My Friend Flipp

Do you do the grocery shopping in your household? If so, have you considered ways to save on your groceries?

I never used to. I would see one of my moms sit at the table and spend a considerable amount of time going through each flyer and cutting out the coupons. Then she would take a whole morning driving to various grocery stores to get the items on sale. Was it really worth it to go to all that trouble to only save a few dollars?

When Michael and I got serious about saving for our future, we created a budget to help us get there. Breaking down the numbers showed us how much we were spending on food. I have allergies and food sensitivities, so getting the $2.00 bread and milk were no longer in the equation for me. Good food costs money, so this meant a higher grocery bill. We didn’t think we could really save a whole lot in this area of our budget, but we thought we’d give the ol’ coupon trick a try.

We were telling some friends that we were going to try couponing, when they asked us if we had tried Flipp? No, Flipp hadn’t made it into our vocabulary yet, but we were happy when it did.

If you haven’t heard, Flipp is like the online version of your weekly flyers. It has all your local grocers’ weekly flyers on it, along with some pet’s, renovation, and retail stores. All of your favourite stores’ savings on one handy app.

You can create your shopping list, then browse each item to see if and where it might be on sale. Tap the cheapest item and Flipp will “clip” it to your app. Then, when you get to the check-out at the store, you can show them the coupon and they’ll give you the discount.

This especially works well now considering most major grocery chains allow price matching. We can get all of our shopping done at one grocery store, while receiving all the discounts from other stores without having to go to them.

A couple things to note on this though. Make sure that the item on the coupon is equivalent to what you’re purchasing or it won’t count. So, don’t plan to get a club sized pack of chicken and use a coupon for a four-pack of chicken. They need to be equal in value. Also, if you are price-matching meat, you’ll need to go to the meat counter to get it price matched. Don’t wait until you get to the till because they can’t do it there.

Michael and I wondered if we’d really save doing Flipp. We figured it might be a couple dollars here and there, but was it worth the time to find all the deals? The answer was definitely yes! We might have only saved $5 one week, but we might save upwards to $30 another. The coupons are especially helpful for meat!

You will have to start off searching almost your whole list for deals at the beginning. But as you get familiar with prices, you’ll notice which deals are worth it. Then you’ll only search for the foods you know you can get the most out of. We notice that meats, fruits, and some veggies can have great discounts throughout the year.

Another tip to mention is to put all your couponed items at the beginning or end of the conveyor belt when you get to the check-out. Have all those items grouped together. It’ll help the cashier get through everything faster and won’t hold up the lines. If you have any paper coupons for something as well, place that on top of the item. I will note that grocery stores won’t just accept the small coupon for the one item anymore. Instead of cutting them out, you’ll have to take the full flyer sheet in with you. They have to see which store the coupon is came from and the date it is being advertised.

That reminds me, check the dates on the flyers in Flipp as well. Some flyers start on a Wednesday, some on a Thursday. So, depending on when you do your shopping, the coupon might not be valid yet. However, one handy thing Flipp does is tell you when a coupon is expired. It will label it as such so you know it’s done.

Have fun trying it out and let me know what you think. Find any good savings this week?