I apologize that today’s tip is coming out so late in the day, but it is still Thursday for me! It’s been a super crazy couple of days, getting the kids ready for Spring Break. For today’s tip, I thought I would talk about how to get the most out of your coupons.
I believe most of us were taught to look at the price per ounce when buying a package. Typically, the bigger the package is, the lower the price per ounce will be. Therefore, it is less expensive to buy the biggest packages of products. This is a very good rule to go by when shopping without coupons. I will tell you right now that this rule does not always apply when coupon shopping.
When you have a coupon for a particular product, the best thing you can do (typically) is to buy the smallest size that the coupon will allow. Some coupons don’t have any size restrictions, which means you can even buy the travel/trial size. This can sometimes mean free products after the use of a coupon. This will certainly be cheaper than buying a bigger box and having to pay something for it. Other coupons will give you a minimum size that is allowed in conjunction with the coupon. The reason this works is because you’re spending less on the smaller size (usually), and when you add a coupon, the percentage of savings is greater than on a larger item. Let me give you a scenario.
Let’s say you have a coupon for $.75 off Corn Bread. There is an 8.5 oz package that is $1, which would be $.12/ounce. Then there is a 16 oz package that is $1.75, which is $.11/ounce. The bigger package gives you more for your money. Now let’s add the $.75 off coupon. The larger package is now only $1, making it $.06/ounce. The smaller package is only $.25, which is only $.03/ounce!
As a general rule, buy the smallest package a coupon will allow (paired with a sale will be even better). There may be some instances where the larger package is still less per ounce, but it might be worth calculating.
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