Shopping with Coupons: What The...

JustDave

Senior Member
I get coupons by email every week, usually 2 or 3 times a week,from a grocery chain, but I buy my groceries at Walmart, which saves me15 to 20 percent, and if I use curbside pickup and shop on line, I save another 5% on top of that with a Walmart cash back card. The coupons at the other chain don't even bring the prices down to compete. I know a lot of people won't shop at Walmart, but for most things (not all), Walmart works for me.

But what about the coupons? They don't turn me on at all. Even if I were to use them I'd have to fiddle with scanning, activating, or clipping. But I can just go to Walmart and buy things cheaper. I don't understand the coupon business strategy. Why not just reduce prices and people can buy what they want. Then I would go to their store.
 

I think if one is attached to a store, the coupons would be a nice extra. I'm attached to Aldis, and they have these little fliers advertising "Aldi Finds", things they found good buys on and pass them along, but no coupons are involved.
 

No more clipping for me either. Some stores have downloading of coupons so it gets applied if you use the product. Another has price matching so displaying the coupon on your phone gets it applied.
 
most americans rent to blow the spending on the big stuff like where you live and what you drive .

then in comparison try to pinch pennys elsewhere amounting to little .

as famous researcher michael kitces points out :

really? The key to my financial future is clipping $0.50 coupons for my morning cereal and making sure that I don't impulse buy any snacks in the checkout line? Yes, I realize that spending an extra $4/day x 5 days/week x 50 weeks/year means you could be spending $1,000 at Starbucks, which is no trivial amount. But overall, most of this seems like small potatoes.

Instead of doing so much to sweat this small stuff, I wish that we could do a better job focusing on what really matters - where we live, and what we drive. Because the reality is that for most people, our dominating expenses are actually not all this little stuff; it's our cost for shelter and transportation.

So simply put, why do we focus SO much of our spending tips about the barely-20% of spending that goes towards Entertainment, Clothing, and Food, and so little on the over-60% that goes towards transportation and shelter? In real terms - we buy the most expensive house and car we can afford, and then drive ourselves crazy clipping coupons to make up the difference. Perhaps the better conversation is about owning more affordable houses, and driving less expensive (or dare I say it, USED!?) cars.


https://www.kitces.com/blog/worried...t-really-matters-and-its-not-the-small-stuff/
 
I don't understand the coupon business strategy. Why not just reduce prices and people can buy what they want. Then I would go to their store.

I agree. Some stores have so many coupons, "deals" to use on your next trip, etc., that I just quit going to them. I feel like I am being made to pay for the people who use the coupons.
 
Coupons are nonsense. Making customers jump through hoops to get a few cents off is annoying. Also in order to get an advertised discount on items, a lot of stores require you to register for a store card in order to qualify for that discounted price or to accumulate "points" to use for a discount. They want not only your name but also your email address, your physical address, and your phone number. WTH. It's none of their damn business but if you want the discount, you must comply.
 
look at what happened to barnes and noble who failed locally here when they tried to make you pay to join their club to get the same price amazon had all the time .

same thing with the vitamin stores like gnc that wanted you to join to get the right price
 
I always remember the old saying, "watch your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves."
So, yes, I use coupons, get the store card for discounts, and read the store sale papers, etc. Ever since they came out with e-coupons I've saved a lot of money because the coupon just gets automatically loaded on my store card. No muss, no fuss. But I agree with others here...if I had to pay to join I'd shop elsewhere.
 
Don't use coupons much, when I have tried it did not seem worth the trouble, often ended up buying things I didn't want or need just to use the coupon. Just give them to my wife, she's better at it than I.
I can just go to Walmart and buy things cheaper.
I have noticed that is getting to be less true. Smiths is a chain around here, and while their regular prices are often higher than Walmart they frequently run sales making things down to less than Walmart. A couple of examples I can think of recently were Fresca and Special K. And the Fresca is on the lower than Walmart sale about half the time.
 
Don't use coupons much, when I have tried it did not seem worth the trouble, often ended up buying things I didn't want or need just to use the coupon. Just give them to my wife, she's better at it than I.

