Crissy Thompson (pictured left) is among the coupon clipping elite. 11Alive News followed her around one day to learn some of her secrets. At a local Publix, Crissy managed to get two-thirds off her grocery bill and at CVS picked up $140 worth of goods for $5. Often, she spends only $10 a week on groceries and that’s with 3 kids and a husband. Check out some of her techniques and her favorite coupon web sites, inside…

Crissy’s incredible results don’t come without preparation. She usually spends an hour week getting prepared for her shopping trip which takes her 3 to 4 hours and includes 3 to 7 local stores.

Like any good soldier, Crissy starts by gathering her ammunition. She does this by buying 2 copies of the Sunday double paper which renders 4 sets of coupons. Next she hits her favorite web sites which include: gottadeal.com and hotcouponworld.com

Crissy decided to show the news crew a sampling of what she does and they proceeded to hit CVS and a Publix, two of her favorite stores.

At Publix, Crissy made good use of the buy 1 get 1 free coupons. Most grocery stores will also let you buy just one item and get 50% off. If you can then pair that with a coupon, you can get the item for free or next to nothing.

Crissy also explained that when a coupon reads “1 coupon per purchase” you are not actually limited to using it only once. For example she took 2 boxes of cereal that were buy 1 get 1 free for $3.79 a box. Crissy also had 2, $3 off coupons to go with each of the boxes of cereal. Crissy made over $2 on the cereal. At checkout Crissy’s total was $15.38, she saved $36.22.

Next they went to CVS. Crissy says the best deals there are coupons and Extra Care Bucks. Extra Care Bucks are given on specially marked items. You receive the bucks at checkout and use them on a following purchase. Most people would simply use these Extra Care Bucks the next time they came to the store, or forget about them altogether. However, Crissy uses them the same visit by splitting up her purchase into separate transactions.

They arrived at the checkout counter where Crissy proceeded to split her checkout into 5 transactions. She took the Extra Care Bucks from each transaction and applied it to each following transaction. Apparently, CVS has no problem doing this for Crissy. All said and done, Crissy bought approximately $140 worth of merchandise for under $5. Crazy, huh?

It looks like the Crissy-craze is catching on, she will even have her own website soon. What are your favorite little-known coupon tricks?

If I Didn’t See It With my Own Eyes [11 Alive] (Thanks to Josh!)
(Photo: 11 Alive)

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