Coupons 101: Publix

Ahhh Publix. I've only recently started shopping at Publix thanks to their wonderful weekly Buy One Get One Free special. Unlike the usual store circular/flyer Publix has a Buy One Get One Free Flyer from Sunday to Saturday. They do advertise their other sales in the same flyer and if you can't find your Publix flyer in the newspaper they have a stack of the flyers right beside the grocery carts in the store.

How do I make my Deals and Steals work at Publix?
But One Get One Free (BOGOF) deals are great, but not always a big money saver as some people swear but. Notice in the picture above I've circled all the items I know I have coupons for. If you look in the bottom left of the picture you'll see the Pam cooking spray I circled. The very bottom of the blurb under the Pam spray says 'Save up to $3.39'. Why do I care. I'm going to buy one and get the other one for free right? WRONG. I never, ever, ever spend that much on cooking spray no matter if I get one free or not. Wal-Mart has cooking spray for $1.29, if I bought 2 of the Pam cooking sprays from Wal-Mart it would cost me $2.58 which is still cheaper than BOGOF at Publix.

BUT, and here's the kicker. When Publix runs their BOGOF and when you take your items to check out, both of your items will ring up as a price. You wont get one Pam cooking spray for $3.39 and the other for $0.00. You'll get the first cooking spray to ring up as $1.69 and the other one that is suppose to be free for $1.69. Since Publix's product ring up this way you can use TWO manufacture coupons for each BOGOF product.

Here's the scenario:

Pam Cooking Spray: Buy One Get One Free
So I'll but 2 Pam Cooking Spray. I also have 2 manufacture coupons for Pam cooking spray for $.55 each. So instead of getting 2 Pam cooking sprays for $3.39 I'll be getting them for $2.29 which makes them cheaper than buying 2 of them at Wal-Mart.

Also Publix is known for doubling their coupons. I'm not sure what the price cut off is, but the smaller amount coupons are doubled. So if you had 2 - $.30 coupon off of Pam cooking spray they will double both coupons and you can get the cooking spray for $2.16.

Mystery Coupon
The weekly flyer in the paper for Publix has a coupon on the front that say Mystery $.01 Coupon/Product that is only good for Sunday and Monday of that week. Take the coupon with you on Sunday or Monday and look for the mystery item. It's usually in the back of the store. If you find the correct item and purchase your product you'll get that product for 1 PENNY with the coupon. Lots of times you can just ask a cashier what the product is and they'll tell you too.