Do you coupon?

[Anonymous]

Is it worth spending all that time clipping?

[Anonymous]

Ain't nobody got time for dat. I see people pushing their carts around with huge binders full of coupons, but I can't imagine the kind of time it takes to compile all that and figure out how to shop from it.

I do shop and meal plan around sales and circulars, but I rarely find much that has a coupon that I actually buy. Other than paper and cleaning products, they are largely for processed foods that we try to avoid.

[Anonymous]

No, as I never seem to find any for what we usually buy. I just try to be careful with sticking to a list while grocery shopping.

[Anonymous]

I do it by looking at the preview ads for the following week and buying lots of coupons off of eBay for what I need. For example, I saw that Snuggle fabric softener was going to be half price. I ordered 20 coupons for 50 cents off. The store will double to a dollar. Snuggle is normally around $4.50 a bottle. At half price it's now $2.25. Add another $1 and I paid $1.25 a bottle. I bought 20 bottles which should last me a year and a half or so. The coupons cost me $2.99 for all 20.

[ChuckMurphy]

yes

[Anonymous]

Not really. If I come across a coupon for something I'd want to buy then maybe. But since a lot of my grocery shopping is for items that I don't see coupons for it's not often. I do a lot of shopping based on in store discounts though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do it by looking at the preview ads for the following week and buying lots of coupons off of eBay for what I need. For example, I saw that Snuggle fabric softener was going to be half price. I ordered 20 coupons for 50 cents off. The store will double to a dollar. Snuggle is normally around $4.50 a bottle. At half price it's now $2.25. Add another $1 and I paid $1.25 a bottle. I bought 20 bottles which should last me a year and a half or so. The coupons cost me $2.99 for all 20.

Don't store limit the quantity of a sale item that you can purchase in a single order? I really have no clue, this is just what I thought stores did to limit the type of purchasing that you detailed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do it by looking at the preview ads for the following week and buying lots of coupons off of eBay for what I need. For example, I saw that Snuggle fabric softener was going to be half price. I ordered 20 coupons for 50 cents off. The store will double to a dollar. Snuggle is normally around $4.50 a bottle. At half price it's now $2.25. Add another $1 and I paid $1.25 a bottle. I bought 20 bottles which should last me a year and a half or so. The coupons cost me $2.99 for all 20.

Don't store limit the quantity of a sale item that you can purchase in a single order? I really have no clue, this is just what I thought stores did to limit the type of purchasing that you detailed.

Each store is different. I only purchased 3-4 per day so I didn't encounter this issue. It helps that the store us just down the street and it take me maybe 15 min to drive to the store, make my purchase, and get home. I also use the grocery store as an early morning outing when my 4 yr old gets up at. 6am in the weekends--so that's 8 coupons spent easily.

[Anonymous]

At the actual store, it's more time consuming and when you spend time with the circular, but if you only clip coupons for items you use, don't hoard useless items, and only clip your own set of coupons (meaning you don't go buying additional Sunday papers). The stuff they do on TV is crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do it by looking at the preview ads for the following week and buying lots of coupons off of eBay for what I need. For example, I saw that Snuggle fabric softener was going to be half price. I ordered 20 coupons for 50 cents off. The store will double to a dollar. Snuggle is normally around $4.50 a bottle. At half price it's now $2.25. Add another $1 and I paid $1.25 a bottle. I bought 20 bottles which should last me a year and a half or so. The coupons cost me $2.99 for all 20.

You could avoid all this work by not using fabric softener, which is not necessary and introduces unnecessary dyes and scents into your laundry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do it by looking at the preview ads for the following week and buying lots of coupons off of eBay for what I need. For example, I saw that Snuggle fabric softener was going to be half price. I ordered 20 coupons for 50 cents off. The store will double to a dollar. Snuggle is normally around $4.50 a bottle. At half price it's now $2.25. Add another $1 and I paid $1.25 a bottle. I bought 20 bottles which should last me a year and a half or so. The coupons cost me $2.99 for all 20.

Don't store limit the quantity of a sale item that you can purchase in a single order? I really have no clue, this is just what I thought stores did to limit the type of purchasing that you detailed.

Each store is different. I only purchased 3-4 per day so I didn't encounter this issue. It helps that the store us just down the street and it take me maybe 15 min to drive to the store, make my purchase, and get home. I also use the grocery store as an early morning outing when my 4 yr old gets up at. 6am in the weekends--so that's 8 coupons spent easily.

Pp here. Thanks for explaining. I've done something similar for gas points and detergent. I think they were on sale and offered 5x the price in gas points. I purchased 6 of them and got the max off per gallon ($2.20) off my empty tank fill up for my SUV. Bonus - I still haven't purchased laundry detergent and I made that purchase last fall!

[Anonymous]

No, I've got no time for that. Plus, about 50 percent of our grocery shopping is at Trader Joes. I will buy the generic where it doesn't make a difference, and tend not to buy a lot of processed foods (except at TJs), so I don't see it worth it for me.

[Anonymous]

yes. i spend very little for diapers, wipes, baby food, bread, milk, toys, detergents, cleaning supplies, cheese, yogurt...

[Anonymous]

It's time consuming to coupon and match up with store sale prices and then go to multiple stores. Basically, I keep all coupons "just in case" but clip a few for those things I routinely buy. On occasion, I will get a really good deal on something at Target by following one of the Target deal blogs.

[Anonymous]

I used to--but I found myself getting frustrated when I'd plan out the coupon+sale price strategy for various items, would get to the store, and they'd be sold out. Yes, I know you can get a raincheck, but that adds a whole other level of hassle--and in some cases it wouldn't work out as well. For example, when Harris Teeter runs the "super doubles", and they are out of the item, the "super double" won't carry over on the rain check.

Plus, we don't get a newspaper anymore, so all of my coupons had to be printed out online. One time I used black ink, instead of color, and apparently because of that some watermark didn't print properly. The cashier (at Target) accused me of photocopying the coupon instead of printing it out and told me she couldn't accept the coupon (and kept repeating "because it's a photocopy"---it really wasn't!!!!) and it was really just nasty.