Tuesday's Tips

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Check out my past Tuesday's Tips for help on collecting coupons other than those found in the newspaper!

Today.....

Let's Go Krogering!!

If you have a Kroger store or one of their family of stores (Fry's, Dillon's, etc.) near you, here are a few tips to maximize your savings there!

Shopper's Card and Sales

• Make sure you have a shopper's card! This gets you extra store savings, earns gas discounts, pharmacy discounts, and you can attach coupons!
• Link your card up to UPromise.com. Certain purchases at Kroger stores and many others earn you cash in your college savings account, and you can load "coupons" that put extra cash in your account for other items you purchase!
• Link up your card to Cellfire, Shortcuts, and P&G e-savers. Check the websites near the beginning and end of each month to load coupons that automatically come off at the register. Many times these are a greater value than paper coupons. I'll explain more about each one in a minute!
• Whenever there is a Buy One, Get One Free sale or a 10 items for $10 sale, you do NOT have to buy 2 or 10 items to get the sale price! Ex: if an item is BOGO and costs $4 normally, buying just one will cost $2 or buying 2 will cost $4, but only buy as many as you need/want! In the 10/$10 sale, think of them as really costing $1 each.
• Kroger often runs sales "Buy 10 participating items, get $5 off your total order." For these sales you DO have to buy all ten items as a requirement to get the $5 off. When you are calculating your costs, think of every item being $.50 below the marked price. You can get some great deals for CHEAP with these sales when you combine them with coupons! See my recent Saturday Savings post to see 2 of these deals I just did!

Kroger Gas

• Everytime you buy groceries, you earn points (1 per dollar, before coupons and discounts!) towards gas rewards.
• Each time you reach 100 points, you earn $.10 off per gallon the next time you fill up. Rewards cap at the end of each month, but you can still use the ones you've previously earned during the next month.
• Kroger already offers $.03 off everytime you get gas, so this is a great bonus deal! I love that it's after coupons! I earn way more points than actual dollars spent!
• Not every Kroger has a gas station, so check here to find one close to you! They tend to be the cheapest in the immediate area since most other stations match their price (before your $.03 or $.10 discount!)

Manager's Specials

• Take advantage of great savings with Manager's Specials.
• Find discounted non-perishable items on shelves in the back of the store (usually near employee doors), up front in bins, or near the seasonal aisles.
• Perishable discounted items are usually in their regular place around the store (meat, yogurt, milk, etc.) and are marked by special yellow and orange stickers.
• You can use coupons on these items too to get even better savings! The register may beep not recognizing that you've bought the right item with the special discount price sticker, but a cashier will override it to let you use the coupon since you ARE buying an item it matches with. I love getting discounted yogurt (which I usually have a coupon for) and meats!
• Make sure you use up the items before they expire, or throw them in the freezer for a little longer life! Usually they'll mark items a good few days before they expire! The lower price ensures that the items won't go bad without someone buying them!
• Some items discounted are holiday items and will last well beyond the time you purchase them (I bought lots of Coffee-mate after Christmas time for free or next to nothing after coupon, and they all had a good couple months on them or even until next Christmas for the powdered kind!)
• On the other hand, if you are buying an item that is not discounted, make sure to get furthest away expiration date, or one that is within a reasonable amount of time you will use it! I've heard others say that if they come across something expiring soon, and it isn't discounted, that you should ask and you may receive a discount.

Using e-coupons

Shortcuts, Cellfire, and P&G e-savers

• Right now e-coupons other than Upromise, are only accepted at Kroger family of stores
• You do not have to clip anything, you simply visit the sites, sign up, enter your card number, and every time you select a coupon it automatically loads to your card
• You can manage your coupons online by viewing which ones you've redeemed, are expiring soon, and new ones you can load.
• At this time none of the e-coupons have a way to be deleted and fall off after expiring or using them. Also all have a max of the # of coupons you can have at one time, so only load ones you know that you will use. You can always go back and add more at any time.
• Often new e-coupons are the same as older ones, so if you have 2 of the same at the same time and buy 2 of that item you'll get the discount on both. (Only one e-coupon will come off for each item)
• P&G coupons offer great savings (often over $1!) on specific P&G brand items. P&G also puts out high value coupons once or twice a month in the newspaper.
• Cellfire and Shortcuts often have similar coupons, and again you'll only be able to use one per item you buy (Ex: if you buy one box of Betty Crocker potatoes and have a Cellfire and Shortcuts coupon for them, only one coupon will come off your order. You'll have to buy 2 to use both)
• All of the e-coupons come off automatically at the register. If you are using U-scan self checkout (which I like to do so I can see all of my savings coming off correctly), they, along with other discounts like your $5 off when you buy 10 items, will appear after you hit done and before "Do you have any coupons?"
• You can use a paper coupon on an item that you have used an e-coupon for. This has been debated greatly among bloggers, here are some facts on why you can for sure with Cellfire, and P&G's website encourages you to use both. Shortcuts is working to prevent the use of both, but since they are currently automatic, even Kroger employees will encourage you to use both.
• It's easy to forget what e-coupons you have loaded if you aren't frequently checking them, so each site offers a way to print out a list of the e-coupons you have.
• I will try to offer as many matchups with e-coupons as I can, so that when there is a good sale to use them with, you'll know to go make sure they are loaded!

~Stacey of Daisy's Deals~





Please email me for questions, suggestions, and anything else at daisysdeals (at) hotmail (dot) com. As I begin this journey, please bear with me as I am still learning myself! If you see anything that you feel is inappropriate or against store/website policies please "politely" let me know.