June 9, 2011
The coupon game is changing…
While it is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, TLC’s “Extreme Couponing” is definitely changing the couponing world. Retailers seem to be scrambling to close the couponing loopholes that are exploited by the people on the show.
Read any book on saving money on groceries, or any couponing blog, and they will tell you to stack store coupons with manufacturer’s coupons. I used this strategy myself to great advantage. However, around the time that “Extreme Couponing” premiered, Fred Meyers, where I do most of my couponing, stopped allowing stacking! Imagine my shock and surprise when the cashier told me that I could use either the store coupon or the manufacturer’s coupon but not both!
Fortunately, all the store coupons Fred Meyers has been issuing lately have been for their private label products or for things that I don’t usually buy, so it hasn’t been much of an issue. If the manufacturer’s coupon is a high-value coupon (for example, a dollar off), it might be a better deal to use the MC instead of the SC, because often the items they issue store coupons for are already on sale, so it becomes a sale-with-a-coupon deal instead of a stacking deal. Conversely, if the MC is a low-value coupon (say 25 or 35 cents), it might be better to use the store coupon. It just makes things a bit trickier, and the savings not quite as good.
Another major change is that Safeway no longer accepts electronic coupons.
For a while, I would load the Shortcuts coupons on to my Safeway store loyalty card. I was very surprised when I noticed that I could use the electronic coupon and a paper coupon (sometimes doubled!) on the same item, making the item free or even producing an overage. Extreme Couponer’s delight! Safeway quickly put the kibosh on this. This is not going to affect me much, because most of the Shortcuts coupons are for junky processed foods that I don’t buy much of anyways.
Safeway still allows stacking and doubling. And Fred Meyers has recently added their store loyalty cards to Cellfire and Shortcuts. No word on whether you can combine electronic coupons with store coupons or other manufacturer’s coupons at Fred Meyer!
