• Home
  • About Tracy
  • Contact Me

Using Time Wisely

Organized to save money, energy, and time

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Document Organization
    • Overview
    • Box 1
      • Credit Report/Cards
        • Credit Reports
          • Credit Updates
          • Credit Scores
        • Credit Cards
      • Personal
      • Home Ownership
      • Vehicles
    • Box 2
      • Life Insurance
      • Major Medical
      • Tax-Favored Programs
      • Prescriptions
      • Dental & Vision
      • Special Health Policies
      • Short-term Disability
      • Long-term Disability
      • Personal Insurance
    • Box 3
      • Social Security Documents
      • Retirement
      • Investments
      • Estate Planning
      • Tax Records
  • Household
    • Cleaning
    • Maintaining
    • Organizing
    • Scheduling
      • Laundry
  • Event Planning
    • Assisting
    • Attending
    • Coordinating
      • Birthday Party
      • Christmas
      • Dinner Party
      • Fall Festival
      • Field Trip
      • Lemonade Stand
      • Thanksgiving
    • Learning
    • Preparing
    • Serving
  • Miscellaneous
    • Communication
      • Customer Service
      • E-mail
      • RSS Feed Reader
    • Goals
    • Organization
    • Time Management
      • To Do List
  • Food
    • Food Prep
    • Grocery Shopping
      • Lists
      • Pricing
    • Menu Planning
    • Recipes
    • Stockpile
  • Family Activities
    • Going Out
      • Free Outings
      • Inexpensive Outings
      • Summer
    • Rewards
      • Good Grades
      • Reading
      • Summer Reading
    • Staying at Home
  • Stretching Your Dollars
    • Daily Deals
      • Groupon
      • LivingSocial
    • Drugstores
      • CVS
    • Gas Prices
    • Gifts
    • On-line Shopping
    • Pictures
    • Products
    • Restaurants
    • School Items
    • Tips
You are here: Home / Archives for coupons

Giveaway: Coupon Binder Extravaganza Event

November 30, 2012 by Tracy

Coupon Binder extravaganza event

Quida over at Simple Savings for ATL Moms is offering her incredible coupon binder giveaway again!

Knowing the value of an organized binder, Quida includes all the essentials. The giveaway is free to enter, so don’t delay!

In addition to the giveaway, Quida is offering 30 days of FREE Online Coupon Classes that start December 10, 2012, at Simple Savings for ATL Moms. With all of the classes online, you can pickup tips and tricks to using coupons while using time wisely. When you sign up, please let Quida know I referred you. It’s a contest, and I would love to win the $75 prize. 🙂  

If you are following me with the Start Saving from Scratch series, then you might want to create a new coupon system. I know it took me 2 full days to get my coupons back in order. Saying that they were a mess is an understatement.

The Rafflecopter form below indicates the spectacular prizes one will win during this coupon giveaway. Quida adds prizes periodically. To located additions, look for the New! Just added {along with date} tag in the Rafflecopter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway is provided exclusively by Quida, blog owner at SSFAM! All opinions are 100% mine, but I was compensated for promoting her coupon binder giveaway. This event runs from today, November 30 – December 21, 2012. The giveaway is not associated with Facebook, and there is no purchase necessary to enter. With all the details covered, go enter. Good luck!

Filed Under: Coupons, Food Tagged With: coupons, giveaway

2012 Third Quick Tip Week: Wendy’s Coupon Booklet

October 18, 2012 by Tracy

Wendy's coupon booklet - Halloween
Wendy's coupon booklet - Halloween

Photograph Credit: Wendy’s

Quick Tip Week continues! Hope this week of shorter posts highlighting one tip in each category helps you in using time wisely.

For series already in progress, I will continue with the next segment following our Quick Tip Week. Embrace this week, add your tips in the comments, and continue using time wisely!

Quick Tip #5: Wendy’s Coupon Booklet

For a limited time, you can purchase a Wendy’s coupon booklet for $1. The booklet contains 10 coupons. Each coupon is good for one Jr. Frosty. Yum! My favorite is the chocolate, but my daughter prefers the vanilla option.

In addition to offering a great trick-or-treat prize, 90 cents of every dollar spent purchasing these booklets benefits the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

As you prepare for your Halloween celebration, enjoy a chilly treat benefiting a cool charity. Enjoy!

