One of our Facebook fans, Kasha, asked a question this morning about eCoupon sites.:
Do you ladies use any sites that load coupons directly to your store cards? I came across a site yesterday and didn’t know that it was possible other than directly on the grocers site. Printables don’t work for me b/c I don’t have a printer hooked up. Thought this might be a good alternative. Any thoughts/experience?
Of course we have thoughts! 
There are some great sites out there that will load an eCoupon right onto a participating stores shopper/loyalty card. Cellfire and ShortCuts work with stores like Kroger, Marsh, ShopRite and Giant Eagle. Kroger also has their own digital eCoupon page and often includes P&G product eCoupons. These coupons do not double, even if your store doubles paper coupons.
So how do these work. Let’s say you want to use Cellfire.
- You would create an account (Cellfire uses your cell number to login). During the account set up, you will add in all your applicable Shoppers cards and the member number associated with them (found on back of card- you will need this number to sign up)
- Then you choose which eCoupons you would like to have added to your shoppers card. Once you click on it, they are automatically saved to your designated shoppers card.
- When you check out at the store, be sure to scan your card. Then the eCoupons will automatically come off for participating products (often on the receipt it will say eSavings or eCoupon right next to the product).
Like Kasha mentioned, these sites can be great for people who do not have access to a printer or the Sunday coupon inserts. These are also great for people who are just starting out and want to save but know they are not ready for keeping track of paper coupons (I have a few family members like this!). Any savings is better than no savings!
However, we do want to put out a little warning. It used to be that you could have an eCoupon on your card and use a paper coupon for the same item (called “stacking”). Now, the eCoupon will override any paper coupon you try to use. So, let’s say you load a $0.50 Cheerios eCoupon on your card. But when you check out you try to use a $0.75 paper coupon instead. The system will not allow the cashier to remove the eCoupon and use the higher valued paper coupon. The eCoupon will always trump the paper- and that is bad news if your store would have doubled that $0.75 to $1.50! So what we suggest is two things: only add eCoupons higher than $1 or only add if you know for sure you won’t use a paper coupon.
There is also a fairly new eCoupon site called SavingStar. At SavingStar you load eCoupons onto your cards just like the other sites (they include a ton of stores like Kroger, CVS, Giant Eagle, Winn-Dixie, Shop-Rite and more!). However on SavingStar, your savings does not show up on your receipt. Instead you account is credited the savings and once you reach $10 you can cash it out via PayPal, Amazon credit or bank deposit. This is awesome because you can stack the paper and eCoupon savings- no worry about one cancelling the other out. I have already chased out once on SavingStar and am almost ready to do so again. Read even more about SavingStar here (BTW- you can also enter to Win 6 months of FREE GROCERIES from SavingStar!)
We hope that answered some questions for all of you. If you ever have a question, like Kasha did, please give us a shout on Facebook or via email (4our2cents@4our2cents.com). We love to answer your questions and help any way we can! Maybe your question will inspire our next post!
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