[joshmamabear]

Originally Posted by lovemydh

I was thinking about this last night before going 2 bed. I was wondering why using coupons is not made a mandatory class before you get food stamps. Of course unless it's immediate and you need them NOw. I know how much further mine strech using coupons, could u imagine if everyone did??? Think how much money each family could save and then maybe the governemnt could do something???

I don't think they can make it mandatory for EBT recipients to attend a coupon class simply because coupons are not available to everyone. Can they make people buy multiple papers to have several inserts coupons? No. Not practical, IMO. Besides, that's add'l expense to people who are already financially burdened in the first place. But there are other ways to stretch the EBT budget by doing MIRs, buying loss leader sales or just browsing the weekly store ads to get items on sale rather than buying them full price at the time you need them. Using coupons can be mentioned but with or without coupons, I agree that EBT recipients should be given economics 101 orientation in case they need it.

[nique1012]

There should be info givin on coupons because some people just dont understand them. I didnt when i first started with food stamps and now i do. My fs stretch so much farther and we even have 1 more person without them going up. I get all my inserts from my uncles barn

[parcher4]

Hi all, ok, I am so not an expert at this couponing just yet, however, I have used coupons with foodstamps and can tell you how it works, well at least in Florida anyways, and I would think that all states would be the same, if not very simillar.

If you are shopping say, at Publix and you buy $100 worth of food items (which is only anything that you can eat or drink (except alcohol, of course) and have $23.00 in mfg food coupons and then you want to also buy 6 glade refills that are on sale for 2/$5 and there is a Publix coupons for $1/1 and you have a mfg coupons for $1/1 which would bring it to $.50 each after instore and mfg coupons. If you ring up the order all together (food and non food items) it will take all of the coupons off of the Food total - which can be paid with food stamps and then you have to pay full price + tax for the non food items (glade refills in this case), so your end total would be:

$100 total Food items
-$23 food mfg coupons
- $6 publix glade coupons
- $6 mfg coupons
$65.00 total food stamp purchase

Then you would have to pay
$15 + tax in cash for the 6 glade refills at 2/$5

So instead of paying $3.00 in cash (6 x .50 after coupon price) you end up having to spend an additional $12 in cash, which most people probably don't have to begin with, and were probably only able to originally get the glade refills because they thought they were only going to be .50 each. The moral to the story here is, if you want to buy non- food, taxable items that are not covered under "food stamps" then make a separate purchase to keep your out of pocket cash to the minimum.

Also as a side note, If your total order only includes food items, some items may be taxable (depeding on your state of course) like pop (soda) is a taxable item, on your receipt you will see a code after each item either F or
FT which lets the computer know F = food items - therefore no tax and is elible for food stamp purchase, FT = taxable food item - therefore item is taxable, but still eligible for food stamp purchase and if food stamp is used, then the tax on this item is forgiven (not added into total due). If you buy a non food, taxable item, such as glade refills, it would be coded NFT (or something similar) which tells the computer that the item is taxable, not food related, so therefore not eligable to be purchased on food stamps and the tax will not be forgiven. Same theory goes for alcohol purchases since they are taxable and not able to be purchased with food stamps.

I hope this all makes sense and is helpful to others.

Sometimes the only way a family can stretch their food stamps for a whole month is by using coupons. For example, I read about one lady who received $400/month in food stamps for her and her husband and 8 kids plus 2 dogs. Now we all know that $400 does not stretch for a whole month with a family that size and she said with couponing she was able to get her family good healthy food and make her food stamps last all month. Kudos to her and heres to hoping that I can get my food couponing down well enough to get my food bill cut by more than 50% all the time, only hit that with super sales - sometimes.

Thanks to one and all here on this site, I love it and you all have been very helpful to me thats why I wanted to share what I do know to hopefully help someone else.

[sweetnic1977]

Originally Posted by parcher4

Hi all, ok, I am so not an expert at this couponing just yet, however, I have used coupons with foodstamps and can tell you how it works, well at least in Florida anyways, and I would think that all states would be the same, if not very simillar.

If you are shopping say, at Publix and you buy $100 worth of food items (which is only anything that you can eat or drink (except alcohol, of course) and have $23.00 in mfg food coupons and then you want to also buy 6 glade refills that are on sale for 2/$5 and there is a Publix coupons for $1/1 and you have a mfg coupons for $1/1 which would bring it to $.50 each after instore and mfg coupons. If you ring up the order all together (food and non food items) it will take all of the coupons off of the Food total - which can be paid with food stamps and then you have to pay full price + tax for the non food items (glade refills in this case), so your end total would be:

$100 total Food items
-$23 food mfg coupons
- $6 publix glade coupons
- $6 mfg coupons
$65.00 total food stamp purchase

Then you would have to pay
$15 + tax in cash for the 6 glade refills at 2/$5

So instead of paying $3.00 in cash (6 x .50 after coupon price) you end up having to spend an additional $12 in cash, which most people probably don't have to begin with, and were probably only able to originally get the glade refills because they thought they were only going to be .50 each. The moral to the story here is, if you want to buy non- food, taxable items that are not covered under "food stamps" then make a separate purchase to keep your out of pocket cash to the minimum.

