Coupons 101 - Tip # 3 The BOGO Sale

Ok, so I'm sure you've heard the term "BOGO" a lot; on t.v., in advertising, people talking, etc. BOGO stands for "Buy One, Get One (free/half-off, etc)". It's usually "buy one get one free". The great thing is, if your store offers this, you can use up to four, yes I sad FOUR coupons on two items.

Let's start with an easy one:

Last week at Publix, Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Pasta was BOGO (free). They are normally $1.79 per box. So, I would have paid $1.79 for two boxes, instead of just one. Well, there just happened to be a $1.00 off 2 coupon printable on the internet. This would make two boxes cost $0.79! I don't know if you've seen better, but $0.40 for a box of whole wheat pasta is pretty darn good! I just happened to have 6 of these coupons, so I was able to get 12 different boxes for $4.74! Normally, 12 boxes would have cost me $21.48! That's a savings of $16.74 or 78%!

Ok. Now, here's how you can use four coupons on two items (pretty sure most grocery stores will do this, but you'd have to check with your store).

If you notice something on sale for BOGO, that you have coupons for, check to see if the store's advertisements have coupons on the same item.

There's an internet printable right now for $2 off Tylenol 8-hour. Publix has a coupon for any Tylenol product for $3 off. If Tylenol were to go on sale BOGO at Publix, I could use 2 printable coupons (MQ) and 2 Publix (store) coupons. This would give me a total of $10 off! I'm sure that one bottle of Tylenol is NOT $10, so, I would actually MAKE money by using all these coupons. Now, I haven't actually gotten to do this at my normal grocery store (nothing has been BOGO that I have all those Q's for, but it's definitely a possibility), but I have used 2 coupons (1 manufacturer coupon & 1 store coupon) for lots of items!

The BOGO FREEbie!

Ok, now I've only been able to do this at Kmart during Double Days, because that's the ONLY time Florida doubles coupons! Ugh! However, for those of you North of Florida, you should check with your store if they double coupons and which days. My dad said some stores even have TRIPLE days! (I've heard that some stores don't advertise these, so you do have to ask.) Anyways...during Kmart Double Days, I had a coupon for BOGO Hershey's Bliss chocolate bars. Now, they double coupons valued up to $2.00. So, a Hershey's bliss bar was around $1.00. (I still don't quite understand how this works, but apparently it does). Anyways, the register charged $1.00 for the first one, and $1.00 for the second one. Then, my coupon was for BOGO (the cashier has to manually type in the price of the item), since it was double days, the coupon doubled the $1.00 to $2.00 and I got both bars FREE! I'm hoping this will work with toothbrushes soon at Publix. We always need toothbrushes. =)

So, whenever there's an item that I use often on sale BOGO, I dig out all my coupons, check the internet for printables, and head over to Publix to stock up!

It's amazing, with coupons, you can go back to buying name brand stuff, often for less than store products!

Love,

Sarah