*New* Kroger Coupon Policy Changes
I was invited to a meeting last night with Kroger and couldn't make it since our oldest had a basketball game. It was a bad meeting to miss, unfortunately.
Kroger has announced that effective March 1, 2013, they will end double coupons in the Dayton and Cincinnati markets. However, to offset this bad news, they will reduce prices on 3,500 items in the store to help everyone continue to save. An example of this will be milk at $1.99 everyday. Other items, including many produce prices, will drop as well.
So, what do I really think of this?
It stinks. While my couponing efforts has dropped drastically since the Extremely Couponing Reality Show aired, I still use coupons and want them to double.
You can still save. You will save 50% less if you used coupons. I feel like now it's going to be even more important for you to follow Savings Lifestyle since we will help you maximize every trip using coupons, cash back incentives, promotions, unadvertised deals, Catalina promotions and other deals.
We will continue to share the weekly Kroger sales and coupon matches to help you save. I have more brewing in my head on this, but wanted to get this out for you now.
COMMENT and share your thoughts. What do you think of Kroger's coupon redemption change?
RELATED: Saving Money Without Using Coupons
Nooooooo. That really, really stinks. My use of coupons has gone down drastically since the Extreme Couponing show as well, but its always nice to know that when I clip to save I can get double savings at Kroger. This is a hug disappointment.
Absolutely terrible of them to do this. I know for a fact that I will not be shopping there anymore. Remke and Meijer should clean up on Kroger’s mistake….. I find it hard to believe that their “lower prices” will benefit the consumer as much as the double coupons did.
I’m not thrilled with the coupons not doubling anymore but do like the idea of milk for $1.99 and reduced produces prices since those items are rarely on sale or have coupons for them. I am just hoping other stores dont’ pick up this trend as I do most of my shopping at Meijer anyway.
This is good for people like me who have all intentions of using coupons, but never do!
That’s lousy! I’ll just drive an extra 12 minutes to Meijer. Good Lord, please keep these wicked ideas out of the Meijer Corp. employees.
Terrible. I will do more shopping at Walmart when they start this new policy. Right now I use the Kroger Pharm. while I do my shopping there but now will choose a new Pharm. as well.
I don’t do as much couponing as I use to due the fall out from Extreme couponing show but still like my doubles. and I take the time to clip so I can save.
Very disappointed in Kroger in this. Most of us coupon because it is a “have” to none of us like clipping for hours on end, not to mention coupons expire so quickly! My average time in the store is 2 hours :( it takes forever. Now my efforts and time just got cut in half, so tell me Kroger why is my money and time worthy of giving it to your store ? Just curious… This is 50%. The working man, women, child loses once again for the greed of corporate pockets! I’m not sure I can in good faith have my kids help me clip and organize coupons anymore knowing our efforts are at 50% not to mention Kroger is only doing this to a few regions!
I guess my $600 plus a month isn’t enough for this company ?
I am so devastated! Why????? I have a family of 6 and coupons are our life line. I have a really bad feeling that Meijer will follow suit on this. What a week, first Marsh and now Kroger:(
This makes it easy to start going to Meijers for all my shopping! Way to go Krogers! And I sincerely doubt they will ever offer milk for $1.99 everyday. Even wal-mart doesn’t price it that low!
Milk is alway a $1.99 at Aldi, and you can price match at Walmart for $1.99 per gallon, with NO ad needed.
This is bad news for couponers, and if the stores here follow the same pattern as stores in other locations, competitors will also stop doubling coupons. Thank goodness for Aldi! I already do quite a bit of my shopping there, and will be doing even more effective March 1.
I’m sure all the other chains that double will stop now – once one does, there’s no need to keep doing it. Watch for Meijer, Main Street market. All because of that stupid show (in my opinion) that almost never showed ethical, responsible coupon use. Again my personal opinion.
Here in Missouri Schnucks and Dierbergs have both started doing triple coupons to 50 cents and double coupons from 55 cents to $1. It’s not every day but this week it’s Thursday thru Saturday. You just have to watch the flyers to see when they are doing it. They have done it almost every week since the first of December! I saved $34 dollars with super doubles today (thats up to $1).
I will shop someplace else with my coupons. Huge mistake by Kroger. It will be great for Meijer and Rempke/Biggs!!
