Miami

Expert South Florida Couponer Reveals Her Secrets

Marlene Ramirez is what is known as an extreme couponer. She has thousands of dollars worth of products she’s paid little or no money for. Ramirez calls it her "stockpile."

Her southwest Miami-Dade home looks like a small store with inventory stacked up on shelves and in a packed freezer. In her refrigerator, she points at 12 packages of brand name hotdogs and says, "all those hot dogs were for free, plus the sausages which are in the freezer."

As Ramirez gave NBC 6 a tour of her home, she showed off her bedroom where she keeps another "stockpile." This one has toiletries and medicine worth an estimated $1,600.

"I paid approximately $375," Ramirez said. That’s thanks to her shopping technique which combines sales with multiple coupons. Each week, Ramirez collects coupon magazines in the mail and newspaper. She also picks up coupon magazines she calls "green and purple" at the entrance of Publix. Last, she goes in search of what she calls "blinkies" which are coupons that come out of dispensers on store shelves.

Once she’s collected all of the coupons, she organizes them in a file, separating them by dates and coupon magazines. For example, she puts the Smart Source flyers in one file and the Red Plum inserts in another.

After filing them, she reads blogs that tell her what store special can be matched up with her coupons for even more savings. Some coupon bloggers know what will be on sale before the sale even starts. Since Ramirez gets coupons from family and friends, she has dozens of the same coupons and only cuts what she needs so she doesn’t waste time.

When she has her match-ups, she makes a shopping list and heads to Publix Thursday morning at 7 a.m., which is when the weekly sale begins. She wants to make sure another couponer doesn’t clear the shelves before her.

She also familiarizes herself with the store’s coupon policy and figures out which competitor coupons the store will accept; the information is posted on a sign at the entrance.
“You can use a Publix coupon, you can also use a competitor coupon, you can also use a manufacturer coupon to maximize savings,” Publix Spokesperson Nicole Krauss said.

Ramirez lowers the price of each item by using her own techniques.

If she buys a product worth $2 and gets a second free, she can still use a store or competitor coupon on each product, including the free one. On top of that, she can use a manufacturer coupon on each product and if all four coupons are for 50 cents off, she ends up getting both products for free.

She also makes money on some items if the discounts she has in coupons exceed the price of the product. She uses that surplus to help pay for the other items.

During a recent shopping trip, Ramirez bought over $100 worth of products at Publix and after combining coupons ended up paying only 20 cents. She credits much of her savings to bloggers like http://thekrazycouponlady.com and http://www.iheartpublix.com who have taught her the ropes. She also follows the Instagram account www.instagram.com/sophiecoupons which shows her the local daily match-ups and has even started her own account, www.instagram.com/canecouponer305.

In order to understand the match-ups, you have to learn the lingo. Here are some examples that may help:

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