I concur wholeheartedly that the bulk and point of coupons are for advertising items that are new or less than necessary, I’ve had Soba (and Maruchan) coupons; the printable coupon websites have them frequently, along w/ those for simply ‘Cheese w/ a made in Real California label’ and the like (they go by ZIP code so you may have to put in different ones to get them to come up if they don’t automatically). The restaurant coupons I use are from the Entertainment books, which I get when they’re on a special of some kind and are rarely for fast food, more like Dickeys and the like.
Queen Tonya, your ‘new couponer’ story makes me cringe; some folks go from stocking up to hoarder in a flash and coupons only help feed that disorder. Like you, I like to have a ready supply of 1-2 back ups for things I use commonly but anything more gets donated to the food pantry. I want to be satisfied, not bloated. On the ‘extreme’ shows I’ve caught glimpses of what they call stockpiles and I call wasted space. If I have much more than I need and I KNOW there are others who have little I’m kind of a jerk if it costs me nothing to help them and I don’t. In couponing I have a resource that those who hold 2 or more jobs or don’t have ready access to a car or the internet or a smart phone don’t have and I’m mindful of that.
My personal litmus for ‘did I save money’ is trying to save more than I spent - I don’t trust the % the stores throw out b/c I get so many things that have been marked down. And knowing how much things have cost in the past helps so I keep my price book up to date as well.
If you always buy Pantene at $9, and would never buy an off-brand for $5, and then you find a $2 off Pantene coupon, then yes you are saving money, because your choice would be either Pantene for $9 or Pantene for $7. The $5 brand would not be a factor.
I’ve certainly tried new things with coupons (or the store’s weekly discounts) that I otherwise might not have.
I agree about store brands vs. name brands, with the caveat that equivalence among products is a matter of taste. Just like some people won’t notice any difference from a high-end sound system or an expensive bottle of wine, some people will approach the grocery store with the view that soaps are all the same and bread is bread is bread. Other people, though, will perceive differences that, to them, make one kind of shampoo or coffee or baby food preferable over another.
Until they come up with coupons for fresh produce and meat, I really don’t feel the need to use coupons at the grocery. I do buy non-perishables, but the stuff I buy is usually store brand anyway.
Coupons do come in handy sometimes for clothing, though, as long as I needed said clothing anyway.
Not really… the traditional coupon idea is to capture price sensitive consumers by selling them the item at a lower price that they’re willing to pay, under the theory that it’s better to make less profit than no profit at all. The other side to coupons is that they weed out the lazy by making people clip the coupons and bring them in to redeem them.
So ultimately, they sell as much as they possibly can at full price by making the coupon redemption a pain in the ass, and sell some smaller amount at a discount to price-sensitive customers who redeem the coupons. Overall they make more money this way than they would by just discounting the product to everyone, or keeping it at full price for everyone.
It doesn’t have anything to do with products that don’t sell, or to get people to buy stuff they wouldn’t otherwise; it’s all about price-sensitvity on the part of customers.
That said, they can work, but to really get them to work, you kind of have to have one of those websites that tracks the double/triple coupons and sales in conjunction with the published coupons (like “Grocery Game”), so that you can do things like find something on sale 2 for 1, and with double-coupons, and then use a coupon on it, thereby getting 2 for 0.4 or something like that. You also have to be willing to shop at multiple stores to optimize your savings- like buy your canned soup, soda and toilet paper with coupons and sales at one store, and your laundry detergent, lotion and barbecue sauce at another that week because their sales are better.
Put simply, you CAN save a lot of money, but you have to balance it against the PITA that it is, and also factor in the value of your own time. If saving $50-100 per week is worth several hours of your time, then great, but many people would not consider that a net gain.
Safeway has a second level of “secret” store discounts for people who sign up for its discount card, and those will usually include discounts on produce and meat (as well as dairy, eggs, bread, etc.). Other stores may do something similar.
My loyalty card at Kroger does send me coupons for fresh produce and meat. “Save $5 if you spend $15 from our meat department.” “Save $1 when you buy 2 packages of fresh mushrooms.”
They send me coupons for Kroger brand and name brand items that I buy all the time. Coffee, salad, bacon, Crest toothpaste… They track my purchases, and I like it!
They don’t have loyalty cards for the groceries where I live - I would LOVE it if they did. I would definitely take advantage of them.
