Tuesday’s Tips – What is Overage?

So, this tip is a day late and a dollar short. I woke up at 3 am this morning realizing I never posted a tip yesterday! And, here I am at 10 pm finally posting it!

Today’s tip is about overage. You have probably seen me use this term randomly throughout my blog. In fact, if you checked out the two Photo Show and Tells I posted today, you saw that I have used overage to my advantage. What is overage? Overage is the excess amount owed to you by your store when your coupon amount exceeds the price of the product you purchase. Some stores allow overage, some do not. The stores that don’t allow overage will typically adjust your coupon amount so that you get the item for free, without any extra money owed to you. Most of the stores that do allow overage will not actually pay you money, but they will instead apply the overage towards other items you buy.

For example, Publix currently has an awesome store coupon in their Green Advantage flyer. It is a $5/2 Bayer products coupon. Since this is a store coupon, you can stack the store with a two manufacturer coupons (since you are buying 2 Bayer products). Here’s how the math works:

The negative $2.06 shown above is actually a credit given by Publix.  Publix is paying you $2.06 to buy 2 bottles of Bayer.  However, Publix won’t give you $2.06 cash.  So, instead, you will need to purchase other items to put the credit towards.  An awesome way to get the cost of meat, vegetables and fruits down is by using overage.

Also – Publix will allow you to use multiples of the same deal in one transaction.  So, if you grab 4 Green Advantage flyers, buy 8 Bayer, use four of the $5/2 Publix coupons, use eight $1/1 manufacturer coupons, your overage will now be $8.24.  Put that towards chicken breasts which are on sale for $1.99 and you just got 4 lbs of chicken free!

So, now can you see why I LOVE overage!  Publix has a ton of deals this month so make sure you take advantage of them.  And, if you shop at other stores besides Publix, keep your eyes on the sales.  When you see rock bottom sale prices and you have high value coupons, then more often than not, you will not only get the item FREE, but it will be a MONEYMAKER!!