I feel like I'm not saving money!

[JulieDB]

One grocery store that I shop at has something that is new to me. They are now rounding up any 25 cent, 50 cent or 75 cent coupon to a dollar. It sounds good and I have seen some people use this to get items for free.

The problem? During the time they are running this, almost all of my coupons are for $1.00 or more. I had a 50 cent off Jolly Time popcorn. I didn't really need popcorn but I looked to see if the price would make it worthwhile. They didn't carry Jolly Time.

I had another for 50 cents off an Old El Paso product. There were refried beans in the picture on the coupon. Fine. We eat a lot of those. So I got to the aisle and realized that they wanted $1.99 per can for that brand. I have never paid that much for beans. Not even organic ones. With the coupon it made the beans $1.00. Not bad but the store brand beans were on sale for $1.00. I am not picky about my refried beans. Except for the Hytop brand. They taste fine but are too runny for me. But the others? I don't notice much difference. I bought the El Paso because I felt like I had gone to all the trouble of clipping the coupon and fishing it out of my caddy. But it seemed like a lot of work for really...nothing.

The store did have a few other Old El Paso items but they were not things we needed or could use and they were even more expensive.

I find the same thing to be true with a lot of other coupons I have. I have coupons for eggs, cheese, yogurt and some other things but I can always find other brands on sale for less or even the store brand at regular price for less. Yes, we are picky about some of the things we eat. We will only eat certain brands of some things and I don't mind paying more for those. But mostly we will eat the cheap stuff. And the coupons just don't seem to be doing it for me.

[434Teresa]

First sounds like your store is doubling your coupons up to $1 meaning they wont let then double to save you more than $1 that is why the .75 coupon went up to $1.

You have to match your coupons with sales for that item to get the best price. If you dont you will find that other brands maybe cheaper. I have a few items that I am brand loyal to but not many. You need to check the sales ads each week to see if anything is on sale that you want and have coupons for. This may mean you have to shop at more than just one store. I dont have a store here in my town that doubles other than freds dollar store on saturday so I do most of my shopping at walmart so I can price match the sales ads for items I want. I dont have to go all over town. I get to get the other stores sale price, save my gas and use my coupons.

If you dont have a stockpile that maybe the reason you feel like you are spending more and not saving.

[JulieDB]

First sounds like your store is doubling your coupons up to $1 meaning they wont let then double to save you more than $1 that is why the .75 coupon went up to $1.

You have to match your coupons with sales for that item to get the best price. If you dont you will find that other brands maybe cheaper. I have a few items that I am brand loyal to but not many. You need to check the sales ads each week to see if anything is on sale that you want and have coupons for. This may mean you have to shop at more than just one store. I dont have a store here in my town that doubles other than freds dollar store on saturday so I do most of my shopping at walmart so I can price match the sales ads for items I want. I dont have to go all over town. I get to get the other stores sale price, save my gas and use my coupons.

If you dont have a stockpile that maybe the reason you feel like you are spending more and not saving.

No. This isn't a doubling week. It's a round up week. Meaning that any coupons that were 25 cents, 50 cents or 75 cents rounded up to a dollar.

I do check the sales ads. I almost ALWAYS find things for cheaper than I could get using the coupons. And the coupons rarely ever match with the sales. If I wait for something to go on sale, either the coupons expires or they are no longer running the round up or doublers. I am not sure how long the round up thing lasted but the doublers are only for three days.

I do have a stockpile. But it is small because we ate most of it when we were snowed in and the weeks prior when we were low on funds and had to live off of it.