Saturday Savings

It's time to go shopping. You have you coupons in hand, and you are ready to use them. The next step is to determine WHERE you should use them to maximize your savings. In Houston we have several stores to choose from when it comes to grocery shopping, but this is not the case in other cities. Here we can select from Randall's (Safeway), Kroger, HEB, Wal-Mart, Target, Whole Foods, Sams Club, Rice Epicurean, Fiesta, Big Lots, Food Town and Costco just to name a few. The hard part about having so many choices is understanding the coupon policy of each store. Today I will try to simplify how I determine which store to grocery shop when using coupons. This will be a two part post.

Before we get into the store by store discussion, there is a shopping method we have not covered that will be discussed in this post – price matching. Price Matching is the process of using one store's sales ad at another store to receive the competitor's price. For example, if your HEB sales paper shows Wolf Chili on sale for $1.00, at some stores you are allowed to take that HEB paper to the cashier or customer service desk to receive wolf Chili at their store for HEB's price. There are some guidelines that are generic across all price matching policies:

1. The item must be advertised in the printed ad, and not by word of mouth or an internet print out.
2. The ad must be presented in its entirety, and not just the page the item you want to purchase is on.
3. The item must be on sale during the week you are attempting to purchase it and not from an old ad for the previous week.

Other than that, each price matching policy is different.

NOTE: Most grocery stores do not price match (i.e. – Kroger and Randall's), and this is mostly because of their coupon policy which I will discuss further in next week's post.

The reasons you would even want to price match vary by person, but the most popular response is location and coupon usage. Some areas only have access to Wal-Mart or Target stores, or their access to these stores is much easier than the grocery store. The best advantage is coupon usage or participation in a promotion (i.e. – gift cards) at a particular store.

The most popular price matching locations are Wal-Mart and Target, and these are the two I will focus on for this discussion. You can read much more about each price matching policy by visiting the store's website.
Wal-Mart is a very easy place to price match because their cashiers have the power to change your price at the register. You just present your item and then your ad, and presto your price change is reflected on your bill. I use the Wal-Mart price match for convenience mostly. The location of Wal-Mart is on my way to pick my daughter up from school, and I am a much faster shopper when I shop alone. I also use Wal-Mart price match when I see an item I have a coupon for on sale at a store that doesn't accept coupons (i.e. Big Lots). My best Wal-Mart price match came when Big Lots had All laundry detergent on sale for $2.50. I had a $1.50 coupon for all (actually I had 8 $1.50 coupons for All) and Big Lots does not accept coupons. I price matched at Wal-Mart, and received the All for $1.00 each, which is well below my stock up price. It was a great day at Wal-Mart! (If you know me, I don't say I like Wal-Mart often. If you ask my daughter, we are Target girls!)

Target is also an easy place to price match, but it requires one extra step. When at Target you must purchase your items at the register and then take you receipt and items to customer service to price check. You can also try checking out at customer service on a slow day. (Anyone remember my cereal deal at Target? That was a price match too.)

FYI – Good price match opportunity is coming up for All laundry detergent if you get the Big Lots paper on Sunday. Check your coupons for All. Get a sneak peak at the ad on the Big Lots website. (Enter your zip code when prompted.)

As for other coupons, the best place for using those with a value of .50 or less is Kroger or Randall's. This is because these stores double and triple coupons. To learn more about where to use your coupons, check out part 2 of this post next week. Happy Shopping.