Not-So-Extreme Couponing advice

[AnOtHeRdIsNeYfReAk]

Ok, for the past several weeks I've really been making an effort to use coupons to try to save for some home repairs. I didn't expect to save hundreds of dollars like you see on extreme couponing as I don't really buy the things they show, nor do I buy things in such great quantity. But I really wanted to stock up on non-food items like laundry detergent, soap, shampoo, etc..

Well, I'm not having any luck with saving a great amount of money. I actually think I could just apply that time to gardening and not buy veggies for the summer and save a huge amount of money. None of my local grocery stores double, match or add anything to coupons. They won't take printed coupons. (which really annoys me, since they are from manufacturers websites) Actually my local grocery store doesn't even offer a discount card. The coupons I've been finding are for 35 - 50 cents and only 3 or 4 items I use per week. It just doesn't seem worth it. What am I missing?

 

[vicki_c]

1) You have to match the coupons with the store sales to save any significant amount.

2) What stores do you have near you? Because what you said about your stores seems quite out of the ordinary -- that none take Internet coupons or double or have loyalty cards. Usually most places have at least a store or two that do one of those things.

3) The best deals are often at the national chains like CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid -- and they have national coupon policies AFAIK. And CVS has a loyalty card.

 

[SandrA9810]

For those kind of items, you should be following the CVS and Rite Aid websites that give you the best deals. Now you have to spend a little in the beginning to start saving later on, this is mostly because of the "CVS bucks" which you earn from certain purchases that you can put towards other purchases later on.

The other option is to watch for sales of the item to match your coupon. If there is a buy 1 get 1 free sale, and you have a 2/$1 off, well those two items will qualify, even if one of them is free.

A lot of times coupons will come out week 1 and in week 2 you'll find those items on sale. Although some stores will put out "sale price + coupon = this great deal", I find that those aren't always the best deal. The better deal is in a couple weeks when they put a better sale on that item, when there is no matching coupon in the paper.

It seems almost all grocery stores have a website/blog that people create to get the most bang for your buck with coupons. Try finding one of those. They've already learned the rotation of sale items, usually every 6 weeks. Most coupons out of the paper are good for 1-2 months, sometimes longer.

Holidays also play a major role in the sale prices of items. Usually further than the regular sale prices. Christmas, Thanksgiving, July 4th, and Easter.

And planting a garden would yummy. The hard part is learning to eat seasonal. I grew up eating frozen veggies, so whatever I wanted was available. Now that I'm eating fresh, I either have to freeze my own when the season comes around, or wait for the season to come around again.

 

[DawnM]

I see a lot of people saying that there aren't coupons for the brands they use, but the problem is, couponers can't be too brand loyal. Only want Tide? You may have to just pay for it. Only eat Ragu spaghetti sauce, you will be quite limited in your coupons and selection.

However, if you are willing to get any detergent or spaghetti sauce, you are in luck and can match coupons to sales and get it for deep discounts.

Go to HotCouponworld.com as they have tutorials for beginners.

Dawn

 

[AnOtHeRdIsNeYfReAk]

Ok, so I feel pretty stupid. I didn't think you could use coupons at CVS or Rite Aide. I'll try doing that from now on. The grocery store I use is Hannaford and I really hate that they don't have a loyalty card. My other grocery stores are small local ones, so they never have double coupons or loyalty cards. And the prices at those are so expensive! There are some advantages to living in the middle of nowhere, but cheap shopping is not one of them. Thanks for the advice.

 

[mrodgers]

There are some advantages to living in the middle of nowhere, but cheap shopping is not one of them. Thanks for the advice.

Yup, definitely hear that. We could go the opposite direction (also longer drive) to Giant Eagle where they double coupon, but then the rest of the groceries are 25% + more than where we do shop, plus we have to fight a lot more traffic and a lot more time (20 minutes to drive 5 miles to the road back home, then 20 minutes to drive the rest of the 20 miles home is ridiculous.)

We've been trying to do the coupon thing and match sale ads and such for quite a few months now. Internet coupons are useless, I can't find anything. Forget to buy the paper because my wife is in a hurry to get home at midnight after 9 hours of people fighting with her and just being plain can't-say-it-on-here to her and we are out coupons. Not many good coupons we see in the newspaper anyways in the last 3-4 months.

The last thing is, you can't just compare the sales ad. The sales ad I have found is a mere 10% of what is on sale compared to going into the store. It is a LOT of work to try to match up coupons on the fly in the store with what is on sale.

