A couple of weeks ago, a local card shop announced a canned food drive. You get discounted entry fees, cheap packs, etc for each set of canned/dry goods you donate.
So I sat down to Coupon Mom’s site and scanned through the deals. It didn’t take long to find a deal marked “FREE!” on the list for Fry’s. Barilla pasta was $1, and 55-cent-off coupons would be rounded up to $1 by the store.
I got on eBay and ordered 40 of the coupons.
We got lucky, actually, since the coupons were technically for Barilla Plus, which was $2.49. But I know Coupon Mom is pretty thorough, so I took a box of regular Barilla pasta up to the register. Sure enough, the coupon applied and the box was one cent.
In the end, we got all 40 boxes for one cent each. With the cost of coupons, then, we paid just under 11 cents per box. Woot!
We’ll keep a few boxes for our own purposes, but the bulk will go to the food drive.
Of course, I can’t feel too selfless. We benefit from the donation. Specifically, we get half off packs — $2.50 plus 3 cans/boxes of food — but I remind myself that the food bank still gets 30+ boxes of pasta. So, I suppose the greater good is still served.
Served lots and lots of pasta.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I have disagreed with your couponing ways before, but I really just have to say it again: coupon fraud sounds like a dramatic title, but it is what it is. Using coupons for products they weren't intended for is wrong and it is one of the reasons why couponers are being treated so badly at many stores. I can't believe they let you use 40 coupons for products that you weren't buying without saying a word, so they're at fault too, but I've been at stores where each of my coupons was inspected, re-inspected and then questioned and I can't understand why. This is why.
I know you used it for partly a good cause, but I don't think the ends justify the means.
[Reply]
Abigail Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Christina,
I checked the coupon and, apparently, you are correct in this. So I will try to be more careful in the future.
That said, I still have trouble accepting that I'm committing real fraud when Fry's is the one that chose to accept the coupon and even round it up to $1. It may or may not receive the cash for those coupons, so it may simply be that Fry's decided to take the loss in order to encourage sales.
And, having said that, I plan on being extra careful to scrutinize coupons in the future to be sure the items correspond correctly. Usually, I'm pretty careful about such things. This time, though, I was in a hurry to get the coupons and clearly didn't check enough.
[Reply]
Abigail Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Christina,
I checked the coupon and, apparently, you are correct in this. So I will try to be more careful in the future.
That said, I still have trouble accepting that I'm committing real fraud when Fry's is the one that chose to accept the coupon and even round it up to $1. It may or may not receive the cash for those coupons, so it may simply be that Fry's decided to take the loss in order to encourage sales.
And, having said that, I plan on being extra careful to scrutinize coupons in the future to be sure the items correspond correctly. Usually, I'm pretty careful about such things. This time, though, I was in a hurry to get the coupons and clearly didn't check enough.
[Reply]
I have disagreed with your couponing ways before, but I really just have to say it again: coupon fraud sounds like a dramatic title, but it is what it is. Using coupons for products they weren't intended for is wrong and it is one of the reasons why couponers are being treated so badly at many stores. I can't believe they let you use 40 coupons for products that you weren't buying without saying a word, so they're at fault too, but I've been at stores where each of my coupons was inspected, re-inspected and then questioned and I can't understand why. This is why.
I know you used it for partly a good cause, but I don't think the ends justify the means.
[Reply]
Yup I too endure intense scrutiny from my favorite local store when I take out my coupons. Thankfully my store limits the "extreme" coupon folks by limiting it to 4 of any one item. But I guess they could still break it out into multiple transactions but we don't seem to get that extreme at my fav store.
[Reply]