Store coupons and rewards

Wal-Mart

Wal-mart is the only retailer that will give you the full value of a coupon and apply the overage to the rest of your order.

Some examples:
Gillette men's disposable razors $3 coupon, 2 ct pack $1.97 at my local store = $1.03 to spend on other goodies
Pampers Buy A Pack of Diapers, Get A Pack of Wipes Free (value up to $3.99) coupon
Diapers = $8.96
Wipes = $2.97
Coupon = ($3.99)
Total = $7.94

Wal-Mart will also price-match at the register, so if you are brave enough to carry another store's sales flyer with you, they will mark it down right there. This might be more advantageous than their Savings Catcher app, as the app will only refund against grocery stores and not drug stores. Personally, I try to limit my exposure to Wal-Mart as much as possible, and I'm fortunate enough to have every grocery and drug store within a 10 mile radius of my home or work.

Target

Target allows you to stack your savings by offering a great variety of store coupons on their website, and sometimes in the newspaper inserts. They will accept up to 4 identical manufacturer's coupons in the same transaction. Add their Cartwheel offers for even more savings.
Here is the formula for how they calculate the final price with an example:

	Speed Stick Gear Deodorant
Sale Price	$3.99
- Target Coupon	-$1.00
Net Value	$2.99
- Cartwheel offer % off net value	-25.00%
in $	-$0.75
- Manufacturer coupon	-$2.00
Final Price	$0.24

Don't forget your reusable bags, Target will give you five cents per bag, and every nickel adds up!
I also have printed out my Cartwheel bar-code and keep it in my Target envelope, it is so much easier to have the cashier scan that piece of paper than remember to have them scan my phone. Your bar-code is unique to you, so no matter how much you change the offers, your bar-code stays the same.

* I used a BOGO coupon this weekend (5/23/2015) and they gave me the full value of the coupon even though the item was less. Not sure if the cashier just typed in the value or it rang up that way.

Shaw's

Shaw's is the only store in the area that still doubles coupons. Normally, I find Shaw's way too expensive to do my regular shopping there, but they do carry a better and higher quality selection than Market Basket. By taking advantage of sales and coupons, I often get items for free. Shaw's is also good for having unadvertised deals or putting things on end-caps to clear out inventory. I'll do my best to post those here so you don't miss out!

Drugstores

Drugstores each have their own rewards programs with their own version of rewards dollars and discounts. To avoid getting overwhelmed, start with the store you already shop at. Since I already got my prescriptions at Walgreen's, I started with them. They are probably the most complicated because they have their own store coupon book that changes every month, various other educational booklets with store coupons in the back, and their rewards program that sometimes adds points that you can save up and redeem later and sometimes straight up register rewards which is a coupon that prints at the register which is like cash to use on your next purchase. Since I started with the most complicated, the rest were easier to learn.