Session Three- Finding Bargains Based Upon The Store Shopped

Here are a few savvy secrets to help you out with shopping by store.

1. Always take your coupons with you. If you don't have your coupons, you can't use them!I actually leave mine in my purse at all times, unless I am sorting them. A coupon bag, diaper bag or in the car is a good place to keep them as well.

2. Don't buy what you don't need (unless it's free). I am not one to buy a ton of stuff that I don't need, if it is free, I'll take a few (maybe 3-8 free items) but if I have no use for it and my family won't eat it and I have to pay for it, I will not buy it. Don't be one of those couponers that has to use every coupon you find! That will not save you money.

3. Learn about coupon policies and what works at each store.

There are some stores that I just LOVE to shop. These stores are very coupon friendly.

1.Target

2. Safeway, Tom Thumb

3. CVS

4. Walgreens

5. A store that is not very coupon friendly is Wal-Mart however, they do something very unique called Price Matching. We will discuss that further on in the session.

6.Kroger, Alberstons and other chain stores


1. Target-Target is great because they have their own list of online coupons. You can print these at Target.com (see The Super Target Coupon link at the bottom of the Target.com page) or you can see a full list of coupons, print and generate them on my web page http://www.bargainshopperlady.com/ . Target rotates their coupons on http://www.target.com/ weekly so to get the full list you will need to go to my website.The greatest thing about Target is that you can use a manufacturer's coupon with a store coupon and they provide a large amount of store coupons that you can print out on line. Let's look at the French's mustard equation that we talked about in Session one and let me show you how I got it for free. It is on sale for $0.94. Print a coupon online for $0.75. Then go to http://www.hotcouponworld.com/ . This is a huge resource for couponers. Sign up so you can view the coupon resources. Go to the database. Type in French's mustard. It shows you that there is a coupon out for $0.30 and what date it expires. Go find that manufacturer's coupon. Shortcut: Use http://www.couponmom.com/ and you would have already known that there was a manufacturer's coupon for this product. Now it would look like this $0.94-$0.75-$0.30= -$0.11 Yes, that says negative eleven! Target won't give you money back but the register will adjust the store coupon to make it FREE!

2. Safeway, Tom Thumb- This by far is one of my favorite stores. I don't know if it is just mine, but they are great a putting little take $0.75 off or $1.00 off coupon sticker on the item right before the product has about three days to expire. Now if it was milk, that would be gross, but other items my family can finish off in a day, like yogurt for example. If these coupons are on a product I can usually use a manufacturer's coupon and get the item for free. Tom Thumb triples (only one coupon of the same kind) up to 39 cents and doubles (only one coupon of the same kid) up to 50 cents. If you used a coupon for 50 cents off it would double it to take a total of $1.00 off. I also work for a fundraising company called Enjoy The City, if you don't have a coupon book from them, you should check their web site to see if they have one in your area. The Dallas coupon books have a $10 off $50 coupon good at Tom Thumb. They have this coupon in other cities that have a Randalls or Safeway store as well. I always put this coupon on top of all my other coupons, and they always take it off first. So I automatically save 20 percent of my bill without even trying or cutting other coupons. A former bill of mine was $17 and I used this coupon along with others bringing my total down from $72. They even gave me $1.26 back one time when they had a cake mix deal and I used coupons on top of it. Yes my total was -$1.26! See why I love this store?

3. CVS - This store has a very unique thing called Extra Bucks. This is a great store to start out bargain shopping at if you are a beginner. Go to the store and sign up for a CVS card if you don't have one. This card is key to getting Extra Bucks when you make a purchase, so you will need to put it on your key ring or in a very accessible place. If you look at the sales ad or join the newsletter on my website, we will email you when CVS has Extra Bucks. Extra Bucks are printed coupons that come out on the bottom of your CVS receipt. They are valid only at CVS. The manufacturer has set up a deal with CVS to let you try something with and instant rebate or Extra Bucks. So if you went in to buy Purell Hand Sanitizer and it cost $2.99 , the CVS ad might offer you $2.99 in Extra Bucks. These would print out at the register after you bought the item so that you could buy something else with the $2.99 coupon. Sometimes Extra Bucks have a limit of 1 per customers so you could only do this one time. Other times Extra Bucks are unlimited. In this case, you could go in and buy Purell Hand Sanitizer as many times as you want with only paying the upfront cost of the first $2.99 bottle. You would use your coupon to purchase as many bottles as needed. I would probably want 3 but if I felt that our family would use the product a lot I may buy as many as 10. You can use Extra Bucks to buy anything in the store except excluded items like alcohol and gift cards. You can actually make money in Extra Bucks if you have a coupon for the Extra Bucks item. Let me explain for the Sanitizer. If you had a coupon for $1 off the sanitizer (found in the newspaper) you could use that coupon and CVS would still give you the $2.99 in Extra Bucks. If you ordered coupons from an online source and you had 10 of them, you could actually use 10 and get $10 in Extra Bucks to purchase something else in the store. So the first Hand Sanitizer would now cost you $1.99 with a coupon but you would get a $2.99 Extra Buck. Making money off coupons is tricky but gets easier and is actually legal at this point in time.

4. Walgreens - Walgreens has a system where they use an Easy Saver Catalog to show you which items you can buy that are FAR (free after rebate). You can purchase the listed items and mail in for a check or a Walgreens gift card. If you opt for the gift card you will get 10% more as a bonus. The next month you can take your gift card and purchase the next month's Easy Saver Rebate deals with it. This way you only pay for the first month's items and actually get 10% more each month. A good thing about Walgreens gift cards is that you can use them to buy other gift cards. When you have earned over $40 on your gift card you might want to purchase a $25 gift card for someone or yourself and then you ended up getting it for free!

5. Wal-Mart- Some of the cashiers at Wal-Mart are not aware of their coupon policies and make up rules when you check out. You can only use one coupon per item bought since Wal-Mart does not have store coupons. Don't be afraid to call the manager if a cashier tells you otherwise. The managers should know the coupon policies. Wal-Mart however does a great thing called price matching. That means if you bring in ads to the other local stores, you can get all your goods at one time for the best deal. If Albertsons has Dannon Yogert on sale for $0.40 cents each, then Wal-Mart will match that price for you. Just show the cashier your ads as you check out. (The best way to find what you want to price match is to highlight all the items that you want.) To price match the ad must have that specific brand listed and it has to be a set price. It can not ready buy 1 get 1 free. It must sale Dole Banannas are $0.20 a lb. I did see a lady once price match and bought 2 grocery carts full of food and toiletries for $18.

6. Krogers, Albertsons and other Grocery Stores- Not all stores double and triple coupons but some do. Krogers and Albertsons double up to 50 cent coupons (for up to 4 of the same coupons) and they triple up to 39 cent coupons ( for up to 4 like coupons). A huge myth is that doubling means that you bring in two coupons and use both. Don't do this! It means that you bring one coupon and the register doubles it. Kroger is known for having great sale prices and usually gives out quite a few free items per week.

Task 3- Choose one store and gather coupons based on it's sales ad (or list on http://www.couponmom.com/). Go to the store and try using two-five coupons. Try to just stick to using coupons for two items the first time you go. If you are more advanced, try as many as you can cut out! Consider ordering an Enjoy The City book or an Entertainment book online. You can get the Dallas book on my website http://www.bargainshopperlady.com/ and other cities at http://www.enjoythecity.com/, and the Entertainment book at http://www.entertainment.com/ .