e-coupons

I was never a big fan of the stores that required you to have a shopper card to get their "sale" prices, but I got used to it.  Then again I never really shopped the sales until recently.  Now I'm not only realizing that shopping the sales can save big money, but that there are more ways to save when you have a shopper card.

If you have a shopper card, be sure to check the websites for the stores that you have cards for, most of them offer special deals online that may not be advertised in the stores.  One of those "deals" is e-coupons.

E-coupons are coupons that you don't have to print or remember to bring with you to the store, you just go online and sign up and add the coupons to your shopper card and when you purchase those items the coupon amount is automatically deducted.  Kroger has their e-coupons at http://www.kroger.com , you can also sign up for the site Shortcuts and they will add their coupons directly to your card as well.  Be sure to sign up for both Shortcuts and your store coupons.

If you are like us, you may have two different shopper cards for the same store.  My hubby and I got our shopper cards separately, so we have two different accounts.  In that case, you may want to sign each card up for its own account on each of the sites to make sure that you both have all the coupons loaded.

The one downside to e-coupons is remembering what you have coupons for.  You can just go the route of knowing that if you buy one of the items you loaded a coupon for you "should" get the discount and not worry about it (if you aren't a couponer to begin with, at least you'll save something).  Or you can print off a list of the coupons that you've loaded and use that to help guide your shopping trip.