When you sit down with your store's sale flyer, your first job is to take a look at the front and back page. These items are often called "loss leaders"- and they're usually better deals than the ones inside the flyer. Loss leaders are items that the store may lose money on, but the gamble is that once you're in the store, you'll buy enough stuff at a profit to make up for the loss on the featured items.
I'm going to use the Stop & Shop circular in front of me to walk through a match-up with you, so I'll start at top left. Lean Cuisine Entrees, Lean Pockets, and Hot Pockets are on sale, 5 for $10, which we'll abbreviate as 5/$10. That means they're $2 each.
So I say to myself, self, would I pay money for these items, even if it's not a product I normally purchase? No? If these were free, would I "buy" them? If you'd never want it no matter what, skip over to the next item. If you answer "yes" to the first two questions, it's time to look for a coupon.
There are quite a few coupon databases online, which makes it a lot easier to find a current coupon than flipping through every coupon insert over and over. The coupon database by Coupon Mom is very thorough, and includes internet printable coupons, store coupons, and insert coupons you'd find in the Sunday paper, as well as magazine coupons. You do need to register for the site (it's free) to use their coupon database, and I suggest searching by region rather than by state for your coupons. As you can see in the example below, I searched in the New England database and came up with 2 coupons- one in All You magazine, and one in a newspaper insert from 1/2/11.
Here's another coupon database I like to use, that doesn't require registration: the i heart cvs coupon database. You'll see in my screenshot below that this database found me an internet printable coupon for lean cuisines. Awesome!
So the sale is $2 each for Lean Cuisine. This coupon is for $1 off 3 boxes of Lean Cuisine. That makes your price $1.67 each, but you'll need to buy 3. Sound good to you? Print that sucker!
Not so great? Skip it and head on to the next item you see that you'd be willing to pay for, or you'd "buy" if it was free.
You'll see Birds Eye Vegetables in the next row. They're 5/$4, and you must buy 5 to get the .80 each price. A quick search of the coupon database tells me that if I look in my Smart Source coupon insert from 12/12/10, I'll find a coupon for .50 off 2 Birds Eye Vegetables. And I'm in luck: Stop & Shop automatically doubles coupons up to $1, which means this .50 coupon will take $1 off my order.
If you have 2 of this coupon (meaning you'd need to have 2 of the same coupon insert) then you could take $2 off the advertised price of the 5 boxes. Now you're getting 5 boxes for $2 total, which makes your price for each box .40. THAT, my friends, is a stock up price.
This will be a case of striking when the iron is hot. And I'm about to tell you the second secret of couponing: sales cycles are typically about 3 months long. That means that if something is on sale right now, that particular brand and item will probably go on sale again in about 3 months. So if your family only ever eats Birds Eye frozen veggies, you'd do well to get a LOT of them right now, ideally enough to last you around 3 months.
"But Rachel!" you yell at your computer screen. "That's a lot of money out of my pocket right now, I'm supposed to be saving!" Ah yes, and here is a reason that many people stop couponing- and that I myself was very disheartened in my first month of couponing. In the beginning, as you build your stockpiles, you may spend more as you stock up on good deals. In real life I'd never buy 20 boxes of anything. Of course the $1.25 a week on ONE box of Birds Eye looks like it's not much in a $150 grocery bill, versus the $8 I'd spend in that one week to buy 20 boxes and stick them in my freezer. But for the next 20 weeks, I'd save the $17 I would have spent on 19 more boxes at full price. In the beginning, you won't see a lot of savings as you stock up on items your family uses. But as you shop each week, and you need to buy less each week because your freezer and pantry are well stocked, you will feel AWESOME. Trust me on this.
OK, ready to pick up your circular and find another great deal? Why are you making that funny face? Does this already seem like too much work to you? Match-ups get you great deals, but they can be time consuming. Luckily, there are lots and lots of people out on the internet who do this kind of thing FOR you, every week, and post it on their sites.
This is why I told you in the beginning that your best bet is to begin couponing at a chain store. The bigger the chain is, the more likely that someone out there is already doing your match-ups for you. Your challenge is going to be to find the blog or site that is easiest for you to follow.
There are some large sites that do match-ups for most national chains. Coupon Mom is free, and posts match-ups weekly for most national chains. It does require registration, and there's a bit of a learning curve involved to learn how to read the match-up list (though there are lots of FAQ and help links available on the site). The Grocery Game is a similar service, but it's not free- you pay $10 every 8 weeks for one store's match-ups, $15 every 8 weeks for 2 stores, etc. in $5 increments. I've never used them, but I'd imagine it's a good way to go for those of you who just don't have the time to do detailed searching yourselves- and they've been around forever.
Personally, I like to get my match-ups through blogs. I feel like a person sitting behind his/her computer, putting the effort into running a blog, is more invested in finding you a great deal because they'll post something that THEY would be interested in, not just any deal that runs through a computer. I'll post my favorite blogs with match-ups below, and if you don't see your chain listed here, leave me a comment and I'll see if I can find you a match-up blog for that store.
- Maven of Savin does match-ups for Shaws, Stop and Shop, CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens.
- For the Mommas does match-ups for a large list of stores including Acme Markets, Dollar General, Giant Eagle, Hannaford, Kroger, Meijer, Pathmark, Safeway, Shoprite, Target, and a bunch more places that I've never heard of.
- Penny Pinchin Mom does match-ups for Hen House Market, Hy-Vee, and Price Chopper. She also maintains a list of blogs who post match-ups for other grocery stores.
If you're starting your couponing quest at a drug store instead of a grocery store, or a national discount/department chain like Target, K-Mart or The Evil Empire that Shall Remain Nameless on My Blog Because Damn It, It's My Blog and I Hate Them, there are tooooons of sites that post match-ups, clearance deals, and other interesting tidbits. The ones I use the most are:
- Totally Target
- the trifecta of i heart cvs, i heart rite aid, and i heart wags (Walgreens).
- we don't have K-Mart here anymore so I don't have a particular site to recommend, but Common Sense with Money posts K-Mart deals.
And this, my friends, concludes Remedial Couponing. You are armed with this week's sunday paper inserts, you have your store circular handy, and you know how to do a match-up and where to look for someone who will do the match-ups for you. You have an envelope to store the coupons you're planning to use at your chosen store this week. You're ready to move on-- to explore the wonderful world of Couponing 101- coming up next!
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