Clean Up in Aisle Three!

Couponing is a huge part of my life; I've been using coupons for over 30 years. But it is NOT my life. When I took my husband to the ER on March 15th, getting a good deal was the last thing on my mind. Well, actually not the last thing: I did raid our savings on the way to the hospital, thinking David didn't have insurance and we might net a discount on an ER bill if we paid in cash. (always a bargainer) After the third nitroglycerin pill, a heparin shot and an order for an ambulance, a cash discount was a moot point~We were in way over the cash in my purse.  Thankfully, my husband's insurance was reinstated, he is doing well, and I can now....SHOP?  I hadn't intended doing any shopping sprees while my husband was in the hospital but I did stop at the local Walgreens for a pill-crusher the day before I brought him home and I stumbled across a good deal. The store had a shelf full of clearance Olay soap marked down to $2.29.  I still had some of those $2.00 Olay coupons burning a hole in my binder, so I dashed back out to the van, grabbed it, and ended up buying all they had remaining on the shelf. (to my credit, these coupons do expire in a week and most of the body wash on the shelf had already been purchased so someone else had benefited from the deal)  What I hadn't expected was that every other Olay soap was going to be on sale for an additional 50% off. I didn't notice it in my first transaction when I had other products I was purchasing, but the second transaction I did when the coupons suddenly stopped scanning, and the cashier and I realized the ones that had scanned had covered the entire purchase and the register wouldn't take more.  So now I have these delicious smelling soaps to add to Christmas and workshop baskets~ all for free.  And we know my favorite motto: cheap is nice, but free is better.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat, in Coupon Lingo

In the coupon world, there will be some offers you will just want to do over and over.  Yesterday's Target offer was one of those. Last week's Target ad included Olay body wash on sale for $5. That is already a decent price on the big bottles, but still more than I like to pay for body wash. Body wash is a luxury, not a neccessity, but my entire family prefers a body puff and body wash to bar soap. I like to put body washes in my adult children's Christmas baskets, as well, so the fact that Target was offering a $5 gift card for each set of three Olay body washes purchased ignited my interest.  For the math impaired, $5 X 3 body washes=$15. Last week's Olay $2 coupon drops the price down to $9, not bad for three large bottles. The $5 gift card makes it a super deal. But to really get the most out of this sale, the trick is to turn around and do the deal all over again, this time using your initial gift card to help pay for the three Olay body washes. I've heard this strategy termed "Wash, Rinse, and Repeat" in coupon lingo.  I was near a Target yesterday afternoon and tried this deal, and it worked great.  First time through the checkout, I used three $2 coupons and paid $9 (plus tax) and got my $5 gift card. The second time through, I used three $2 coupons AND the $5 gift card to pay for my transaction, and paid only $4 (plus tax) for my order, netting me another $5 gift card. See where this is going? I could have done the deal as many times as I had coupons for, and as long as my husband would wait for me to go through the line. Most cashiers would allow me to do seperate orders, and this one had no problem. Unfortunately, I had to stop at 5 transactions because it was a Saturday, and the shelves weren't well stocked, but I am now have 15 body washes to add to my dwindling stockpile. This was definitely a deal worth repeating, and if I lived closer to a Target, I would have done it several times during the week.

Remember the Blue Light Special?

 As a mother of young children in the 1980’s, one of my favorite sales gimmicks was the “blue light special” at our local Kmart. It was created in the 1960’s as a way for store managers to draw shopper’s attention to slow-moving merchandise that was sold at a special discount for a very limited time. There was usually a ten-minute time frame in which the customer had to select their purchases and get them relabeled with the discount before the light was moved to a different section of the store.

 I’d be shopping with our two young children when I’d see the blue light flashing and I’d rush toward the area. I can vividly remember how I felt when I saw the light flashing: the heady rush of adrenaline, the sweaty palms and quickened heartbeat as I frantically perused the sales rack. It was an effective promotional tool, as I almost always found something. It was only later, at home, I might pull my purchases out of the shopping bag and be perplexed as to what possessed me to buy four shirts that didn’t yet fit either of my children, and when I looked more closely, weren’t even a style I cared for. I almost always experienced buyer’s remorse after my trips to Kmart. I was the hapless victim of a popular combination of sale tactic maneuvers; the urgency of the limited time deal and the illusion of a slashed discounted price.  I eventually stopped chasing the blue light, but I never stopped looking for clearance signs. I would succumb to many sales tactics in the ensuing years but falling for the blue light special was a rookie mistake; the “good deal” that really wasn’t.

