on those items.

If you have your own home, I strongly recommend doing your own vegetable garden from seed. You get better vegetables and it's way cheaper. The catch it's a little work to keep a garden up. I do much of my gardening in pots and it takes me about an half hour a day to water and so forth. If I skip a day then the next day will be longer to catch up with it.

Make more foods from scratch and you will save money, too.

 

[bettymae1121]

I agree with the others, in my area there are zero coupons for fresh whole foods.

But I shop at a regional chain called Meijer and they have online digital coupons that you "clip" and redeem by entering your cell phone number at checkout, and they often have digital coupons for fresh produce, dairy, etc. I still don't use many as they aren't often for organic, but I do usually use at least a few per month.

Where I really save money at Meijer is their rewards program. It's digital too, and redeemed the same way. But how it works is that you pick 3 rewards per month, things like "Spend $50 in produce this month to earn $5 off your total purchase next month". I pick the categories I'm most likely to hit and between them I can earn $20 or more off of a purchase for the following month.

I also use coupons for household, health & beauty, etc. I did a stock up at Meijer this month for household items and between the rewards I'd earned from last month, Meijer's digital coupons, coupons from the paper and sale prices, I saved $70 and earned a $10 rebate plus a $3 "off your next purchase" coupon. I now have enough "female products" and razors for the next year, as well as stocking up in a few other areas. I don't do this well every trip, but I get about 1 trip a month where I'm saving 35% or more off the total.

 

[Marionnette]

Did anyone happen to catch the coupon lady on Rachel Ray today? She writes the couponing blog that I follow, so (like all of her fans) I was very excited to see the segment. You can catch the videos here:
http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/tips/17258_Could_You_Feed_Your_Family_for_Free/index.html

She was challenged to feed her family for a week for free. They showed her doing her shopping trip where her final total was in the negative numbers. In the next video, Rachel displayed the products that she bought for free and was surprised to see the number of healthy items on the table. And then Chef Ryan Scott took the grocery haul and cooked 21 meals from it. Very impressive!

A few things to note:

• Cindy (the couponing lady) admits that many of the fresh meats and produce were paid for by using Catalinas. Catalinas are the coupons that print out from the register than read "Save $X off your next order thank from <name a family of products>". She had obtained multiple Catalinas by using coupons, store e-coupons and a great sale to purchase a product which generated that kind of Catalina. Her OOP cost for the product was free after coupons, so the store basically paid her to take them off the shelf. Then she turned around and used those "Save $X OYNO" Catalinas to pay for fruit, vegetables and meat.
• She also shopped at a grocery store that "fully doubles" coupons with a face value up to 99¢. That can go a very long way to stretch your dollar.
• It should also be noted that Chef Ryan Scott cooked an awful lot of chicken thighs. This would be because that was what was on sale and what Cindy had coupons for. Most couponers would have frozen at least half of that chicken (if not more) and would have varied their diet much more by using other cuts of meat that they had in their freezers.
• Finally, you'll notice that it takes a lot of cooking from scratch in order to "feed your family for free". Even the lunches were cooked, as opposed to reheating leftovers or packing sandwiches. For most families, that wouldn't be practical.

 

[QVCshopper]

You also have to start using stores "extrabucks" or "register rewards" or whatever they are calling them. I got 3 candy bars and a bag of lollipops for my son's class for V-day for 48 cents (savings of 93%) and 3 bottles of Purex and another candy bar for 94 cents (savings of 97%). The transaction where I got the $6 was a $2 money maker at Walgreens.

 

[Jaime4004]

You also have to start using stores "extrabucks" or "register rewards" or whatever they are calling them. I got 3 candy bars and a bag of lollipops for my son's class for V-day for 48 cents (savings of 93%) and 3 bottles of Purex and another candy bar for 94 cents (savings of 97%). The transaction where I got the $6 was a $2 money maker at Walgreens.

