No Fool Here.... Multiples Discounts

BOGO Baby: The Blog began as a treatise on how to save money with twins (or more). I recently heard about a group Mothers of Super Twins, "founded in 1987...the leading national nonprofit provider of support, education and research on higher-order multiple births."

They provide this handy list of company freebies and discounts for multiples families. Shoes, formula, portraits, various toy companies.... the list is long. The site includes a sample letter for you to copy and amend for your needs.

They also have a list of freebie sites, coupons, articles, and more for mothers of multiples.

Couponing: Where do you find the slippery papers?

More specifically, where do you get several copies of the same great coupon? Because the best way to make a deal work is to find the best deal and beat it to death with as many purchases as allowed by your budget, limits on the coupon (often 4 like coupons for P&G per day), or limits imposed by the store (my local CVS only takes up to 3 a transaction). In Zen Couponing, we stockpile, but it’s a very small pile.

I aim for 4-6 sets of coupon books. That said, if I see (as I do this Thanksgiving), that the black Friday inserts were not only widely unavailable but stolen from my paper in front of my house, then I may go a little farther afield in collecting other coupons. Everyone was ignoring the stack of free P&G inserts over the weekend, which I felt ok about helping myself to late in the game, so I ended up with 14. I aim for a max of 20 in this type of situation. Why 20? Because you can sell the “collection service” and mail them to the winning bidder cheap. But less than 20 of any one coupon is not a large-enough lot for which you can sell your clipping services, if you want to do so. I tried it -- listed 8 sets of coupons on ebay and sold ONE. Not worth the time and trouble, in my book. Still, as a guideline 20 is a really good haul. Getting those P&Gs on a hard weekend where I got few other coupons was satisfying, and will stand me in good stead when I find a really great deal on one of those products. It's a balancing act.

Because 99% of people don’t use their coupons, thieves who rob your paper’s innards – the very ones you’ve bought the paper for – are annoyingly smug. I imagine them thinking, as my old neighbor did about moving my trashcans at his pleasure, that “if you’ve got a problem with me taking your paper/moving your trashcans/trespassing on your property/etc., all you have to do is let me know!” Do let your carrier know, and try to arrange a different delivery location than the public sidewalk. They may be willing to put it in your door, or throw it farther onto the property to discourage petty thievery.

If you do miss some coupons, look in the freebie Gazette paper you normally recycle midweek. The same companies that put out the Sunday paper coupons – Red Plum (RP) and Smart Source (S) – print nearly identical ones for your local paper. You get an advance copy. So go dig last week’s copy out of your recycling bin, and take a look. Other copies of the gazette will be piled up around town, in strip malls, libraries, and public spaces.

Ask for them at stores you frequent. I picked up several at Giant, which doesn’t really print its own coupons. It slaps its label on the MCP, which is a tricky bit of footwork. You can’t use the coupon anywhere else, but neither is it really a store coupon, so you can’t combine it with another MCP. Safeway prints coupons in its weekly circular, available in the Sunday Paper, as do RiteAid, CVS, and other stores. Walgreens also prints its own booklets.

Third, order the Sunday paper. You’ll get the Sunday insert on Saturday, at least with the Washington Post – and by ordering a subscription you’ll save more than a dollar on the cost of a $2 paper. Every week. Right now the Post is running a special (11/11), where you can get a year for 59 cents an issue (70% off!). One common $1 coupon a week will cover it.

Next, you can ask neighbors, relatives, and friends. A recent episode of TLC’s Extreme Couponing noted that 99% of coupons go unused, so people won’t mind donating them.

Dumpster diving may be illegal in your state. Also, diving into dirty papers filled with bugs and possibly the sleeping homeless (paper is warm) is Extreme bordering on Crazy. Be Zen.

Keep an eye out at the store. Tear sheets (pads of coupons attached to the shelves), Catalina Coupons (register printed coupons), ValPaks delivered to your house… all are sources for coupons. These are of course mostly grocery coupons, but the ValPak has coupons for services as well, and often includes restaurant discounts.

Some stores, such as Safeway, allow you to download coupons onto your loyalty card. I haven’t tried this, but it seems like a nice paperless way to do business. It may also reduce errors and “coupon snipping”. However, it doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun.

You can print coupons on the Internet at various sites, but I caution you against allowing crawlers to watch your every move on the Internet. Printing coupons is limited to two prints per computer, so having several computers in our house seemed ideal. But in the end we decided to put my old laptop into service as a sole-purpose couponer. My favorite site is CouponMom, which allows you to view deals, gives you the coupon info., including the pub date, and lets you select deals and print a list.

Lastly, people do clip coupons and sell them as a service to others. That is, they are not selling you the coupon – that’s against the rules and technically invalidates the coupon. Nonetheless coupons are available for sale at various sites, including eBay. I bought the clipping service for 20 $2/2 packs Pampers, and they helped me get that great diaper deal a few weeks ago.

Finding coupons is not a problem. Organizing them might be.....

