YourBucks at Jewel is fantastic.

Hi- When I was going through the checkout line at Jewel last week, I got one of those checkout coupons, that was not technically a coupon, but told about this new coupon program they have at Jewel. It is linked to Comcast, and you go to the ON DEMAND screen on your comcast menu, and you click on shopping, and then groceries, and you get this four minute presentation about this Catalina "Your Bucks" promotion that is taking place right now at Jewel. If you sign up for the program, you get coupons for $ for your next purchase. For example, Jewel has a dozen large eggs on sale right now for $1.29, and if you buy one dozen eggs, you get a coupon good for $1 off your next shopping order. This presentation goes through all the coupons available, and tells you how to sign up for it. You must have a Jewel preferred card to participate in this program, and there are several ways you can signup for the program, including online and texting on your cellphone. I signed up for it online, and registered my preferred card. The link is http://tv.catalinamarketing.com I know some people would not be interested in this, but I went to Jewel today, and got $5,50 in coupons good on my next shopping order. You can only get one coupon for an item. For example you cannot buy 5 dozen eggs in one transaction, and get 5 $1 coupons good on your next shopping order. You will only get one $1 coupon for buying the eggs. A coupon is also generated if you buy a certain dollar amount of groceries in one transaction. Right now it is $5 for a $50 transaction. The offers change every couple of weeks, and the coupons generated are good for 14 days. I personally like Jewel a lot better than Dominick's. Hope this helps, Nancy

These programs are great ways to stock up on certain items if they are participating items. I currently have about 120 odd cans of progresso lower sodium soup stashed away in my cabinets from the last cash back thing they did about a month ago. I plan to buy more this week. It's well worth it if you can find some good coupons for the participating items. My soups were pretty much free.

seebee wrote:I currently have about 120 odd cans of progresso lower sodium soup stashed away in my cabinets from the last cash back thing they did about a month ago. I plan to buy more this week. ...

I know whose house I'm looking for when the apocalypse begins.

I've recently been delving into the stockpiling/extreme couponing world, it's an interesting leg of the food consuming online world. People that maximize the use of coupons with sales, and build up a stockpile when prices are at their lowest. Since venturing in, I'm really suprised how easy it is to get some food and toiletries for free or even with some money back at times.


I'm relatively proud of buying what was over $100 of food for a total of just shy of $33 including tax whilst being given $29.50 in unrestricted Jewel coupons (can be used virtually as cash/anything but sales tax) with my receipt at Jewel last Thursday.

I'm an avid saver. I see it as part of my household duties, and respectfulness to my husband's hard earned money to save when I can.

I don't think that I have ever taken a shopping trip to the Jewel and not had at least 40% taken off my final shopping order. It's usually closer to 50%. I ONLY buy sale items, and use coupons whenever I'm able.

Recently my sister went shopping with me, and her jaw literally dropped when her grocery bill was 3x higher than mine with less than 1/2 the items, and most of mine were name brand. I'm slowly teaching her the tricks of the trade.

Some people may see it as "beneath them", or "stingy", especially when I'm pulling coupons out of my newest Coach purse, but I see it as an easy way to make our lifestyle more affordable

bella54330 wrote:I'm an avid saver. I see it as part of my household duties, and respectfulness to my husband's hard earned money to save when I can.

There is another approach to this: money saved is money earned.

I have a friend I regret I lost track whom I met at Master Gardners and Master Food Preservers. She was not only an avid couponer, she was a methodical garage sale purchaser.

She had a friend who also loved garage sales. They both kept information of each other's clothing and shoe sizes for their entire families as well as color and style preferences. They also had a list of items they both wanted, this ranged from household appliances big and small, toys, software and magazines. They would read through the paper and divide up where to go to save each other time.

My friend was a stay at home Mom who considered her thriftiness her contribution to the family income. It allowed her to stay home. She considered savings as non-taxable income. which I thought was brilliant.

She also had a garage sale to clear her house of unwanted items. She arranged her sales to reflect how she wished others would be and received top dollar every time.

She had quite a lot of style and smarts, I really learned a lot from her.

