Store Coupon Matchup Changes (New Look, New Stores)

I wanted to let you all know of a couple of changes that will be happening on Addicted to Saving this week in terms of coupon matchups. I know that if you’re like me, you hate change. I totally understand. So I’m going to try and work out a compromise that I hope will please both of us.

As you can imagine, coupon matchups take a lot of work. If you’ve never thought about it, indulge me for a second – think about having to type up a store ad, then put every item into the coupon database, and then matchup every deal. And now imagine doing that for every ad I feature on Addicted to Saving! A ton of work, right?

Fortunately I do have wonderful ladies (and hubby and hubby’s friend even) that help me out! However, this can be cost prohibitive for me as well. So in an effort to streamline the operation, I am going to be employing a new format for matchups for most of the stores that I feature on Addicted to Saving.

The Bad News: Change is hard, and I know many of you will want the old way back immediately, and I totally get that.

The Good News: Publix’s coupon matchups will stay the same – you will not see any changes. Also, in the next few weeks, I will begin posting each store’s “Deals and Steals” in the coupon matchup format you are used to. The coupon matchups that have a new look will still have a printable list that you can print out each week!  I will also be able to feature matchups for new stores like Kroger, H-E-B, Harris Teeter, Aldi, Dollar General and more.  Go HERE to see all of the stores we are now posting coupon matchups for! 

About the New Format

1) If there are store coupons, they will be marked by “STACKS WITH”, as indicated in the picture below with the purple arrows. Manufacturer coupons will always be listed first.

2) The explanation at the bottom will always assume the best possible combination of coupons, as indicated by the red arrow below.

3) Multi-item deals will be grouped together and indicated by a light blue coloring like in the picture below.

4) Coupons that expire will automatically have a strike-thru line so you know not to use that coupon.

5) Gift Card deals or unique sales (3-day sales, In-Ad coupons) will also be offset in light blue, as pictured below.

6) *HOT* deals will be notated with a yellow star next to the deal title, as indicated by the blue arrow below.

7) On any type of “Cash Back” deals (gift cards, Ibotta, store Catalina coupons, etc), you will see two prices, as indicated by the red circle below.

• The first price is the Out of Pocket price (purple arrow below), which is what you will pay out of your pocket at the register for this item only. 
• The second price is the Final Price (green arrow below) that you would actually pay for the item after you’ve received your “cash back,” (ie, ECB’s, Register Rewards, +UP Rewards, Gift Cards, Ibotta, etc).
• So for instance, in this deal, you are paying $8.99 for the razor.  However, you must also buy the cartridge, but the cartridge’s price isn’t listed. So to figure out what you would pay on this item only (just the Razor), you would read the explanation given in italics. Use one $5/1 manufacturer coupon, use one $5/2 Target Mobile coupon (which requires you to buy the cartridge), and then get your gift card.  Since we are required to buy the cartridge (but don’t know the price), this deal will only feature the savings for 1/2 of the Target mobile coupon ($2.50), and 1/2 of the Gift Card savings ($2.50). The other 1/2 would be applied to the cartridge savings.
• Here’s how it would look in the below scenario:
  • Buy the Razor at $8.99
  • Minus the $5/1 manufacturer = $3.99
  • Minus the $2.50 from 1/2 of the $5/2 Target Mobile coupon = $1.49
  • $1.49 = our Out of Pocket price
  • Minus $2.50 from 1/2 of the $5 Target Gift Card = FREE!

The last scenario is no doubt the most confusing, but let’s be honest – they are confusing no matter what format you put it in when you don’t have the price listed for the other item to make the deal work!

8) Go HERE to see all of the stores we are now posting coupon matchups for!

All that to say, I know that some of you will not like these changes. But hopefully you’ll see that the added features of having up-to-date coupons and many more stores to choose from will be worth it. Plus, I plan on posting a “Deals & Steals” from each ad in the old format (this will be unveiled in the next few weeks) so you can look at just the best deals of the week in the format you are used to.

Please bear with me through this change. Once you get used to it, it won’t seem so confusing. 🙂