why are coupons thriftier than just buying the generic everything?

I have been told by people IRL "I am thrifty..I just buy the generic brand of everything". Ok... great if that works for you. I used to be one of those people too. But then I discovered coupons.

Sure the generic stuff is cheaper...sometimes even cheaper than the name brand that you have a coupon for. Sure you can't get coupons for some things. But when you pair a sale or an instore coupon (like walgreens does) with your manufacturer's coupons your name brand items generally become cheaper than your generics. OK OK I realize it is hard work sometimes to find the sales, the coupons, and everything else. This is just my experience and what I do. And if your store doubles....WOW! watch the price on that name brand item with a coupon plummet right down to free or maybe even making you money.

Take for instance my deal at Pamida last week

heinz ketchup...$2.69
customer appreciation discount (15%) -.40
then my coupon for a free bottle of ketchup -$2.69
That bottle of name brand ketchup just gave me 40 cents off something else in my order. I got 2 bottles, 2 coupons so I got 80 cents off something else I bought.

That, my friends, is called overage. Some stores allow it some do not.

another general example of overage

Granola bars $1.00 coupon
bars on sale for 75 cents
you just made 25 cents that will be applied to something else.

Some store require that you have other items in your purchase so that the total is not 0. They will not let you walk out the door paying nothing. Ok they might but it draws attention and as a couponer, you generally not want to draw too much attention. Not that what you are doing is wrong but some managers and cashiers do not like the "super couponers" and zero or negative totals draw attention to a super couponer and make everything seem suspicious. I will throw a bottle of water or soda or something else in my order (known as a filler). We will get into fillers more later on. Fillers are really handy at walgreens when you have the register rewards and manufacturer coupons and in store coupons. You will see why in a later post. Cheap things generally make the best filler if you don't really need anything else but anything you don't have a coupon for is a good filler. Let's say you needed a tube of chapstick...no coupon...great idea for a filler. But again as I said more on fillers in a later post.