Couponing: Basics

Coupons come in several types: the most common are Manufacturer’s coupons (MCPs) in those inserts, Catalina machines, and other sources. Then there are Restaurant/Service coupons (RC/SvC, in the ValPak envelope); Store coupons (SCs) in their flyers are often called in-ad coupons. Recently Jon picked up a Macy’s Reusable Discount Card, stiff glossy card with start and end dates. Lastly, you'll find coupons on or in the goods you buy. Stuck on a product, it's a "peelie"; inside the product I would call In-Item Coupon, such as I've found in Pampers boxes, Celestial Seasonings Tea, and Duracell batteries. P&G likes to put coupons for various products in its boxes.

Charity coupons (CCs) on purchased goods are increasingly popular. My binder has a tab for BoxTops for Education (BT4E), and I print a collection sheet, and glue the little suckers on there. When it’s full, I take it to my local elementary school, where the twins will be attending in 4 years or so. Other charities with on-product coupons include the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and Campbell’s Labels for Education. I play Scavenger Hunt in my pantry for CCs. Also, there are Codes to turn in for goods; Pampers' Gifts to Grow program puts labels in its baby products, as does Coca Cola. You enter these online and use the points to purchase goods.

Coupons come in several value groups. I break them down as:

20¢ - 49¢ Low. I’ve never seen a coupon lower than 20¢.

50¢ - 99¢ The Golden Range.

$1 - $1.50 Most coupons these days are $1, usually off two items. Occasionally stores double coupons to $1.99.

$2 – $2.50 These coupons are rare.

More than $2.50 “High dollar coupon”

BOGO —Buy One Get One Free

BOGOHOFF—Buy One Get One Half-Off

Now, which is the most valuable coupon? Most of the coupons I see are for $1/2 items, more rarely $1/1. But some stores will double coupons with a face value 99¢ or less. So an 80¢ coupon is way more valuable than the $1 one, because it’s worth $1.60 at stores which double coupons[i][i]. Occasionally stores (such as Bloom) run promotions where they double coupons to $1.99. Depending on the cost of the item, the BOGO and BOGOHOFF coupons may be High-Dollar. Some stores double coupons to 49¢, 50¢ and up doubles to $1.

Your Assignment: Get some coupon booklets. Booklets are widely available. Most freebie papers include them; these are delivered to your home once weekly, or are available at malls, libraries, and grocers. Some stores put out their own coupon books and fliers, including Target, Giant, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and CVS. Ask for these at the service counter if you do not see them around the store's entry. The most ethical way to collect some spare booklets is to only take one free paper when you pass a stack. Maybe two. Check to be sure the inserts you're after are there. Although I personally feel someone else might want the rest of the paper, this rarely turns out to be the case. I asked about this on a message board, and was overwhelmingly voted down; the consensus -- take the whole paper, not just the inserts, and recycle it.

For us, I aim for between two and six sets of (nearly) identical booklets. The booklets differ by region and source; the Post may have different ones than the Baltimore Sun, slightly, and these may be slightly different than the ones in your freebie paper, all of which may be very different from the coupons in the LA Times. When confronted with the rare but happy sight of a stack of new SC books, I take six. No more. Why six? There are four of us in my family, and I like to share with a couple of friends.

There is no need to be gluttonous about coupons. Pick a number that is roughly equivalent to the size of your family as a reasonable maximum goal. If you want extra coupons for a particular product, there are many ways to get one-offs (check out eBay and printable coupon sites).

Assignment Part B: Once you’ve collected some booklets, look through them. On the first pass, clip coupons for items you currently have in your home, or which are on your grocery list. Use Listerine? Clip that $1 off 2 ($1/2) coupon. Use Trash bags? Clip that coupon. Is “cheese” on shopping list on your fridge? Clip it. And store them in a box (I used a large Ziploc fridge container for a while.) Find Coupons for items on your shopping list? Clip them to the list, and give it a try at your next shopping trip.

Assignment Part C: Use some coupons at your next shopping trip. Part of some people’s resistance to couponing is that it smacks of food stamps. I do it with as much polish and calm as I can muster given mothering twins. It’s just another form of tender. Don’t be nervous no matter how many coupons you have, don’t worry about the people behind you (for large trips or complicated series of transactions, warn them cheerfully), and check your receipt before you leave the cashier’s station, your purchases as you load the car. I've had more than one instance where an item wasn't loaded into my cart, or the coupons didn't post right.

Always remember: It’s a penny earned.

I’ll discuss the various aspects of couponing over the next several blogs.

