$1 off 2 items question

[Sims335]

My wife went to Krogers here and she had several $1/2 boxes of cereal. Well the cereal was Post and is marked down to 1.99/box. I told her to take one coupon per box of cereal. Well, at the check out it was a disaster. Cashier said "You can't do that, one coupon per 2 boxes of cereal". Is this right? I thought we could use one coupon per box. In the very least she stole some of our coupons. She never game us any back, and she didn't use them. So frustrating...

[queenofthehivemomof5]

If the coupon is for $1.00 Off Two Boxes then you need a coupon for every two boxes you buy. Now if the coupon was for $1.00 Off One Box you could use one coupon for each box purchased.

So the store was right...however they should have given you your coupons back. That is not right. It was an honest new couponer mistake, but you were (or your wife) was indeed wrong.

Sorry.

If you you have a coupon that is for a certain number of products you have to buy that many products.

$1.00 off 1 = One Product
$1.00 Off 2 - Two Products
$1.00 Off 3 - Three Products
$0.50 Off 5 = Five Products
$0.20 Off 10 = Ten Products

etc etc etc....

Don't bother with the $0.20 off 10 coupons though. LOL

[Sims335]

Well we had 35 boxes of cereal, and 35 coupons for $1/2. Problem is she only used half of them and didn't give us the other half back. We could of maybe used them at the Double Coupon deal at K-Mart. We spent $70. on cereal tonight, and I feel like a total idiot. My wife spent $120. at CVS last night on a bunch of nothing. We are actually spending allot more money since we started couponing. So frustrated...

[couponcrazychick]

Well we had 35 boxes of cereal, and 35 coupons for $1/2. Problem is she only used half of them and didn't give us the other half back. We could of maybe used them at the Double Coupon deal at K-Mart. We spent $70. on cereal tonight, and I feel like a total idiot. My wife spent $120. at CVS last night on a bunch of nothing. We are actually spending allot more money since we started couponing. So frustrated...

It is frustrating, I will agree with you there. I felt the very same way when I first started couponing. It didn't take me long to realize that I didn't have to run out and get every deal.....and that I didn't need to create a big stockpile in one week's time!! (To the tune of approximaly $700)

But, as foolish as I felt I stuck with it and made sure I understood the coupons, the deals, the store's coupon policies, etc. I learned everything I could thanks to the help of the great people here....and some other places. Just reading threads helped me figure out where I was going wrong. I am proud to say I just finished an exhausting shopping week with a rolling catalina deal. My total OOP for the week: $113.83. I still have $87.56 in catalinas and store credit. So, my total OOP was $26.27. I bought $563.78 worth of food with that. So hang in there!!

Also, you might be out the coupons...but you can always return the cereal for your $$ back.

Good luck and Happy Shopping!!

[queenofthehivemomof5]

Well we had 35 boxes of cereal, and 35 coupons for $1/2. Problem is she only used half of them and didn't give us the other half back. We could of maybe used them at the Double Coupon deal at K-Mart. We spent $70. on cereal tonight, and I feel like a total idiot. My wife spent $120. at CVS last night on a bunch of nothing. We are actually spending allot more money since we started couponing. So frustrated...

You need to take this in baby steps...its OK there is a learning curve and it will take you a little time to really start seeing big time savings.

The cashier should have given you back your coupons, no if's and's or but's about it. It was correct that they should only have accepted half of your coupons since the coupons were for $1.00/2 and you were trying to use them one coupon per box. But she should have given you back your unused coupons to use somewhere else.

I cannot speak for what you got at CVS...I don't even have that store where I live. But you did an OK job for a newbie on the cereal. If your cereal was $1.99 a box and you used $1.00/2 coupons you got cereal for $1.49 a box. Which when you consider that the regular price on cereal can be $3.00-$5.00 a box you saved at least 50% off the retail price. And I would venture a guess that generic brand cereal is about $2.00-$3.00 a box....

Did you need 35 boxes? I don't know...will depend on the size of your family and how fast you will go through that cereal. Will a better deal on cereal come along...yes they will. You will soon get to a point where you won't pay more than $1.00 or $0.50 a box for cereal. Cereal deals in fact are right now...Kelloggs is big this time of year.

The best way to not spend more when you are first starting out is to set yourself a budget. Both a grocery budget and a stockpile budget. You will still need to buy regular groceries at non-stockpile prices untill you have a stockpile. So if your grocery budget is $100 a week make $10 of that your stockpile budget. Get whatever you can at the cheapest price for $10 and call it a day when that money is out. One week you might stockpile cereal, one week it might be toilet paper, the next week it might be dishsoap. Get what you can for free of course but don't spend more than your budget. After a few weeks increase your stockpile budget a little and decrease your grocery budget a little and keep doing this. Eventually you will find you can just wittle your grocery budget to just fresh foods like meat, produce etc. And as your stockpile grows, you get better at spotting better deals, sales cycles have a chance to run through you can decrease down on the stockpile budget a bit and really start saving actual money. You will start to find that you get MORE for your money, not necessarily spend less using this method. So instead of 1 box of full priced cereal you get 2. Instead of buying one tube of toothpaste you get 10 for the same price (or free..you really should not be paying for toothpaste LOL)

[couponcrazychick]

Awesome post and explanation!!

I wish I had that advice several months ago!!!:shrug7:

[Benichole]

Once you start really stockpiling you get fun weeks like this week. I got 30 packages of Knorr rice sides (kind of like rice a roni) for $1.50! It gets so fun the more you figure it out.

[Sims335]

Thanks so much for the advice. That is a great idea, budgeting is not something we have tried. My wife is ready to throw in the towel. I am gonna try to get her to read these awesome posts. You folks are great, I am still motivated, I just need to to slow down and study more. Regards