Announcing!!!

I’ve got quite exciting news for all of you couponers in the U.K. As you may know there are a large number of blogs, vlogs and YouTube videos out there about how to coupon – some are more extreme than others. But, what’s lacking is a good, simply put BOOK about what coupons are, how they work and what a good price is, that’s written under British circumstances. There are a number of great vlogs about the US market and a book about couponing in the US called “Pick another checkout lane, honey” by the Krazy Coupon Ladies. Kudos to them for writing it, but there’s no equivalent for us here in the U.K. This is why I’ve decided to write a book for beginners about how coupons work, where they can be found and how you can combine them at the shop to save huge on your weekly grocery shopping.

At the moment it’s about 9 chapters long and I’ve nearly finished writing it, so who knows – next year there might be a British book about coupons out there!

I’d also like to make an appeal to all of you out there – if you have anything that you’d like to have featured in the book, send me a comment, a message or a tweet! I’m all ears for your wishes. Have a great week!

Rant warning!

Today I’m going to rant about my shopping trip at Sainsbury’s.

 

So today I went to Sainsbury’s to do my shopping and to use my coupons, like I always do. Nothing too strange about it. It all went fine until I came to the cashier and handed her my Nectar card and my stack of coupons. She flatly refused to scan them and called a manger over… He too refused to accept my coupons. The reason:

He claimed that I had photocopied them due to the fact that some of them were black and white, this due to the very simple fact that my printer had run out of colour ink a couple of days prior and I didn’t have any more at home. Plus, he claimed that they weren’t unique, which I know for a fact that they were since I printed them from several different accounts, each with its own e-mail address. I calmly tried to explain myself to him and said to him that I’d never photocopied a coupon in my life or tried coupon fraud, but he refused and “claimed” to have spoken to representatives from the websites where I had printed the coupons from and they had verified all this.

I don’t really believed him, but in order to not be banned from the shop I let it go, paid and then returned the items that I didn’t get my discount on to get a refund.

I’ve never been called a liar and a fraud like that in a shop, in front of customers and I have no intention of committing coupon fraud. All the coupons I use are legit and valid and I take great pride in using them correctly.

Guess which shop that lost a customer that day… Shame really, since I like the shop but I refuse to be called a cheat when I’m far from being one.

 

Rant over, thank you for reading!

How to combine coupons

Coupons used on their own doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to save huge amounts of money every week, not unless you know how to combine them with each other and instore offers. That’s what determines your final savings and out of pocket expense. If you use a coupon on an item while it’s full price and without any other vouchers or rebates, then that’s a wasted effort and certainly a wasted coupon. Let’s say that you’re going to buy two packs of canned mackerel because you have two 50p off coupons for brand X. The full price for one pack of mackerel is 1.50£ and if you use the coupon it would make your final price 1£. Let’s say that the coupon is valid for 30 days, do you buy it now if you only printed the coupon today or a couple of days ago? No, this is the time to wait and see if it goes on sale in your shop or in any of the other stores that you shop in. If you wait two weeks and see that Morrisons have mackerel on sale for 1£ per can instead of their regular price of 1.50£, then this is where you want to go and buy the two cans. You get the two cans and use both your coupons and end up paying 1£ for both cans. If you would have bought them two weeks ago at full price at shop number one then you’d have paid 2£ after coupons, now you end up 1£ instead – a 66% saving instead of 33%. Now, imagine if you’d have other coupons or rebates that you can combine with the manufacturer’s coupon – that could give you even greater savings or even free food. I’m going to go through the most common ways that you can combine coupons, instore sales and rebates, as long as the coupons allow it. Make sure to read the coupon and see if you can add other coupons to your purchase, or if you can only use one coupon per item. Remember that this usually means money off coupons and not points coupons – you can combine a point coupon with a manufacturer’s coupon.

1. Peelie and manufacturer coupon

No, you can’t use them both since they’re both manufacturers’ coupons, but with different names and looks. They’re still coupons made by the manufacturer of product that you’re about to buy.

1. BOGO + manufacturers coupons

This varies from chain to chain, so be sure to ask the particular shop that you’re in – it depends on what the management says. If they say no, then respect that. It can also depend if it’s a Buy One Get One free or if it’s a Buy One Get One half price. Be sure to ask for their policy for both occasions – BOGO free and BOGO half price. Make sure that you get the answer in writing if you’re asking the management, then you have an official letter that is more valid than words and can’t be refused.

1. Manufacturer coupon + instore coupon

Generally yes, since they’re two different things, instore coupons comes from the shop and manufacturers coupons from the manufacturer. If you get Catalinas, then they’re instore coupons that comes from a manufacturer but can be used with a manufacturer coupon. Read the manufacturer coupon and if it says something like “one coupon per item”, it most often means that you can’t combine two manufacturer’s coupons.

1. Instore coupon + points coupon

Depends on what kind of coupon it is. You can’t use two X amount of points – those coupons that say 2, 3, 4 or 5 times the points that you earn in a transaction – but you can use a paper coupon that states “get 200 points for buying Catty’s cat food” with a digital voucher that’s loaded to your loyalty card and says “get 50 points if you buy a Catty’s cat food”. Plus, you can add those X times the points earned in a transaction in the end too, but just one.

1. Rebate + manufacturer coupon

Yes, you can use these together since you’re not actually using them at the same time. Just use the coupon as usual at the register, save your receipt and then scan it into the rebate app to get that retroactive cashback.

1. Rebate + instore coupon

Yes again. This is just the same as the example above. Use the coupon instore, get the receipt and scan it in the rebate app.

1. Rebate + manufacturer coupon + instore coupon

This is the third yes. If the manufacturer coupon allows that you stack an instore coupon to it, then you can get an extremely good deal and quite possibly a freebie or a moneymaker. Getting all three in combination with a sales price is the best thing and all though it doesn’t happen very often, it can still happen.