Believe it or not we do the majority of our shopping at Target. We have an awesome Super Target by our house and I love that I can get my groceries and pick up some other random item I may need at the same time. Target is my one stop shop. A lot of these tips are specific to Target because I have only set foot in a regular grocery store once or twice in the last year.
1. Download the Cartwheel App. No, seriously, run don't walk to the App store or the Play store and download this. There are HUNDREDS of offers on this app ranging from 5% to 50% off! Sometimes there is a tag on the shelf indicating there is a cartwheel for that product but a lot of times there isn't. The tags aren't that different from their Red Card signs on a product shelf tag. If you're unsure if a product has a cartwheel use the handy dandy scan feature located within the app and scan the products bar code, if there is an offer you can add it and save. Most cartwheel offers are good for up to 4 products, some have limitations so read the fine print, most high percentage offers on high price tag items have limits of one or two products per offer.
Most cartwheel offers are for Targets house brands, Up & Up, Market Pantry, and Archer Farms. Don't let that discourage you from trying these brands! I've yet to meet a house brand I didn't like. I find that Archer Farms items have similar prices to their national brand counterparts so if there is a national brand item that's cheaper with a coupon I'll always default to that.
Don't want to do all the leg work of finding out if a sale item also has a cartwheel? They do it for you! When you open the app there will be section called Collections, find the one called Weekly Ad, that's where you will find everything that's on sale and has a cartwheel offer! Collections are also a great place to look if you're trying to find a bunch of items related to a specific event, such as the upcoming Labor Day holiday.
2. Download the Target app. Yes, they are two separate apps! The Target app usually has mobile coupons that, some of them are OK coupons, some of them are not so great. It's usually worth checking out if you need some sort of apparel.
3. Go to the Target website and print coupons. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and under the heading of 'Ways to Save' you will see coupons under there. Click that and you can choose which ones you want to print. These almost always differ from the mobile coupons but sometimes include all the mobile coupons so it may be worth looking here first before going to the mobile app.
4. The RED card. There are several different levels of the RED card and they all save you 5% off your total purchase. There is a debit card which turns in to an ACH payment from your bank so there is no credit card bill to pay off each month, I myself use the debit card and it takes a few days for the payments to come out so you have to judge if that's worth it to you. There are also a RED card that's only useable at Target and there is a Target VISA that can be used anywhere. Again, they all get you 5% off your shopping trip EVERY TIME at Target.
5. Stacking coupons and sales. This is where you can really save. Target allows you to stack one store coupon, one manufacturer's coupon, and a cartwheel offer. Recently I had to purchase baby shower gifts, diapers (Pampers) were on sale that week, I found manufacturer coupons for $1.50 off and printed two, Target had a Cartwheel for 5% off, then used my RED card on the entire purchase, the diapers ended up being pretty cheap (I can't recall the sale price). I also purchased a bath set, it wasn't on sale to start but I had a $2 off coupon and there was a cartwheel for 20% off, not to mention the RED card as well, I paid around $5 for the set, saving myself almost 50% off the regular price.
6. This one might make others mad behind you in line so tread carefully. Gift Card offers. You can find several offers at Target that say, purchase 2 get a free $5 gift card, or purchase 10 items from this brand get a gift card, or spend X amount of dollars and get a gift card. You've seen them, you know what I'm talking about. You can always use these gift cards on another order so you can separate your shopping trip to maximize your dollar. Do this at off peak times, Saturday afternoons are NOT a good time to do this :) Recently there was a back to school offer where if you spent a certain amount you would get a $5 gift card, having three kids in school I was going to hit that limit before I got all of kid #2's supplies. I was also going to buy an espresso machine that day. (Yes, they're related, keep reading). So I purchased all the school supplies, got my $5 gift card, then started another order for my espresso machine. The espresso machine was $39.99 and there was a 20% off cartwheel offer, so it ended up being $31.99 after the cartwheel and after the $5 gift card I paid $26.99. AWESOME!
There are so many ways to save at Target and I have found that their store brands really rival national brands and in a lot of cases are better. We have switched over to Up & Up for toilet paper, paper towels, paper plates, cleaning supplies, OTC medications, just to name a few. And their Market Pantry items are great too, our fridge and freezer are stuffed with red and white packaging.
