Saving money for the lazy = Fresh & Easy

I know I know your a busy lady or gentleman and you just don't have time to clip coupons or match sales. Thats what I always used to say. But I still saved money just not as much of it.

I used to shop at Fresh & Easy. In general Fresh & Easy is a cheaper alternative to Trader Joes that sells mostly store brand merchandise with a few brand names mixed in. For a single person or couple with limited time and fancy tastes they are probably the way to go for 3 reasons.

1) Overall prices are lower without lowering quality

2) They have a really great clearance corner and I once picked up a $20 ham for $4 after Easter. I think that was the ham that started it all.

3)While they don't take manufacturers coupons they do issue their own store coupons which if you shop right can take off of 25% of your total without trying too hard.

A couple of tricks for the coupons.

Sign up for the mailing list and you'll get my favorite coupons $5/20 which is your buy ~$20 = 25% off there already low prices. Stock your cart with some of their sale meats or veggies and you ain't doing so bad.

Second the register will allow you to scan 2 coupons per transactions so lets say you spent $70 and had a $10 off $50 coupon and a $5 off $20 coupon you can use both to save $15 off your $70 purchase.

I used to consider these Fresh and Easy coupons to be like free money and you should too!

How many papers does one person need?

1? 10? 100? 10000?

When I first started I bought one solitary paper and clipped only the coupons I thought I would use. That didn't go well especially since I was trying to find the deals all on my home. My binder was a manilla folder I had stuffed in my glove box. The experiment lasted about 2 days and I wrote couponing off as a stupid fad. I think many wannabe EXTREME COUPONER'S fall into this category.

Then I tried again a few months later with a little more discipline using deal matchup sites. Still I bought only one paper and found I couldn't do most deals and it required buying more than one to get the good price or I would get something at a good price and then it would be eaten in 5 minutes and I would be left trying to find the deal again the next week.

Now I tend to get around 4-6 papers a week depending on how good the coupons are. If they coupons are good and I can use them straight away I get more. If only a couple are must have I get less papers and order more of a specific coupon of eBay.

I get 3 delivered to my door on Sunday. I buy 1-2 Weekend preview papers on Saturday since they have all the coupons too and sometimes you can use the coupons on a sale that ends Saturday. Then I will buy  my remaining papers on Sunday or throughout the week as the paper remains on sale all week.

I only buy the LA Times as the Daily Breeze and other smaller papers have less coupons even if they have the same inserts. Trust me on this

A money saving tip. I pay $1 a week per 4 day delivery. The cost of a Sunday Paper is $2. So it's better to get 2 delivered than 1 at the newsstand. Right now they have a deal for the Sunday paper only for 50c a week

If you have to buy a paper off the newsstand get the "Weekend Edition" It's available Saturday and is only $1.50. They remain on sale all week too.

Shout out to Toni my soon to be new convert. Don't go out and buy 10 papers like a crazy madwomen.

Public Service Annoucement: Don't be a money trasher!

Head over to http://www.cvs.com/moneytrashers/ make the pledge not to be a money trasher and get $2 Extra Care Bucks to spend on whatever you like as long as its not booze, ciggies or pills.

Walmart Update

In response to my comments a customer service rep from the store in question called me within 1/2 hour which impressed me. Of course even he didn't really understand the point I was trying to make of the "supervisor that wasn't really a supervisor" accusing me of photocopying my coupons. He said they would talk to the two employees involved but I don't expect much to come of it. He told me to go straight to upper management next time I have a problem. Umm good luck with that as it seems no one in the store wants to let you talk to a manager.

I consider that whole trip as an experiment in what things can go wrong. Price matching was the thing I expected to be the hardest and in fact was the easiest. There might be some value in taking a flyer from a mexican supermarket and price matching the meat and produce as the mexican markets that have the best prices have B grade produce. Not always though last time I went to one I was surprised that the 33c/lb bananas were just as good as VONS

I hate the mart

Some couponers love the mart aka Walmart because of the overages they can achieve. I'm not really big into overages as I think they encourage coupon fraud and misuse and the purchase of 100's of unneeded items.

I've never found it to be anything other than a dirty place to go people watching the downside being that you feel like you need to scrub yourself clean to make sure you don't come out feeling like you contracted scabies. I understand that the non LA stores are nice and have nice people that work there.

Here is my letter as sent to Walmart corporate let's see if they reply. (Unlikely)




I have just returned from an very unpleasant experience at Walmart [Transaction and store details removed to protect the guilty]. As you know in Los Angeles we have a lot of choices for shopping and one can live in LA for years without ever needing to shop at Walmart. Which is why I don't understand why customer service is so bad.

I came to Walmart today specifically to buy All You Magazine so while there I decided to price match some shaving cream I intended to purchase elsewhere using my coupons. I printed out a copy of your price matching policy and your coupon policy and reviewed it and made sure everything I was trying to do was within the policy. It was as my transaction was straight forward.

I easily found the products I was looking for and put them into my cart making sure they were both the same as the ad I was trying to match and the same as on the coupons. They were. I pulled up to the checkstand and was hearted by the sign that said Ad Matching welcome and Coupons? No problem.

