extra $6 off coupon...WWYD?
Hi, I'm new to Super Couponing. I went to Jewel yesterday and I pulled a cart that had a "Save $6 when you spend $60 and use your preferred card" laying at the bottom. The coupon was to expire that very day, so I thought I was very lucky. But then I realized that I also had a "Save $10 when you spend $140 and use your preferred card" coupon with me that expired in 3 days. You can't use both in one transaction.
I bought what I came there for (my family's grocery shopping for the week) and my bill wound up being $170. I used the $10 coupon, but I still had the $6 one unused. What should a good Super Couponer do in such a situation?
Jewel the other day and almost threw up...
I have been following Jill since 2/8/10 and have saved about 2200 already!!
But I needed SONIC COMPLETE refill heads and ONLY jewel seems to sell that one any more...$25 omg (well its a 3 pack) I did have a $5 off Q, but my total bill was 62 oop after Q's .. kinda stunk!
in this trip I did one PG deal, one "try something new" deal and a univeiler deal...el paso deal
I messed up my blackbelt on the TSN deal.. but the opposite way, I spent 20@!! instead of 12 ..duh!
62 opp saved 57.. got $3 beef cat and $5,$4 and $5 = $14 reg cats
You won't see that again after Jill's class. I don't even think I have had a $30 debit in months. Yesterday I was shocked I had to pay $13 at Dominicks because they would only accept one cat! I did get $7 back! With all the cat deals, you always have their money to spend! I bought a $300 Jewel gift card around 3/15 and still have $158 on it! That includes stuff that I have purchased for friends! You wouldn't believe how much that can buy! Jill thank you for sharing your talent with us! I really enjoy super couponing!
My $170 was before coupons. After coupons, it was $147. (I'm 2-weeks new at this, so I was very pleased.)
I gave the "Save $6 on a $60 purchase" coupon away to another shopper. Actually, I also had an extra "Save $10 off of $140" that the cashier had given me, so I gave that away as well. But not using that $6 coupon has been bugging me ever since. I'm thinking now that I should have held on to it and gone back shopping later that night. Turns out there were a number of items that my family needed that no one had written on my original grocery list. (Imagine that! ) And I could have stocked up on some over-the-counter medicines (good price on sale) to help me reach that goal. Oh, well. Good learning experience.
It's always good to "share the wealth." Realistically you had already spent $140+ to use your original $10/$140 coupon. To have gone back to the store to try to spend $60 more in order to save an additional $6 would not have made sense. In all likelihood you would have ended up spending more than you should have on many of the items in your second transaction just to push your total over $60. Then rather than saving $6, you would have wasted money.
As all the other posters and Coupon Maven have pointed out, once you get the hang of this, you will find it VERY difficult to get your post-coupon total to over $50.
Keep up the good work!
If you stick with Super-Couponing... you will soon find it tough to spend a $6-off-$60. I have been giving my $5-off-$50s away in the lane to other people lately as I'm having trouble getting close to that! :)
They sent me some $4 off $40s in the mail awhile back and those seemed to be perfect, cuz that would be my average total per trip, then I could get it down with Qs and cats :)
I can't even imagine not hitting $50 on my weekly grocery shpping trip!
Have you been able to come to a Super-Couponing live workshop? Most of them are free, and I also offer the workshop on DVD (www.supercouponing.com.) In an hour, I promise you, it will COMPLETELY change the way you shop. :)
My grocery bills are usually under $40 (lately, more like $25 the way the sales have been!) a week for my family of 5. And I'm not alone - ask around the blog. ANYONE can do this.
Trying to wrap my head around this concept. I would imagine there are some things your family needs/likes that never have a coupon, yes? Do you then use the "Save $x off your next purchase" cats that you've earned from other shopping to drop down the price of those non-coupon items?
Other than fresh produce and milk, my shopping is really focused on restocking my own "store" (my stockpile shelves and freezer) at home. As you continue to hit good sales and stock up ahead of your needs, your weekly grocery list is reduced to the point where you are really ONLY buying what's fresh, and anything else that's in a coupon deal that I might want to restock my store.
