My syndicated Super-Couponing Tips column for the week is entitled “Tips on reusable bags – and when not to use them.“
Here’s an excerpt:
“Multiple national supermarkets offer discounts of five to 10 cents off your total at the checkout for each reusable bag you use on that trip. If you’re actually saving money by using reusable bags, it may motivate you to bring them with on each trip too.”
Read this entire column at the Napa Valley Register.
My Super-Couponing Tips column appears in newspapers around the country to a weekly readership of over 20 million people! Learn more about my column’s syndication at this link.
Miss a column? Here’s an archive of all of my past columns I’ve shared on the blog.
wolverine70 says
I’ve yet to see any incentives for using reusable bags in my area, but that would be one way to get a lot of people to start using them.
Do you wash your bags on any type of set schedule?
Coupon Maven says
Mariano’s give you fuel points for every reusable bag you bring, and Target gives you .05 off your total for every reusable bag you bring in. You do sometimes need to let the cashier know to credit you for these. If you use the self-checker at Target, there is an option to touch how many bags you’re bringing before you start scanning your items.
I typically wash mine twice a year – once in the spring and also in the fall. They can’t go in the dryer, so those are good times that I can hang them outside to dry in the sun.
wolverine70 says
For a future column, and my apologies if I already suggested this, I wonder if your experiences staying in a higher cost area, that’s getting higher tax might be a good idea? The capping of the SALT deduction had to have hit you harder, living in metro Chicago than in many areas of the country. For those similarly affected, saving money, including coupons, becomes ever more important.
Coupon Maven says
I have considered this, especially since our daughter is living in Chicago. Her perspective on shopping is so different and funny.
For example, I sent her a joke I saw online involving water bottles. I said she should prank her roommate with this, and she said “Are you kidding? We don’t buy water bottles! The water bottle tax is not worth it!”
She came home the following weekend when Jewel had that Ice Mountain sale (buy two 24-packs and get 2 free 8-packs sparkling flavored Ice Mountain.) While she was home, I told her she should get some because it was a good deal. We went to Jewel together, and she picked up a few other things. As we got to the checkout, she watched the staff begin to bag her groceries, and she was going to stop them, and then she caught herself. “Oh, I am going to get bags and not have to pay for them here. I was going to tell them no bags!”
It was funny, but she was delighted she would have some plastic bags to put in their wastebaskets.
We live so far out in the suburbs that none of these things have affected us (thankfully… yet.) I’m just not quite sure how I would shape a column around it when the best advice is “Get out of the city to shop!” :)
wolverine70 says
Very interesting. I was just floored when Illinois passed the tax on resold or turned in cars this year plus a likely increase in the sales tax statewide (again) and the ‘progressive’ income tax going on the ballot. I love the central part of the state but would be hard pressed to suggest anyone consider living there unless they were relocating from New York, Connecticut or California.
Pat says
I never knew Target credited you for using bags, I’ve seen the option at the self checkout, but didn’t know they credited you for it. Our HyVee grocery store credits .05 cents for each bag, most of the time I remember to take my own bags, but not all the time.