Basic Terms and Abbreviations:

• $1/1, $1/2: Save one dollar off one item, one dollar off two items
• BOGO: Buy one item get one free
• B2GO: Buy two items get one free
• BOGOHOFF: Buy one get one Half-off
• Blinkies: Coupon dispensers found on store aisles
• CAT: Catalina machine coupons print out at grocers, including Safeway and Giant
• CC: Charity Coupon
• CRT: Cash register tape.
• CODES: Rewards codes found in products, such as Pampers' Gifts to Grow program
• DND: Do not double
• ECBs: ExtraCare Bucks, CVS
• FAR: Free after rebate
• IVC: Instant Value Coupon, Walgreens in-ad coupon
• MCP: Manufacturer Coupon
• MiR: Mail-in rebate
• OYNO: On your next order
• Peelie: Peel-away coupon on the product package
• PQ: Printable coupon
• PSA: Prices starting at
• RC: Restaraunt Coupon
• RRs: Register Rewards, Walgreens Catalina rewards program
• SCs: Store Coupons
• SCR: Single-Check Rebate, Rite Aid monthly rebates program
• UPC: Universal product code or bar code
• WYB: When you buy
  

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[i][i] Giant and Safeway claim to double coupons every day. Walmart and Kmart double coupons once in a while.

Best Deals on Diapers 11/28/2011

Here's a little exercise on coupon stacking, and an actual deal you can work on Pampers at CVS this week.

Coupon Stacking is combining various deals to your best advantage. Generally couponers -- extreme or not -- want to stack coupons on top of a sale price on top of another store coupon, or promotion such as Earned bucks or gift cards (GCs). These in-store promos are hot right now; I suspect retailers are hoping people will hoard the GCs and roll them together on some big holiday gift, hopefully after they misplace a few. These promos are like cash and should be used immediately, across several transactions at the same visit/check-out. Be sure to tell the teller how many transactions you have planned when you arrive at the check-out.

Coupon
______
Sale Price
______
Store Promo

I have coupons for $2 off of 2 Jumbo packs (20 -23 per pack at size 6) of Pampers which expire 11/30, so I want to use them. Now. The best price I can find is at Diapers.com, where with coupons I can get them for 39 cents a diaper.*

At CVS, they are offering a free $10 GC for a $30 purchase of listed items, limit 5 GCs this week. They advertise Pampers at 2 for $19. They even generously advertise the MCP (manufacturer's coupon) offered by P&G in this week's paper ($1/2 jumbo packs Pampers). The effective advertised price is $18/2, or $9 ea. Which was their sale price two weeks ago before my coupons (45 cents a diaper at size 6).

BUT... I have -$2/2 packs coupons from a few weeks ago, bringing the effective price to $17/2. That's $8.50 a pack.

REMEMBER... They're also offering a GC if you buy $30 worth. Or two $10 GCs if you buy $60 worth after discounts and coupons.

AND you get a pack free if you buy at least 6 (B6GO).

What's a twins' mom to do? Math!

I have to buy in even numbers to use the coupons, and I want to use coupons on all the packs.I have $2/2 coupons from the 10/30 P&G coupon insert, which is double the savings of the coupon in the 11/28 P&G.

How to work the deal
Do two identical transactions:
Scan your Bonus Card
Scan 8 bags of diapers = $ 72 minus one free = $63 (over the $30 threshold twice)
Use Four ($2/2) in coupons = $55 paid

Repeat, using the first $20 on the second transaction

Total Effective Cost for 16 packs of diapers (factoring in the $40 in rewards) $110 -40 = $70
Price per diaper at size 6 = ($70/16 packs)/20 diapers per pack = 22 cents each.
Leave with two free packs and $20 in gift cards.

You can repeat this deal three times, get 23 packs of diapers (3 free; three transactions 8 packs/8 packs/7 packs), and max out the $50 limit in gift cards. You leave with one $10 GC.

Check your total before you pay; the register failed to give the free pack on the first transactions at two different CVS's.

Is it a good deal?
This is 16 cents cheaper than Diapers.com's regular price of 38 cents a diaper (my go-to best deal with a coupon and the Take Five off loyalty price).

Doesn't sound like much?

The Twoddlers use at least 16 diapers a day. A 16-cent savings per diaper is worth $935 a year. Also note that retail these diapers are usually around $11 a pack at CVS, or 55 cents a diaper. Compared to full price, we're saving $1927 a year at 22 cents a diaper. That's about the cheapest I've found the twins' current size.

What about the advertised deal?
Well, it's almost as good. It's 25 cents a diaper if you do it the way they illustrate, have at least four $1/2 coupons, and buy 8 at once. You'll need the coupons in multiples of 4, and diapers in multiples of 8. You leave with a free pack of diapers and a $20 GC to use later, but which you'll count as part of your "winnings" now. Try the math.

If you don't like math, just buy 8 diapers with 4 coupons, and take the $20GC and one pack free for 25 cents a diaper.

Even if you don't have any coupons, this deal will get you 27 cents a diaper if you buy 8 packs, take the $20GC and one pack free.

Don't forget to nab your free pack of diapers!

If only I had 2,920 more coupons, I could get a year's supply.... nah. They'll be another deal along shortly.

I do wonder why all the diaper deals lately; I can only figure retailers are helping people stock up on absolute necessities before the hoped-for holiday splurge. I'm sure they're also hoping I won't show up again tomorrow.

But I might.


* I exclusively use the size 6-- 20 diapers a jumbo pack-- to do the math here.
Smaller sizes will be cheaper by the diaper, because the packs are bigger. But the ratio of savings remains about the same, 15 or 16 cents each.