Kmart Double Coupons 2010

One thing that is important to remember is that getting the best deals on groceries means considering retail outlets beyond grocery stores. If you have a Kmart nearby and live in an area where grocery stores don’t double coupons, you are going to love this news. The week of April 4, 2010, Kmart plans to be offering double coupons. Kmart will double coupons up to $2 and will double up to 5 coupons per day. They will be keeping track of these limits on their Shop Your Way Rewards Card.

While most stores will be participating, not all will. All stores in California Idaho, Maine, Utah, Wisconsin, Montana and Washington state are supposed to be participating. All Kmart stores except those in Albany, Beaverton, Gresham, Milwaukee, Oregon City, Portland, Salem, The Dalles and Tualatin are supposed to be participating. Contact Kmart headquarters to find out if the Kmarts in your state will be participating in Kmart double coupons 2010. You can also talk to your local Kmart manager to verify that your store will be participating in Kmart’s 2010 double coupons.

This is an excellent chance to get free / nearly free food / stockpile, so it is worth stocking up on high value grocery coupons that don’t expire before these dates.

CVS accepts a number of different types of coupons. CVS stores accept the following types of coupons:

1. Manufacturer Coupons (this includes both coupons from newspapers / magazines / other print sources ans well as manufacturer online printable coupons)

2. Store Coupons (this includes CVS store coupons found in their weekly fliers , CRTs and purchase based coupons)

3. Competitor Pharmacy Coupons (they do not, however, accept any other type of competitor coupon)

4. Extra Care Bucks (called ECBs for short, they are like a Catalina from the grocery store that is printed out at the cash register)

CVS allows a shopper to use one manufacturer and one store coupon per item. In addition, the shopper may also use Extra Care Bucks (ECBs) since they are treated by CVS like a gift card, not like a coupon. Since a shopper can use three types of discounts on a single item, this makes for some great deals each week.

The official CVS coupon policy is that if an item is on sale as a Buy One Get One Free (BOGO), you may use two manufacturer coupons when making the purchase.

CVS does not allow overages. That means that you will not be able to get cash back (although you will be able to earn money with their ECBs). If something $0.95 and you have a $1.00 off coupon, the CVS register will make a nasty beep. When this happens, the cashier simply need to override the coupon and bring the amount down to mach the product price (in this case $0.95). Most cashiers are very familiar with this, but it’s good to know if you happen to get a new cashier and you can prepare yourself for the beep if you know that you will have an overage.

These are the most up to date 2010 CVS coupon policy that we are aware of. This current CVS coupon policy is pretty well established and we assume that it will continue as the 2011 CVS coupon policy as well (we will update if there are any changes in the 2011 CVS coupon policy when that time comes).

The above information has been confirmed by contacting CVS. CVS does not list their coupon policy on their website. If you want a document to take to your local CVS, you can contact CVS/pharmacy Customer Relations at 1-800-SHOP-CVS (1-800-746-7287), email them at customercare@cvs.com (they also have a web based form on their website at the bottom under “Contact Us”) or by snail mail at:

CVS Corporation
Corporate Headquarters
One CVS Drive
Woonsocket, RI 02895

Please let us know if you find that your local CVS store has an alternative coupon policy so that we can write to CVS to get a clear answer.

Baby Snacks: 2 boxes
Bagels: 2 bags
Breakfast Bars: 2 boxes
Cereal: 74 boxes
Chips: 3 bags
Chocolate Chips: 1 bag
Corn Bread Mix: 2 boxes
Crackers: 11 boxes
Creamer: 1 jar
Frozen Meals: 12
Fruit / Vegetable Drink: 3 bottles
Fruit Snacks: 12 boxes
Granola Bars: 4 boxes
Hamburger/Chicken/Tuna helper: 6 boxes
Hot Chocolate: 4 boxes
Ice Tea Drink: 2 bottles
Jello: 6 boxes
Jello Mousse: 1 package
Jelly / fruit Spread: 3 jars
Ketchup: 1 bottle
Macaroni and Cheese: 8 boxes
Muffin Mix: 2 boxes
Nut Clusters: 21 bags
Nutrition Bars: 7 boxes
Oatmeal: 19 boxes
Pancake Mix: 3 boxes
Pasta: 8 boxes / bags
Pasta Sauce: 8 jars / cans
Peanut Butter: 6 jars
Peperoni: 1 pack
Popcorn: 2 boxes
Potatoes: 2 packs
Rice: 4 boxes / bowls
Rice-A-Roni: 9 boxes
Rolls: 2 canisters
Sausage: 2 packs
Soup: 44 cans
Spices / Seasonings: 3 bottles
Sports Drinks: 5 bottles
Tea: 2 boxes
Tomato Sauce: 9 cans
Tuna: 11 cans / pouches
Vegetables: 2 bags, 15 cans
Yakisoba Noodles: 12 packs
Yogurt: 25 cups 1 container

