One of the most common statements I hear when I talk to people that are starting to consistently save at the grocery store is that they are shocked they no longer have to buy store brands!  In the past, before they used coupons and matched coupons with sales, they would buy store brands because that was the cheapest item on the shelf.  But now that they are using coupons and watching sales, they are able to buy name brand items for a much cheaper price!

I think one of the biggest misconceptions people have is that the store brand is the cheapest way to shop.  In actuality, if you are using coupons and if you are using coupons along with sales, brand names are the cheapest way to shop.  Store brands don’t have much flexibility with pricing.  There isn’t as much room in their budget to have great sales and most often there is not many store brand coupons to use.  Name brands have much larger budgets, can afford to have great sales and often release awesome coupons to use as well.

So, as you start to save more and more each week, begin to compare the prices of store brands versus name brands on sale.  I think you will be surprised and happy to see that store brands are not as cheap as you thought!

**To see previous Tuesday’s Tips entries, go Here!

How many newspapers do you get every Sunday?  One?  Two? Three?  One of the biggest tips I can give you about saving the most money every week is to get multiple papers every weekend.  Why?  When items are at rockbottom prices, free, or moneymakers, the more copies of each coupon you have, the more of each item you will get to add to your stockpile!  And, if your grocery store allows two coupons for Buy 1 Get 1 Sales, then you always want at least two copies of each coupon.  So my recommendation to you would be to get at least 2 newspapers every Sunday.  But, truthfully, I get 6 or 8 papers every Sunday and I don’t have kids!  If I had kids, I would be buying even more!

Also – Keep checking in on my blog.  Each week I will let you know if you can expect coupon inserts in your Sunday paper.  That way, you won’t buy 6 copies and then find out there are no coupons in it!

**To see previous entries of Tuesday’s Tips, go Here!

So, this tip is a day late and a dollar short. I woke up at 3 am this morning realizing I never posted a tip yesterday! And, here I am at 10 pm finally posting it!

Today’s tip is about overage. You have probably seen me use this term randomly throughout my blog. In fact, if you checked out the two Photo Show and Tells I posted today, you saw that I have used overage to my advantage. What is overage? Overage is the excess amount owed to you by your store when your coupon amount exceeds the price of the product you purchase. Some stores allow overage, some do not. The stores that don’t allow overage will typically adjust your coupon amount so that you get the item for free, without any extra money owed to you. Most of the stores that do allow overage will not actually pay you money, but they will instead apply the overage towards other items you buy.

For example, Publix currently has an awesome store coupon in their Green Advantage flyer. It is a $5/2 Bayer products coupon. Since this is a store coupon, you can stack the store with a two manufacturer coupons (since you are buying 2 Bayer products). Here’s how the math works:

The negative $2.06 shown above is actually a credit given by Publix.  Publix is paying you $2.06 to buy 2 bottles of Bayer.  However, Publix won’t give you $2.06 cash.  So, instead, you will need to purchase other items to put the credit towards.  An awesome way to get the cost of meat, vegetables and fruits down is by using overage.

Also – Publix will allow you to use multiples of the same deal in one transaction.  So, if you grab 4 Green Advantage flyers, buy 8 Bayer, use four of the $5/2 Publix coupons, use eight $1/1 manufacturer coupons, your overage will now be $8.24.  Put that towards chicken breasts which are on sale for $1.99 and you just got 4 lbs of chicken free!

So, now can you see why I LOVE overage!  Publix has a ton of deals this month so make sure you take advantage of them.  And, if you shop at other stores besides Publix, keep your eyes on the sales.  When you see rock bottom sale prices and you have high value coupons, then more often than not, you will not only get the item FREE, but it will be a MONEYMAKER!!

My Tuesday’s Tip of the day is to save your coupons.  When the average person buys his or her newspapers on Sunday, they will go through the coupons and cut only the coupons they think they will need within the next week.  Stores know this.  Manufacturers know this too.  Manufacturers are not banking on the fact that you are saving all of the coupons – even if you don’t need them right now.  Why are you saving them?  You want to hold on to each and every coupon because you never know when there will be a sale where the item will be free if you use your coupons.  Or, even better, there may be a sale where you can MAKE MONEY if you use your coupons.  Example: Fisher’s Nuts are on sale for $0.80 and you have a $1.00 off coupon.  Depending on whether your store allows overage, you will either receive the nuts free or even better, free plus $0.20 overage!

Save your coupons.  You will be shocked at how many free items you can get with the use of coupons that are a month old or older.

I decided to add a weekly column titled “Tuesday’s Tips.”  Every Tuesday, I will add a tip that anyone can use to start saving big.  The tips will hopefully apply to everyone – regardless of the store you shop at!

Tip of the week:

Ask, ask, ask.  Find out if you are able to use two coupons when your store has a Buy 1 Get 1 (B1G1) sale.  Some stores allow this, some don’t.  You are missing out on big savings if you are allowed to and you aren’t using two coupons.  With a B1G1 sale, you are getting one item for free.  Well, with two coupons, you are then deducting the value of two coupons off of the one item you are paying for.

Some stores allow this, some don’t.  In order to find out your store’s coupon policies, go to their website or go to the customer service desk at the store.  If they don’t, use one coupon and still save big!