Go to My Coke Rewards and sign up for your own account. We don't drink that much soda so it is a special treat for us but there are ways to get free points and other promotions. I read a bunch of different blogs and I saw a note on one of them last year that there was a promotion to get Coke Rewards certificates cheaper the normal points- only 30 points for a 12 pack of soda. I quickly went on the My Coke rewards and entered in a bunch of points that I had in the kitchen waiting for me to log in and do it. I ended up having enough points to order 9 free cases of Coke!!!! The certificates came in after Christmas and had an expiration date at the end of March.
I waited and waited for a deal to get some great free Coke and something else and there was nothing. I finally found something at Target. They have a cartwheel deal with 15% off Coke (limit 4 per transaction). I got 8 Coke products and put them in the cart. I also grabbed lunch meat and milk that we needed. I went to a sort of unfriendly cashier who made me bag all my soda myself because I guess she didn't think that soda needed to be bagged. She got me so into the bagging that I forgot to scan the cartwheel on the first transaction and it was still only $0.24. I used my gift card and then realized that I messed it up. I should have just left the register and took a second to study the receipt to figure out what happened. I think that the coupons rang up at $4.99 and not the price of the soda and the last coupon was overridden to only be the total remaining (which meant that I lost money). I think that I only paid tax. Instead, I went forward with the second transaction and it said I owed a few cents but then I gave her my gift card and the cartwheel kicked in so it ended up in the negative. I have no clue if I got money back on the gift card or lost the money all together.
After studying the receipts, I waited in line at customer service. I told them that I didn't scan the cartwheel and they gave me $3 in cash back. I guess that I made out pretty good with 8 free cases of Coke, gallon of milk and pound of lunch meat and more money in my pocket then I came in with but I still left feeling a little coupon sad because I could have done so much better like another package of lunch meat and the cooking oil that I needed if I had only known what was going on. I had my little man with me so I think that I did okay and we made it out of the store without a second trip to the toy section which is what he wanted to do so I am considering this a win! What do you think??
Ok.. don't think my first comment went through! lol! Well done on all the freebies!! I'd be happy! lol! Do you have pics of your "food stash"? You seem to do very well with couponing, etc.... i'd love to see pics! :)
ReplyDeleteI do have some pictures of my different areas of my food stash. I guess I will take some pictures when I am packing it up to move it soon. I have my pantry cabinet and my cereal cabinet in the kitchen where I put most of things that I am using currently. I have two other cupboards where I keep back up things like extra crackers, tea and flour. I luckily have cabinets installed in my unfinished basement thanks to my husband where I keep my canned goods and juice boxes. I am afraid on how much I am going to pull out to move!! I know that I have at least 20 jars of spaghetti sauce that I got for free!!
DeleteTarget always confuses me. I actually recreate my receipts in Excel when I get home to understand whether or not they applied all the coupons I gave them and gave me all the discounts I expected. Did you know that if you get an item for better than free (because they allow the coupon overage, at least at my store), they actually CHARGE you the corresponding 5% Redcard "discount" instead of just making that purchase not eligible for the 5% Redcard discount? I didn't realize that until I started recreating my receipts and couldn't understand why my 5% discount didn't come up to 5%... I might be wrong, but it was the only explanation. No wonder they've recently had to pay a big fine for overcharging their customers.
ReplyDeleteI'm laughing at your comment about the cashier not thinking that soda should be bagged because I totally would NOT bag the soda :) I do find, however, that when I decide to help move things along and bag my own groceries, then I'm not paying attention to what's happening in the register and I always end up paying more than I expected because either they missed a coupon (it's easy with the printable coupons because they tend to stick to one another and they're all the same size) or something rings for a higher price than I expected... and then I often don't even realize it until I'm home and scrutinizing that darn receipt. I swear, they should teach a class on how to read a Target receipt; It shouldn't be that hard!
Oh, I forgot to say that I really don't like the changes they made to the Coke Rewards program. I don't like it when I have to share something on a social network in order to earn more points.
ReplyDeleteI used to be addicted to Diet Coke with Lime (that's really all I drank all day long) but I quit cold turkey a couple of years ago and now any diet coke product tastes weird to me when I do drink it. I used to use my points to earn magazine subscriptions but now I just read them on Zinio for free. Nowaways I just collect points from bottle caps that I find on the ground. I hope that next time they have a "get a 20 oz bottle for free with x number of points", I'll have enough but probably not. Sometimes they have double point weeks so you're smart to bank your points and not input them right away!
I am not really great at it and don't share things so I obviously haven't gotten too into it but I used the coupon at Target and it turned out to be a huge great deal because the coupon ended up scanning at $4.99 and not the price of the soda and I got an additional 15% off with cartwheel. I just went in and used my last coupon and bought a ton because I actually knew what was going on and I could have made out so much better and not wasted the free money if I had just done one transaction and left it at that but I went a little crazy trying to get my errands done and Target never works that way for me which is why I stopped shopping there so much. I got gift cards so it got me a chance to try out cartwheel which I haven't used much except when shopping with my cousin. There are some good deals so I guess I will have to pay attention again especially since it is less than 5 miles from the new house!!!
DeleteI really like the Cartwheel program. I check it on my phone and change my offers all the time while I'm shopping and several times I've been able to save more than I expected because something that was on sale or clearance also had a Cartwheel offer that I saw and added before I put the items in my cart. That being said, I'm not shopping at Target much these days because Aldi is cheaper on a lot of things and if I don't go to Target, I don't get tempted to buy a bunch of stuff that I don't need. As a matter of fact, I'm going to skip it altogether during my shopping expedition tomorrow.
DeleteI did have the same thing happen to me with the surprise full value of a coupon recently. I had gotten a coupon for a free 6-pack of Zevia soda (up to $6.99, I believe) and bought a pack when it was on sale for $3.33. When the clerk (one of the nicer younger ones, not the disgruntled older ones who hate coupons!) scanned the coupon, it automatically deducted $6.99 and he didn't adjust it down. Yay! I was buying other items so the overage allowed me to get a couple of other things in my cart for free. That was a really nice surprise!