Coupon Mom: How to Coupon at Target

I love couponing at Target. They have great sales, and those sales can usually be paired with a Target coupon and a Manufacturer coupon. I have gotten many great deals at Target, including numerous free items. Here I will show you how you can use coupons at target to live frugally and build your stockpile.

Although we will cover most of Target’s coupon policy here, you may want to read the full thing from Target’s website here.

Match sales with Target coupons and manufacturer coupons

If you can pair a Target coupon with a manufacturer coupon during a sale, you will usually be getting a great deal. Target coupons are often high value, and if you can find a high (or even decent) value coupon to match it with things often turn out to be free or close to. Let me give you two examples. One is where I got an item for free, the other is what you can expect to find on a regular basis.

During the Christmas season of 2011 Target put Maybelline New York Baby Lips (a lip gloss) on sale for $2.99. Target had a store coupon out for $2.00 off of one Maybelline product. There were no restrictions. Then, Maybelline had releases a printable manufacturer coupon for $1.00 off of any one Maybelline New York item. The total of these items added up to $3.00. This made the lip-gloss completely free. The coupons get adjusted down; you cannot get overage at Target. (Not sure what overage is? Read this article that explains is all.) The limit was 4 coupons per transaction so I was able to get four of these free. They made great stocking stuffers!

Here is a different scenario: The week of 5/06/12 Clairol Nice n’ Easy Hair color is on sale for 2/$12, or six dollars each (Target does not require you to buy two to get the sale price). There is a Target coupon that came out in the May P&G insert (not sure what this is?) that is for $2 off of one Clairol Nice n’ Easy Hair color, making the price now four dollars. Then, you an also use a $2 off 1 Clairol Hair Color coupon. The final price you will pay for your box of hair color is only two dollars! This is a stock up price. If you can get your hands on multiple coupons, I would buy four or so.

Price Matching

You can price match any competitor’s advertisement at Target. The ad must be printed, and you must bring in the ad for the price to be matched. The best part of this is you can use coupons along with the price match! Here is how this works: Bring in the print ad (you cannot show it on your phone, print off the page from your computer, etc.) and they will mark down the price of the item. You can use a Target coupon, but there is not much use to this. They apply the Target coupon, THEN they match the price.

So before you price match consider which of the two options are better: Is the price lower with the Target price and the Target coupon? Or is the price lower without the coupon, and just the price matched. If the answer is the first one, you will waste your time price matching. If it is the second, don’t bother with the Target coupon.

Once the price has been matched you can then apply a manufacturer coupon, bringing down the price even further. You might be wondering what the benefits to price matching are, if Target won’t honor their coupons on top of the price. I wondered this myself, until I needed to use it.

Last year Toys R Us had board games marked down to one dollar, for a day only. It was printed in their advertisement but I knew they would run out early. I did not get to the store in time, and was disappointed until I remembered I could price match. I took the ad to Target, found the exact same game, and was able to purchase it for only one dollar! This is an extreme situation but you get the idea. I never got that kind of deal again but the price match policy proved extremely handy when other stores were out of their stock of sale items. Take note that you cannot price match Black Friday, any time-restrained sale items (Like “before noon doorbuster!”) or any Internet price.

Saving money with free Target gift cards

Often, Target will have sales that will give you a free gift card, usually $5 or $10 when you buy a certain number of a product. It was not too long ago that Tampax Pearl Tampons were on sale for $4 each. There was a deal, where when you bought 2 boxes you got a five-dollar Target gift card. There were also $1 manufacturer coupons for the same product. I decided to buy 4 boxes. I used the manufacturer coupons bringing each box down to $3, which is still a decent deal. Then, I got two $5 gift cards. This essentially took off $1.50 from each box, making a box of tampons only a dollar-fifty! The gift cards were then used to buy products I would have bought anyway, like saran wrap and toilet paper. Some people save their gift cards, and use them all at the end of the year to pay for Christmas.

If you Google “Target coupon matchups” you will find lots of blogs who post the weekly sale and all of the coupons you can use along with it. These are a big help and can save a lot of time in your planning. Be sure to sign up for Target mobile coupons if you have a Smartphone, and remember that you can print two identical Target coupons per computer in your household. Now that you know how to do it, pull out your Sunday Target ad and start planning!