Mommyblogging The Coming Recession, Or How To Use All Those Coupon Apps For Fun And Profit

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Photo by Franki Chamaki on Unsplash

Mark Cuban, one of your less horrific billionaires, suggested to everyone on “Liberation Day” that they stock up on nonperishables — your toothpastes, your soaps and bodywashes, whatever.

And so we mommyblog.

I’ve saved $1500 since the beginning of this year — that’s three months and three days — on groceries and household bullshit. And I only started couponing last November. There’s a learning curve, and you’ll fuck up some of your purchases. And it’s a part-time job; I spend about two hours cross-checking prices (yay internet) before I hit a grocery store. Here’s how I do it.

Groceries

First you’re going to sign up for your store’s club card, if you didn’t do so years ago. For me, that’s Meijer, although I regularly check Kroger’s coupons too, and might actually hit both in one shopping trip if I’m feeling froggy. Once you’ve signed up for your club card, you’ll go on your store’s website and go through all available coupons, “clipping” to your store card everything that’s relevant to you. See something like “$15 off $50 in paper products”? Buy $50 in paper products. They’ll last. You’ll also get points for shopping, and those points expire. I lost hundreds of dollars to expired points before realizing they were all sitting there on the website waiting for me to redeem them for money off the bill or a dollar a gallon off gas, etc. Don’t forget to enter your phone number at checkout! And those little “catalina” coupons that print out? Don’t sleep on them. Check your weekly store ad online, too. There’s always, always, good sales.

I don’t even count the full $1228 in my spreadsheet; I only count savings from actual coupons I’ve used and club card offers, for a total so far this year of $456.

Before you go to the store …

Ibotta. (That’s my referral code; I’ll get $10 and you’ll get $5 if you sign up and successfully complete an offer.) I love Ibotta —I’ve gotten $355 cash back so far this year — but you’re going to mess it up at first. Sign up, install the app on your phone, and then on your desktop click on your usual grocery store. There’ll be about seven pages of offers to click through; add each one you’re interested in to your list by clicking the little plus sign. Click through each of those to check the size, variety, number you need to purchase. This is where the fuckups come in! You bought 30 oz Hellman’s mayonnaise instead of 32 oz! You’re not getting your dollar back! Make sure to choose the long, full receipt at checkout, because you’re going to bring it home, open up the app on your phone, and take pictures of the receipt. Upload it, et viola! Something to look out for: Note whether your grocer — such an old-fashioned word, isn’t it? It means a bag of things — is set for “in-store” or “online,” and don’t try to upload online receipts as “in-store” or vice-versa. You also must make sure you’ve added all your offers before uploading your receipt. You’ll get the hang of it! Ibotta will also have bonuses each week for getting a certain number of offers in a limited amount of time; in those cases, throw another few Glade sprays in your basket, getting $1.50 off the regular $2.37 price. Oh it’s on sale at your store as well? Buy five.

Fetch. (Referral code, I’ll get $3, you’ll get $2, etc.) Fetch is fun. Anywhere you’ve shopped, bring your receipt home, take a picture of it in the app, and if it matches an offer the little humanoid will do a fun, zingy little dance for you while it totals you up. Any receipt will get you two-and-a-half cents. You’re rich! I’ve made $66 from it this year.

Make. a. paper. list. Include pertinent sizes and varieties. While you’re in the store, you can open your app and double-check the requirements, but your husband shopping with you will get annoyed that this shopping trip is taking five hours. Mark on your paper list whether there’s more than one offer on an item. Fetch and Ibotta will almost always be offers for packaged (and processed) goods, although occasionally you might get twenty-five cents off a single tangerine. Don’t buy something just to get the points if the store brand is still cheaper anyway — but cross-reference Ibotta, Fetch, and your store’s online coupons. If Ibotta has a coupon, your store often will too; while Ibotta usually says its offers can’t be combined with coupons, that really only applies if you’re shopping online. Kids’ cold medicine? Claritin? Olay bodywash? Nicotine patches? Cayman Jack’s margaritas? Stock up on those fuckers if you have stockin’ room. Fuckin’ score.