Going Nutty!

Like most Coupon Queens, I love talking about couponing. With an almost religious fervor we proselytize about coupons; some of us teaching classes, making speeches or actively pursuing media opportunities where we can demonstrate our creative couponing skills. We are, indeed, crazy about coupons.

Or, if you ask some of our family and friends, just crazy.

In my couponing workshops, I stress the importance of buying and stockpiling by the sales. That means you should know the regular price of the items you typically purchase and maximize your savings by combining sale prices on those products with the coupons you have clipped and saved just for that purpose.

When I spotted a Planters Nutrition coupon in the newspaper for 75-cents off, I did two things: I collected as many as I could from friends and family, and  went online to www.thecouponclippers.com to see if they had any of that coupon in stock.  They did, only theirs were for $1.00 off. (if you haven't learned by now, you will find out; different areas of the country and even different newspapers in the same state, will have different coupons) So, for a ten-cent clipping fee, I ordered some of the $1.00 Nutrition coupons.

And then I waited.

Now, everyone in my family loves these nuts; even my children, and they are good for us. (within reason) The normal retail price of these cans varies, but averages around $5.00 a can. I've seen the price as high as $8.00 in some drugstores. So when I saw our Fareway advertising the Nutrition on sale for $3.49 a can, I knew it was time for me to use my coupons.  The only drawback to shopping like this is the reaction I get from others. Spotting eleven cans in my cart, the cashier's eyes widened, her mouth dropped open a bit, and she blurted out, "You must be having a party or something."
Buying over $35 worth of nuts in one trip probably does look a little crazy.

It seems only slightly less crazy when I pull out my $1 coupons.

Imagine what the cashiers are thinking when it is a cartload of toilet paper or feminine protection.
"You must be...having some kind of problem at your house..."

Nope. No problem.  Just a good sale.

Free Prize Inside...my couponing workshops

It all started innocently enough, in 1969, when the Cheerios company advertised a Super Ball on the back of their box; a ball they would send, totally free, in exchange for boxtops.  I was ten years old, and the word "Free" caught my eye then, just as it does now. I suppose that is one reason why I am addicted to couponing; the possibility of getting something free is just too much to resist. Now, I am using those free, and nearly free products as door prizes in my couponing workshops.  I am having so much fun with these workshops, givng away a prize is just my way of adding some fun for the participants.  The person who guesses the closest to the actual price I paid for these baskets full of products wins the basket at the end of the evening.

Now, of course, the price of the basket is also included, so if you are reading this blog posting right now and plan on attending one of my future workshops, keep in mind that I don't get the baskets free and not all the products were free, either. But if you read my blog regularly, you might have a better idea of the actual cost~

Here is the basket I will be giving away at Thursday's coupon workshop at NICC in Dubuque.  Do some of these products look familiar?  Retail value is well over $50. What do you think I paid?

Dubuque Telegraph Herald Introduces my couponing column!

It was fun, but kind of scary, to pick up the newspaper from the front porch and see my face on the cover!  Today my first couponing column runs in the Telegraph Herald newspaper. It will be a weekly column, run every Thursday. 

Free Toilet Bowl Cleaner!

There is a manufacturer coupon good for $4 off any Scrubbing Bubbles One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner starter sets that expires on February 18th. I had a couple in my binder a couple of weeks ago when I visited the Cedar Rapids Hy-Vee store, when I noticed a freestanding display of One Step starter kits priced at $3.89. Ker-ching! Ker-ching! The FREE radar went off in my head and I added two to my cart. The coupon scanned with no problem, taking off exactly $3.89 for each box. I didn't expect there would be any kits left yesterday when I visited the store again, but I'd gotten four more coupons in the meantime. The display did, indeed, have a sizeable dent in it, but there were still kits left, so I added four to my cart, and again, there was no problem with the coupons scanning at the checkout, despite the fact the coupon made them free. The register "read" the coupon and allowed it to scan for $3.89, meaning no "overage" but free kits nonetheless. If you've got any of the $4 coupons, you might want to check your Hy-Vee stores for the same display.