 

[StephMK]

I can't seem to save a ton either. No one doubles here but luckily we do have loyalty programs. Combining sales w/coupons is definitely the best way to save. I like to read the forums on afullcup - there are a ton of grocery stores listed - maybe yours is on it? They also have specific forums for drugstores & you can read how other people combine to save more.

 

[Marionnette]

Using a couponing website where the blogger or forum members match the sales with existing coupons is really key to successful shopping. The trick is to find one that has a lot of active members for YOUR area.

Take a look at couponmom.com. She has Hannaford's weekly ad and matches it up with newspaper insert coupons that you can use along with the sale price.

Hotcouponworld.com has a pretty good database for printable coupons, which will help you out with your CVS/Walgreens/RiteAid discounts.

Store loyalty cards are a gimmick when you think about it. There is no reason for the store to need you to swipe a loyalty card in order to get the sale price other than to track your spending habits. So if Hannaford doesn't use loyalty cards, it's not that big of a deal.

You may not get double for your coupons but don't let it discourage you from using them. Even a 50 cent coupons is half a buck saved if you were going to buy the product anyway.

 

[sksjasams]

I know what you mean... I shop at Woodman's. They have tremendous prices and huge selection. But, no double coupons, no rewards cards and no sales or sale flyers. We don't have Rite Aid or CVS here. We do have Walgreens.

 

[MinnieForMe]

You need to start small. Pick either Walgreens, Rite Aide or CVS. I don't like Rite Aide but that's my personal preference.

For example, this week Walgreens had contact solution for free. It was $7.99 minus $1.00 coupon so I paid $6.99 and received $7.99 back. I, then, picked up two packages of Advil which were $10.00. I used a $4.00 off coupon from the paper and my $8.00 register reward, now I have an overage of $2.00 so I throw in a package of the $2.00 Scrunchi hair elastics that are giving back RR too.

I paid nothing for the Advil and Hair elastics and Walgreens gave me back $5.00 for the Advil and $2.00 for the elastics in Register Rewards. I, then, kept rolling.

This is one of the ways to save money because I then rolled my RR into the Tone, Shave Gel etc.. and got those for free plus more register rewards.

Don't give up! It takes a while to understand it but you can save a lot of money plus it feels good when you have extra to share. My friends never know what I'll be handing them next.

 

[alyssa810]

Another few decent sites to use for printable coupons are couponsuzy.com, or if you have a mypoints.com account, there are coupons from coupons.com and smartsource, and you get points for each one you print and redeem. Lately they haven't been that great, but I do tend to get a bunch from there. Also, if you need to set up a mypoints.com account, I'm happy to refer you - PM me your email and I'll send you the referral link.

As far as having a garden versus buying fresh veggies, IMO, you need to way the costs. You should really have a garden because you want to, not as a way to save money because you'll have to consider the water costs and sometimes -as we learned last year- it's just not worth it.
We had a huge water bill last summer from our garden, and while we grew a ton of butternut squash, the tomatoes, cukes and summer squash just didn't take, so it really wasn't worth it for us.

Also, if you hop on one of the coupon trains here, you might get better coupons from your mailing buddy. Different parts of the country get different coupons, so I know I've had coupons from my Boston paper for say $1 off 2 jars of pasta sauce, but my buddy sends me a coupons for $.60 off one that I can double, and I've saved more right there.
Good luck saving!

 

[Alli76]

Try this website http://newenglandcouponsaver.com they do a coupon atchup for hannaford. (ie match current hannaford sales with recent coupons)

 

[Nayan]

One thing I did plant was herbs. Oregano, Basil, Rosemary, etc. After looking at the price of one package compared to a plant it was much cheaper for the plant. Look for them either in the garden section of your local home supply place (like Home Depot or Lowes) or in the produce section of your grocery store.

 

[Coll0610]

Another key thing is to know what a "good" price is for the items you want to stockpile. Keep a spreadsheet with the regular and sale prices at different stores. After a while, you'll have the data you need to figure out what the price is where you want to buy extra. You should also start to see a pattern for how often that price will come up. So if you see that the item hits its lowest price every three months, you would know that at that price you need to buy enough to last three months. This can also help you decide when you want to buy extra coupons for that item on ebay or from one of the coupon clipping services.

Buying coupons on ebay is a cheap way to get a bunch of coupons for a product you want. Every once in a while, I just go out to ebay and search for coupons on products that I use regularly. This gives me a chance at coupons that weren't available in my area.

There are some things that you just won't be able to get for free, especially if you are picky about brands, but you should be able to start saving some real money.