In our last post we finished up talking about some of the advantages of using supermarket coupons. Have you ever wondered why the person ahead of you at the checkout is able to spend $60 less on the same basket of groceries than you? On the surface, you are buying the same number of bags of groceries, but their total seems to be less than yours…a lot less.
The secret, they know how to be a frugal grocery shopper.
Frugal grocery shoppers have some characteristics that you may not be aware of, and I’m about to dish on their secrets.
Frugal grocery shoppers, just like the millionaire next door have a trick or two up their sleeves for saving a bundle every time they go to the supermarket.
Frugal Grocery Shoppers Know a Good Deal When They See It
Savvy shoppers know the going price for the products they use the most often. They are not tricked into a fake sale price that is not really a sale. On the flip side, a knowledgeable shopper knows the difference between a low price and truly fantastic deal and will stock up only when the price is right. Knowing your prices puts you in control of your spending rather than letting the marketers tell you when to buy.
Frugal Grocery Shoppers Never Buy at Full Price
Knowing a good price also gives you the ability to stock up ahead and avoid paying the full retail price for every item on every shopping trip. Think about it, even without ever using a single grocery coupon, you can save 30% off the full retail price if you buy only when an item is on sale. If you always buy enough to get you through to the next sale, you can reduce spending by $30 on every $100 you spend. That savings is no small potatoes. An average family of 4 spends over $200 per week on food. Save $60 per week and realize a $3120 savings a year. What could you do with a savings like that? If you are like me, a nice trip someplace on a tropical beach comes to mind.
Frugal Shoppers Go Without if They Run Out
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to run to the store for just one item that you are out of between shopping trips. Why? Grocers love the impulse sale, and most of us are impulsive. If we want it we buy it. Big mistake! Not only do you pay the highest price for what you have to buy this instant, but that trip to the store usually does not end with just one item. One whatever you are out of becomes, and entire bag of unplanned purchases with a price tag to match. Incidentally, you waste more than just money on that trip to the corner. Time and gas come at a price too.
Frugal Shoppers Are Masters at Substitutions
Plainly put, if the frugal grocery shopper or frugal cook runs out of something, they avoid the trip to the store by substituting whatever they have on hand. The cheapest most frugal way to cook is by using the fewest ingredients possible, purchased at the lowest possible prices. This is a favorite tactic of controlling food costs in restaurants. Restaurants and diners build their entire menus around just a few ingredients. The true advantage to this cost saving strategy? Buying fewer perishable ingredients means less waste and fewer products to buy, thus controlling food costs. If they run out, they make do. A little creativity goes a long way.
Frugal Shoppers are Consistent
Just like the millionaire next door, a frugal grocery shopper has a strategy and knows that the savings are in the details. They never deviate from the plan. They are as consistent as the day is long. You may be wondering why this is so important. I have worked with many over the last few years, and have noticed something striking in my client’s behavior. They can do everything right and then loose an entire months savings by failing to stick to their plan on just one shopping trip. Let’s face it, we are human. We are also creatures of habit and everyone falls down from time to time. Realize this though, you only hold yourself back by deviating from your plan. If you find yourself making excuses like “I’m just too tired,” or “I’ve worked hard this week so I deserve a treat,” then it’s time to ask yourself if you are doing all you can to stick to your savings plan.
How You Can Become a Frugal Grocery Shopper
My motto has always been “work smarter not harder.” So, you don’t need to get too deep here to become successful at reducing grocery spending. Really, all you need to do is two really simple things to realize reduced spending on food. First, understand that becoming a frugal shopper is a mindset and as such that mindset will eventually become part of your lifestyle. No big concession really, since we all tend to continue doing things that benefit us. If there is a payoff in the end, it really is easy to continue behaviors that we see as positive. The key here is to find a way to adopt the new behaviors that make them easy to maintain over the long haul. If you can do this, then you won’t have to put much energy into maintaining the changes you have made. They will come naturally after awhile.
Second, and again a really easy strategy to implement is to adopt what works well for others. Tweak the strategy until it easily fits into your lifestyle, but you really don’t need to make things difficult by starting from scratch. Reinvent the wheel and then you can move on.
