Coupons and the economy

[YellowRoseTex]

Yesterday I received an envelope from one of our local grocery stores with some coupons in it, $5 off a $50 purchase. However; reading the letter found out that they are no longer going to triple coupons up to 39 cents and will no longer double coupons up to 50 cents. :mad: It is one of the reasons that I frequent this chain.

They are higher on many of their items, but if I shop right, with sale items/coupons or if I have a coupon that will be doubled or tripled, the prices will equal that of the other store I shop at. And there meat prices are many times lower than the other store.

There are a few items that the other store I shop at does not carry, but other than those items and meat looks like I will mostly be changing where I shop.

This store does not have nearly the lines that the discount store does either. Why would they change something that brings the customer in? At least it does me. The double/triple coupons gave me an incentive to go there. Now my trips will probably be less frequent. I will check the ad and if I don't need any of the meats on sale I probably will not bother.

I should also mention that this store has been steadily raising their prices. I mentioned awhile back in another thread that they have tags that say NEW LOW PRICE, but in fact the price has been increased.

Is this a sign of the economy and times? I am going to miss my double/triple coupons.

[minimom]

Triple coupons - wow, I've never heard of that. I would be upset also if they discontinued that. We have double coupons up to 99 cents. Then the grocery store gives you 10 cents off a gallon of gas for every $50 you spend. The gas perks used to be good for 90 days but they recently changed it to 60 days. It's still good. There have been times that we get a free fill up.You can get up to 30 gallons of gas at a time. Since our cars are smaller, we take gas cans and fill them up after we fill up the car. That way we get our full 30 gallons.

A lot of times we will buy gift cards at the grocery store for restaurants, stores at the mall, or home depot. Those count for 10 cents off a gallon of gas for every $50 in gift cards. Sometimes they ran promotions that gave us 20 cents off for every $50 in gift cards. If we knew we had to buy something, we would try to get gift cards for that particular store. For instance, we knew we needed a new bathroom vanity, so we bought home depot gift cards and used them to buy it. We got gas perks at the grocery store for that purchase.

In this day and age, you have to do what you can to save your money or stretch it as much as possible.

Pam

[jcme]

I would contact the store manager and tell him he lost you as a customer because of their change in policy. It may make them rethink their change but my guess is with the economy my guess is more people were taking advantage of the double and triple coupons and not buying enough other stuff to make up for the money they were paying out.

Take care

[YellowRoseTex]

I am going to comment about it when I go to the grocery store on Saturday. I will definetly not be spending as much at that store. I think we only have one other store that doubles coupons, and they are VERY high as compared to the other two.

I will still cut coupons, but it is not going to be as much fun, knowing that I won't get a dollar off for the 35 cent coupon.

[YellowRoseTex]

I did speak with the manager today. Turns out he is the "new" manager. I did notice some changes in the store, all for the better, but that doesn't change the fact of their higher prices and the discontinuing of the double/triple coupons.

He tried to talk me out of the other store being cheaper. Obviously he was not aware how well I know I know my prices, gave him several examples of things being over $1 cheaper at the other store.

All in all, we had a nice chat, I was impressed that he was trying to change the store for the better. I will be watching prices carefully and picking and choosing what I buy at each store.

[jcme]

If the store is part of a chain, he probably can't reinstate the old coupon policy but at least he listened to you and is making improvements to the store.

If enough people feel the way you do and say something, hopefully they will reinstate their policy or adjust their prices to be more competitive.

Take care

[greeneyes71]

I used to cut coupons and I had a little coupon organizer and everything. But I found it to be alot of extra work and it turned out that I wasn't saving anything from using the coupons. The only difference was I was getting the name brand instead of the off brand. But now, a while later...the off brand products are getting higher and I've noticed the quantity is getting smaller and the quality is lowering also. So, I am rethinking the whole coupon thing again. In fact, it's Sunday, so I need to get the paper and start cutting and sorting. :) I wish we had double and triple coupon days here, but I haven't found that at any of the stores around here. :(