Saving on Groceries with Coupons!

When every dollar counts, knowing a few couponing tricks can save you hundreds at the checkout line!

First, the Catalina coupon, or CAT.

What is a Catalina? A Catalina is a coupon printed from a small machine at checkout; created and owned by Catalina Marketing. It comes in one of four basic types:

1. Specific coupons for specific items. Such as our example above, $2 off any 5 General Mills Cereals.
2. Money off your next shopping trip, or On Your Next Order Coupons (ONYO).
3. Register Rewards (RR’s) are specific to Walgreens. These are rewards of purchasing a specific product, and will be listed in your sales ad each week.
4. Sale Previews

Catalinas are perhaps the most powerful coupon available. It is using our CATS, that we are able to "Make Money" on our shopping trips, with savings so high that we get "paid to shop." The trick with Catalinas, is to roll them into multiple transactions, lowering your Out Of Pocket Expense (OOP), and re-spending your initial investment over and over again. I'll show you how this can be done a little later, because before we go any further, we need to discuss coupon's second greatest trick:

The Double Coupon.

 Unless you're lucky enough to live in "The Land of Doubles," a section of the country where grocery stores automatically double coupons, you're going to need to know how and where to find these coupons.

It is important to note, that a Double Coupon, is a misnomer, there is no such thing as a "doubled coupon." Pick any one of the manufacturer coupons in your possession, and read the fine print. Most if not all now have the statement, printed in bold ink, "No Doubling Allowed." What that statement means, is that you cannot take a coupon for say $1 off 1 box of cereal, hand it to your retail clerk, and demand that they give you $1 each off of 2 boxes of cereal. Use of coupons in this manner, is illegal, and the same as theft. A double coupon is a grocery store promotion wherein they will allow you to present them with a manufacturer coupon (MQ) and they will give you a matching $$ amount off from their own pocket. I'll use the shopping scenario below to explain further.

In the first transaction, I purchased 10 boxes of Hamburger Helper, on sale for $1 each. In my possession, I had two manufacturer coupons for $1/5, and I also had two Albertson's "Double the Value" coupons pictured above. So when I went to pay, I presented my four coupons, two manufacturer coupons, and two Albertson's coupons. As per Albertson's coupon policy, they were able to "double" the manufacturer coupon to the full value which was $1 each. My total for the Hamburger Helper was $10, Hamburger Helper paid $2 of it by me using (2) $1/5 MQ, and Albertson's paid $2 of the total matching the amount paid by Hamburger Helper by my using the Albertson's coupons. That meant the amount left for me to pay was now $6. Make sense?

In my market, double coupons only come from Albertson's, and they don't happen all that often. They arrive in the mail with the weekly circulars, you get two coupons per booklet, with each address getting one booklet. To really increase your savings, you'll want to get your hands on as many of these as you can when they come out. Talk to your friends, your neighbors, your kid's friends. Let them know you'll gladly take their "junk mail" off their hands. I wrote letters to my neighbors, asking for their unwanted mailers, saying they could just drop them on my driveway under a rock I provided, and hung those letters on the mail boxes around my neighborhood. This not only gave me more Albertson's Double Value coupons, but I have some neighbors who leave them each week giving me their weekly manufacturer coupon books as well! Any extra mailers I end up with I donate to one of the local animal shelters for use as cage liners.

Call your local stores and ask if they offer Double the Value coupons, and what their policies are, and when to expect the coupons.

Putting your information to good use:



Now that you know about Catalinas, & Double the Value coupons, Its time to go shopping! I knew from the weekly ad that both the Hamburger Helper and the General Mills cereals would give me a $5 CAT if I bought 10. If I just went to the checkout line, and bought these in a single transaction, my OOP would have been: $24.79 once all coupons, and sale prices were factored into the equation. Not bad, but I want to get out of a store with as little OOP as possible. When shopping with CATS, prepare your shopping list as you always do, making special note of sale items, looking for ones that say "Buy (some amount) and get $$ for your next trip"--those are your CAT deals. Once you've made your list, you'll want to separate the Catalina items from the others, and using basic math, figure out which of the CAT deals will have the smallest OOP expense. This will be your starting transaction. This week I planned on 3 transactions beginning with 10 boxes of Hamburger Helper. My experience went like this:

Transaction 1
Buy: 10 boxes of Hamburger Helper on sale at 10/$10
Use: (2) 1/5 Hamburger Helper
Use: (2) Albertson's Double the Value up to $1
Pay: $6.00 OOP
Get $5 ONYO Catalina from General Mills (GM) and $2 ONYO Catalina from Hamburger Helper wyb 10--that was a pleasant surprise!

Transaction 2
Buy: 10 boxes of General Mills (GM) cereal on sale for $1.99 each
Use: $2 off any 5 GM cereals CAT from a previous shopping trip
Use: $1/2 Cheerios
Use: $1/3 GM Cereals
Use: (3) Albertson's Double the Value store coupons up to $1
Use: $5 CAT and $2 CAT from transaction 1
Pay: $5.90 OOP
Get: $5 ONYO CAT from General Mills and a new $2 on any 5 GM Cereal CAT

Transaction 3
Buy: 1 Gallon of Whole Milk for $3.09
Buy: (2) Smuckers Preserves on sale at 2/$5
Use: (2) $0.55/1 Smuckers
Use: (2) Albertson's Double the Value store coupons
Use: $5 GM CAT from transaction 2
Pay: $0.89 OOP

With a little planning, and know-how, I was able to save over $63.00 in this trip.
The Retail Value of all this was: $76.47
My Total OOP: $12.79!
That's 56 cents per item!

I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion about CATS and Double Coupons. Feel free to comment with any questions, comments, or concerns. I look forward to hearing from all of you about your own shopping adventures.

-Happy Shopping!