Alright everyone…. Buckle up because I am writing my fourth and MOST IMPORTANT post about coupons.  The rules.  If you have missed my previous posts on couponing and want to catch up, you can go HERE, HERE and HERE.

The rules for using coupons are the most important part of the whole coupon process.  You know the verse in the Bible that says, the Truth shall set you free?  It’s the same with coupons….only the Rules will set you free.  Sort of.  Okay, that’s a terrible illustration.  But.  When you know the rules of how to use coupons, there’s a confidence that comes along with that.  First of all, it opens your eyes to what the possibilities are and second, it helps you know that what you are doing is correct and so it takes away any possible guilt you might feel for getting things for free.  I’ve heard people say that sometimes they feel bad because they feel like they’re stealing from the store when they get things for free or super cheap.  And you’re NOT!  Nobody is losing any money when you use coupons.  In fact, when coupons are used and accepted appropriately, EVERYBODY wins as we learned in one of the earlier posts.  So…are you ready??

Rule #1: You may use a coupon for each item that you are buying.  “Per purchase” means PER ITEM.

This is the rule that changed my life forever.  Literally!  When you read the wording on a coupon it generally always (with some exceptions) states that you may use one coupon per purchase.  I always assumed that it meant per transaction…but it doesn’t.  Each item you buy is considered a purchase.  If you are purchasing 10 bottles of lotion, you may use a coupon for EACH bottle…so you may use 10 coupons.  And you can use them all in one transaction.  Isn’t that exciting??

Rule #2: You may usually use a $ off coupon for each item you are purchasing- Even on a free item.

Now- I have to say that this is a rule that is not always followed at the store depending on where you are shopping.  I know for a fact that Fred Meyer won’t let you do this… However- generally speaking, when a store is having a buy one get one free sale  you may use a $ off coupon for both items.  Because you are purchasing 2 items.  So you should be able to use 2 coupons.  Let’s do an example.  Say Albertsons is having a sale on All laundry soap.  The bottles sell for $6 and they are having a buy one get one free sale.  So you would pay $6 for the “first” bottle and get the second for free.  But, since you are purchasing 2 bottles, you may use 2 $1 off 1 bottle All coupons….which will take off $2 from your total.  Which means that you will pay $4 for 2 bottles instead of $6.

Now, here’s the tricky part- Like I said, not every store will do this.  Fred Meyer for example.  But I do know that Albertsons has recently changed it’s policy to include this issue and they say that you can do this as long as your coupons don’t exceed the value of the item you’re paying for.  So in our example above if you had 2 coupons for $4 off each bottle, that would mean that you’ve taken $8 off your total, which is higher than the $6 that you’ve paid for the first bottle.  Confused yet?

Rule #3: Stacking-  You may use a store coupon AND a manufacturer coupon for ONE item…but never 2 manufacturer coupons on the same item.

In my post about different types of coupons, remember how I talked about the difference between store and manufacturer coupons.  The beauty of these differences is that you can use them together!  So, if Rite Aid has a coupon in their ad for $1 off of a razor, and in the paper there is a manufacturer coupon for $2 off that same razor, you can buy 1 razor and get a total of $3 off.  Whoo Hoo!  But- you could not use 2 of the $2 off razor coupons for 1 item.  Nor could you use a manufacturer coupon for $2 and a different manufacturer coupon for $1 off  one 1 item.  Make sense?

Rule #4: You can usually use a Buy One Get One Free coupon with a Buy One Get One Free sale and get BOTH items free.

Did you get that??  Let me explain how this works.  If a store is offering a BOGO sale, the store is paying for one of your items.  Let’s say shampoo.  The store is paying for one of your bottles of Herbal Essence shampoo.  But if you have a manufacturer BOGO coupon for Herbal Essence shampoo, the manufacturer is paying for one of your bottles.  So, the store is paying for one and the manufacturer is paying for one.  When you take them both up on their offers at the same time, you get the item for free!  BOGO is my favorite!  To be honest, personally I have not tried this at any store except Rite Aid.  The Rite Aid coupon policy specifically states that you can do this…so I have felt confident enough to do this with the policy backing me up.  Other stores and/or checkers may interpret this differently and you may have to do a buy one get two free kind of thing.  But the reality is, this should work.

