Coupon TIP #1 - Combine Them With Sales

A coupon will save you some money, a sale will save you some money... but a coupon and a sale used together? Now, that's where the real savings comes from!

One of the most important tricks to getting the biggest bang for your coupon buck is to buy an item that's on sale and then use a coupon to get an even deeper discount.

Let me illustrate:

Suppose you have a 35 cents off coupon that you want to use to purchase a thingamajig that regularly costs $1.49. Here's how the savings breaks down:

Regular Cost: 1.49
Coupon: .35
Final Cost: 1.14

Total Savings: .35 or about 23%


Not bad.... now let's suppose that you use that same coupon... BUT this time you use it when the thingamajig is on sale. Here's how the savings breaks down:


Regular Cost: 1.49
Sale Cost: .99
Coupon: .35
Final Cost: .64

Total Savings: .85 or about 57%

Much Better! This is what is called strategic shopping and its one of the best ways to use coupons.



How I Got Free Mints

Let me share a recent example of this from my own shopping experience - Lifesavers Wint-O-Green Mints – love em! And for the past few months I have been getting bags of them for free using this "strategic shopping" method. Yes – I said FREE.

You see, Lifesavers is running a promotion where on the inside of each specially marked bag is a coupon for $1.00 off. The bags regularly sell for around 2.19 or so a bag, but in recent months every few weeks my local Kroger has been putting these on sale for a buck each.

So... the long short of it is that I can buy a bag during the sale, use my $1.00 off coupon and get it for free. FREE. But one of the unique bonuses to this whole deal is that inside my FREE bag is another coupon for $1.00 off that I can use to get ANOTHER free bag. One night I went through the checkout with 4 bags of mints and 4 coupons and paid something like 4 cents (tax). Truly magical. Major score for my wallet, not so much for my teeth :)

But think about it, had I not waited for the sale I would have paid something like $4.76 for those 4 bags of mints by using my coupons alone. Which while that isn't bad.... I'd rather pay 4 cents. :)

So – combine your coupons with sales and watch the savings skyrocket!

Stretching His Blessings,

Cristine


God provides. You are blessed.... make the most of it!