Nice! I do a lot of couponing at CVS and get a lot of toiletries, cleaning products, etc for cheap or free. I only do CVS though the others look good too, it's just too much planning for me to do more than one drugstore.

I also do well with couponing groceries. There are definitely coupons for healthy food but you have to look for them. They don't always fall into your lap in the Sunday paper...

But what helps me the most is that one local store doubles up to $.99. It saves a lot of money. Usually brand names with sales and coupons are much cheaper than generics. I shop when there are good sales on the products I need, and I have coupons. This week i'm not shopping at all (except for milk and fruit which i'm out of) because there aren't any good deals but I have plenty of food from previous sales that we'll eat.

I save a good amount of $$ but it is a bit of work every week. And i'm not sure it would be as worth it, to me, if the store didn't double coupons.

 

[dpswift]

Around here coupons are just not that good. I do try to match coupons with sales and our local store will give bonus gas points for each coupon redeemed. The stores here also double up to .99cents however the coupons that we get are for either 20 cents off one or a dollar off 2 or more.

 

[eyor44]

One problem you might have printing coupons is if you have a MAC. I printed lots of coupons with my old laptop, but when I got my MAC it just isn't compatible with some of the web sites. Very frustrating.

I use Coupon.com and Target.com, match the two coupons on one item at Target and also use Target Cartwheel. I finally figured out how to make it all work. My town paper is also limited on the coupons it includes, so I joined a coupon train on the Dis. Some weeks, there are lots I can use and some weeks not so many. I save a fair amount and the more work I can put into it, the more I save.

 

[rlh75]

This is exactly the same for me! I can find coupons for yoplait, but I don't eat junk yogurt. I can find coupons for Hidden Valley Ranch or Hormel but I can buy the store brands/other brands for less so what's the point? The main way I save is by making as many things myself as I can (yogurt, healthy cereal, dressing, soup, etc.). I try to buy veggies at the Farmer's Market or grow them (though I've not been too successful at making that cost effective) and I have chickens so eggs are abundant!

Yoplait does make a Simple version of yogurt now. No Dyes etc. That is usually what I buy.

Sometimes store brands are cheaper then the name brand with coupon.

The trick to couponing is matching them with sales. And buying ahead for what you need. So say hidden valley ranch is on sale for 1.99 and you have a coupon that would make it .99, you know you are gonna need it...so buy it. Then you have it. Obviously this doesn't work with all food.

I am casual about couponing. It sometimes saves me a ton. Sometimes not.

 

[rlh75]

I also agree that coupons seem to have gotten worse....both newspaper and printed since couponing has been "brought into the light" so to speak.

I ditto the Aldi thing. A lot of things are cheaper there...and just as good.

 

[nsmith]

I was a very avid couponer and really haven't couponed in over a year now for the reasons you mentioned. I mostly do my shopping at Aldi's and Sam's. I will use the coupon apps on my phone though like Target Cartwheel.

I was an avid couponer for over 3 years, I used the grocery game and routinely saved over 50% on my shopping order and had a stock pile of food.

Then redplum stopped appearing in my newspaper, I purchased the more local newspaper to get the RP but the insert for both RP and Smart Source were different than the reginal paper (not as good). I also noticed that many more coupons required 2 or 3 item purchase for the same cents off as used to be for 1.

I never minded that 1-2 hours I took each week clipping coupons because I would save $50 or $60 dollars. It just got to be less and less savings.

I tryed printing the coupons but ran into the same problems as well as the printing software not consistantly downloading and having so much junk popping up that I had to change to Chrome and abandon my old internet explorer.

Now I don't shop every week as I am not trying to hit every sale and just stick to a basic shopping list, and buy what we need and skip the extras unless they are on sale.

Another thing I noticed when I had a stock pile: My family would eat it all up so fast so the good deals didn't last.

 

[pjlla]

Hi.... OP here. Thanks so much for all of this great feedback. Some of you seem to do really well with coupons, others, like me, find it to be a struggle or not worth the effort.