Question: What do you plan to gift on Halloween night to those who trick-or-treat?

Filed Under: Quick Tip Week, Food, Uncategorized Tagged With: coupons, Wendy's

Questioning Coupon Policies – Part 3 of 3

September 6, 2012 by Tracy

Questioning coupon policies
Questioning coupon policies

Photograph Credit: Flickr (Karen Lee)

Coupons are great tools for saving money. When I used coupons on regular-priced items, I saw a few dollars in savings. But when I matched coupons with buy one, get one free deals and sale prices, then I found the deep discounts and have not turned back.

Using coupons is not always easy. Sometimes the store employees do not understand the corporate coupon policy which keeps trips to the grocery store interesting.

During this summer, I broke out of our normal routine and checked out with unfamiliar cashiers and visited different locations.

Since I usually shop at the same locations around the same time frame, I have my favorite cashiers who have come to know me. When I question the coupon policies, they understand that I work within the rules and am not seeking to defraud the system. In returning to my favorite locations, I am enjoying the quick trips without discrepancies with their coupon policies.

Today is the last post in this three-part series – questioning coupon policies. I started this series with competitor stores in Part 1, addressed doubling coupons in Part 2, and will finish with competitor coupons.

Part 3 – Competitor Coupons

Defined

Competitor coupons are store coupons issued by one business and accepted at another chain. For example, Publix distributes store coupons in their weekly advertisements, advantage flyers, and mailings. In my area, Bi-Lo locations treat and accept Publix coupons like Bi-Lo store coupons.

The Coupon

One week in July, Publix released a $5 off any $30 purchase store coupon. With a huge Huggies deal at Bi-Lo that week, I choose to use my Publix coupon on diaper purchases.

Having collected 3 Publix coupons, I put together 3 identical transactions. I was stocking up on Huggies diapers with a sale ($8.99 per Jumbo pack), fuelperks! promotion (bonus $.10 per gallon with the purchase of any 3 participating products), 3 manufacturer coupons for $1.50 off, and the $5 off Publix coupon.

I stopped by my Bi-Lo and found their Huggies stock low, so I made one transaction without incident.

Tracy’s Note: I did not request a rain check since the Publix coupon was only valid during that week. To get the deep discount, I needed to complete the transactions during that sale week.

Still needing two more transactions, I chose another location with larger stock. At checkout, I met conflict.

The Coupon Policies

At Bi-Lo, a manager or bookkeeper must manually deduct the competitor coupon amount from the transaction. When I presented my coupon, the cashier called the bookkeeper. She came and inspected the coupon and then refused to take off the $5 stating that the total was under $30.

Upon explaining that the subtotal was over $30 and only dropped after using the manufacturer coupons, she still refused the Publix store coupon and handed it back to me. When I asked to speak to the manager, she acted irritated, but complied.

When the manager arrived, the bookkeeper gave her explanation which the manager upheld. After listening to them, I asked the manager to read the coupon. He did so and stood by his former decision.

I then made my case stating that they were choosing to change the wording of the coupon. The coupon stated “$5 off a purchase of $30 or more.” In the fine print, there was no wording that the $30 total was after discounts.

Realizing that my purchase was $30 prior to using manufacturer coupons (a form of payment), that Publix coupons do not state “after coupons” like the Bi-Lo store coupons, and that my transaction fit the requirements for the coupon, the manager changed his mind and accepted the coupon for both transactions.

By knowing the store’s coupon policies and having read and understood the competitor’s coupon, I pressed on to save my family $10. When you know that the store is misinterpreting the coupon or changing the rules from their coupon policy, you have choices.

In sharing these experiences, I hope to empower you with information to use coupons, know your store’s policies, and question coupon policies when a discrepancy arises. Don’t get discouraged. You can continue saving money while feeding your family and using time wisely. Happy couponing!

Question: How often do you use coupons when grocery shopping? 

Filed Under: Coupons, Grocery Shopping, Food Tagged With: coupons

Questioning Coupon Policies – Part 2 of 3

August 30, 2012 by Tracy

2012 Bi-Lo Coupon Policy
2012 Bi-Lo Coupon Policy

Photograph Credit: Bi-Lo

In this economy and with the rising cost of doing business, I understand why stores create strict coupon policies and inspect the fine print on the coupons. Stores need to protect their investment because there are those that create and distribute fraudulent coupons.