Regards,

Kennyz wrote:

seebee wrote:I currently have about 120 odd cans of progresso lower sodium soup stashed away in my cabinets from the last cash back thing they did about a month ago. I plan to buy more this week. ...

I know whose house I'm looking for when the apocalypse begins.

I have a full freezer and shelves with canned and home preserved foods, which I don't advertise to the neighbors. One who did see it once said she knew where to go to in an emergency.

There is a Twilight Zone episode just on this issue. The panicked friends wanted what the well prepared family had: shelter from disaster and food.



I do have a standing offer from a friend who lives in the country. If there is a real disaster, I could come there to live as long as I brought my own food and toilet paper.

I hope I never need it.

Regards,

Hi- I finally got the link to the offer on my first post working. I personally don't care for it, but when you purchase a loaf of Jewel bread, you get a $1 coupon good on your next shopping order. This means that you get your money back on the bread. Unfortunately I am not an egg lover either, otherwise I would get a dozen eggs everytime I visited Jewel. This elderly couple that I work for in Evanston, they love eggs, and I do most of their grocery shopping for them. They go through a dozen and a half eggs a week. I used to get them a large carton of eggs, but it is much cheaper to buy them a dozen at a time.

Seebee- How did you get the soup for practically free? Did they have a $10 on your next shopping trip if you buy $30 worth of soup, and you had lots of coupons, and it was on sale for 99 cents? Just curious. Usually the only time I eat canned soup is when I have a cold, and then I have a craving for chicken noodle soup. I am trying to get over a cold right now, so I have lots of Healthy Choice chicken noodle soup in my cupboard right now. Personally I would rather make my own soup, but this couple that I cook for, they eat canned soup all the time, so I might be interested in buying some Progresso for them if I can get it really cheap. They only eat lower sodium soup though, and I didn't think that Progresso made any lower sodium soup. They really like Campbell's Select Harvest. Thanks, Nancy

Nancy-

Progresso does make lower-sodium soups.

-Mary

NFriday wrote:Seebee- How did you get the soup for practically free? ...They only eat lower sodium soup though, and I didn't think that Progresso made any lower sodium soup. They really like Campbell's Select Harvest. Thanks, Nancy

The cash back on these ends today, but I got these from the same deal about a month ago, so hopefully they'll do it again. If I recall correctly, here was the deal:

Buy 20.00 worth of participating products, and get 5.00 cash back for your next purchase on anything.
Ok, so the 20.00 amount that was required was PRE savings.
Those soups' SHELF price is like 2.99!! HOWEVER, the SALE price was like 1.33
So, I buy 7 cans of soup, which totaled close to 21.00. I get my free 5.00 back. So after I total 20., the real price comes to 7 x $1.33 = 9.31. NOW, you use coupons on that 9.31. If you are familiar with the term "creative couponing," I found some 1.00 coupons on the web that would work on each can of soup. So, I could have gotten cash back, but the Jewel systems have caught up with me, so I don't push it. When I shop at Jewel, I normally have to purchase SOMETHING to not make my balance negative. So I only used a few of the dollar off coupons, and threw in a few run of the mill "50 cents off two" coupons just to make it look good. So, after the initial transaction, I got my first 5.00 back, and then just kept rolling it over, and rolling it over. I'd normally try to keep my cost around 1.00 for 7 cans.

No, I will not explain what creative couponing is here. I didn't know what it was before about 5 years ago. Anyone can search the web and figure it all out. If I can do it, anyone can, trust me.
I too, like the healthy Choice, and the Select Harvest canned soup brands (they taste like actual soup, and not just water with waaaay too much salt,) but the Progresso lower sodium label can definitely hold it's own against those brands. Progresso also has a "light" label, and some of those include soups with about half the migs of sodium as regular canned soups as well, but not ALL of the light labels are lower sodium, and none of them are marked as lower sodium. The light labels that have lower sodium counts are oven roasted chicken and vegetable, and italian wedding meatball. I like them both. The "lower sodium" label progresso that I like are chicken noodle, chicken with wild rice, and chicken gumbo. The chicken gumbo has a very pronounced sagey nose to it, and we thought we might not like it at first, but it has really grown on us. If they do this again, we are gonna load up on it. We planned to this go around, but we got called out of town on a semi emergency. This is just canned soup, and I make my own all of the time, but in a pinch, for a quick meal alongside a decent homemade sammich at home, FREE is definitely worth it to dump it into a big bowl and hit 1:30 on the microwave for something tasty and warming and filling. At shelf price of 2.99, no way I'd buy these. At 1.00 per, I think I'd be interested, but, at a few cents each? No brainer stock up, IMO.