Penny Experiment is still looking for more couponers to participate. If you have a coupon blog and are good at getting deals with coupons, please consider helping out your local food bank at no cost to you.

I’m terrible with coupons, but this week I managed to get get $45.48 worth of food for $3.50 — if you have a Safeway (or Safeway affiliated) grocery store near you, I will show you exactly how to do it.

This week (good until 01/26/10) Safeway is offering Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-Ups for $1.00 each if you use your Safeway club card and you buy 4 of them.

You can print two “Save $1.00 when you buy TWO BOXES any flavor Betty Crocker Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups” You should be able to print two from your computer although it only let me print one from my second computer. You need two of these coupons.

Go into Safeway and buy 4 boxes of the whatever fruit boxes most appeal to you with your card and the two coupons:

They will ring up your purchase and it will come to $2.00 for a savings of 83%:

It gets better. With your receipt you will also get a register receipt $2.50 coupon off your next purchase. Walk out to your car and put the Fruit Snacks in the back seat and then grab the following coupons that you have also printed out:

Save $1.00 when you buy One box of Honeynut Cheerios. You should be able to print this coupon 2 times on your computer and since I have two computers, I had 4 coupons.

If you use Internet Explorer — Save $1.00 when you buy One box of Quaker Instant Oatmeal or Oats
If you use FireFox — Save $1.00 when you buy One box of Quaker Instant Oatmeal or Oats. You should be able to print out 2 coupons on each computer (for some reason, I could only print out one coupon on one of my computers, so I only had three — I was lucky and found a $1 off one box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch which is also part of the buy 4 deal).

Walk back into the store and you’ll end up with this:

Since all these items are on sale for $1.50 each when you buy 4, and you have $1 off each coupon, that reduces the price for the 8 items to $0.50 each, or $4.00. In addition, you use that $2.50 off your next purchase coupon that you just got for buying the Fruit Snacks making your total bill for the 8 items $1.50 — a 96% savings:

What you end up with is $45.48 worth of food for $3.50 out of pocket and a 92% savings:

Seriously folks, if I can do this, anyone can. This deal is available until Tuesday 1/26 at Safeway so you still have time to get it. Use the food to fill your pantry and give a box or two of cereal to your local food bank. I guarantee you’ll walk out of the store with a smile on your face on the deal you got.

Posted from Penny Experiment

I know quite a few people who have tried to use coupons but ended up quitting because they got discouraged. They felt like they weren’t saving enough, or that somehow they weren’t doing it “right.” One woman put it simply when she explained, “I see these people on TV who get $600 worth of food and only pay $50. I can’t get anywhere near that kind of savings or even find that many coupons, so I end up feeling like it’s not worth my time somehow.”

What I tell people that express this feeling is this: If you get into couponing expecting to have those kinds of great savings week in and week out, you’re probably going to end up disappointed. If you want to coupon, you need to have a more realistic expectation of what you, personally, can achieve and then work from there. Couponing is a great way to save money, but the people that are trotted out on these TV shows are not representative of the “average” couponer for four main reasons.

First, many of these super-couponers are not buying a true weeks’ worth of food when they are being filmed. You won’t usually find them buying milk, meat, eggs, cheese, produce, and fixings for a weeks’ worth of dinners. Most of the time these people are stockpiling. Their cart is likely full of twenty boxes of pasta, ten boxes of cereal, ten packs of clearance meat, and tons of paper and beauty products. These are things that they have waited to go on sale, have amassed large numbers of coupons to use, and have waited to strike when there is a triple coupon promotion going on.

By combining sales and coupons they are able to get many of the products free or nearly so. However, this isn’t stuff that they will use to feed a family for a week. It’s stuff that will go into a pantry or freezer to be used as time goes by. While getting to the point where you can work the system like this is a good goal, many people can’t do it because they don’t have the kind of storage space necessary. If you were to follow one of these super couponers when they buy their “regular” perishable foods you’d find that they don’t come close to getting a cart full of stuff for free.

