Grocery Store Cycles

Until I started couponing, I did not know that stores had their sales in 12-week cycles.  For those of you who are new to couponing, or are thinking about couponing, your best deals occur when you can combine a great sales price with a coupon.  Let me give you an example.  Giant Eagle currently has Ken's Salad Dressing on sale for 3 for $5.00, which comes to $1.66/bottle.  Before January, I would have thought that was the best deal ever!  Well, it can get better!  I was able to get coupons that allowed me to deduct $1.00 off each bottle of salad dressing.  Yep!  At the register, I paid only $.66 a bottle (I also had to use my store loyalty card)!

In case you are wondering where I managed to score the coupons, I got them from Ebay.  All total, the coupons cost me about $.25 each.  Even with that cost factored in, I spent only $.91 on a bottle Ken's!  In my book, that is still awesome!

Okay, so what does this all mean?  It means record keeping!  Hiss!  Boo!  Yeah, I know.  I am not crazy about that either, but if it means that I can get my food for a great price, so be it. 

Start by figuring out what things you really want to save on, which means do an inventory of your buying and eating habits.  Also, don't be store loyal, and if possible, don't be brand loyal either.  Next, start a spreadsheet with each spreadsheet page devoted to one item or kind of item.  Make labels for the following columns (You can adapt these as needed, of course):

• Store
• date
• Brand name of item
• Size
• Sale price
• Quantity required for price
• Coupon value (if one used)
• Price (after coupon used)

Each week, enter the information for each item for a couple of different stores.  After a couple of store cycles, you should be able to figure out when a store will have a sale on the targeted item.  It may be different times at different stores.  If you are able to always use a coupon when something goes on sale, then you will know that a coupon may be available for the next sale.  Another thing that I have learned is a coupon tends to come out a couple of weeks before the associated item goes on sale.  That is why it is important to keep those coupon inserts.  Happy record keeping!

Extreme Couponing - The TV Show - Revisited

*** Gripe Session Alert! ***

When TLC started it's Extreme Couponing (EC) show, I was excited, and I hoped that I might learn a few things since I am still relatively new to couponing.  Wow, was I wrong! 

If my impression about couponers came only from the EC show, I would think that couponers were a greedy, sneaky bunch who, overall, are crazy!  One of the couponers said that her addicition to couponing was like an addiction to crack or crystal meth!  Oh my!  I wondered how a supposedly sane person could make a stupid comment like that!  Another couponer told her almost adult son that she was buying cereal that she knows he doesn't like but she is buying it because she has a coupon for it.  On top of that another one of TLC's ECers is being investigated for coupon faud.

In the real world, the majority of couponers are honest.  They take their couponing seriously, but  they care about people.  The honest couponers also do not clear the shelves, and they give a lot of their free items to those in need.

Because of the crap that some of the EC couponers are doing (like cleaning shelves and causing problems at the check-out) and getting so many things for free, stores have begun to change their coupon-related policies which are starting to hurt the honest couponers who have no intentions of buying $1000+ of food at one time, and spending just a few hundred dollars.

I am now boycotting that EC show.  Additionally, I have emailed TLC and told them that in my opinion, their situations are false.  Apparently, since stores get some publicity, the stores suspend their coupon policies for the extreme couponers appearing on the show.  Sorry, but that is not fair. 

Okay, sorry for ranting, but I am upset that TLC has made couponers look like wackos.  My next posting will be back to normal!  :-)

All You Magazine



Image of May issue.



In my last posting, I mentioned All You magazine.  If you have not seen this publication, it is a couponer's dream come true!  The magazine is available through limited sources.  The first is Wal-Mart, and the price is somewhere between $2.30 and $2.50 an issue.  Inside each issue are subscription cards (the irritating ones that fall out when you open the magazine) that allow a person to order the magazine for a year for $1.69 an issue (plus $ .30 for postage and handling).  However, if  you go to Amazon.com, you can get a two-year subscription to All You for $1.42 an issue. 



Index showing coupon product,
value, and location.



Each issue of All You is packed with coupons!  The May issue contains coupons valuing a total of $85.32!  What's more is that this magazine provides an index of the coupons which provides the product name, the value of the coupon, and the page of the magazine where the coupon is located!  How great is that?!?!?!?!



By the way, these coupons are good ones.  Some of the ones this month include $1.00 coupon for Advil or Thermacare, $1.00 coupon for Colgate MaxClean toothpaste, $1.00 coupon for Marie Callender's Bakes, and $1.00 coupon for White cloud Ultra Bathroom Tissue.

There are also coupons for clothing stores.  For example, the May issue contains a coupon for Catherines for $10 off on a purchase of $25 or more.  That's a 40% savings with just that coupon!!!!! 

Next time you go to Wal-Mart, take a look at the magazine.  You can easily find a copy on the racks close to the registers.  If you coupon, this magazine is a great tool!