Extreme Couponing Strategy #5 – Watch for B1G1 FREE Sales
When you talk about Extreme Couponing you aren’t talking as much about coupon use as you are sale watching. Good couponers know that the best deals are from sales and that coupons are just the icing on the cake. Especially if you live in an area where they don’t double coupons or offer store coupons. Learning which sales to watch for is a great way to start saving money even before you clip a coupon!
Most Local and Regional Grocery Stores will run Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sales. What I love about a Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sale (B1G1 Free) is that you are saving 50% without using a Coupon!!!
Think about it, if you didn’t ever use a coupon but you were able to follow the Sales Cycle Method I mentioned previously to buy enough of each item you use to last you to the next B1G1 Free Sale you would save 50% on your purchases without using coupons!!!
Now here comes the best part! Most Stores allow 1 coupon per item purchased. So if you are purchasing 2 items for a B1G1 free sale then you can use 2 coupons!
Take for example an item like this Pompeian Olive Oil, this is something that you don’t typically think of finding on sale for really cheap, and most people don’t think of coupons on something healthy like Olive Oil since people associate coupons with processed foods, but there are actually very frequent coupons on Olive Oil. When you combine the B1G1 FREE Sale + 2 Coupons for Olive Oil you can save over 58%!!!
Buy 2 – Pompeian Olive Oil Bottles (32 oz.), $11.69
Get 1 FREE from Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sale
Use 2 – $1/1 Pompeian Oil printable
$4.84 each after coupon and sale!
In this example you could end up paying only $4.84 for an item that normally costs over $11! That’s a huge savings just by combining the coupons and buy 1 get 1 free sales, but remember even without the coupons this sale saves you 50% on a great everyday household item!
Stacking B1G1 Free Coupons
Some stores allow you to stack a Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sale with a Buy 1 Get 1 Free Coupon to get 2 items FREE! This will depend on your local stores coupon policy but this is frequently the case and when you can find a Buy 1 Get 1 Free Coupon and sale at the same time you get BIG Savings!!!
Basically the way this works is you are getting one item free from the sale and one item free for the coupon.
If you store doesn’t allow a B1G1 Free Coupon + a B1G1 Free Sale to get 2 Items Free you can always buy 4 items. You basically end up paying for 1 item and getting 3 FREE Which is still an awesome deal and a savings of 75%!
Stacking B1G1 FREE with B1G1 50% off
I get emails all the time asking me how it works when you have a B1G1 50% off sale and you have a B1G1 Free Coupon. I know everyone is trying to figure out how to make this a good deal, but the problem with this scenario is that you have both discounts applying to the same item, So in a B1G1 50% off sale with a B1G1 Free Coupon you end up getting the cheaper 50% off item for Free. This really isn’t any different than just using your B1G1 Free Coupon on Full Price Items so you’re not really saving anything extra by stacking these sales.
Watch The Cash Registers
Something else you will want to keep in mind, Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sales ring up differently in every store. Some stores will charge you full price for the first item ($11.69 in the olive oil example above) and then Charge you nothing for the second item ($0.00). Other stores may charge you 50% for each item ($5.84 each in the example above) this is more common in grocery stores than in national retailers. The problem with a cash register that rings up at 50% off the retail price for each item is that if you are trying to stack with a B1G1 Free Coupon you may only get the 50% off price for the free item. This isn’t always the case but it is something I wanted you to be aware of.
Don’t Forget: You can Download the Stockpiling Price Sheet to see all of the estimated prices you could expect to pay for the basic items we buy each month. There is also a place to compare unit pricing. This is just a guide, but a great way to help you learn the prices of each item.
Tomorrow we will be talking about another strategy for getting the most out of your coupons!
Make sure you check out our Saving Money Blog and also our How to Coupon Page for more tips, tricks and videos on saving money and using coupons.
View all the posts in the Extreme Couponing Strategies series.