Second, super couponers devote hours to planning their shopping trips and have no problem driving to multiple stores to get the best deals, all while figuring out what can be gotten for free by using rebate programs like CVS’s Extra Care program. There’s nothing wrong with this approach and it can save a lot of money. But most people don’t have that kind of time or the inclination to plan that much. Most of us just want to go to one store, get in and get out. You can certainly still use coupons with this approach, but you won’t get the same value out of them that someone who is willing to drive to multiple places and cherry pick the deals will.

Third, super couponers are fortunate to live in areas with multiple stores that have to compete for their business. If you live in an area with four or five large grocery chains, some super-centers and warehouse clubs, drugstores on every corner, and alternative food sources like outlets and Aldi’s, you’re going to be able to save a lot more than the person with one grocery store nearby. When there’s a lot of competition, more stores double and triple coupons and have more aggressive sales to drum up business. When there’s no competition, you have to take what you can get price-wise.

Fourth, super couponers are able to make use of Internet coupons. In addition to the coupons they get from the Sunday paper, they can print many more coupons for the same item, giving them big savings when they buy five tubes of toothpaste and have a coupon for each. Some of us are not so fortunate. There’s not a store around here that routinely accepts Internet coupons. They used to, but fraud scared them off. Other areas are the same way. That avenue is simply closed to many people.

Being a super couponer who can get a cart full of groceries for nearly free is something that you can do if you are willing to devote the time and storage space to stockpiling, meal planning, and trotting to multiple stores to snag the best deals. If you’re willing to treat shopping like a war with a battle plan, you can get a lot of things for free. If you live in an area with great stores, sales, and coupon policies, your job is even easier. However, most of us just don’t want to put that kind of effort into it, or we don’t live in an area where that kind of coupon use is even possible. And that’s fine. You can still save with coupons.

It’s not hard to save $30 or $40 per week with just the coupons from your Sunday paper and shopping at one store to buy your weekly necessities. No, it’s not $500 in savings, but every little bit adds up. That $30 per week is $120 at the end of the month. You have to understand what is available in your area and then decide how much effort you’re willing to put forth to reap some savings. Do you want to just clip a few coupons and call it quits? Do you have stores that make holding out for triple coupon day a good deal? Does any store near you take Internet coupons? Do you have a lot of time to plan meals, compare circulars, and hit multiple stores? Find the answers to these questions and you can figure out how much you can realistically expect to save.

Understanding how much you can do within the context of your daily life and where you live will give you a more realistic picture of the savings you can expect. No, you might not be able to get a cart full of food for free, but you can probably trim your bill by a decent amount. Just think of every coupon as if it were cash. That $1.00 coupon is a dollar bill. Even if you save no more than that one dollar, that’s still a dollar you didn’t have to part with. There’s no need to get discouraged or feel like a failure just because you can’t match the savings of someone on TV. Save what you can and be happy about it.

A question that we have never asked is whether food is a major cause of people’s lack of saving money in the first place? According to Aaron Patzer, the founder of Mint.com, the reason that many people in their 20s and 30s have a major savings problem is due to the cost of socially going out — dinners at restaurants, drinks with friends and the daily coffee at the local coffee shop. Basically, the way that they consume food and drinks is what causes them not to be able to save money.

What do you think? Is the way that we eat and spend on food the primary reason that we don’t save money when we first get out on our own?

For those that collect grocery coupons, it’s essential to know when the different coupon inserts are scheduled to appear in your Sunday newspaper. Below is the 2010 coupon insert schedule for Red Plum, the 2010 coupon insert schedule for Smart Source, the 2010 coupon insert schedule for General Mills and the 2010 coupon insert schedule for Procter & Gamble. If there will be more than one insert scheduled to appear, the number of inserts will be listed in front:

January
3 — (2) Smart Source (2) Red Plum and General Mill
10 — Smart Source and Red Plum
17 — Smart Source, Red Plum and Proctor & Gamble
24 — Smart Source and Red Plum
31 — Smart Source and Red Plum

February
7 — Smart Source
14 — No Inserts scheduled (Valentine’s Day)
21 — Smart Source, General Mills and Procter & Gamble
28 — Smart Source and Red Plum