I’m so sorry for y’all but glad for myself bc ours here in east TX in the D/FW region has been where you now are since last year or the one before (I’ve lost track of time) and I do follow your blog and Catalina deals closely…now it will be much easier not to have to figure the deal again deleting the doubling…an exact science it will be now!! Whew! I promise yall will get used to it and all these Mega Sales and your Catalina deals with them have REALLY helped to make couponing worth while. The savings are still there one just must look a little harder. I saved $113 yesterday and am headed back today!! I would rather not have doubles than not get to Q AND they really bumped up our Kroger e-coupons for us and load our snail mailboxes for us with coupon booklets! it was an adjustment and I think the hardest part of it was knowing a lot of stores still had doubles but we have survived as you can see and so far so good. I love my Kroger stores we have two as we are a college town. Blessings to you all and thank you so much for all you do for us to keep our deals and cats rolling!! Let’s go Krogering!!
Betty S ~ Thanks for posting. Perhaps it won’t be that bad…..but forgive me….I am still skeptical :(
Betty S. Does your Kroger offer the “buy 10 save $ 5.00” special?
Thank You.
Lori
Kroger stores consistently have the highest prices and are not my main store. No longer allowing double coupons will make it even less likely that I would have reason to shop there…….
Those freaks on those extreme couponing shows ruined it for everyone. You knew it was coming.
Interestingly, the few times I could stomach to watch those shows, it seemed like they were frequently in KROGER stores. Kroger lit the match in the middle of the forest and are now trying to put out the out-of-control wildfire :(
Shame on those people and Kroger both……and don’t tell me how much they donate(d). That is a smoke screen for their mental health/hoarding issues.
Lower prices for how long before they start creeping back up? I appreciate the effort to get people through the check lanes faster but why not just have non-coupon lane if it is such an issue.
Also their produce is terrible and over priced at that.
Is this for all stores or just Dayton and Cincinnati?
This is just Dayton and Cincinnati now. But they implemented these changes in Texas last year and some people are reporting that the everyday low prices were higher AFTER the announcement and then lowered from that to make it seem like they were lowering the prices. I’ll be watching that.
I figured that this policy change was coming soon. It’s unfortunate, but won’t impact me a great deal. I buy mostly organic, whole foods and try to steer clear of packaged foods so I didn’t use the majority of coupons offered in the inserts.
For me, the $2 I spend every week is worth it because even if I only get a few coupons out of it, I send the rest to a military family overseas (CouponsToTroops.com). It’s the one feel-good, community service oriented thing that I do have the time to work on every week :)
Crap!
I’m sure a lot of overall product pricing and coupon policies depend on the area you live in. I’m a big fan of Kroger here in Huntsville, Alabama. They’ve always been quite strict about couponing, no stacking, and doubling only applied to coupons up to fifty cents, which is maybe only what – 25 or 30% of coupons? I’ve never depended on doubling to make my savings. Were they doubling coupons higher than 50 cents in your area ? I can see how that would upset you, that would be some major amounts.
But Kroger’s prices and products are far superior to the other stores in my area. Publix is great for sale items, especially their BOGO, but their regular prices are through the roof! Target is much the same. You can make some great coupon deals at these two, and I certainly hit them up when I have some good sales all arranged, but I would never consider them for my everyday shopping. I’m not even all that impressed with Walmart. I do go to Aldi about twice a month. They are great for produce deal, and keep an eye on close-out merchandise for some excellent deals!
Here’s what I appreciate most about Kroger – huge sales that often run for several weeks, the special coupon packets they mail to my home, very good quality store brand products and good customer service. And number one – around here they mark down close to “sell by date” products to MOVE, Milk, produce, juice, yogurt, marked way, way down. Especially nice if I can throw down a coupon on top of a mark down. Then we cook it, freeze it, or make use of it fast and save more bucks. Just takes some flexibility!
Like I said, I guess it depends on where you live and what’s available and what you’re accustomed to.
Good-bye Kroger….Hello Meijer!
If respose to Mara-
My Kroger in Lawrenceburg doesn’t even let you use a coupon on a “manager’s special” item-One that has been reduced for fast sale (milk, yogurt, etc).
