I had a very important question asked to me the other day? I feel it is a question alot of people have, so I thought, I would post it:
Do I shop at Walmart, don’t they have the lowest prices across the board?
No, I do not shop at Walmart. Here is why, they are NOT coupon friendly. I shop at coupon friendly stores. Because when you use coupons effectively you will find coupon friendly stores is where you will gain biggest bang for your buck. Walmart takes coupons; however, they do not do B1G1 sales, they do not double/triple coupons, they do not like to accept coupons worth more then the value of the item, they do not offer store coupons, they do not allow “stacking” coupons (where you stack a store coupon with a manufacture coupon on one item.) When you take all of these things into consideration Walmart just simply is not the cheapest! If you get into the mindset of only buying what is on sale at the drugtores and grocery stores, then you will find that your Walmart runs are not needed. Just so you know, before I started couponing, I was a Walmart lover. I would go to walmart at least 1 time a week. Now, I hardly ever step inside the store. They have done shoppers tests where they shop sales vs. Walmart and when using coupons, the local grocery store always came out cheaper! However, I do love Target. Target is very friendly with coupons and they offer a ton of coupons on their website (they change them out monthly) and they send out coupon booklets periodically. I live near a super Target and..well… it is simply awesome! Target also allows ”stackable” coupons. You can stack their store coupons with a manufacture coupon. Please make note that you can print the each coupon 2 times at Target.com So, if I ever need to run and grab something and the drugstores/grocery stores do not have them on sale, I go to Target; but first, I research to see if there is a coupon for it. You can go scroll down to the bottom of my page for a coupon database. It will pull up any coupon that may be out there. Let me remind you though, she does live in a different region. Meaning: she oftens gets different coupons. She may say there is a coupon in Red Plum on 4/17 and then you look and it is not there. And sometimes, we have a coupon that she may not have. So, I always skim over all of my coupons if I am looking for a particular one.
Another thought….I often hear this statement as well:
“I shop at Warehouse X store because I feel buying in bulk gives me the most for my money.”
Not, that I am against Warehouse stores, because I am not. But, again, if you use coupons effectively you will buy in bulk for alot cheaper. For instance, the other day I bought 8 bottles of Nivea body wash for only $0.65 total – not per bottle. (See my Target Freebies post below for details) There is no way the warehouse stores can compete with couponing.