March
7 — Smart Source, Red Plum and Procter & Gamble
14 — Smart Source and Red Plum
21 — Smart Source and Red Plum
28 — (2) Smart Source, Red Plum and Procter & Gamble

April
4 — No Inserts scheduled (Easter)
11 — Smart Source and Red Plum
18 — Smart Source and Red Plum
25 — Smart Source and Red Plum

May
2 — Smart Source, Red Plum and Procter & Gamble
9 — Smart Source and Red Plum
16 — (2) Smart Source and Red Plum
23 — Smart Source and Red Plum
30 — No Inserts scheduled (Memorial Day)

June
6 — Smart Source, Red Plum and Procter & Gamble
13 — Smart Source
20 — Smart Source and Red Plum
27 — Smart Source and Red Plum

July
4 — No Inserts scheduled (Independence Day)
11 — Smart Source and Red Plum
18 — Smart Source
25 — Smart Source and Red Plum

August
1 — Smart Source, Red Plum and Procter & Gamble
8 — Smart Source and Red Plum
15 — Smart Source and Red Plum
22 — Smart Source and Red Plum
29 — Smart Source, Red Plum and Procter & Gamble

September
5 — No Inserts scheduled (Labor Day)
12 — Smart Source and (2) Red Plum
19 — Smart Source and Red Plum
26 — Smart Source and Red Plum

October
3 — Smart Source, Red Plum and Procter & Gamble
10 — Smart Source and Red Plum
17 — Smart Source and Red Plum
24 — Smart Source and Red Plum
31 — Smart Source and Red Plum

November
7 — Smart Source, Red Plum and Procter & Gamble
14 — Smart Source and Red Plum
21 — Smart Source and Red Plum
28 — No Inserts scheduled (Thanksgiving)

December
5 — Smart Source, Red Plum and Procter & Gamble
12 — Smart Source and Red Plum
19 — No Inserts scheduled (Christmas)
26 — No Inserts scheduled (New Year’s Day)

Here are the past coupon insert schedules: the 2009 Coupon Insert Schedule, the 2008 Coupon Insert Schedule, the 2007 Coupon Insert Schedule and the 2006 Coupon Insert Schedule

The 2010 coupon insert schedule can change from time to time as the year progresses. If you become aware of changes to the 2010 coupon insert schedule, please leave a comment to let us know to make a change.

Jeffrey Strain found a penny on the ground and is attempting to turn that found penny into $1 million worth of food for food banks. He already turned the initial penny into 1000 pennies and has found nearly 100 artists that will turn some of those pennies into art. The next step is to sell the art and take the money earned to purchase the most food possible.

That is where he is asking for coupon bloggers help. He wants to give the money earned from the sale of the art to coupon bloggers and have them go out and buy as much food as they can utilizing their coupon skills. All the food that they purchase will then be giving to the local food bank of their choice. If you are a coupon blogger or know of one that might be interested in helping out with this cause, please pass along this information.

Canned Tomatoes: Because the tin cans they come in contain bisphenol-A which leaches into the tomatoes due to their acidity. Bisphenol-A has been linked to numerous ailments.

Corn-Fed Beef: While corn is cheaper giving the cow farmers a better profit, cows should be eating grass – and studies show that grass fed cows are a lot healthier to consume.

Microwave Popcorn: There are chemicals in the lining of the bag that get into the popcorn when the microwave heat vaporizes them. These chemicals have been linked to a variety of cancers in animals and infertility in humans.

Nonorganic PotatoesRoot vegetables like potatoes absorb the chemicals that are used on them to keep away pests and with potatoes being the most popular vegetable, they get plenty of chemicals sprayed on them.

Farmed Salmon: Salmon weren’t meant to be raised in crammed pens and their health suffers including containing a higher number of contaminants. “You can only safely eat one of these (farmed) salmon dinners every 5 months without increasing your risk of cancer.”

Milk Produced with Artificial Hormones: The hormones used to increase milk production in cows can contribute to cancer in humans.

Conventional Apples: Apples are the fruit most doused with chemicals.

source

Once you have the fundamentals down to maximize your savings with grocery coupons, it is amazing how much you can save. Take, for example, this Massachusetts mom who is able to feed her family of six for only $4 a week for food (and purchase $267 worth of food for $0.01 on the Good Morning America show) by having a wonderful coupon strategy: