Know Store Policies Before Shopping

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To save the most money when grocery shopping, it's important to know your grocery store's policies for discounts. A popular marketing ploy that many grocers offer is called a "BOGO" - Buy One / Get One Free - on a brand-name product. You get one free item when you buy another at full price.

Some senior citizens have found this practice discriminatory, and have strongly expressed their concerns to store managers. Their claim is that as a single-person household, they simply can't consume two of the item before the second one spoils. To appease the seniors, many grocers have changed their BOGO policies and now allow the purchase of just one BOGO item at half price. This represents a good value, but you can significantly improve your savings if you know your grocer's coupon doubling policy.

Some stores do not double the value of store coupons at all, while others will double the coupon up to 50¢, and still others will double or even triple the coupon value up to 99¢.

If you redeem a coupon with a value of 50¢ at the first type of store, you'll only save 50¢ - hardly worth the effort. But if your store doubles the coupon value, it's now worth $1.00 - a much bigger savings.

In other words, that small slip of paper found in your Sunday paper's coupon section - which most people discard - could have the exact same value as a dollar bill. Do you throw dollar bills away every week?

Coupons can really help the average consumer save money. But knowing the store's policies on BOGOS and doubling can really leverage your savings power.

For example, if you know that your store's BOGO policy allows single-item purchase at half-price - AND they double your coupons up to 50¢ in value - AND you have a coupon for the featured item - you can enjoy HYPER-SAVINGS. Here's how:

a. BOGO item is priced at $3.00. You can buy one for $1.50.
b. You have a 50¢ coupon on the item. Your store doubles the coupon value to $1.00
c. Your net cost on the item is now 50¢.

Did you see how the $3.00 item ended up costing you only 50¢? That's a savings of more than 83% off the original price! And if you're lucky enough to have a grocer that triples the coupon value, you would get the item for free - a savings of 100%.

As you can see, knowing your grocer's policies can be extremely valuable in helping you lower your food costs.

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