Thanks Seebee- I did not realize that there were dollar coupons for Progresso on the internet. I know they have this really good deal on Lean Cuisine right now, so I got two for $1.67 each, and then I got a coupon for $2.50 on my next shopping order, so it came to 42 cents each. I am going to get some more of that today.

I also got a bunch of healthy choice and lean cuisine, at the Jewel at Plaza Del Lago in Wilmette last time I was in there. They had them marked down to $1 each. Sometimes that Jewel has really good markdowns like that. A few months ago they had yogurt marked down to 10 cents.

I have noticed that when I go to one of the Jewel's that has self checkout, that you need assistance if you want to submit a coupon. I asked why they changed their policy, and they told me that too many people were using the self checkout lanes, and trying to pass off fraudulent coupons as legit. Thanks, Nancy

Oh, on that subject of self-check and couponing. When you are employing "creative couponing," it is also wise to employ the "go to the young male /female checkout clerk who doesn't care about anything except hitting on the young male /female bagger at their station" method of checking out. They will normally not give a rat's patoot about what coupon you are trying to use, and if you know what coupons will scan successfully on which product (again, search the web for this info,) you can make out like a bandit.

What seebee described is a very popular, very addictive thing these days...there are a ton of online communities dedicated to sharing tips, online & physical coupons, etc. If you've got the ability & motivation to juggle all that info and actually put it to use (I fail here...I'm the type of guy who will magnet a $5-off CVS Extra Care coupon to my otherwise-pristine fridge, and will still manage to forget it until it's expired), then you can save a ton of cash.

There have been a lot of articles in magazines, newspapers, etc. lately about couponing...I'd recommend hitting Google. I believe there are a few forums specifically dedicated to Chicago-area deals.

Khaopaat wrote:What seebee described is a very popular, very addictive thing these days...there are a ton of online communities dedicated to sharing tips, online & physical coupons, etc. If you've got the ability & motivation to juggle all that info and actually put it to use (I fail here...I'm the type of guy who will magnet a $5-off CVS Extra Care coupon to my otherwise-pristine fridge, and will still manage to forget it until it's expired), then you can save a ton of cash.

There have been a lot of articles in magazines, newspapers, etc. lately about couponing...I'd recommend hitting Google. I believe there are a few forums specifically dedicated to Chicago-area deals.

The brain power needed to accomplish this stuff is very minimal indeed (it's basically already done for you.) I've never re-invented a wheel. The savings over the long run are a ton, indeed. As Cathy2 wrote, others in my family are also in on this, and we buy things this way and share amongst ourselves, and with our friends. Our child care provider might get a stash of 5 boxes of honey bunches of oats, or special k, and ten cans of soup and ten rolls of name brand paper towels, glad ziplock bags, press n seal, reynolds wrap etc. any given week.

Hi- I went to Jewel again a few days ago, and redeemed the $5.50 in YourBucks that I acquired during my initial visit, and I got another $8 in YourBucks to use on my next visit. This elderly couple that I cook for, run errands, and do grocery shopping, go through close to 2 dozen eggs a week! The husband has to have a poached egg for breakfast every day, and they split a pancake made out of Bisquick(I know), and they split a serving of Quaker oatmeal with Sun Maid raisins. The wife has recently started eating a poached egg for breakfast every morning too because she is trying to get more protein. The husband asked me this morning while they were eating their breakfast if I could start buying extra large eggs for them. I tried to explain to him that I was getting a dozen large eggs for $1.29, and I was getting a dollar coupon good on my next shopping order, and extra large eggs were probably $1.69 a dozen, so I was going to continue to buy the large eggs. He is very set in his ways.

