Couponing

When I first started couponing, I was just getting whatever I could for the lowest amount of money. Sometimes I would walk away with a 0 receipt. That means I didn’t pay anything out of pocket. I learned how to flip my store rewards with the sales and coupons to pay next to nothing or nothing.

That was 3 years ago, and a lot has changed with couponing. My favorite stores have changed their reward programs and now days they want to you to pay.

Products that you were able to get for free are now bundled into a spend $30 or spend $40 deals. This may not seem like a lot of money however you used to not have to pay the full $30 or $40 to get the reward, as long as it rang up the amount you could use your rewards and coupons to bring the price down as low as you could get it and still get the reward.

You also used to get a lot of food coupons as well as personal care. You still get the personal care product coupons, but the food coupons are far and few now days.

Does that mean it’s not worth couponing anymore? Absolutely you still can get great deals and you still can get products for free you just got to have the right strategy.

Target Couponing

Target couponing is the new way that I coupon. Now I have been couponing for 3 years going on 4 and I have a nice size stockpile for my kids and me. Yet we still need things from time to time, and there are still great sales on products that we use.

So, what is target couponing? Its couponing with a purpose, I only shop for the things that we need and not just for what I can get for low.

To tell you the truth when I first started, I couldn’t tell you really how much I saved. I was buying any and everything that was on sale. Sometimes I was buying things that we didn’t use just because I could get it for $2 or 49 cents.

Buying things, you don’t need is the beginning of becoming a hoarder. You find yourself with a house full of stuff you don’t need.

So, with target couponing I make a list for the things that we are getting low on, or we need. Then I look at what sales that each store that I shop at has for that week. I have a coupon budget of $20 a week that $80 a month for personal care items (and sometimes food as well).

If there is nothing that I need on sale that week then I wait tell the next week sales. If buy the end of the month I don’t use my rewards I, then use them to buy things that are on my grocery list that I can get at CVS and Walgreens. I use my rewards to get these items free and take them off my list and save money.

How do I get them for free? Let’s say I have $10 in CVS rewards (Extra Care Bucks, this is Cvs cash that you can use in the store) I buy things like bread, milk, eggs and cereal. I make sure that my total is under $10 say my total is $9.20, in Florida we pay 7.5% in tax. When you add the tax, my total is $9.89 I use the $10 extra care bucks and I walkout paying nothing due to the reward covering the total with tax.

When it comes to couponing for the things that I need I flip my rewards with the coupons.

If I have $5 in extra care bucks, I buy something that is $8, and I have a $2 coupon that will bring my total to $6 then I use the $5 reward on top of the coupon that leaves me with $1 plus tax.

So, this is what that looks like

Buy 2 Colgate toothpaste for $4 each

I have $5 extra bucks and a coupon save $2 on 2

My total is $8.60 (with tax)

I use the $2 coupon and the $5 extra bucks

My total is now $1.60 out the door.

One thing that I don’t do with target couponing is I don’t do big hauls. This means I don’t try to buy out the store. I make no more than 2 to 3 transactions. The reason for this is it keeps my, out of pocket cost well below my budget.

I try not to do the spend $30 and spend $40. The reason you only get $10 or $5 rewards back from these deals and it’s not worth it. If you need a product from one of these deals you still can get it at the sales price you just don’t get the reward so just get it as low as you can get it and forget about the reward, it’s not worth spending all that money.

Now if you need most of the things in that deal go ahead and spend the $30 or $40 and don’t buy anything else that week. Keep the reward for the next week or shopping trip and flip all your transaction so that you pay next to nothing that week or trip.

I also use all the cash back apps that I can for every trip. I schedule all my coupon trips and I pre- make my transactions. This is how I know what I am going to spend. I check the cash back apps to see what items they have on their cash back list.

I stack as much as I can per transaction as well. This means I use Manufacture coupons with store coupons and rewards then use the cash back apps. By doing this I save money and make money (when I can) at the same time.

If I don’t have any rewards to start, I make sure that the first transaction has rewards then I make sure that I can buy that product at the least amount then I take the rewards from that transaction to flip on my next transaction. By doing this the first transaction is the most I have to pay out of pocket.

Well, that is all that I have for the day, I hope that this helped you on your journey

Thank you for reading Everything Frugal.

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