Not no problem. BIG PROBLEM.

Now I should point out 2 things I was only purchasing two kinds of items. The magazine and 9 shaving creams. I let the cashier [EDIT] know I was price matching before she started ringing the order up. She had some trouble ringing the order up but managed to ring everything up correctly. I then handed her my coupons. She read over the coupons to read the details and then immediately pointed out something that makes most coupon users pull out their hair. "It's says only one per purchase you can only use one" I pointed out the purchase is synonymous with item and that it doesn't mean one per transaction as a transaction is made up of multiple purchases. I also showed her the coupon policy which I have come to the conclusion none of your employees at this location have ever seen.

A "supervisor" was then called over [ELIZABETH] who then insinuated that my coupons were photocopies. I happily pointed out that they all had unique barcodes on them and pointed out the security features that would void an internet printable coupon if photocopied. After that she told me I couldn't price match AND used coupons.

I pulled out both the price matching and coupon policies and asked her where it stated that. She then grabbed my policies and flounced off to the managers office. She came back a few minutes later shoved my policies back in my hand, said "It's OK" over her shoulder and ran off.

Now this is not the level of customer service I expect from any store I spend money at. Low prices should not mean low customer service. Especially when the prices aren't low otherwise price matching wouldn't be necessary.

I always thought Walmart's slogan was "Save Money. Live Better." in fact its "The customer is always wrong. Spend your money elsewhere."


So in summary here's a list of the problems I had.

Cashier didn't know how to ring up price matching or just not proficient.
Told that purchase = transaction.
Accused of photocopying my coupons
Told I couldn't price match and used coupons.
Basically treated like shit even though I was polite.

Some people just don't play by the rules

One of the first things you need to learn as a budding couponista is to find out what the rules of the game are. There are two sets of rules. The first set are the "ground rules", which include using only ONE manufacturers coupon per item and using the coupon only for the products the issuer intended. The second set are the rules of the store which can be found in each specific store's coupon policy. These may include things like only x amount of the same coupon per transaction or only the first of each specific coupon will be doubled i.e if you present 10 of one specific coupon only the first will be deducted at double the value. Or doubling only up to $1 e.e a 50c coupon becomes $1 as does a 75c coupon.

Some people choose to ignore these rules, plead ignorance to them or just simply defy them claiming that savings is the name of the game and why do you care what I do?

Well I DO care! One bad apple can spoil the barrel.

Here is an example of a transaction gone wickedly wrong

Couponing at its finest NOT!

Two specific parts of this transaction stick out to me among many mainly because they were for two item  that I also bought at VONS (a Safeway affiliate) with access to the same coupons and I played by ALL the rules and STILL got a good deal.

PEPSI MAX
SALE PRICE 4/$5 = $1.25each
USED $.55 OFF EACH (DOUBLE)
USED $.50 OFF TWO (DOUBLE)
FINAL PRICE FREE

Ok the problem with this deal is that the buyer is using 2 manufacture's coupons on 1 item, which is a big NO NO. If she only used one per item her cost would be $1.25 - 55c off 1 (doubled up to $1) = $0.25

Now here's the thing I have the exact same coupons 55c/1. I used it last week when the Pepsi MAX was on sale for 88c. My coupon doubled up to 88c and I got my soda for free also with NO cheating.

2 KRAFT DRESSING
SALE PRICE $1.19 WITH INSTORE COUPON
USED (2) SAVE $1.00 ON KRAFT DRESSING WHEN YOU BUY KRAFT BBQ SAUCE
USED $1.00 OFF 2 KRAFT DRESSINGS
FINAL COST: -0.62 (OVERAGE)

Now the problem her is she is using 1 store coupon and 2 manufacturers coupons per bottle of dressing. This is called SUPER stacking and is not allowed. What is allowed is one store coupon and one manufacturers coupon per ite,

I also did this deal last week. My VONS had the Wishbone dressing on sale instead of the Kraft but the price and store coupon was the same. With the store coupon the price of the dressing was $1.19 add to that ONE manufactures coupon for $1off one then you get salad dressing for 19c which is nothing to sniff about though you can quite frequently get FREE salad dressing without cheating as I did a couple of weeks ago when Albertson's had Ken's Dressing for sale for $1 and I used a $1 off coupon. FREE salad dressing without stealing!

Now this shopper could have used her coupons legally get the dressing for either .19c or .69c each.

Now there are plenty more things wrong with this transaction including using several coupons for $$$ of an item when you buy BBQ but only buying 2 BBQ sauces but using several of these kinds of coupons or using a coupon on an item that is already free. Essentially this shopper is manipulating her transaction to get overage (what happens when the coupon value is greater than the price of the item and you get the $ in the form of a store credit (many stores do NOT allow this)) to pay for some of the more expensive items in her cart.

All these examples came from a real life shopping trip posted by the shopper along with a picture of the items purchased. Judge for yourself.

I can't tell anyone what to do but I can tell you what I THINK about it.

Count Von Count did NOT come to my rescue

So I received a nice yet smarmy reply from the restaurant I had eaten at the other day that had misapplied my coupon discount. They basically insinuated that we the customer were wrong and that we had ordered the wrong thing.