I think on the news they mentioned broccoli to be reduced by $1.50 or was to be priced at $1.50. Have you noticed broccoli has been way up the past 2 weeks at $2.49 instead of $1.99 or less?
I am skeptical of these new “lower” prices to come out.
I do not live in an area that has multiple grocery stores, so my choices are Kroger or Wal-mart or the smaller ones-IGA, JayC, Aldi. I am angry/frustrated over this!
I am very disappointed! Meijers and Rempke will probably follow Krogers lead but until they do I will do most of my shopping with the other guys. Kroger lowering prices now only means they were too high in the first place! Stinky move Krogers!!!
I’d pretty much given up couponing anyway since I went to grad school, but this is a big disappointment. I remember when Kroger would only double a certain number of coupons, you’d have little coupons from the sale ad, each which enabled you to double a coupon. I’d take my (then) boyfriend with me and he’d checkout as well so I could use twice as many. Perhaps that would be a solution? I used to do the “extreme couponing” back before it was the in thing, or a show, but it’s been awhile on that too. I just get my milk at Aldi’s anyway, where it’s always 1.99. And I did notice Kroger’s MUCH higher produce prices, so that’s probably why, now they can do us the HUGE favor of lowering them.
I knew it was coming. I wonder how long before the Memphis stores stop. They still double to 60 cents and take internet coupons. The store in my town doesn’t take internet coupons and only doubles to 50 cents and doesn’t use the coupons on the kroger card from my understanding (which is why I don’t shop there). The memphis store doesn’t limit the number of same coupons either. It will be a sad day when they change their rules here. I will shop more at target and I guess walmart though it isn’t my favorite store.
Very disappointing to see this change coming although given the change in the TX markets last year, I suspected it was on the horizon.
My advice to everyone: using whatever coupon database you prefer, search for coupons valued $1 or up when you are looking at the sale ads/match ups and building your shopping list so you can maximize your savings as well as your time.
Thank goodness for Aldi!
Why would they want to do that?! While i dont coupon much anymore since Extreme Couponing aired either, it was still nice to check for some really awesome deals and stock up every now and then. I dont understand why they would want to cut double coupons, could they really have been losing that much money on the “double” part they werent being reimbursed on?? Just seems like they will be losing alot of business this way… I for one probably wont shop there too much anymore bc Walmart has cheap prices but they dont double, so i dont ever shop there, same with Target. I dont know, maybe Kroger will surprise us… I’ll be staying tuned to Savings Lifestyle for all the updates!
Disclaimer: Savings Lifestyle did not pay me to say that, I just really do love Savings Lifestyle :)
I am not great about using coupons…I kind of go through spurts! I did just today go to Kroger for the Mega Sale and I used a ton of coupons. My original total was $276 and after Mega Sale and coupons, I paid $134. I did notice, though, that of the $140+ I saved, only $14 was due to double coupons. (I am not saying $14 isn’t a lot of savings…it is. But, it was far less than I thought it would have been.)
I am torn. I like getting things for free when they have their 10 for $10 and I have a 50 cents coupon. But, I am not super consistent about couponing. So, I would say if they do keep their prices lowered, I might benefit in the end.
I would say that I am going to switch to Meijer or WalMart, but honestly, I don’t like either one. WalMart doesn’t carry all the items I like to purchase and Meijer just bugs me…it seems like they are always out of stuff that I want.
Maybe I’ll just start buying even more at Costco!
I encourage everyone to get out their receipts and take a look at how much they’ve saved from the doubling. Of course, it varies trip to trip. It depends on your stores doubling policy. But, for example, since my store only doubles up to $1.00 (meaning any coupon .50 – .99 will become a $1 savings), it’s not every coupon that is an issue. I recently used almost $111 in paper coupons in one trip. That same trip resulted in an additional $17 savings because of “doubled” coupons. Bottom line, when you look at my total savings (coupons, doubled coupons, and store savings) for that trip, the amount from doubled coupons was a small portion of it. Yes, it adds up over time. But it’s not like every coupon doubles. It’s not like we aren’t taking advantage of store savings (the ones we get when we scan our loyalty cards). Yes, this new policy will mean a change. And, I’m skeptical of “lower prices.” We shall see about that. But my Kroger store is the only store in my area that doubles coupons. I already pay attention to whether I can get a better deal at one of the other options where I live.