To recap, frugal grocery shoppers slash their grocery spending because they do the following well:
-Frugal grocery shoppers know a good deal when they see it.
-Frugal grocery shoppers never buy at full price.
-Frugal grocery shoppers go without if they run out.
-Frugal grocery shoppers are masters of substitutions.
-Frugal grocery shoppers are consistent.
Most importantly, just have fun with seeing your own progress. Congratulate yourself on the positive changes you are making. Give yourself kudos for reaching your goal. Make small improvements every week and in no time you will be a frugal grocery shopper too.
Oh, and by the way, frugal shoppers also kick up their savings by choosing to use supermarket coupons. A good deal is never good enough for them unless it is free.
Showing posts with label grocery store coupons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grocery store coupons. Show all posts
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Using Supermarket Coupons: Advanced Coupon Techniques, Part 2
In Using Supermarket Coupons: Advanced Coupon Techniques, Part 1 we started to talk about how to stretch your food dollars further with some advanced coupon use techniques.
In today’s post, I wanted to continue with some additional advanced couponing strategies. So far we have covered the basics of when to use supermarket coupons, using supermarket coupons to quickly reduce your grocery bills, and started into the advanced couponing techniques. If you are just joining us, go back and read the first articles to lay the groundwork for your savings strategies.
Many of you may be wondering how many coupon strategies there are. Well I’ll be honest, there are many. I have chosen to cover the most effective and quickest savings options because I don’t want you get overloaded with way too much information and muddy the waters.
If you focus on the basics first, and then add the advanced strategies, you should easily be able to reduce spending by 50% or more within a month or two if not considerably sooner. Sound good?
Let’s continue with the advanced strategies.
Instant Coupons
Using supermarket coupons does not need to be limited to manufacturer coupons that you clip from the Sunday inserts. If you look around while shopping you will notice that the manufacturers will quite frequently put instant coupons on their products before shipping.
You know the coupons I am talking about, the ones you peel off and redeem at the register for instant savings. If the product is packaged in a bottle or jar, occasionally the coupons can be found on a neck hanger around the top of the bottle.
Keep your eyes open for these offers. They are out there frequently and will help you save some extra cash.
What can you do with these “found” savings? Well, think about it, some offers you can still double. Double coupons are your friend. There are extra savings to be had here.
Sometimes the offers you will find on instant coupons are on a sale item. Sale items plus coupon are a great value.
On occasion the instant supermarket coupons on a sale item will make a competing brand even cheaper than the product you had planned to buy. Make a wise choice based on every tool you have in your tool box.
Once in a while, manufacturers put out a bonus package, with say and extra 30% free product for the same price. If an instant coupon is lying around, and the UPC codes are the same you can use the coupon on larger package, then you just got 30% more product free for the same price.
Incidentally, instant supermarket coupons also come in those little machines hanging in front of the product on the shelf. They are usually red in color and will print a coupon for you on the spot. A more outdated method you may run into is a tear pad with a bunch of instant supermarket coupons that the sales reps leave near the products they are trying to push.
In my experience, if the instant coupons have a long expiration date and are for a product I use often then I will generally grab a few extras if they are either on a tear pad or in the machines. Any free coupon is a good coupon in my book.
In the best case an instant coupon may be doubled, though often this type of supermarket coupon can not. If you can not double, then money off is still money and your second best choice.
Instant Coupons in Conjunction with Buy Multiple Items, Get Multiple Items Free Offers
Every once in a while you will find a BMIGMF offer in the weekly sales flyer. As we talked about earlier in this post, BMIGMF are most likely to come up right around the time that a major food manufacturer drops a lot of high face value coupons in the Sunday paper.
Your goal when trying to get most groceries for the least amount of money is to find a high face value double or triple coupon for each item your need to buy to get the additional items free.
So what if you have coupons for most products in the offer, but not a few? Well, you have a couple of options. First, you can concede defeat and pay what is left to make the deal a go, or you can keep your eyes peeled for instant coupons for additional savings. Keep in mind that instant coupons can be either coupons placed on tear pads, on the product itself, or store coupons in the weekly sales circular.