I don’t use coupons at the grocery store, but I do take advantage of coupons I get via an app on my phone at restaurants and some stores . For example I took a friend out for her birthday and used the buy one get one free deal at Logan’s Roadhouse.
Or I may find one for a department store featuring 20 % off if I’m planning on buying something there anyway.
I live in a rural area that has exactly one small grocery store, and doesn’t double coupons so I usually don’t bother with paper coupons. Besides I hardly ever am able to find products I use anyway…
My strategy is to wait for sales and stock up on items I always use… spaghetti sauce, toilet paper or whatever… and my brands are usually ones that never have coupons for them anyway.
You think that’s the way “taking advantage” works in that situation?
Spend five quiet minutes thinking about why stores offer discount cards.
An almost entirely obsolete notion. I won’t say no store or maker does that, but those who do are stuck somewhere around 1975 marketing theory.
Is your issue with my word choice? In that case, I would “use them,” rather than “take advantage of them.” Or “avail myself.” I would hardly go out and buy a bunch of crap I don’t need just to get a discount. What value did you just get out of pointing this out?
…then the coupon isn’t getting you to buy something you wouldn’t otherwise.
It’s the buyers who are perfectly happy with $5 shampoo (which, not to start any cross arguments, should be 95% of shampoo users) who think they’re getting a deal by paying only twice as much for creamy, gooey, pearlescent wonder that are losing.
As someone else pointed out stores often send these, but I want to point out I’ve had coupons for major brand fresh produce in the last few months - Dole, Wonderful, Halos, and Cuties; Jennie-o Turkey almost always has coupons for fresh products and in the summer Kingsford has combination coupons for briquettes and meat of any brand. Though I’ve started buying my fresh meat via Zaycon sales for which there are no coupons but the quality is terrific.
The Kroger family store’s pharmacy by me has stacks of coupon books available w/ coupons for vitamins, Kroger brand items and medicines if anyone who’s interested finds themselves in a Kroger family store soon.
There are so many blogs out there that I rarely have to do any matchups myself before I’m in the store, they’re all laid out by someone who does it for a (sort of) living and that’s my jumping off point.
Strange… that’s the explanation in 21st century business school.
What makes you think that my explanation is NOT why coupons are used? It makes a hell of a lot more sense than something nebulous about unsold products or something like that.
[quote=“Amateur_Barbarian, post:20, topic:679796”]
The bottom line about any form of couponing is this:
[LIST=1]
[li]If you buy something you would not ordinarily buy, you lose.[/li][/QUOTE]
Not necessarily so. I never bought hot dogs before, but with a store coupon plus mfr coupon plus a sale, I was able to grab a couple of packages of hot dogs for fifty cents each. Grab a package of hot dog buns (which was less than a dollar) and we had a cheap quick meal that week for six people for a buck fifty or so. Froze the second package of hot dogs for a repeat performance a few weeks later.
I’d say we won in that particular case.
I just signed on for a free trial at thegrocerygame.com, and it looks like it’s going to help me out a lot in figuring out how to actually save money with coupons, but in some cases it will involve buying things I wouldn’t normally buy.
I mean, if I bought a tub of ice cream (we never buy this) that’d be a different matter. But even then–hey, if I can grab a tub of ice cream for a buck one day, why should I think of that as me “losing?” I like ice cream. It’s usually too expensive to make sense as a purchase. But if I can get it for a buck, then why should I refrain just because I “wouldn’t usually buy that”? If it fits in the budget, I’ve lost nothing.
I’d strongly suspect your prices without loyalty cards are roughly the same as the rest of our prices with them.
One of the advantages to the store of a discount card is that it lets them target a few discounts at stuff that I repeatedly buy. This helps them to entice me back to Safeway and away from the Giant down the street.
I’ve heard good things about Grocery Game. Also check out Pinchingyourpennies’ board forum for your state. If there’s Freecycle group in your area don’t be afraid to go on and ask for the coupons others might not use as well. I’ve made great coupon trades that way.
Can you deduct donations of products from your taxes? Say I managed one of those deals you see on the extreme couponing shows, and I get 27 bottles of mustard for $0.20 each. (yes, one of the few times I watched, they did about this. Could have taken 30 bottles, but decided to leave 3 for other people.) Let’s say the standard shelf marked cost of each bottle is $5.00. Could I donate 26 bottles, and claim $130 in charitable donations?