Let me just give you a few details about how/where I shop. I live in rural NH and my nearest "real" grocery store (as opposed to a Mom and Pop) is 25 miles/40 minutes away and the nearest Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, etc are even a bit further. We do have a Costco membership and I love Costco, but it is an hour away so we hit it only about once a month.

I don't have a "planned" day that I shop every week.... I play it by ear. I work per diem, so I'm not always sure when I will have a day to shop and I try to avoid using my weekends. And of course, it is such a drive that I try to combine trips and only go that far when I am making multiple stops. But suffice it to say that I shop about once every other week plus about once a month at Costco.

We no longer get the Sunday paper. We had it delivered for years, but honestly, the coupons just didn't seem to make it worthwhile and since DH can get the news he wants online, and I hate the idea of having all of that paper in the recycling bin every week, we have stopped having the paper delivered.

I do utilize coupons whenever/where ever I can. I love Catalina coupons because they are usually pretty useful. I usually get them at Target. I have never gotten them at Market Basket. Our Shaw's closed a few months ago, but that was okay because they were waaaaaaay overpriced. I will hit Hannaford occasionally. As far as I know MK and Hannaford do NOT double any coupons.

I made a list after my last shopping stop of the things that I buy fairly regularly that are name brand that I would expect to find a coupon for.... and I will keep the list by the computer so I am not just randomly searching. Other than that, I usually stick with store brand because it is routinely cheaper than name brand with a small coupon.

I will keep plugging away at this, but some weeks I just don't have 2 hours to dedicate to saving $2.

That being said, I did get some coupons in the mail recently (from a few different sources) and my next shop should show some real savings, so I am excited.

To the poster that asked about joining the coupon train.... thank you for the suggestion. I did join a few about 5 years ago (here on the Dis) but found that I wasn't really able to use any of the coupons that came my way, so after a few rounds, I stepped away. It seemed to be a great source of coupons for things like diapers, formula, Lunchables, Lean Cuisine, Goldfish, Juicy Juice, hair coloring, etc..... nothing that I use. I felt I was able to CONTRIBUTE a lot, but didn't gain much and the postage on some of the envelopes was getting crazy! But again, thanks for the suggestion.

I did try to start a coupon-trading basket here at the school where I work, but I seemed to be the only one contributing, so again, I let it end. Maybe it is time to try again!

Thanks SO MUCH for all of the ideas, suggestions, and sympathy! ......P

 

[threeboysmom]

So I am definitely not a person who falls into the "extreme couponer" category.... not even close. But I do try to find coupons when I shop on a pretty regular basis. I'm not particularly brand loyal and I do buy a lot of "whole foods" that I just do NOT find coupons for on a regular basis. But that being said, I have spent two hours this morning on coupon websites and I am just fed up with the "you must download this program" or "you must sign up for our emails" or "you must "like" us on FB" crap....... just so I can purchase YOUR product with YOUR coupon!! Or I get all of the coupons I want marked "clip" and then I hit print and you tell me I have hit my limit... before I have even printed ONE coupon this week! And valpak kept telling me I had marked the coupon and then when I went to print, my printer list was "0" !

I've been on redplum, couponsdotcom, lozo, couponcabin, targetdotcom, shopathome, smartsource, valpak, hopster.

The he** with it! I'm done jumping through hoops. Even the TARGET coupons this week gave me problem! So after sitting here for 2 hours, I have 5 coupons to show for it. Not worth my time.

Anyone else feel the same???..... ...........P

Oh my gosh, YES!!!!!!!!!

I just wasted over an hour yesterday doing this exact same thing. ALL I WANTED WAS A FREAKING $1 OFF COUPON FOR CREST 3D BRILLIANCE WHITE TOOTHPASTE!

Never did find a site that would just let me print the stupid thing and get on with my life.

Kicking myself for even thinking I could try couponing, lol.