As we said before, advertising is big business and a huge expense for most food manufacturers. They are limited by space and the cost of that space. So how do they push additional cases with a fraction of the cost of printing another coupon? They have their sales and merchandising reps slap instant coupons on the products that did not have coupons already printed in the Sunday inserts. The product still sells at an increased rate for much less cost.
Keep your eyes open for instant coupons on the products listed in the sales flyer that did not have a coupon printed in the most recent weeks Sunday coupon inserts. More often than not you will find instant coupons on the products themselves, in the stores advertisement, on a tear pad near the product.
You many or may not be able to double or triple these offers depending on the offer and your stores policies, but savings is still savings, every little bit helps.
Multiplying Savings by Shopping Twice (or More)
This next strategy is a little, well how can I put this delicately? Ummm….I won’t say sneaky, just perhaps a bit hardcore.
If the deal is really incredible like, buy 10 items and get an additional $5.00 off on whatever they are offering I’ll shop more than once in a week. That is, if I can still get the discounts, and my double coupons bring the net cost of the products down to pennies or totally free offers.
It depends on the store policy and the offer but sometimes the limitations are 1 offer per household per visit. A visit is usually defined by either leaving the store and then coming back inside, or a 24 hour period. Again, it depends on both the offer and the store policy.
Want to really kick your savings into high gear? If the products will be used without waste and will store well, I’ll buy as many of a great offer like this as I can reasonably use. This is where using supermarket coupons really pays off in a big way.
Case in point, I found a Buy 10 items offer with an additional instant $5.00 coupon on your next order with a limit of 1 offer per household per day. Great, I had tons of coupons and here is how the numbers worked out.
Cake Mix $1.69 full price
$ .89 sale price
Frosting $2.29 full price
$1.50 sale price
Muffin Mix $2.69 full price
$1.69 sale price
Corn Bread Mix $1.69 full price
$ .99 sale price
Peanut Butter $2.79 full price
$1.89 sale price
Jelly $ 2.89 full price
$ 1.50 sale price
Here is what I bought:
Cake Mix 2@ .89 = $1.79
Coupon - $.35
Coupon - $.35
Double Coupon - $.35
Double Coupon - $.35
Frosting 2@ $1.50= $3.00
Coupon -$. .35
Coupon -$. .35
Double Coupon -$. .35
Double Coupon -$. .35
Muffin Mix 1@ $1.69 = $1.69
Coupon -$.50
Double Coupon -$.50
Cornbread Mix 2@ $.99=$1.98
Coupon -$ .35
Coupon -$ .35
Double Coupon -$ .35
Double Coupon -$ .35
Peanut Butter 2@ $1.89= $3.78
Coupon -$ .50
Coupon -$ .50
Double Coupon -$ .50
Double Coupon -$ .50
Jelly 1 @ $1.50 = $1.50
Coupon - $.35
Double Coupon - $.35
-----------------------------------------------
Sub Total $4.48
Now, don’t forget, I will get a certificate at the checkout for $5.00 on my next shopping trip. In essence, they paid me $.52 to buy all 10 items. I call that at pretty good deal.
Notice a couple of things about this offer. It is particularly good because I the product nets me money and that means that all items are free and then some.
Another real advantage on this deal is that the limit is per family per day. With limits this high, I can stop on my way home from work everyday and not have to spend extra gas to stock up. It takes just minutes and for each time I make the effort, my true net savings is $22.50 off the full shelf price.
But the biggest reason that I can stock up in a big way? All of the items are shelf stable and will hold for a long time in my pantry without waste.
I bought this offer 6 times during the week that it was on sale, so my total savings was $135.00 on just this one offer alone. That’s a lot of cha-ching for under an hours work don’t you think?
A caution here is that most stores will not allow you to use coupons when they have to pay you money back, so don’t take your $5.00 certificate in for the next trip unless you need another item. There is no sense in loosing $.52 of this offer. You earned it the hard way, so make every last penny of your savings work for you buy purchasing one more item that you need and can really use.
I can almost hear some of you saying, Liz, that is just over the top. Well, yeah, it can be. But, if they are going to give me free stuff, and it’s nonperishable I’ll pick it up anyway. There are plenty of elderly folks and young single parents who live around me that could do with a helping hand. Barring that, your local food banks can always use donations especially for protein products like peanut butter and tuna fish and other nonperishables. So, I figure I have these skills for a reason and I try to help whenever and however I can.
