3 Genius Ways Grocery Shopping With Coupons Can Save You Money - Fresh Methods to Lighten Your Wallet When Shopping

Double coupons are usually limited to one local grocery store or specific times of the week, like only Monday afternoons. This offers a major savings opportunity for the customer to use. The only requirement is to stock up on those paper coupons!

Most cities live near a grocery store that offers double coupons. Even still, you may ask: “What are double coupons?” The value of this offer is the face value of the coupon times two. Some stores take it a step further and offer 2.5 times the face value of the coupon you wish to use.

For Example, Homeland, the local grocery store where I live, offers double coupons during specific times. Some local store may offer to double your coupon on let’s say Thursdays from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. You find crackers on sale for $1.50 and you have a $.50 off coupon.

Now, since the coupon is a doubled, you are going to save $1.00 ($.50 X 2 for double coupon’s value), and your total would be $.50! (Sale price of $1.50 less $1.00 for the coupon value).

Keep in mind that some coupons will not allow you, the customer, to double it. Typically, this happens with name brand coupons that are of high value already. Just keep an eye out for this because the last thing you want to happen is not getting the value you were anticipating at checkout.

Did you know you can combine sales, discounts, and coupons to gain a truly amazing price? There are many sales or coupons that state you can only save on regular priced items, but every now and then you will find an awesome deal.

A loyalty card is typically given to customers who are faithful to a certain brand or store. It may be a local grocery store, a discount store, like Walmart, a discount supersize store like Sam’s, or a pharmacy, like CVS.

Here are some discounts you may come across (and how to make sense of them and find the best value):

40% off a Regular Priced Item

Do you shop at craft stores that basically ALWAYS have this coupon? For example, the Hobby Lobby here in Oklahoma always has the 40% off coupon or discount available. If the clerk won’t enter this week’s code to give you the discount, pull it up on your phone and like magic you get the code!

Be cautious though. The discount ONLY applies to REGULAR priced items, so make sure you are getting the best deal. For example, if you want the regular priced item and agree that with the 40% off discount, it’s worth it, then buy it!

However, if you find pretty much the exact same thing, same quality, same quantity, but the price is cheaper on clearance or on sale, they maybe go for the item you won’t get to use this coupon on. In other words, don’t be duped into buying something just because you get this discount; rather, take into consideration the value of what you want to buy.

Buy 2, Get 2 Free

Check your coupons when buying things that are on sale like this. Does the coupon allow you to use it even on sale items? If you don’t have or won’t be using a coupon on this purchase, take into consideration the price of buying 2, since you must do that to get 2 more free. So, if you buy 2 packages of spaghetti for 3.00/each, you will be paying 6.00/4.

Do a little math on your iPhone and you will see that each package of spaghetti will be 1.50. Now you just need to decide if (for the area you live in) that is a good deal or not. Do as much of this type of thing at home that you can, because trying to calculate things like this at the store and be a little stressful.

Ah, matchups, how confusing they can be! It took me a while to grasp the concept, but now it seems so easy. Coupon matchups are basically the act of taking your coupons and matching them with the store’s sales of the week (or whatever time period).

There are many websites or blogs that do all the legwork for you! Don’t you just want to kiss those bloggers?? Basically, this is how it’s done:

1. This week’s ads come out (usually on Sunday).
2. Sunday paper comes out with all the new coupons. Yippee! (If you don’t get the paper, there are tons of other places you can get the coupons for free)!
3. The bloggers post on their websites something like “This Week’s [usually the dates are given here] Matchups” as a link to their latest blog post
4. The post will show you the deals of the store you have chosen to look at and will show you how you can match your coupons to get the biggest bang for your buck!

Still confused? No worries; let’s try a few examples…

Example #1

I’m looking at Target’s Matchups for the week of [xyz] on [Miss Jones’ blog]. Target has a sale on Tide’s Laundry Detergent (liquid only) for 10.99. You have a coupon from this Sunday’s paper for 2.99 off. On the blog, they have provided you with a link to an additional coupon for 3.99 off that you can use in this deal. Luckily, they spell it all out like so…

Tide’s Laundry Detergent (liquid only) Sale Price 10.99

Use Sunday’s 6/10/18 paper coupon for Tide’s Laundry Detergent (liquid only) for 2.99

Click here (usually this is a hyperlink) for an additional coupon for Tide’s Laundry Detergent (liquid only) for 3.99

Final Price: 4.01

Example #2

Let’s look at one more example. This is an actual example from 6/9/18.

Lysol Wipes 35 Count is on sale for 1.99.

There was a coupon you probably have from the 4/22/18 newspaper for 50 cents off.

Your final price now is 1.49. This is a savings of 50% of the regular price for this item!

Coupon Mom is an awesome blogger. She is one of the bloggers who does a weekly matchup for shoppers. It may be confusing at first but navigate around the website and you will get the hang of it before too long! Check out her website here.

• Always check the expiration date on your coupons and realize the bloggers aren’t perfect so you may want to do some of the legwork on your own.

  
  

• Be sure to check exactly what is on sale and exactly what your coupon says. There’s no worse feeling than when the cashier says, this is for the 24 ounces not the 36-ounce bottle (or something like that)

Hopefully, you now can see different ways that coupons can help you save money. Of course, you can just use them the simple way without combining any other discounts, but you can sure save a bundle if you stack the coupons with other sales and deals.

Have you tried to use other methods to increase the value of your coupons? I would love to hear your stories and experiences. Where do you shop and what is the most effective way that you have found to save money while using coupons?

I am not a professional coupon user (What is the title here?), though I do see the value in doing all of this, but I would love to try to answer your questions or find someone who knows more than I do, so fire away and let me know your thoughts on this money saving fun stuff!! :)

Do you have expired coupons or ones you won’t use? Check out this article on how to donate them to our soldiers overseas!

Here is an awesome video that may give you some insight on where to find coupons if you are wanting to add to your collection.