Just this year in Arizona, a counterfeit coupon bust landed 3 women in jail. They printed high priced coupons overseas and shipped them to their headquarters in Arizona. For distribution, they sold these coupons for pennies on the dollar through their private website available by invitation-only.

Though most consumers use coupons correctly, I understand why stores impose limits, regulations, and policies for coupon use. When the store policy is written, available, and consistent, consumers can use coupons with confidence. Then when a cashier fails to accept a coupon, the coupon policy should become the deciding factor.

Last week in part 1, I explained the process taken to rectify the change in competitor’s coupons at my Publix. Continuing this series identifying three coupon issues I faced this summer, I present the failure to initially double coupons at my Bi-Lo.

Part 2 – Doubling Coupons

Though no store will calculate every transaction perfectly, I choose to carefully review my receipts after each purchase. With sales changing weekly and system upgrades, the store registers will not catch every detail. In taking an active role in saving our family money, I plan our shopping trips, estimate our out-of-pocket pay, and review the receipt for accuracy.

The Items

On our last shopping trip before heading down to Florida for our family vacation, I stopped by Bi-Lo for these sales:

      • 2 packages of cookies
      • 6 packages of frozen corn
      • Ice cream
      • 2 packages of split chicken breasts
      • 7 packages of roped smoked sausage

The Coupons

The subtotal came to $77.17, and then I used the following: my loyalty card to get the sale prices, 3 bag credits, Bi-Lo e-coupon, and manufacturer coupons. For the Eckrich roped sausage, I used seven $.55 off coupons.

Since I had so many coupons, the bookkeeper needed to approve the coupons. She keyed in the coupons, and I was given the total. Realizing that the total was higher than expected, I asked if the $.55 coupons had doubled. The bookkeeper indicated that when the coupons are keyed into the system, the coupons do not double.

The Coupon Policy

Now according to Bi-Lo’s coupon policy, they double manufacturer’s coupons. My store doubles up to $.60 every day. With this information, I asked to speak with the manager.

When the manager arrived, he looked at the coupons and approved the doubling. When asked why manager approval was needed, he stated that their system limits the amount of discounts the cashiers can deduct. When the coupons reach that limit, then a manager needs to override the transaction.

Though I do not agree with having to ask for the doubling when their coupon policy provides for doubling, I will not hesitate to seek that override from a manager. I will also watch carefully to see that the coupons are taken since the cashier did not indicate that the limit had been reached.

Not to leave you hanging, my transaction reached my goal – paying 50% or less. With the doubled coupons, I paid $26.89 which is a 65.1% savings.

In using time wisely to question the store’s coupon policy when the stated refusal conflicts with the written policy, I continue saving my family money. As you use your coupons, know your store’s policy, watch your total, and question discrepancies. The consumer is not always right, but usually she is. 😉 Happy savings!

Question: Like me, are you seeing more coupon issues at the register?

Filed Under: Coupons, Grocery Shopping, Food Tagged With: coupons

Coupon Booklet: P&G – Gather Together

January 7, 2012 by Tracy

Photograph Credit: P&G Everyday Solutions

One of the best savings strategies is using coupons. I love coupons because they lower my out-of-pocket cost and help in stretching my dollars.

Companies want you to buy their product, so they offer coupons. 🙂 P&G is currently offering their Gather Together coupon booklet with over $35 in savings for products by Cascade, Dawn, Febreze, Mr. Clean, and Swiffer.

To request your free booklet, register or sign in to P&G Everyday Solutions. (Remember to use your junk e-mail account.) Then include your mailing address and submit. Your booklet will arrive within 6 weeks. Happy savings!

Filed Under: Stretching Your Dollars, Products Tagged With: coupons

« Previous Page
Next Page »

Welcome to Using Time Wisely!

 

Presenting organizational tips and tricks to save you money, energy, and time.

To access 5 Ways to Using Time Wisely Today, click "like" on my facebook page and join in on the journey of Using Time Wisely.

Looking for something?

Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive email updates and to hear what's going on with us!

Copyright © 2025 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in