[joyfulmom4]

I am trying to figure out if certain combinations of coupons are acceptable to use. I got a really good deal at Target the other day and I think it was all right and legal. I want to make sure though. And since then, I've been trying to come up with other ways to combine coupons for maximum benefit. I want it to all be on the up-and-up though. So advice is appreciated.

My great deal:

purchased:
six boxes Kelloggs Raisin Bran Crunch cereal at $2.25 ea
bananas
peaches
cherries
2 gallons of milk
1 box Hefty fresh extend bags

used coupons:
6 $1/1 Kelloggs Raisin Bran Crunch IPs
3 $2 off any fruit when you buy two boxes Kelloggs cereal
Target store special in ad was for FREE gallon of milk when you buy 3 boxes of Kelloggs cereal
$1/1 Target Q when you buy both fresh produce and Hefty fresh extend bags
$1/1 manufacturer Q for Hefty fresh extend

So I ended up paying very little out of pocket; just $1.25 for each box of cereal plus a little extra for whatever fruit wasn't covered by the coupons and a small oop for the bags.

Is this deal OK? It seems like there's quite a bit of "double-dipping" going on. Yet, I know that Target allows combining of their store coupons plus manufacturer coupons. So it seems like that makes it OK. But you're kindof inter-relying on multiple purchases. Ykwim? The cereal gives you the milk, but it also qualifies you for the discount on fruit. The fruit qualifies you for the Hefty bags, which you also get a mfr discount on. It occurred to me later that maybe I could have used the $1/1 Driscolls strawberry Target coupon and gotten strawberries instead of the other fruit and had an even bigger savings.

I have other coupons that could potentially be combined in creative ways like this. Is this OK to do?

[rachelhale]

Seems fine to me, as long as you didn't use say 2 manu q's for the same single item.

[joyfulmom4]

Originally Posted by rachelhale

Seems fine to me, as long as you didn't use say 2 manu q's for the same single item.

Yeah, that was where I was a little uncertain. The coupons for the cereal were clearly for the cereal alone. Then the ones for $2 off the fruit were dependant on the purchase of the cereal but they clearly said "get $2 off purchase of fresh fruit" so it seems to me that that's a coupon for fruit. Right? If it said "save $2 when you buy two boxes of cereal and a pound of fruit" then I would think that is different.

Does that make sense? And as far as the buy fruit and save on bags coupon, I still *bought* fruit, right? So I can still save on bags. And that one was a Target Q anyway, so it was stacking mfr and Target Qs.

Am I making sense??? I feel kinda silly but I just realized how great a deal these types of coupons are. I got them off tearpads at Target. Wish I'd gotten more. I think people take the whole pad whenever they can and then sell them on Ebay. The Target Qs are great too, since they allow you to stack stuff.

[MelindaD]

Yep sounds find to me too!! Great job on the savings.

Melinda

[joyfulmom4]

Originally Posted by MelindaD

Yep sounds find to me too!! Great job on the savings.

Melinda

Cool! Thanks! I have more of this type of coupon and I am really excited to put them to use. I am coming up with various combinations that might work.

[Alexdur85]

Wow.. that seems great to me too!!

What an awesome deal!! I hope we get a super Target!!!

[carmended]

All looks great to me, way to use those coupons for max savings!!! Great job!

[Ms Coo P'on]

I love stacking coupons at Target....your scenario looked great.

[joyfulmom4]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I went to Copps today and made this HUGE shopping trip which involved a LOT of planning and a LOT of stacking of multiple coupon deals. Actually it wasn't really stacking so much as "linking" of coupon deals from one to the next. I stacked store deals with coupon deals and used lots of the "buy X and get $$ off Y" type coupons followed by "buy Y and get $$ off Z" and so on. It worked really well.

I ended up spending about $200 today, but that was for 295 items, making each item an average price of .68 cents. When you consider that I bought tons of meat, ice cream, cheese, milk, bags of fresh cherries, blueberries, pizzas, cereal, beer, multipacks of Diet Coke, etc, etc, it was amazing savings. When I say average price .68 there were only ten items in the whole lot that were less than $1 to begin with (10 Koolaid packets). Most stuff had original prices of $3-$5, some more. WOOHOO!!!