Being able to shop for free depends on a few things:
1. The store you are shopping in.
Some stores' registers automatically deduct the MAXIMUM value of the coupon, while some stores will prompt a cashier to 'check the price' of the item and fill in the price, essentially forgoing the remaining value of the coupon. Stores I know for certain that automatically take off the max value are: Target and CVS. I think Walgreen's will also do this, but I personally know less about Walgreen's than other stores. Stores I know that prompt for a cashier to check price are: Walmart, Kroger, and Food Lion. I will give an example of coupon use in both scenarios (say, a Target and then a Walmart).
This coupon example uses a coupon for Dove lotion that says "FREE Dove lotion, up to $4.00" (the 'up to', or 'max value' wording is key to my examples below):
In Target, I see Dove lotion on sale for $3.50 and I have a Dove coupon with a max value of $4.00. While I am shopping at Target, I will remember that said coupon gives me an overage (FREE money!) of .50 towards the rest of my purchases, because I know that Target will scan the coupon and it will automatically deduct the max value, so 3.50-4=an overage of .50. Just for knowing that this is Target's system policy, I will want to remember that I will have .50 cents more in coupons than my item total (at least so far). [scenario 1] Since I have a free .50, I could simply buy something for .50, like a candy bar and be done with it. I will get both a candy bar and the Dove lotion for free (I would have to pay tax but that's it). [scenario 2] If I am buying other stuff (like milk or bread or whatever) I could just use the extra .50 towards the total from those items and save .50 on my milk/bread/whatever. OR [scenario 3]....and my personal favorite, I could find several of these overage-giving coupons and get all of my stuff that I want/need for free, or close to it. In this case, I would buy 4 or 5 Dove lotions and use 4 or 5 overage-giving coupons to 'up' my amount of free money. If i bought 4, I would have an overage of 2.00, and of course, buying 5 would give me an overage of 2.50. This would likely take care of at least the bread, and maybe a little extra. So, I can proudly say I bought my bread for free, just for buying lotion.
If you want to know WHY anyone would want to buy 4 or 5 lotions, I would just say that they can be donated or given as gifts (who doesn't like getting goodies sometimes). If I can buy item A, to get item B (that I want or need) for free, then why not? Or, as my first idea suggests, if the lotion (or whatever item A was) was something I wanted or needed to begin with, and I just got extra money from it to buy something else, score! Now, let's see how this would work out differently in Walmart...
In Walmart, I see the same Dove lotion for 3.28 (since they like to end prices in 7 or 8 for some reason...). This is cheaper than at Target, that is true, but watch how much less flexible my shopping will be because I chose Walmart over Target: when I go to check out at Walmart, the cashier scans the coupon and will be prompted to 'check' the price, and s/he will verify that the price on the coupon is the price of the product. Since my coupon does not specify a price (only a max value), the cashier will write-in the selling price (3.28) on the coupon and that's that. No overage applied anywhere, and although I made out with a free lotion, I got nothing else for it or, if you will, I did not get to shop for my other stuff for free/cheap.
Although the price at Walmart was better than the price at Target, Target gave me more flexibility with my purchasing since it actually paid me .50 instead of nothing.
2. The Type of Coupon Used.
In the above examples, I used a "FREE" coupon with a max value. Other types of coupons can affect your shopping ability and/or ability to shop for your other stuff for free. One of the most common coupons is a "x amount off of product A", say $1 off of any Duncan Hines flavor packet (click here if you would like one ). I'm sure you have seen this type of coupon for just about anything you could want, $2 off any Tide or $1.50 off any Gain, etc. This type of coupon is usable anywhere, but finding the best (i.e. lowest) price to begin with is the smartest way to use the coupon. In the above example, the Dove lotion was .22 cents cheaper at Walmart than Target, so if I had simply a $1 off coupon, I would be better off at Walmart. I will use the linked Duncan Hines coupon in the following example to show how one coupon can be used differently at different stores.
At Walmart, the Duncan Hines item is .84 reg. price. At Target, I believe it's close to the same. My coupon is for $1 off, so yes, that is worth more than the selling price at both stores. At Walmart, when I go to check out, the coupon will simply scan as is, giving me $1 off of an .84 item, so I will have .16 cents in free money. At Target however, the coupon would alert the cashier that it is worth more than the item and s/he would adjust the value of the coupon down to match the selling price. This would give me NO overage. Walmart's policy clearly states that a coupon worth more than the item can be applied as is and overage can be given in the form of cash or payment toward the rest of the basket (if I was buying milk or whatever, I just got .16 off that...) or, since tax on less than $1 is not much, I would actually get cash back from buying the Duncan Hines...and this is clearly stated in Walmart's policy too. Either way, you essentially 'make' money since you take some off your total or get cash back. I am thinking I may try this exact example later in the week (and will definitely report my findings)
So far, we have concluded that a MAX VALUE coupon is better at Target and a $/any item coupon is fine either way, but allows for overage at Walmart. You may be asking why a Target store will allow the max value, while it will adjust others and honestly, who knows how they decide. I just know that some cases are better at Walmart and some at Target (and, see below how CVS is my favorite of all).
3. The use of store coupons allows for the most 'free shopping ability'.
As I have mentioned, CVS has that magic coupon machine. Target is also know for their store coupons (highly recommend signing up for Target Mobile), and Food Lion has a coupon machine that is pretty sweet too. All of these stores allow for stacking a manufacturer coupon with a store coupon, and the savings can be awesome. I will give an example of a recent CVS trip using this technique:
I scanned my card at the CVS machine and received two coupons: $2 off any healthcare purchase and a $2 off $5 sleep aid or pain reliever purchase. CVS policy states that no more than one "minimum purchase" type coupon can be used together (so, if I had gotten a $1 off any $3 or more purchase, I could not combine that with the $2 off of $5 coupon, BUT I CAN combine the minimum requirement and NO MINIMUM requirement together). For these two coupons, I did the following:
1 Advil Migraine 40ct.--reg. 7.99 and on clearance for 5.61
I used the $2 off $5 pain reliever AND the $2 healthcare coupon AND THEN a manufacturer coupon worth $1 off any Advil product ALL TOGETHER. I spent a total of .61 since I used $5 worth of coupons, two of which were CVS coupons. See how stacking can be cool?
If I want to elaborate on how to shop for free, I could use the above example with a twist. If I had gotten a coupon for $4 off any healthcare purchase (instead of $2), I would have used that on my advil and would have had $1.39 in OVERAGE because my coupons were worth more than my product. I could have bought just about anything worth $1.39 for free (like a 2 liter or a 20oz Coke, etc) and would have paid little to nothing or simply a few cents in tax, all because my coupons stacked and were bigger than my total. This DOES happen, a lot actually! This is what I meant when I said "shop for free" since I can sometimes use coupons to buy other stuff, even stuff without coupons, for free just by using coupons.
It is hard for me sometimes to decide WHAT to buy with my overage, since I try to get down to the exact penny so I break even and don't "waste" coupon money, but it gets easier after a while and some trial and effort. I personally like to buy staples (eggs, milk, bread, fruit, veggies) since those rarely come free on their own and feel better saying I got them free or cheap and used my coupon money in a good way :)
Next up, $1.56 for over $87 worth of food and makeup!
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