Bottom line – no, I don’t agree that we will save 50% less if we’ve been using coupons. The amount of doubled coupons is not 50% of my savings. It will be an adjustment. And, it will make a difference in how we manage our shopping trips. And, it’s too bad that this is happening. But I don’t think it’s the huge, ugly deal that I’ve seen many indicate they believe it is (on this blog and others that I visit).
I live in the Columbus, OH, area, so I’m not sure how soon this might affect me. I won’t be surprised if it happens. Right now, I’m a big Aldi shopper. When I do shop at Kroger, it’s generally because I’m combining a sale price with a double coupon to get a really good deal. If I’m not able to get such deals in the future, I’m sure I’ll do less Kroger shopping.
Deb, this is just for Dayton, Cincinnati and Norther Kentucky for now. You are good with the Columbus stores (sounds like ya’ll have a lot of competition that would make it hard for Kroger to change there). BTW, we have a Kroger Columbus/Great Lakes list now too if you want to use it each week.
https://savingslifestyle.com/sale-shopping/kroger-great-lakes/
I was really disappointed to hear about the change in Kroger’s coupon policy; however, I guess we all suspected it would happen at some point. Having lived in different parts of the country, I knew the doubling was regional. I used to shop at Kroger and Meijer but during the last year I have shopped almost exclusively at Kroger. Even with the policy change, this will not change for me. I really do not like Meijer. My experience time and again is that if they have a great buy on something they won’t have it in stock by the time I get there. Even worse than that is the number of times I have had products ring up incorrectly at the register ….if you can even find a register open! I like Kroger’s fuel points and I love the mailbox coupons they send out. I Kroger brand or private selection over Meijer brand. It will be an adjustment but not enough to make me stop couponing.
To all those who don’t think that the doubling saves them alot of money……it does. The difference in getting a product for free and paying 50 cents for it is a big deal to some. Also, it is the mere principle of Kroger doing away with something that a lot of their customers count on. If I had to guess, I would say that this decision came mainly from the inventory standpoint. Kroger is often out of or low on coupon items that are also on sale. Eliminating the double coupons in their minds will save some of that inventory. Kroger’s customers should not be penalized for their buyers not being able to stock the stores properly.
I hope everyone who commented that they are not going to shop there anymore really sticks to it. I know I will and hopefully if enough people do, then this will really make them think about how they are impacting their customers and ultimately change something.
My ad paper says “Thousands of prices now lower than ever on items you love”. I’m not sure how they can make this statement. What I might love, someone else might hate. They would have to lower prices on pretty much everything to satisfy everyone and I really doubt that is going to happen. I will continue to buy my gift cards at Kroger, (by the way they are giving 4x the points through the 17th), but other than that it will have to be a stinkin’ good deal for me to take the time to shop there. :(
So sad! I’d first heard inklings of it on the “Extreme Couponing” show – because they’d stopped it in other major cities first. But, we’d prayed they’d not do it here! How sad for such a reputable company to cause so many STILL hard hit families to be even more hard hit! I used to love Kroger – I could count on them to help me to single-handedly feed my 20 and 2 year old girls! But, this angers me so much, I don’t want to patronize them any more! Ridiculous! I too hope that Bill Remke picks up on this and does himself a favor and takes their business! He is a good hometown boy, and Remke is a local institution that wouldn’t do this!
well here on the east coast, we never had the higher double coupons, just 50c and under which I do love sometimes, but lots of coupons in our market are now just appearing at 55c when they are 50c in other areas, so it’s starting to be the same effect. I just still buy whats cheapest where its cheapest between Kroger, Walmart, and Trader Joes, although I wish I could shop more at Kroger because I support their treatment of employees much more than Walmart.
I work at kroger, i get paid either way. So it really dose not effect me either way. I’ve worked there for over 6 years. I’ve seen many changes. And i have to say nothing last forever. Give it time they will change again.
Kristen, thanks for commenting! I hope they change it back very soon :)
I am a couponer and it has help feed my family. I am disapointed in Kroger and I will take my businnes to Wal Mart . Kroger I think you are making a big mistake!!!!!!!!!!!!!