I have noticed that is getting to be less true. Smiths is a chain around here, and while their regular prices are often higher than Walmart they frequently run sales making things down to less than Walmart. A couple of examples I can think of recently were Fresca and Special K. And the Fresca is on the lower than Walmart sale about half the time.
I just used Walmart as an example because average prices are lower. If you only shop at one store, which most people don't, you would save more at store X than store y if the average prices are lower. Aldis is apparently like Smiths, and it's a close race, but it seems like Aldi's average price is even lower than Walmart's, mostly because a few items are wildly lower. One food chain called Food Lion here beats the pants off Walmart on their generic pop flavors, but everything else is way high, even when they offer coupons, most of which are for products I wouldn't buy anyway. I shop exclusively at Aldis and Walmart. Every few years I will buy a Costco membership, but only if I need a big ticket item like hearing aids where I can pay for the membership on that one item. But my shopping list doesn't include enough things Costco stocks to pay for the membership. Also Costco is 80 miles away. I'm shopping for one. If I had a family of 5, Costco could be more helpful.
 
we were at costco a few weeks ago when my wife got her glasses .

it was actually comical as we found about 3 or 4 items outside of toilet paper and paper goods that we could actually buy .

just being the two of us most stuff is to much for us .

plus i am on a low carb diabetic diet and my wife is on a low salt diet .

we won’t renew …for us they are only good for glasses and hearing aids
 
we were at costco a few weeks ago when my wife got her glasses .

it was actually comical as we found about 3 or 4 items outside of toilet paper and paper goods that we could actually buy .
Costco has a huge inventory, but a remarkably small selection on groceries, even compared to smaller stores where cereal comes in more varieties than cornflakes and cheerios, and soup is not limited to cream of mushroom and tomato. I'm exaggerating here a little for effect, but variety is more limited at Costco than any store I can think of. Of course their volume is remarkable with inventory that can only be reached with a forklift.
 
I have an embarrassing amount of tuna fish and salad dressing from Costco that is now beyond it's expiration date. I remind myself of the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer saved so much on large quantities at a warehouse store that he ended up feeding beef-a-rineos to his horse.
 
I'm finding that with two people eating two meals a day we just don't need to buy a lot of food.
Also, there's the garden. I'm buying very few fresh vegetables.
You can only stock a pantry so much and you end up with expired food needing to be eaten.
I hate to waste food!

Same with cleaning supplies, etc. I'm in the process of trying to use things down. I need the room more.
I remember after my three kids left home it took me a long time to get to where I wasn't buying large grocery purchases because I was so used to it.

Now I'm bringing it down even further. Another reason for not clipping coupons. Not storing too much extra.
I guess I enjoy grocery shopping. I enjoy trying recipes and ingredients. I enjoy cooking, baking, trying new things.
I'm figuring it out though.
 
Costco has better prices on many food items, and I find it to be a more pleasant shopping experience than Walmart. But for the best grocery prices, Aldi foods is my choice.

For selected dry goods like peanut butter, maple syrup, chia seed, pancake mix, etc, and a few frozen items I stock up at Costco. For produce and other groceries, I shop Aldi foods. For other groceries I can not get at these other places, I shop at our regular supermarket. For household items I shop Menards or Amazon.
 
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No, I don't use coupons, instead, I shop Walmart and the local food chain grocery stores, Brookshires, I like this store because the produce, meat and bakery items are fresh and the choices are many, also they give a discount on their gas which really adds up. I also shop Costco, although I've let my membership lapse, so it will be a while if and when I renew.
 
I get coupons by email every week, usually 2 or 3 times a week,from a grocery chain, but I buy my groceries at Walmart, which saves me15 to 20 percent, and if I use curbside pickup and shop on line, I save another 5% on top of that with a Walmart cash back card. The coupons at the other chain don't even bring the prices down to compete. I know a lot of people won't shop at Walmart, but for most things (not all), Walmart works for me.

But what about the coupons? They don't turn me on at all. Even if I were to use them I'd have to fiddle with scanning, activating, or clipping. But I can just go to Walmart and buy things cheaper. I don't understand the coupon business strategy. Why not just reduce prices and people can buy what they want. Then I would go to their store.
Have found in our area Kroger is less expensive that Wallmart - they have them beat on most everything. Plus they have weekly "digital" sales and mail a "best customer" coupon book every month that usually has only the items you normally purchase and a $20 or $17 off coupon for a single large purchase. Love those coupons...lol
 


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