Clip and save: Regina woman makes good use of coupons

With inflation eating away at our wallets and making life much harder to afford, how can you fight back?

One woman thinks the grocery store is one of the best places to save money.

Regina’s Raiza Ocampo is a big fan of using coupons to their fullest potential. She joined the Greg Morgan Morning Show to share some tips.

She said one of your most powerful tools is price matching. Some stores will match the lower price of any of their competitors, as long as you show them proof.

“For example, the other day, I was at FreshCo. (Chicken) drumsticks were on sale at No Frills for $1.99 per pound. I saved 50 per cent because at FreshCo they were like $3.99 per pound,” she explained.

“And it’s fresh meat, not the meat that’s going bad and they have to put a sticker on it,” she giggled.

She uses a free phone app called Flip, which makes the whole process easier.

She also said it’s very important to pay attention to prices.

“After you’re comfortable with price matching, you’re going to automatically gain knowledge of what prices are that are on sale. Like, before, back in the day, I didn’t know that I should be buying lots of ground beef when it goes down to $2.88 per pound. I used to think $3.99 per pound was good,” Ocampo recalled.

Once you have the hang of price matching, she says there’s another big money-saving technique to use. It might seem a little obvious, but not everyone takes advantage of it.

“Get learning how to use coupons and printing them so that you can use that on top of price matching. Or be more aware in stores that coupons that will be displayed, but you just have to keep an eye out for them. And just take a little collection, like a photo album collection (with you),” she said.

Ocampo is also a fan of in-store points programs like, for instance, PC Optimum points. But while they can save you some money, she doesn’t think they’re completely foolproof.

“You have to be careful because some items have in-store points offers come because they’re expensive. So you have to bust out your Flip app, price match it and get the points. That’s where the real discount comes,” she said.