Now in my mind buy one sandwich get one free with the purchase of two drinks is fairly straightforward. Apparently not. 20% entire order seems straightforward too. Apparently to them it means a discount off our drinks only. Whoopie I saved 74c on my soda.

They did state this "We receive about 15 of those coupons every day and unfortunately every 2 or 3 days we do have to make it a little more clear to the customer.  What's even more unfortunate is that there is no other way to make it more clear on the coupon (it is mentioned on the bottom of the coupon that it cannot be combined with any other specials)  as this coupon will be running for another 4 months with the same design."

To me this implies that there are rules of redemption not printed on the coupon so they are violating the contract between the customer presenting the coupon and the place of business. They want to change the terms and conditions because they didn't create the coupon correctly in the first place OR they did not anticipate the response and are not willing to give the discount on that scale

I didn't mention the restaurant name before because I wanted to be nice and fair but gloves are off now the restaurant is Fantastic Cafe on Gaffey Street in San Pedro.

The link to the yelp review is here

Fantastic Cafe Review

UPDATE: Just received another message from Fantastic Cafe. Now they want me to send them a copy of my receipt so they can check to see if their registers are working properly. In reality they want my receipt so I can't use it to file a complaint with the LA County Department of Weights and Measures but here's the thing I already did.

Couponers create scandals too.

I guess it is to be expected when you try and turn saving money into a televised sport. It's bound to happen where someone plays dirty, bends the rule, embezzles your coupons.

When I first started watching Extreme Couponing there was one character in the first season that just rubbed me the wrong way. Not sure if it was her heavy makeup or skunk hairdo or the fact that she acted like she was hot stuff when really she looked like a hot mess.

Also the scene where she coerces her husband into cleaning the shelves of all the mustard ( which he doesn't even like) was really a WTF moment for me.

But of course that's just the scratching the surface. Read on if you dare.

Dirty Coupon Ho

The new season of TLC's Extreme Couponing loos even worst from the preview that shows a lady clearing the shelves of all the energy bar and there's a poor surfer dude guy just standing there looking at her cart full of energy bars asking if she took them all. She quips " Early bird catches the worm!" Surfer dudes all like "Are you serious?"

If that happened to me I would be finding the store manager and asking if they had more in stock mentioning the fact that one lady took them all and asking don't they have limit per person in the hopes the manager would deny her the bars. But I'm petty and snarky like that.

Judge for yourself

Where's Count von Count when you need him?

I always though that counting money was absolute not relative...

There is this diner near us that has some decent food and reasonable prices. There are several locations all independently owned but Don Coupon is partial towards one particular location. So imagine my happiness when on the back of my supermarket receipt there is a coupon for either Buy one sandwich/burger and 2 drinks and get one free OR 20% off.

Sounds simple right?

Well so we head to the counter and  order 2 sandwiches and 2 drinks. Presented the coupon. Was told we could not use the sandwich coupon because one of the sandwiches was "on sale". Now this I take an issue to. The prices on the board are the SAME as they have been for years. This does not a sale make. It simply means they are FOR sale not ON sale. Was told we could use the 20% of your entire order coupon. OK fine whatever still a good deal.

When I got home to look at the receipt I noticed that on the line item where it said 20% of it took 74 cents off. On a $20+ ticket. On what planet is 74c 20% off your entire order. Not mine! It looks as though we got 20% off the drinks only. 

What to do, what to do. Complaining to the manager/owner is useless since he was standing right behind the cashier the whole time. It really does seem like they want the benefit of having customers come into the store but don't want to yield the discounts promised. I really DO feel like filing a complaint with the L.A County Department of Weights and Measures on this issue....

See Spot Save

When I first started this experiment. I started an excel spreadsheet to track how much I was spending and how much I was saving and where I was saving it.

The figures

Retail value of items bought: $804.90

Total price paid : $237.41

Total saved: $567.49

Not bad for a months work right?

This spreadsheet has allowed me to track which forms of savings are most effective. So far sale prices and coupons are neck and neck being only 75c apart at about $225 each. Together they make up about 90% of the savings. The drugstore rewards programs and catalinas make up the rest.

These figures don't include taxes or crv which I do log but don't take into account when calculating  things but I do track them.

Awkward!

Ok maybe I'm paranoid BUT

There are about 5 Walgreens near me. This week I went to 4 but only bought sale items at 1

Today I went to one Walgreens and they were out so I went to the one I had gotten my first 2 transactions from. When I went through the door they announced the "Code Q" over the loudspeaker. When I got to the register a staff member was there waiting for me and said after I commented I came for more M&M's "weren't you just at the other store?"

Am I being paranoid? I think it can be 2 things one I'm targeted as a couponer. Unlikely because I have only just started shopping at Walgreens or 2) they think I'm a secret shopper.

Something is odd. We'll see what happens tomorrow when I go in again to drop off my film to be processed. Yes film film. I AM from the stoneage. *wink wink*

I would think in L.A.  one you go to and fro and buy what one likes where one likes to buy it.

Insight anyone?