One thing that tends to cause confusion on coupons is when it reads “one coupon per purchase”. I have had a few questions about this recently and wanted to clarify.
Per purchase refers to each item you are buying. You can buy 1 item or 20 of the same items and you may use one of the same coupon on each of those items.
This is most pronounced on the Proctor and Gamble coupons. They will write in red letters “limit one coupon per purchase.” That does not mean you can only use one like coupon per shopping trip, it means you may use one of those coupons on each like item you buy.
Now if the coupon reads “one coupon per person” or “one coupon per transaction” that does indeed mean you can just use one each time you shop. It doesn’t matter how many of the same items you buy, you only get to use one of the exact same coupon.
The Proctor and Gamble coupons do not limit you to one per transaction but they do limit you to four coupons per shopping trip.
Now the example of the Iams coupon above is nice and easy because they say “one per purchase” and then right underneath “limit four per transaction” so to me that is pretty clear. You can use one of those Iams coupons per bag you buy and you can buy 4 bags in total per shopping trip and use (4) of the coupons.
It does get a little blurry with other coupons. Recently some Johnson & Johnson coupons have had a new clause “no more than 4 coupons (of any kind) for the same product in the same transaction.”
Now that is clear as mud really but the coupon also says “limit one coupon per person.” So that is the starting place for me- you can buy one Cortaid at a time and use a total of one of the same coupons.
I believe that they are saying with the no more than four coupons is in very special and very rare circumstances when multiple coupons can be used on an item. The best example I can think of is at Publix where they will sometimes accept a manufacturer coupon, a competitor coupon and a Publix store coupon on an item. That would be 3 coupons for that item.
Another example is at Walgreens where they can occasionally have an in ad coupon, a coupon booklet coupon and a manufacturer coupon for the same item. That would be a total of 3 coupons on the same item. If for some reason there was another store coupon for that same product from a different source (like an activity book or a store flyer) well that would be 4 coupons on the exact same item. That would be the limit and you could not use a 5th coupon.
So obviously those situations almost never come up but that is how I read the new clause on those coupons.
Grace says
So if I were to go to target and buy 4 bags of the Iams dog food would they scan that same coupon 4 times?
Michelle says
Convincing the cashier that “per purchase” means per item is a different story. I ran into this problem at Wal-mart. I had several coupons for Muir Glen, and she would not ring them up in the same transaction. She said she would do each item separately, so I ended up with five receipts for less than a dollar. Each one was on my debit card, so in the end it cost Wal-mart more because of transaction fees. I just went with it. Sometimes you get a cashier that just doesn’t understand.
Charlene says
No Grace, you can only use each coupon one time. If you wanted to buy 4 bags you would need to buy 4 newspapers and cut out four of the coupons.
sbuxqponr says
i just had this argument with the cashier and manager at Target on Pleasant Grove and Fairway (95747). I was buying 12 Campbells Chunky soups and wanted to use 6 $1/2 coupons. First she said she could only take one coupon per transaction (saying that transaction and purchase meant the same thing). After I clearly pointed out that on the other coupons (such as the OralB floss coupon) specifically say one coupon per purchase and 4 coupons per transaction, she agreed to let me use 4 in a transaction instead of one. My argument was that if there was no wording on the Campbell’s coupon that limited how many per transaction, why wouldn’t she let me use the other 2 Campbell’s coupon? So frustrating! How do I explain this to the cashiers? I make the utmost effort to follow all the rules all the time, so why do I feel discriminated against? That “Extreme Couponing” show is giving the rest of us a bad stereotype I think because people have been showing much more resistance to accepting coupons. Why is that? They are still getting paid, just not out of my pocket!
lyra says
It is frustrating. I had a cashier at a CVS tell me he was right that “per purchase” was he could only accept 1 coupon at a time per transaction. And that he was “doing me a favor” taking my 2 coupons for 2 items. Even though I told him it didn’t say “per transaction” and per purchase meant per item. I’m not going to argue with someone about wording, even though I know “I’m right” it’s not worth it, he was set in his mind already. 🙂 “Doing me a favor”…whatever buddy. I just won’t go to that cashier again. I have definitely noticed a lot more cashier’s are reading coupons now with the airing of TLC’s show. And I do want to make sure I’m following the rules, so stores will continue to accept coupons. I wish cashiers were more educated on coupons and their wording.
Just an aside, something else that’s confusing for cashier’s, when stores pay for advertising on a manufacture’s coupon. It will say “redeemable at blah blah”. So the cashier only thinks that manufacture coupon will work at that other store. I’ve had manufacture coupons rejected because of that. So I don’t patron the store that advertises on the coupon. 😀
By the way Charlene, I really appreciate all that you do. You are a super mom/woman! Thanks for sharing everything with your website.
JJ says
Proctor & Gamble???
History
William Procter, a candlemaker, and James Gamble, a soapmaker, emmigrated from England and Ireland respectively. They settled in Cincinnati initially and met when they married sisters, Olivia and Elizabeth Norris.[4] Alexander Norris, their father-in-law, called a meeting in which he persuaded his new sons-in-law to become business partners. On October 31, 1837, as a result of the suggestion, Procter & Gamble was born.
Copied from wikipedia 😉