I have talked about e-coupons before in passing, and have even noted them in Vons Weekly Deals, but I wanted to take a moment to discuss them further and why you should be using them. We have a lot of new readers here that are just diving into the chaotic (but fun!) world of coupons.
E-coupons are a great way to start saving at the register – especially for you newbies. These coupons are clip free, so you don’t have to fuss with bringing anything to the store.
How do e-coupons work?
It’s so simple. E-coupons are loaded directly on to your store loyalty card & saved there until they expire. When you purchase a participating product that you have an e-coupon for, the savings will automatically be applied at the register. Cool, right? It gets so much better!
I want some e-coupons! Where do I go?
There are 5 companies that distribute FREE e-coupons:
Why they are awesome: In addition to loadable e-coupons, Cellfire can also send coupons directly to your mobile phone!
Participating Stores: Bakers, Carrs, City Market, Dillons, Dominick’s, Frys, Genuardi’s, Gerbes, Hilander, JayC Food Stores, King Soopers, Kroger, Owens, Pavillions, Pay Less Super Markets, QFC, Ralphs, Randalls, Safeway, Scott’s, Shop Rite, Smith’s, Tom Thumb, & Vons.
Why they are awesome: Along with e-coupons, regular printable coupons are also available through Shortcuts.
Participating Stores: Bakers, Carrs, City Market, Dillons, Dominick’s, Frys, Genuardi’s, Gerbes, Hilander, JayC Food Stores, King Soopers, Kroger, Owens, Pavillions, Pay Less Super Markets, QFC, Ralphs, Randalls, Safeway, Smith’s, Tom Thumb, & Vons.
Why they are awesome: Proctor & Gamble has also gotten in on the e-coupon band wagon & offers e-coupons on select Proctor & Gamble products. I need all the help I can get paying for Tide!
Participating Stores: Safeway, Carrs, Dominicks, Genuardis, Pavilions, Randalls, Tom Thumb and Vons.
Why they are awesome: Known mostly for their large inventory of printable coupons, Coupons.com has recently added e-coupons to the mix. The only drawback to this is that you will need to choose your e-coupons wisely, because you won’t be able to print & load identical coupons.
Participating Stores: Safeway & Kroger affiliate stores.
Why they are awesome: Upromise e-coupons won’t directly lower your overall grocery cost at the register but they will deposit the coupon savings into your college education savings account! You’re going to be shopping anyway, might as well save for college while you’re at it.
Participating Stores: Safeway & Kroger affiliate stores as well as drugstores like CVS.
Can I use an e-coupon & a regular coupon at the same time?
Unofficially? Yes, you can.
Technically all of the programs do not promote using a regular coupon to “stack” with an e-coupon but the reality is you can. When these programs first started rolling out more than a year ago there was much debate over the ethics of stacking a regular coupon with an e-coupon.
My take on it is this: Although these programs have a policy that promotes shoppers not to stack, they have made it difficult – if not impossible – for people to abide by the policy. For example, when you load an e-coupon at any of these websites, it remains on your card until it expires. None of these sites have a feature that will allow you to remove a saved e-coupon. Not only that, with literally hundreds of e-coupons available to load, there is no way I’m going to remember what I have. It’s just not going to happen.
Also, what happens if you have a regular coupon with a higher value? Are you expected not to use it?
These are issues that the stores/manufacturers/coupon companies will need to handle. In the mean time, until there are features available on these sites to remove a saved e-coupon, I will continue to use a regular coupon when I have one, even if that happens to be in addition to an e-coupon that was previously saved on my card.
Can I use the same e-coupon from multiple sites?
Unofficially? Yes.
Say you loaded an e-coupon on Cellfire for $1/1 Yoplait Fiber One and you also happened to have found the same e-coupon on Shortcuts and loaded it there too. When you get to the register and buy that yogurt, 2 e-coupons will come off your bill for a total of $2 savings.
Now let’s take it a step further. Say you loaded both of those coupons but didn’t use them right away. They remain stored on your card. You happen to check out Cellfire a couple weeks later and notice there is a new $1/1 Yoplait Fiber One e-coupon available to load, so you do. When you head out to purchase the yogurt, 3 e-coupons will come off your bill even though you only purchased the one yogurt. 2 e-coupons that were saved previously and have yet to expire, plus the newly loaded one making for 3 e-coupons and a savings of $3. In the case of receipt pictured above, that would make the yogurt free plus give 50¢ in overage (money maker).
You may be thinking to yourself – wait a minute, is that allowed? While the official answer from all of the companies is no, they are in fact the ones allowing it to happen! Remember, these e-coupon programs have been around for over a year & the registers at Safeway & Kroger affiliate stores are still applying e-coupons this way. I surely can’t stop the registers from doing something it has been programmed to do.
A few more things…
- E-coupons do not fall into “doubling” practices that many grocery stores have.
- Unlike regular coupons where you can use 1 coupon for every like item purchased, e-coupons will only work for a single like item purchased. If you are planning on buying 5 boxes of cereal that you have a $1/1 e-coupon for, only the first box will get the $1 e-coupon applied. Unless of course, you have multiple e-coupons loaded like the example above.
- Give about 24-hours from loading your e-coupons before you shop at the store. Often times it takes about a day (although usually it’s fairly instant) for e-coupons to appear on your loyalty card.
- If you’re still unsure about using e-coupons and the ethics surrounding them take some time to read this article by Southern Savers.
E-coupons are a simple way to dramatically lower your grocery costs and can often lead to free products. As I mentioned earlier, if you are new to coupons in general this is a great place to start. Sure with anything new there are a few kinks in the system, but don’t let that stop you from saving money!