YourBucks is really easy to signup for, and it is easy money. http://tv.catalinamarketimg.com

Hi- I just went to Jewel yesterday, and I got $14.50 in coupons good on my next shopping order through YourBucks. I got a $2 coupon for buying a 89 cent bottle of Suave shampoo, a $1 coupon for buying a dozen eggs, a $2.50 coupon for buying 2 lean Cuisine, and a $6 coupon for spending over $60 on groceries, and a few other coupons. I think this program runs until 6/1/10, so there is still lots of time to take advantage of it. Hope this helps, Nancy

http://tv.catalinamarketing.com

seebee wrote:Oh, on that subject of self-check and couponing. When you are employing "creative couponing," it is also wise to employ the "go to the young male /female checkout clerk who doesn't care about anything except hitting on the young male /female bagger at their station" method of checking out. They will normally not give a rat's patoot about what coupon you are trying to use, and if you know what coupons will scan successfully on which product (again, search the web for this info,) you can make out like a bandit.

Bandit indeed....

Hi- I just checked my email, and I got an email from Catalina marketing concerning changes to their YourBucks program. They said that a small group of people were abusing the system, and they had to change the requirements for several of the offers. They gave you $2 towards your next shopping trip if you purchased a bottle of Ragu, which regularly sells at Jewel for $1.99, and a few people were going through the check out five times a day, so they could get the Ragu for only the tax paid. Now they only give you a $1 coupon. There were several other offers that they had to change, because a few people were greedy. I do not particularly care for Ragu anyway, and I will not get something that I don't care for just because it is free. It is still a good program though.

http://tv.catalinamarketing.com

NFriday wrote:Hi- I just checked my email, and I got an email from Catalina marketing concerning changes to their YourBucks program. They said that a small group of people were abusing the system, and they had to change the requirements for several of the offers. They gave you $2 towards your next shopping trip if you purchased a bottle of Ragu, which regularly sells at Jewel for $1.99, and a few people were going through the check out five times a day, so they could get the Ragu for only the tax paid. Now they only give you a $1 coupon. There were several other offers that they had to change, because a few people were greedy. I do not particularly care for Ragu anyway, and I will not get something that I don't care for just because it is free. It is still a good program though.

http://tv.catalinamarketing.com

Jewel cracks me up with their blame the shopper mentality. How can they possibly claim people are "abusing the system" when they are the ones who set the parameters? All they had to do was set a limit per household on how many could be purchased.

Hi- On a couponing board that I visit sometimes, somebody posted that they were in Jewel before they made the changes in the YourBucks program because people were abusing it, and they saw somebody getting in line with 2 cases of Ragu, and they expected the cashier to ring up each bottle as a separate transaction, so they could get their $2 coupon for each bottle. I guess the person was donating the stuff to a food pantry. I can not believe that the store agreed to do that, and it took her over two hours to check out. She was buying one bottle of Ragu, paying for it, and getting one $2 YourBucks coupon, and then using that coupon to purchase another bottle. I agree that they should have put a limit on the stuff that you could get for free, or make money on. Hope this helps, Nancy

I was accused of "exploiting the system" by the customer service person at one of my local Jewels because I knew the Catalina was based on the regular price not the sale price. The wife of my friend was recently on the news in a segment about couponing at CVS/Walgreens. I would never ask them to ring more than two separate transactions at time though.

Question: doesn't using manufacturers' coupons negate getting the catalina $ off your next order coupon on that transaction?

Hi- You can still get the YourBucks, if you use YourBucks coupons to pay for it. I bought 2 Lean Cuisine last time I was at Jewel, and I used a $2,50 YourBucks coupon, and paid in cash the rest of the bill, which I think was 92 cents, and I got another $2.50 coupon.

