Money Monday: E-coupons for Frequently Visited Stores

Do you love coupons? Clipping them, sorting them, carrying them in the store (inevitably dropping some of them), hearing some woman sigh in line behind you when you present your stack to the cashier, wondering if a coupon is even valid given other offers? Me neither. But then again, I hate paying full price. So I will share a favorite thing, mobile savings for the two places I visit most often--Target and the grocery store.

Target

When I think of mobile savings, the first thing that comes to mind is Target's Cartwheel app. I plan to do a separate post at some point about saving money at Target, and I will go into more detail on Cartwheel at that point. But for now, know that you can download Cartwheel to your phone as well as access it online. 

http://cartwheel.target.com/

With Cartwheel, you start out with a limited number of spots, but you earn various badges the more you use Cartwheel and the more you earn, the more spots open up for you. I will often plan ahead and look through my list and check if there is a Cartwheel offer available for items on my list, but not all purchases can be planned in advance. I don't know how many times I've been stuck in line at Target and I decided to check for some of the unplanned items in my cart and I actually found offers. Sometimes it's just 5% off a $2 item, but why wouldn't I want to keep that dime in my account? It all adds up. If you're going to be waiting anyway, why not see if you can save any extra money? 

Once the Target cashier has scanned your items, you will simply present your phone and have your Cartwheel barcode scanned. (You can also print a barcode at home and present that in the store, but of course that won't help for last-minute purchases). It's so fun to see how much your total purchase amount goes down, and then to look through your receipt later to see how much you saved on the individual items. (Well, at least I'm amused by it). 

Kroger

Another mobile app I use to save money is for our local Kroger chain, Dillons. Like with my Target purchases, I tend to search on the website ahead of time and load coupons to my card. There is an e-coupon limit, but it is much higher than the spots available for Cartwheel. This means that when I'm searching for coupons on the site, even if I have no immediate plans to purchase a particular thing, I will go ahead and add it if it's something I MAY purchase at some point. This has been good for me, because I have so many e-coupons loaded at any given time that I don't actually shop based on what I have coupons for. I may make a note if there is an awesome discount on something and seek out that item, but for the most part the offers are loaded to my saver's card and if I happen to purchase something, the savings will be a fun surprise. 

What I love about the Kroger system is that the coupons are loaded to my savings card, which I use at every checkout so I can get fuel points. If I happen to leave my phone in the car while I shop, I still get the savings; that would not be the case at Target with Cartwheel. And while I don't like using paper coupons, I get many targeted coupons in the mail for Dillons, so I use them. With the e-coupons loaded to my card, I don't have to worry if there will be some big thing at the checkout over whether I can apply a paper offer as well as an e-coupon. It either happens or it doesn't, no human interaction or intervention required. 

There are a couple extra bonuses associated with using your Kroger savings card; one is the Free Friday Download. Every Friday, there is an e-coupon available for an item you can pick up in the store for free (it doesn't have to be applied on Friday, there is an expiration date like any other coupon). Often these are new items manufacturers would like to introduce to customers, and often they are something frivolous like a candy bar or a silly new kind of juice. All the items I've gotten for free retail for at least $1, but sometimes they are worth more than that. A recent download was for Sara Lee Arteseno bread, which sells for around $2.50. And it's bread! Who can't use some free bread? 

And the other added benefit I've found is simply that I'm now visiting the grocery store's website on a regular basis. I don't look through circulars very often, so now I can see information on promotions I otherwise would not know about. For example, I currently have an e-coupon loaded that doubles the fuel points I earn for every purchase I make on the weekends in the summer, and it happened with one click of a button.

I know many people don't have the time or patience for couponing, but I think it's worth it to at least look into e-coupons. Once you put in the initial time to download and learn how to navigate a site or app, saving money becomes practically effortless!