Also as a side note, If your total order only includes food items, some items may be taxable (depeding on your state of course) like pop (soda) is a taxable item, on your receipt you will see a code after each item either F or
FT which lets the computer know F = food items - therefore no tax and is elible for food stamp purchase, FT = taxable food item - therefore item is taxable, but still eligible for food stamp purchase and if food stamp is used, then the tax on this item is forgiven (not added into total due). If you buy a non food, taxable item, such as glade refills, it would be coded NFT (or something similar) which tells the computer that the item is taxable, not food related, so therefore not eligable to be purchased on food stamps and the tax will not be forgiven. Same theory goes for alcohol purchases since they are taxable and not able to be purchased with food stamps.

I hope this all makes sense and is helpful to others.

Sometimes the only way a family can stretch their food stamps for a whole month is by using coupons. For example, I read about one lady who received $400/month in food stamps for her and her husband and 8 kids plus 2 dogs. Now we all know that $400 does not stretch for a whole month with a family that size and she said with couponing she was able to get her family good healthy food and make her food stamps last all month. Kudos to her and heres to hoping that I can get my food couponing down well enough to get my food bill cut by more than 50% all the time, only hit that with super sales - sometimes.

Thanks to one and all here on this site, I love it and you all have been very helpful to me thats why I wanted to share what I do know to hopefully help someone else.

Thank you! I live in FL and am new to FS. I have been couponing for months trying to make ends meet and finally got FS. You answered a lot of questions I had about using EBT and couponing. Thanks again!

[jlaporte]

I agree. Keep the orders seprate. I did not once at Publix and had to pay full cost! I called them and we fixed it and they gave me a full refund. We finally got accepted on foodstamps and man has it helped!!! Now the little bit we were struggeling to put towards food we put to a bill and now we are catching up.Coupons help us feed our family of 6 all month very well and even a nice treat for the kids.Before u were looked down on if u had food stamps. Now u get annoying looks when u use coupons. Ppl need to wake up. Cuz when we use both together we are real smart and doing the best we can for our families! Besides us couponers are super nice and share eagerly!

[amyb882002]

Even if you pay with food stamps they have made it to where you pay tax on certain food items because if it is high in sugar content like the soda's they should make this so everyone knows the taxed items that are food products but keeping the non food items separate you can atleast cut it down to know what you are going to pay and if you get any q's for something off your next purchase you can put it towards yours non food items to cut your out of pocket even more so there is a bonus to two seperate orders.

[tallentedmango]

I use coupons with my f.stamps all of the time. It stretches those precious dollars and let's face it if on F.stamps, I need to stretch them! You don't always have to pay the tax, but I know when I use a lot of coupons, this past week I had over $20. at the grocery, I had to pay the local tax on that $20. if an item is B.O.G.O usually the store will ring them at half price and both times it is half exempt, it would be different if you had a coupon to get the item free then you would have to pay tax. If you are purchasing a non-gorcery item with your groceries, the tax you owe will just roll into your total after your F.stamp card clears, it isn't that much of a hassle.

[boingo82]

Originally Posted by boingo82

We don't have sales tax on food here so no experience with that.

I just got food stamps (DH is unemployed, we are scraping by like you wouldn't believe) and I coupon with them. The only trouble is that though we have food benefit only, Safeway's registers are WEIRD and for some reason some of the money comes off *after* the foodstamps payment, which has odd effects. Last week I got a pack of diapers and it still spit out $3.64 at me, cash. This week my total was $27.xx, but when I swiped my EBT card it charged the card for $38 and spit out $10.75 at me. I don't know what discounts they are but some store discounts or coupons or something come off *after* the foodstamps. I don't have this issue at other stores.

I figured it out. At Safeway (and possibly Vons, Dominicks, Frys, etc) the registers are coded to take off any E-Coupons after the foodstamps payment.

So if I use any e-coupons at all even if they're on muffins or something, it actually subtracts that amount from my after foodstamps total - which comes off diapers, or results in overage that spits cash at me.

[melindarnix]

i worked for randalls in texas for 7 years...and absolutely use those coupons, i wish the fs office would tell their clients that they can use coupons...i would always tell the customer about coupon use...you cannot use coupons with WIC though.