NB: If you’ve bought something (at least from Meijer) and then it goes on sale the next week or you get a better coupon, you can return it and they’ll be completely nice about it, even if you tell them “I’m returning it to buy it again because I got a better coupon.” Damn.

Online Shopping (Except CVS)

Here are the online shopping portals I use (referral $$$ to me and to you, etc):

Rakuten

Retail Me Not

Top Cashback

Rebates Me

First. Whatever you’re buying, price compare online to find your best offer. Then, when you’ve decided where you’re purchasing your item, if that’s Best Buy or CVS or whatever, go to cashbackmonitor.com and find out who’s got the highest cash back today for going through their portal. For instance, Retail Me Not will often have 20 percent back at CVS while Rakuten fluctuates but often has 8 percent back at different sites. I have the Rakuten browser extension, which offers various cash back amounts wherever on the Internet I am, but make sure not to click the little floating “cash back savings now!” if Top Cash Back or Retail Me Not or another one is better for your current offer; just click “hide for now.” (This is why I no longer use Capital One Shopping; it hijacks your other, better cash-back offer and inserts itself instead.) Then go to whichever of those portals is best for today, and click through to the store you’re shopping at from that portal. I’ve gotten $354 back through these sites so far this year.

CVS

CVS is its own whole ballgame. Sign up for “extracare.” (I’ve toyed with signing up for the paid program, $5 a month, but haven’t done so yet. It’s probably not necessary, but might be worth it.) That will let you get “extrabucks” on a crazy number of things. Note: CVS’s prices are really high. It DOES NOT make sense to buy things from there instead of your regular grocery store — except when they’ve got five coupons for the same thing, and if you buy $20 worth of … I don’t know, Maybelline, you get $10 in extrabucks back on top of the coupons. (The website is really good at letting you know there’s additional coupons available for each item, just click and add.) Start up on top of the website with the “deals of the week.” Right now, that’s the “epic beauty sale” until April 12. It’s makeup but also toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, etc.

I always refuse to pay for shipping, which means I have to get to $35 in items AFTER the coupons, but you can also go and pick your order up. I don’t use Ibotta with CVS because the whole point of CVS is the coupons, and Ibotta won’t allow them if you’re shopping online.

Spend a lot of time making sure you’ve completed each extrabucks offer; if you add a coupon, you’re probably going to go under and need to add yet another item. Once your stuff is shipped, you’ll have a week to go onto the website and click to add your extrabucks earnings to your card, or they’ll disappear. (This happened to me last week with $45 worth of extrabucks from buying skincare items and a bunch of makeup to save and give to Donna Rose for birthday and Christmas, and I am pissed.) You’ll then have a month or three to spend them — on things that earn you more extrabucks. Check your email for additional coupons; they’ll send them frequently to get you all Pavlov’s dog on must earn more extrabucks. I’ve saved $288 at CVS this year, not counting those missing fucking extrabucks. I was feeling pretty bad about how much I’d spent there stocking up on MORE toothpaste and MORE bodywash and MORE deodorant, like what the fuck how much do we need???, but then Mark Cuban made me feel better. (You checked cashbackmonitor.com first, right, and got 20 percent cash back from somebody?)

Toilet Paper

I like Who Gives a Crap (the recycled, not the bamboo, and I don’t recommend their kleenex), and it gets an A from the NRDC for the environment. We both get $20 if at checkout you say Rebecca Schoenkopf sent you. For now it’s still $62 for 48 rolls shipped right to your door. Did you remember to check cashbackmonitor.com first? It’s 8 percent cash back today at Top Cash Back and Rebates Me!

Well I Think That’s It!

You’re going to go a little crazy at first, buying a bunch of junk because “sale.” Go easy on yourself, forgive yourself if you fuck up, and forgive your partner if they buy the wrong items in the wrong amount. But don’t forgive them if they refuse to put in your club card number at checkout, or bring you the full receipt. They need to learn like immediately how upset you’ll be at that.