Now that you are familiar with the different types of coupons (manufacturer coupons, store coupons, Catalina coupons, instant rebates, product rebates, eCoupons) that are out there, it is important to learn how to stack the different coupons and discount promotions. Stacking is using a coupon in conjunction with a sale and/or in conjunction with other discounts. In other words, your stack discounts on top of one another. It is the process of stacking which will allow you to get food at a greatly discounted price.
To male stacking most effective, you usually want to wait for the grocery store to have the item that you are planning to buy on sale. In this way you are starting out at a low price already and then adding more discounts on top of that sale price to get really great deals.
The reality is that in the vast majority of cases you are only going to be able to stack two of the above together. The most common scenario will be when you will be able to stack a sale price with a manufacturer coupon. There will, however, be occasions when you will be able to stack three or more of the above together. It’s with these opportunities where you can save a lot of money. The more discounts that you can stack together, the bigger your savings will be.
A good example of this is cereal. I have never purchased a box of cereal for more than one dollar since I started couponing. Usually I can get a box of cereal for $.50 or less, and often times for free. On a rare occasion, I have actually been paid to buy cereal.
Example: there is a box of cereal that you like that have the normal retail price of $5.00. Most people will end up buying the box of cereal when they are about to run out and that means that they will likely pay the normal retail price of $5.00. If you wait until it goes on sale, you can often get cereal for 50% off which would bring down the price to $2.50. If you happen to have a manufacturer coupon for $1.00 off 1 when the sale takes place, the price would then be $1.50. If there happens to be a Catalina coupon running for $4.00 off when you buy 4, you can now buy four boxes for $2.00, or $0.50 each. Then if there is a product rebate of $4.00 when you buy 4, you actually will make money buying the cereal.
As you can see from the above, the more discounts you are able to stack, the greater the savings. Again, in most cases you are only going to be able to stack two together (a sale and a manufacturer coupon), but there will be occasions when the grocery store stars will align and you will be able to stack more.
Again, this is why it’s so important to change the way that you grocery shop. If you have a stockpile of food you can use to plan your meals, you can always buy food when it goes on sale and you’ll have the opportunity to stack these other discounts together. If you don’t have a stockpile of food, you end up having to buy the food when you need it which it’ll likely mean that it will be at its normal retail price and the first key to stacking (the sale price) isn’t available.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them. This post is part of the Lazy Couponing series. The next step will be learning about Double Coupons.
One problem that I find is that place, like Walgreens for example, will only take one coupon per item. So if I have 3 manufact coupons and a store coupon for three items, it doesn’t seem to work or they won’t take it. Is this true? Is there a way around it?
Walgreens is the only store that I know of that has that policy — all other stores I frequent don’t have that issue. If you do do a lot of shopping at Walgreens, you do need to be good at finding low cost “filler” items so that you are buying something for each coupon you use.
Im super new to couponing and I just wanted to know if this is possible. I have 2 Manufacturer coupons for Tide but they r different. 1 Is $1 off the other .35 off, can they be used on the same bottle?
No – you can not use two manufacturer coupons on the same item.
Yes, you can use a manufacturer coupon and a generic catalina coupon (not product specific, but $2 off your next purchase Catalina coupon) together.