I can honestly tell you I could go at least six months without buying cereal, pasta, pasta sauce, granola bars, fruit snacks, pancake mix, cake mix, brownie mix, dog food, hot cocoa, ketchup, peanut butter, crackers... not to mention the multitude of frozen vegetables and meats in my freezer.
And... I could go a year or more without buying popcorn, soup, canned vegetables, toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouthwash, body wash, pump hand soaps, shampoo, razors, shaving gel, bars of soap, feminine care products, dish soap, dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, cleaning products of ANY kind, Ziploc bags, trash bags, Kleenex, toilet paper, baby wipes, air freshener, disinfectant sprays, Q-tips, dental floss, cough drops... I'm sure I'm leaving things out, but you get the idea.
Honestly, if I don't have a coupon, I don't buy it right now. After years of doing this, you learn that EVERYTHING goes on sale at some point, and if you buy ahead of your needs, you really never run out of anything. At the moment, I have nine cartons of milk here, so I'm not buying that either (we buy organic, and it was 50% off when a local Dominick's was going out of business. With the almost month-and-a-half expiration date on organic, I bought ten - at $1.69 each, that was $16.90 -- half of what I'd normally pay without a coupon.)
Last night, we had grass-fed organic beef burgers for dinner that normally sell for nearly $6/lb. I found them on clearance at Dominick's for $1.99/lb, which is my buy point. When I see sales like that, I'll buy as much as I have room to freeze -- and we're eating very well at a fraction of the regular price.
I'm never afraid to stock up during a good sale, because it just adds another item to the list of what I'm not paying full price for in the near future. And when your home "store" is well-stocked, you reach a point where you're just "cherrypicking" the sales and only buying things that are free/cheap with coupons, plus produce, dairy and meats.
Coupon Maven (Jill, right?), thanks for taking the time to write such a lengthy reply. I appreciated all the detail! I am having a lot of fun learning this. It's like playing a big game, isn't it? I'm also noticing how it can be applied to other shopping. (Just got a $183 worth of stuff at JCPenney's today for $48, thanks to my new couponing skills!) Again, thanks for taking the time to teach and share. :-)
I've seen the DVD, but have not been to an in-person class. Please come to Naperville!
The DVD class is the same as the live one, for the most part -- except that you don't get to ask questions live and in person when it's done! If you watch the part about stockpiling and shopping -ahead- of our needs, that's equally as important as smart coupon use in driving your grocery bill down. They go hand in hand.
with the $5/$50 coupon as well. Saw the higher valued coupons and knew I wouldn't get to $80 or $100 so $50...didn't think it would be difficult. Did it twice in the past month and it was very hard considering many items I could use in it (like catalina deals) were sold out so I had to scramble and be creative...too much work. I gave the rest of my $5/$50 away.
Hope your $170 total was on post coupons .Cause you might have been able to you both if you had a lot of coupon deductions . I have been using the $3 and $4 off and then backing it up with lots of coupons .
Its hard to say without knowing what you bought and had in coupons .I usually try to use all these Jewel perks with free item or sale and the things I have great coupons on ! this way the $3 or $4 or $6 off can be used towards meat/produce . Do you understand what I am trying to say ?
I would say you could have (time permitting) gotten just what you needed that would have been $60 worth and used the $6, and then before the other expired go back and get the rest...maybe you would have a few more things on your list by then to get back up to the $140?
Otherwise, use the $10 (as you did) and find another shopper spending $60+ (probably not hard to spot) and pass the $6 on.
I've never tried personally, but I've heard that you can use both if your total is above the requirement for both. In your case, you'd have to spend $200 to use both in the same transaction. Even though these state after coupon, I always put them on top of my stack of coupons and never had a problem. Just last week I had a 10/100 from the mail. I used it. And, thanks to Jill my OOP for that transaction was $15 and I got $8 back in cats. WOO HOO!
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