Thursday, April 14, 2011

A Coupon Update

When I went to Kroger earlier this week to buy groceries, I had an unpleasant surprise. The cash register rejected two of my manufacture coupons! And then Robert the cashier (formally one of my favorite bag boys--he got a promotion) explained Kroger's new policy to me.

Kroger no longer accepts duplicate coupons (one digital and one manufacture) for the same item.

And to make it worse, the register accepts the digital one first, and then rejects your paper coupon. So this is what happened in my case. I bought a bottle of shampoo and a can of hairspray (the same brand). The digital coupon was $.50 off one item (either the shampoo or the hairspray). My paper coupons were $.50 off one item (which is doubled to $1 off) and a Buy One, Get One Free for the shampoo/hairspray. So I had planned on getting the two products for about $.50 each. So since the digital coupon was accepted and not the two paper ones, I only saved $.50 off the two products.

It happened again on another product as well. I asked Robert why. He said that he thinks they are trying to discourage coupon using!

Well, they have discouraged me.

I spend about 2 hours each week going through the newspaper, clipping coupons, and then loading the digital coupons onto my shopping card as well. I do have the Kroger app on my iPhone, so loading the digital coupons is fairly simple, but it does take some time. For my two hours of work, I usually save an average of $20. Since I can no longer "stack" the coupons, my savings will be drastically reduced. Most of my coupons are for health and beauty items, household cleaners and soaps, and Cheerios. I am thinking that with the new way Kroger is doing the coupons, I could actually spend less money (and way less time) by going back to my old way of shopping once a month at Walmart/Sam's for my non-food items.

I plan to buy my weekly groceries at Kroger tomorrow afternoon. I am only buying food items at Kroger tomorrow. I am going to take inventory of all of my non-food supplies here at home, and begin making a monthly Walmart list to begin using in May.

Have their been coupon changes in your area?

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing this. I had noticed a big change in my savings at Kroger...no one was telling me why. I just assumed priced were up that much. Now that I think about it, they have been keeping my paper coupon too. I am with you no more non food items at Kroger. I think I will write the company. I also was very frustrated yesterday by the lack of quality produce (which is what drew me there in the first place several years ago). The manager was busy yesterday, but I had planned to tell him.

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