I hope this crash course in using supermarket coupons has helped you to see that the effort really does pay off in the long run. The longer you do this the less effort it becomes, and really the savings can be spectacular. The moral of the story? In the right circumstances you can really kick your savings into high gear by using multiple supermarket coupons, multiple times in the same week.
In today’s post, I wanted to continue with some additional advanced couponing strategies. So far we have covered the basics of when to use supermarket coupons, using supermarket coupons to quickly reduce your grocery bills, and started into the advanced couponing techniques. If you are just joining us, go back and read the first articles to lay the groundwork for your savings strategies.
Many of you may be wondering how many coupon strategies there are. Well I’ll be honest, there are many. I have chosen to cover the most effective and quickest savings options because I don’t want you get overloaded with way too much information and muddy the waters.
If you focus on the basics first, and then add the advanced strategies, you should easily be able to reduce spending by 50% or more within a month or two if not considerably sooner. Sound good?
Let’s continue with the advanced strategies.
Instant Coupons
Using supermarket coupons does not need to be limited to manufacturer coupons that you clip from the Sunday inserts. If you look around while shopping you will notice that the manufacturers will quite frequently put instant coupons on their products before shipping.
You know the coupons I am talking about, the ones you peel off and redeem at the register for instant savings. If the product is packaged in a bottle or jar, occasionally the coupons can be found on a neck hanger around the top of the bottle.
Keep your eyes open for these offers. They are out there frequently and will help you save some extra cash.
What can you do with these “found” savings? Well, think about it, some offers you can still double. Double coupons are your friend. There are extra savings to be had here.
Sometimes the offers you will find on instant coupons are on a sale item. Sale items plus coupon are a great value.
On occasion the instant supermarket coupons on a sale item will make a competing brand even cheaper than the product you had planned to buy. Make a wise choice based on every tool you have in your tool box.
Once in a while, manufacturers put out a bonus package, with say and extra 30% free product for the same price. If an instant coupon is lying around, and the UPC codes are the same you can use the coupon on larger package, then you just got 30% more product free for the same price.
Incidentally, instant supermarket coupons also come in those little machines hanging in front of the product on the shelf. They are usually red in color and will print a coupon for you on the spot. A more outdated method you may run into is a tear pad with a bunch of instant supermarket coupons that the sales reps leave near the products they are trying to push.
In my experience, if the instant coupons have a long expiration date and are for a product I use often then I will generally grab a few extras if they are either on a tear pad or in the machines. Any free coupon is a good coupon in my book.
In the best case an instant coupon may be doubled, though often this type of supermarket coupon can not. If you can not double, then money off is still money and your second best choice.
Instant Coupons in Conjunction with Buy Multiple Items, Get Multiple Items Free Offers
Every once in a while you will find a BMIGMF offer in the weekly sales flyer. As we talked about earlier in this post, BMIGMF are most likely to come up right around the time that a major food manufacturer drops a lot of high face value coupons in the Sunday paper.
Your goal when trying to get most groceries for the least amount of money is to find a high face value double or triple coupon for each item your need to buy to get the additional items free.
So what if you have coupons for most products in the offer, but not a few? Well, you have a couple of options. First, you can concede defeat and pay what is left to make the deal a go, or you can keep your eyes peeled for instant coupons for additional savings. Keep in mind that instant coupons can be either coupons placed on tear pads, on the product itself, or store coupons in the weekly sales circular.
As we said before, advertising is big business and a huge expense for most food manufacturers. They are limited by space and the cost of that space. So how do they push additional cases with a fraction of the cost of printing another coupon? They have their sales and merchandising reps slap instant coupons on the products that did not have coupons already printed in the Sunday inserts. The product still sells at an increased rate for much less cost.
Keep your eyes open for instant coupons on the products listed in the sales flyer that did not have a coupon printed in the most recent weeks Sunday coupon inserts. More often than not you will find instant coupons on the products themselves, in the stores advertisement, on a tear pad near the product.
You many or may not be able to double or triple these offers depending on the offer and your stores policies, but savings is still savings, every little bit helps.
Multiplying Savings by Shopping Twice (or More)
This next strategy is a little, well how can I put this delicately? Ummm….I won’t say sneaky, just perhaps a bit hardcore.
If the deal is really incredible like, buy 10 items and get an additional $5.00 off on whatever they are offering I’ll shop more than once in a week. That is, if I can still get the discounts, and my double coupons bring the net cost of the products down to pennies or totally free offers.
It depends on the store policy and the offer but sometimes the limitations are 1 offer per household per visit. A visit is usually defined by either leaving the store and then coming back inside, or a 24 hour period. Again, it depends on both the offer and the store policy.
Want to really kick your savings into high gear? If the products will be used without waste and will store well, I’ll buy as many of a great offer like this as I can reasonably use. This is where using supermarket coupons really pays off in a big way.
Case in point, I found a Buy 10 items offer with an additional instant $5.00 coupon on your next order with a limit of 1 offer per household per day. Great, I had tons of coupons and here is how the numbers worked out.
Cake Mix $1.69 full price
$ .89 sale price
Frosting $2.29 full price
$1.50 sale price
Muffin Mix $2.69 full price
$1.69 sale price
Corn Bread Mix $1.69 full price
$ .99 sale price
Peanut Butter $2.79 full price
$1.89 sale price
Jelly $ 2.89 full price
$ 1.50 sale price
Here is what I bought:
Cake Mix 2@ .89 = $1.79
Coupon - $.35
Coupon - $.35
Double Coupon - $.35
Double Coupon - $.35
Frosting 2@ $1.50= $3.00
Coupon -$. .35
Coupon -$. .35
Double Coupon -$. .35
Double Coupon -$. .35
Muffin Mix 1@ $1.69 = $1.69
Coupon -$.50
Double Coupon -$.50
Cornbread Mix 2@ $.99=$1.98
Coupon -$ .35
Coupon -$ .35
Double Coupon -$ .35
Double Coupon -$ .35
Peanut Butter 2@ $1.89= $3.78
Coupon -$ .50
Coupon -$ .50
Double Coupon -$ .50
Double Coupon -$ .50
Jelly 1 @ $1.50 = $1.50
Coupon - $.35
Double Coupon - $.35
-----------------------------------------------
Sub Total $4.48
Now, don’t forget, I will get a certificate at the checkout for $5.00 on my next shopping trip. In essence, they paid me $.52 to buy all 10 items. I call that at pretty good deal.
Notice a couple of things about this offer. It is particularly good because I the product nets me money and that means that all items are free and then some.
Another real advantage on this deal is that the limit is per family per day. With limits this high, I can stop on my way home from work everyday and not have to spend extra gas to stock up. It takes just minutes and for each time I make the effort, my true net savings is $22.50 off the full shelf price.
But the biggest reason that I can stock up in a big way? All of the items are shelf stable and will hold for a long time in my pantry without waste.
I bought this offer 6 times during the week that it was on sale, so my total savings was $135.00 on just this one offer alone. That’s a lot of cha-ching for under an hours work don’t you think?
A caution here is that most stores will not allow you to use coupons when they have to pay you money back, so don’t take your $5.00 certificate in for the next trip unless you need another item. There is no sense in loosing $.52 of this offer. You earned it the hard way, so make every last penny of your savings work for you buy purchasing one more item that you need and can really use.
I can almost hear some of you saying, Liz, that is just over the top. Well, yeah, it can be. But, if they are going to give me free stuff, and it’s nonperishable I’ll pick it up anyway. There are plenty of elderly folks and young single parents who live around me that could do with a helping hand. Barring that, your local food banks can always use donations especially for protein products like peanut butter and tuna fish and other nonperishables. So, I figure I have these skills for a reason and I try to help whenever and however I can.
I hope this crash course in using supermarket coupons has helped you to see that the effort really does pay off in the long run. The longer you do this the less effort it becomes, and really the savings can be spectacular. The moral of the story? In the right circumstances you can really kick your savings into high gear by using multiple supermarket coupons, multiple times in the same week.
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