I did not realize until seebee posted it here, that purchase amount required on those CAT. deals was based on the original price of the item, and not the sale price. I assumed that if Healthy Choice soup was on sale for 99 cents, and you needed to buy $20 worth in order to get the coupon, then you had to buy 21 cans of the soup. That was why I never did any of those. I might do the CHILL one though, where you only have to buy 10 items, and you get $10 back. They have Healthy Choice frozen dinners on sale for $2.00, so I can get them for $1.00. I also like Ben and Jerry's, which is on the list. Breyer's is also on the list, but I usually do not buy Breyer's because it is owned by a tobacco company. I might make an exception though, because it is on sale for $3.00, and I can get $2.00 back in YourBucks, and I can use it as part of the CHILL offer. Hope this helps, Nancy

NFriday wrote:Hi- You can still get the YourBucks, if you use YourBucks coupons to pay for it. I bought 2 Lean Cuisine last time I was at Jewel, and I used a $2,50 YourBucks coupon, and paid in cash the rest of the bill, which I think was 92 cents, and I got another $2.50 coupon.

I did not realize until seebee posted it here, that purchase amount required on those CAT. deals was based on the original price of the item, and not the sale price. I assumed that if Healthy Choice soup was on sale for 99 cents, and you needed to buy $20 worth in order to get the coupon, then you had to buy 21 cans of the soup. That was why I never did any of those. I might do the CHILL one though, where you only have to buy 10 items, and you get $10 back. They have Healthy Choice frozen dinners on sale for $2.00, so I can get them for $1.00. I also like Ben and Jerry's, which is on the list. Breyer's is also on the list, but I usually do not buy Breyer's because it is owned by a tobacco company. I might make an exception though, because it is on sale for $3.00, and I can get $2.00 back in YourBucks, and I can use it as part of the CHILL offer. Hope this helps, Nancy

Yes, but what about manufacturers coupons from the Sunday paper for example?

Marmish wrote:Yes, but what about manufacturers coupons from the Sunday paper for example?

Marmish, I haven't been to Jewel to do this in a month or so, but the mfr coupons have always been honored along with the catalina coupons, and I have always gotten more catalina coupons after the transaction. It's my understanding that the grocers are reimbursed for mfr coupons. It would make no sense to refuse them. Just because the register might say that your $2.00 item is only 50 cents does not mean that the store is only going to get 50 cents, and will lose $1.50.

Hi Marmish- The only time where a manufacturer's coupon would have any effect as to whether you get a catalina coupon, is when the coupon is generated when you buy a certain dollar amount of groceries, An example of this would be getting a $6 catalina when you buy $60 worth of groceries. The $6 coupon does not generate until your order is completed. You must buy $60 worth of groceries after the coupons are deducted before the $6 coupon is printed.

This group that I sing with in Evanston, as one of our many fundraisers, we used to have Jewel and Dominick's shopping days, where we would have three days where we could shop at Jewel or Dominick's and present a shop and share coupon, and the cashier was supposed to enter the dollar amount spent, and our group would get 5% back of what ever we bought, At Dominick's I could put the shop and share coupon on top of my other coupons, and about 50% of the time they would fill in the slip before they deducted the coupons. At Jewel that never worked, and they always filled in the slip after they deducted my coupons. Dominick's did away with their shop and share program a few years ago, and Jewel just got rid of their program. Dominick's replaced their program with a program where if you register your fresh values with them, the group gets 2% back of what every I buy, no matter when I buy it. Hope this helps, Nancy

Jewel apologizes...They must have received a ton of complaints over their wording..

March 12, 2010

Dear Valued YourBucks Member:

As a result of an email that we provided earlier, we have received feedback from some of our valued consumers. We apologize for the way in which we communicated the change in some of the offers now available to you on the YourBucks website. While the Terms and Conditions of the YourBucks program allow the Store to modify an offer, we regret suggesting that there was any improper use of the program by our YourBucks consumers.

Thank you for your support. We hope that you will continue to enjoy the YourBucks program.

Very truly yours,
Debra Friar
VP, CPG New Development

Hi Artie- I did not get that email. They must have sent it only to people let them know that they were unhappy with the first email that was sent out telling about the changes to the program. The new YourBucks offers that just came out a few days ago, I do not care for as nuch. Thanks, Nancy

10.00 off your next purchase with 25.00 worth of qualifying purchases again.
The Peter Pan peanut butter looks extremely intruiging. I have no idea how it will play out in their system. This is one I am going to try and figure out. Hopefully my google-fu can figure it out first, or I'll just have to go do a trial run. The Healthy Choice soups would also be a great bargain.