Rule #5: If you have a BOGO coupon OR a coupon that says buy X item and get Y item free, you may use that coupon AND a coupon for the first item.

A while back, Albertsons had a great promo on Ziploc bags…I won’t go into all of it, but here’s an example.  For each transaction let’s say I bought 2 boxes of ziploc bags, I used 1 BOGO coupon and 1 $.50 off coupon.  When you have a BOGO coupon, that coupon “sticks” to the second item that is “free”.  So the item that you are buying in order to get the free one can also have a coupon… remember, it’s one coupon per purchase.  You are purchasing 2 items, you can have 2 coupons.  This is also the case when you have a coupon that states something like, Buy Mission tortilla chips, get a dip for free.  The coupon is for the dip because it makes the dip free.  And if you have a coupon for $1 off of mission chips, you can use that as well.

This is a difficult coupon concept to both understand as well as for checkers to understand sometimes.  I had a particular instance at Albertsons where the checker was not going to let me do this.  I knew I was right and I (calmly and quietly) asked her to call a manager over to verify the situation.  It took some time to get it cleared up, but in the end I won because I was right.  =)

Rule #6: “Rolling the Cat”

“Cat” is short for catalina.  This rule is one of the ways you can get some of the best deals.  Like we learned in the last post, a catalina coupon is the coupon that prints after you pay for your transaction and certain items trigger the catalina to print.  So say the promo is that if you buy 4 boxes of Kellogs cereal you get a $4 off catalina coupon.  You can purchase 4 boxes of cereal (and use your manufacturer coupons), pay whatever $ for them and receive a $4 off coupon with your receipt.  Then you may go back and get another 4 boxes of cereal, use your manufacturer coupons AND the $4 off catalina coupon and get another $4 off coupon with your receipt.  You can do this over and over again.  Can you say, really cheap cereal??

Rule #7: Double coupons

I think I may have touched on this in my post about different coupons, but I’m blanking a bit on what I said.  But even if I already said it, it’s worth repeating.  Double coupons or “Twice the Value” coupons are put out by the store…the only stores that have them in our area are Safeway and Albertsons.  Safeway has them in every ad and they will double the amount of any manufacturer coupon up to $.50 up to 4 coupons per transaction.  Albertsons had double coupons that are generally only good from Sunday to Tuesday and will double the amount of any manufacturer coupon up to $1 and you can use 3 coupons per transaction.  A few things to note about double coupons:

*They are considered a store coupon.  So just like manufacturer coupons, you may only have 1 store coupon per item so you cannot use a double coupon and a store coupon on one item.

*Some coupons state “do not double” on the top.  What that is saying is that the manufacturer will not reimburse any more $ to the store than what is stated.  But it is up to the store whether or not to double that coupon.  Alberstons now will double coupons that say “do not double”.  Not certain about Safeway.

*At Albertsons if you have a coupon that is higher than $1, they will not double it.  They also will only double it up to the amount of the product.  So, if a product is $1.50 and you have a $1 off coupon and a double, they will only double up to $.50 so that you get the item for free.

*At Albertsons, the double coupons are each marked with a #1, #2 or #3.  Make sure that you do not cut them apart and accidently hand them 2 #3′s for example.  The register will beep and won’t take it.  For my own convenience, I do not cut them apart any more.

I could go on an on about double coupons as I have been doing a lot of researching on this subject in recent weeks.  But I’ll leave it at that for now.  I know that this post has a LOT of information in it.  If anyone has any specific questions, please leave a comment and I’ll either answer in the comment section, or if there’s a lot of questions, maybe do a question/answer post for my next one in the series.