Understanding "Coupon Match Ups"

The real secret to couponing is matching up your coupons with your stores sale prices to get the lowest possible price. Once you start really paying attention to what you buy and what the regular price for it is you will start to notice when items are at their lowest price. So when those items are at their low price, you use a coupon on top of that low price and you've got yourself a great deal! So basically, when you see a "coupon matchup" on a blog it's just showing you what is on sale that week and what coupons you can use on it.

So, before I start posting any coupon matchups I wanted to explain how to read them.

Here are a few examples:

#1: This is the easiest to figure out:

     Hungry Jack Pancake Mix, $1.98    
     $0.55/1 Hungry Jack Mix printable
     $1.43 ea. after coupon!

The bold print is telling you what the item is. "Hungry Jack Pancake Mix" and then lists the price of the item. The next line is a link to a coupon for that item. It reads $0.55/1 (fifty five cents off one) Hungry Jack Mix printable, so you know if you click that link it will lead you to a coupon that you can print off and use. When you use the coupon it will make the pancake mix only $1.43 each. Simple right?

#2: Same as before, but with TWO links:

   Wheat Thin Stix, $2.98  
   $1/1 Wheat Thins Crunch Stix printable
   $1/1 Wheat Thins Crunch Stix printable
   $1.98 ea. after coupon!

Same as last time. Bold=product name+price. $1/1=One dollar off one item. There are two links listed because this coupon is available in more than one place. You can follow each link and get 2 prints from each one. So if you did that you could have 4 coupons for Wheat Thin Stix!

#3: Referencing coupons from the paper

    Lawry’s Seasoning, $1.64   
    $0.50/1 Lawry’s Spice Blend, exp. 5-15-11 (RP 04/17/11)
    $1.14 ea. after coupon!

Obviously by now you know what the bolded print means. Now, on to the next line: " $0.50/1 Lawrys Spice Blend" You know that means fifty cents off one Lawrys Spice Blend...but what about that stuff that is written next? "exp. 5-15-11"  = the expiration date listed on the coupon. This can be confusing to new couponers: (RP 04/17/11) =You will always see 2 letters like this. It could be "RP", "SS", or "PG". Here is what that means:

RP= Red Plum
SS= Smart Source
PG= Proctor & Gamble

These are newspaper inserts, obviously the ones that the coupons are in. So putting "RP" in the coupon matchup will tell you which newspaper insert the coupon can be found in. You'll notice in my example above there is also a date listed after, that lets you know what day the paper came out. So looking at this example:

RP 04/17/11 

You can know that the coupon that is referenced in the matchup was in the Redplum insert from the April 17th paper. This is helpful for those that do not clip their coupons but instead leave the inserts whole and organized by date.

There's one more example I would like to share now that you know the basics of reading a coupon matchup:

    Rice Krispies Cereal, $2.94   
    $1/2 Rice Krispies printable
    $1/3 Select Kellogg’s Cereal printable
    $1/2 Rice Krispies or Cocoa Krispies, exp. 5-29 (RP 04/17/11)
    $1/3 Kellogg’s Cereal, exp. 5-29-11 (RP 04/17/11)
    As low as $2.44 ea. wyb 2 after coupon!

There are two different links available, and there are 2 different coupon references available and the final price is listed as "As low as $2.44 ea wyb 2 after coupon"  This means that the lowest possible price after coupon is $2.44 ea....but that is only if you use the best coupon that's available. In this case, that would be one of the $1/2 coupons.

I'm sure you're also wondering what "wyb" means? It means "when you buy" I think I need to do a post on coupon Lingo. Whaddya think?

I hope this helps everyone understand Coupon Matchups a little better! I'm going to start having coupon matchups for Walmart, Food Pyramid & Walgreens every week!