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Health & Fitness

ShopRite 101: How to Get Started

A really, really long introduction to the basics of extreme couponing, with particular attention to the wonderful world of ShopRite.

This is a (really) long post…Because it covers a lot of ground.  After this, they won’t be so long, I promise!

Of all the local grocery stores, ShopRite is the one that has the most great deals on a regular basis, so if you’re planning on starting your Extreme Couponer stockpile, that’s a good store to master first.  The picture for this post shows a super-good deal I got recently –I paid $33.59 for this, and my receipt said “Total Savings today is $134.09” – That was a good shopping run, and I got a bunch of things for food pantries, some things to add to my stockpile, like the big cans of tomato sauce that cost me 33 cents each, and some things like the yogurt that I’ll use right away.

Here’s how it works:  Every Sunday, ShopRite’s deals reset to the new circular.  And, usually the evening before, Cindy Livesey produces a list of matchups to match sales with coupons.  Here’s the link for the current week’s deals: http://www.livingrichwithcoupons.com/category/stores/shoprite-weekly-match-ups

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Understanding the Lingo:

Here is an entry from that blog site:

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Kikkoman Soy Sauce - $0.99

$0.55/1 Kikkoman Soy Sauce, exp. 12/31/11 (SS 05/15/11)
$1/2 Kikkoman Soy Sauce, exp. 12/31/11 (SS 05/15/11)
$1/1 Kikkoman Coupon
as low as free after coupon

Kikkoman Soy Sauce is on sale for 99 cents.  That’s the first line – easy-peasy!  Now the arcana begin…The next line reads, “There is a coupon for 55 cents off one Kikkoman Soy Sauce, expiration date 12/31/11, which was published in the SmartSource insert found in the 5/15/11 newspaper.”  (The most common inserts are RP = RedPlum, SS = SmartSource, P&G = Proctor & Gamble, and GM = General Mills).

The next line suggests that there is also a coupon for $1 off two Kikkoman Soy Sauce in the same insert…This is because some of the SmartSource inserts had 55 cents off 1, some had $1 off two coupons.

“But Sue,” I hear you cry, “I haven’t been keeping my coupons since May!  Does this mean no free soy sauce for me this week????  ANGUISH!!!”  No, gentle reader, you’re in luck – there’s a printable coupon online.  That’s what the hyperlink is, and it will take you directly to the site where you can find your coupon.  More on that in a minute…

Then the last line tells you what the lowest possible price is, if you have one of the best coupons.  For particularly good deals, such as this one, Cindy adds a green checkmark as an indication of a stockpile-worthy price…Get a few, so that you don’t have to buy that again until a really good deal comes up.  If you use the 55 cent coupon, it will double to $1.10.  Of course, ShopRite’s coupon calculator will deduct the doubling until it only matches the price of the item, which is 99 cents.  Some ShopRites only double coupons up to 99 cents – so if you have a 65-cent coupon, it only becomes a 99-cent one.  My ShopRite in Lakewood fully doubles, so a 65-cent coupon is really a $1.30 coupon.  Magic!

This brings us to what a good coupon is.  A good coupon is one that has a face value of 50 cents or more and which only requires that you buy one of the object.  And because grocery stores double, a $0.75 off one coupon is better than a $1.50 off two coupon…That 75 cent coupon becomes a $1.50 off ONE coupon when it doubles.  Some products (e.g., Dawn dish liquid) almost never have really good coupons.

Most stores let you use up to FOUR identical coupons.  Some Pathmarks allow only TWO online coupons, but that varies with the store.  Target will let you use any number of coupons. 

A store coupon is one that can only be used in a particular store.  Lots of stores (Walgreens, Target, ShopRite and others) print store coupons in their circulars and/or online.  A manufacturer coupon is what you are mostly used to – it can be used in any store that accepts coupons.  Most stores will let you “stack” a store coupon with a manufacturer coupon.  It’s very satisfying!

OK, Online coupons:  There are some websites that are the online equivalent of the coupon inserts.  They have many coupons, and you have to look through the pages to see what you are looking for.  The big four are Coupon Network, Coupons.com, Smartsource, and RedPlum.  Target also has coupons, but most of them are store coupons and only usable in Target.  All of these require that you install a small piece of benign software on your computer.  It’s the coupon-printing software, and it is what (1) allows you to print, and (2) prevents you from printing more than 2 copies of each coupon per computer.  The Kikkoman coupon linked above is a SmartSource coupon.  You can print two copies of it for every computer you have access to…

Manufacturers also often post coupons on their websites, and Cindy’s blog lists them as they appear.  Sometimes you have to register with the company (give name, address, email), sometimes not.  Sometimes you have to like the product on Facebook, and for that I have a special Facebook account in the name of Walter McPherson, which is the name of my daugher’s Venus flytrap plant.  Walter McPherson is very fierce about protecting her privacy, and has no friends, and allows no-one to see or communicate with her site…But she really, really loves coupons.

Some coupons are controlled by the Bricks company, and for those you just need the hyperlink, which you can get on Living Rich with Coupons.  Occasionally you get a coupon that is a PDF file, which you can print as much as you want.  Those are really handy for the extreme couponer…

Here are the commandments of online coupons:

1.  Thou shalt not print everything in sight, lest thou waste tons of paper and deforest small developing nations.

2.  Thou shalt print coupons for things thou wouldst normally buy, and coupons that have high values for things that thou wouldst get if they were really really cheap.  And thou shalt print them as soon as they become available, for their prints are numbered, and tomorrow, lo, they may be gone.

3.  Thou shalt keep track of thy coupons.  At first thou mayest use a coupon organizer, but thou wilt find that it soon fails thee, and thou wilt move to a coupon binder.  Verily, then thou shalt be an Extreme Couponer indeed, for the coupon binder is the sure sign of the Extreme Couponer.

4.  If thy coupons expire, thou shalt not blaspheme, even if thou hast missed a really juicy deal, because coupons expire – that is the way of things.  “Oh, Phooey,” thou mayest say, and all shall hold thee blameless, for an expired coupon is an abomination.

Now the other kinds of coupons:  There are “blinkies,” which are those little boxes on store shelves that proffer coupons invitingly as you pass, “peelies,” which are stuck to products, “tearpads,” which are the low-tech version of a blinkie, and then there are the wonderful coupon inserts in the paper.  The true extreme couponer gets several papers, so as to have several copies of each coupon.  They totally pay for themselves, and very quickly, too!  I usually make sure to have at least four copies of the Sunday inserts.  Make sure to check that the inserts are in the paper before you buy it – some people swipe them.

There are other ways to save money at ShopRite – if you want to see the list, go to

http://www.livingrichwithcoupons.com/2011/08/how-to-save-money-on-groceries-at-shoprite.html

Next time I’ll talk about organizing your coupon stash so as to save time.  And so it doesn't get totally out of hand and take over your house.

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