Couponing at Walmart is another great way to save a lot of time and money. Walmart allows you to maximize your savings through a variety of techniques, and also allows price matching on top of everything else, which makes Walmart another one-stop-shop. Walmart has such a great selection of items, and already carries some of the lowest everyday prices that getting free items is a regular occurrence in our household, and I am frequently paid to shop at Walmart!
1. No Coupon Limits
Well, almost. Unless the coupon has a limit written on it (i.e maximum of four like coupons per transaction), there is no maximum to the quantity of like coupons that you can use in one transaction. Also, there is no limit to the maximum amount that you can receive off of your order, as Walmart provides OVERAGE. Walmart is really the only major chain that does this (at least in my area), as they will provide cash back on your purchase. That means that you can literally get paid to shop! I have personally done this in a variety of ways. If you would like the cash back, you must wait for a supervisor to come and approve the transaction, which since I have spent all of my time picking the perfect cashier (see How to Prepare for Checkout with Coupons), I do not like to do. In addition to cash, you can always get a gift card for the exact amount of your overage. Therefore, if you know that you will be getting overage, make sure to have one handy for this reason.
When the cashier looks stumped at your -$9.71 total, hand them a gift card, and ask to purchase a gift card for $9.71. Your balance will become 0, and you will get a gift card for your next purchase. This is the best option for our family, as the next trip, we will buy meat or clothing, items that are usually more expensive, with this overage. I have also heard of people saving up all of these gift cards throughout the year to use for their holiday shopping, which would be a great way to help budget yourself, and to save up money for the holidays. Many people will also just purchase a gift card for $5 every time that they go to Walmart, for the same reason, and then during the holidays, they will magically have a few hundred dollars to put towards their holiday shopping.
***side note: to combine gift cards, just take the total amount of gift cards (use walmart.com to find balance information if you don’t know it), and use that total to purchase one large card in-store. For example, 10 cards for $5 each, purchase a gift card for $50, and use the 10 cards to pay, which will allow you to consolidate the cards.***
2. Lowest Prices
Walmart has two main methods to guarantee lowest prices. The first is price matching. This means that Walmart will match the advertised price of local competitor stores. The employees are supposed to know if there is a sale going on, and they are supposed to be trained to offer you this lower pricing, but in all of my shopping trips, this has only happened once for me, so I would not count on it. You do not need to have the ad in-hand, as they have a reference book of all prices, but I like to have a copy just in case I run into problems, as well as to make sure that I get the exact product that the competitor is advertising. This is a great policy for 3 reasons:
- This can make Walmart my one stop shop, and I will not have to run all over town to get great savings. I have 3 Walmarts in my area, but Stater Bros is 10 miles away, so this saves me even more money in travel.
- I have run into many occasions when stores are out of a product due to a great sale, and rather than get a raincheck (or in addition to getting a raincheck, depending on how great the sale is), I will just go to Walmart, and price match. Walmart will usually have the item in stock, as the “sale” is only going on for price-matchers. Also, depending on the store, Walmart also tends to carry more varieties of a product at any given time, which increases my available selection.
- Coupons can be used in addition to the new price, making the price matching even better!
3. Stock Checking
I love the “check availability” option on Walmart.com’s site. I can find out where a product is in stock, which is very helpful when I find out about a super great coupon that is coming out for a product that I have not purchased, or when I am looking to price match competitor’s ads. I can go to a store that I know should have all/most of the items in stock from my shopping list, or I can avoid going to a specific store that I know does not carry a specific product. This saves me time, and most importantly for me, loads of frustration looking for a product that will not be at that specific store. Knowing that walmart.com has a relatively up to date availability means that I do not have to go to three Walmarts when I am trying to save time and gas driving between stores, so this has been another great way for me to lower our expenses.
Multiplying Your Savings with Your Smart Phone
I am a huge advocate of using a smart phone to save extra cash. Our two phones have saved us thousands of dollars each in the past couple of years that we have had them. I put off purchasing smart phones due to the high cost for years, but I cannot believe how quickly we made our money back by using these apps. I have already covered how to save money using your smart phone (see How to Save Money Without Coupons: Smart Phones!), but if you did not already get my message, GO GET A SMART PHONE :). There are two main apps that I use at Walmart to save money. I do not usually get any credit for walking into a Walmart, but I can scan dozens of items while I shop using the Shopkick app, resulting in gift cards that I can use on future purchases. I can of course use Receipt Hog to scan my receipt when I get home, but my favorite app to use is still the Ibotta app, which I can use on top of my coupon savings to earn hundreds of dollars of cash back, transferred to my paypal account!
I have noticed that Walmart employees are not as knowledgeable about their coupon policies as some other stores in my area, although it has been significantly better over the last few months. I always recommend carrying a copy of their coupon policy, as well as their price match policy (both found under Store Coupon Policies) in case you run into any issues, but the managers seem pretty good about knowing the policy, as well as informing their employees about the correct policy. You can also pull up these policies on your phone if you do not have a printed copy, but I have found that just having it in my binder means that I never end up having to use it. 🙂 .
