The Biggest Secret There Is To Saving Money: STACKING!

There is only one true secret to saving money that can be applied to almost any purchase you will ever make in your life, and that is stacking.

What exactly is stacking? Well it is an art form really - something that you become really good at over time with lots of practice. It is, simply put, applying as many discounts, rebates, coupons, rewards, cash back, promotions, and sales as you possibly can to a single purchase or transaction! By combining all of these small to large discounts together you can often turn the most mediocre of purchases into an amazing deal.

Of course, not all of these money saving techniques can be applied to every purchase that you make. The trick is first finding what looks to be an okay deal on something you want or need to buy and then scouring around to find what else you can stack with it to make a good deal even better. If you are really creative, then it is even possible to walk away from a purchase having made money. For example, if you read the Safeway portion of our guide to saving money using Air Miles, you will see that you can walk away with a net gain using just Air Miles and nothing else. So you’re already ahead, right? Now think what would happen if you stack a few more things with this like manufacturer’s coupons, credit card rewards, or discounted gift cards. Even more profit!

You have to admit, there is nothing quite like getting paid to take an item off a store’s shelves!

What Are The Different Stacking Options?

I already mentioned many of the different things that can be stacked together to create your own custom deal, but they each deserve a little more explanation.

1) Sales – A good sale is the foundation of any potential deal. Start by finding the lowest possible price you can by comparing prices at many different stores, watching flyers, reading online deal sites, and doing online searches.

2) Credit Card Rewards – This is the easiest thing to stack! Always, always, always make sure you are earning credit card rewards on every purchase you make and that you have the credit card that gives you the absolute best return on your spending. Our in depth study of The Best Credit Cards In Canada will help you choose the right one for you!

3) Rewards Programs – If the store you end up buying your item from has a rewards program of any kind, you might as well be collecting the points and earning those rewards. However, don’t change your shopping habits and make your purchase at a store solely because of a rewards program. You want the rewards to be a bonus, not a hindrance! Check out our Rewards Programs section to learn how to earn rewards much faster and get the most value from them.

4) Rewards Bonuses And Coupons – Timing your purchase when a store is putting on a good rewards promotion, like Shoppers Drug Mart 20x Points Days, while still taking advantage of a good sale can really pay off. You’ll also want to keep an eye out for reward program coupons that reward you with large lump sums of points or multiply your rewards by a big factor. Coupons can apply to a specific product you are buying or when you spend a minimum amount of money at the store. You may even be able to use both of these types of coupons together. Try it!

5) Manufacturer’s Coupons – Companies that want to entice you to buy their new or existing products often issue coupons for those products. These coupons are treated like cash by the stores that accept them because they get reimbursed for the full value of the coupon and that means they can always be stacked with any other offer! You may also be used to only seeing $.50 coupons and the like. But, if you look in the right places, you can find high value coupons and even Free Product Coupons (FPCs). That’s right, with those coupons you pay nothing!

6) Store Coupons – Stores themselves will often issue their own coupons in their flyer, magazines, or inside their actual store. If these coupons apply to a specific product, you should even be able to stack it with a manufacturer’s coupon or a rewards coupon.

7) Coupon Multipliers – This is when a particular store has a policy or runs a promotion that multiplies the value of all manufacturer’s coupons. It is very common for stores to do this in the USA, but is extremely rare in Canada. I have actually never been able to multiply a coupon myself, nor have I come across a local store that will do it. Do you know of any?

8) Coupon Books – In recent times coupon books like the Entertainment Book, Jonny’s 2-For-1 Coupons (Atlantic Provinces), or even Peelers (Atlantic Provinces) have become quite popular. You have to pay to purchase these books but the coupons inside are so valuable that the book pays for itself in no time. Coupons found in these books usually apply to dining, entertainment, and services as opposed to groceries and retail purchases. Believe me, using a coupon book is MUCH easier than hunting for coupons yourself! I buy one myself almost every year.

9) Cash Back – When shopping online there are several sites out there that will give you cash back on your purchases if you first sign into their site and then click through to your final destination, say Dell.ca or Sears.ca, to shop. Great Canadian Rebates is the top Canadian cash back site and Big Crumbs is a good USA based site that you can use when doing your cross border shopping (Ebay, Walmart, etc). I have personally earned over $700 from using these sites during the past three or four years since I started with them.

10) Online Coupons – Whenever you are checking out at an online store, it is very common to see a box labeled coupon code. There are tons of coupons out there at any given time and, if you spend a little time searching before you checkout, you’ll often be rewarded with a nice discount. The best site to use when looking for online coupons is RetailMeNot.com, but Google searches will often produce good results as well.

11) Price Matching – Many Canadian stores, both online and offline, have price match policies. Taking advantage of these policies can save you a lot of money because many places will not only match the price, but they will beat it! This can also help if you have a coupon, gift card, or simply want to collect reward points at a specific store and that store doesn’t have the cheapest price, but they do price match.

12) Discounted Gift Cards – Every now and then it is possible to buy gift cards for your favourite stores at a discount. This can be done using a cash back website like those mentioned above, using the MBNA Smart Cash MasterCard at a grocery store to get 3% cash back on gift card purchases at the gift card mall, from Ebay or Kijiji, or through a gift card discount program like SavingSmart.

13) Clearance Items – This isn’t much different than shopping during a sale, but timing your purchases after major holidays or at the end of a season can result in substantial savings that can often be stacked with something else to make them even better. Buying stuff that you need for next year, this year, will definitely save you a bundle.

14) Gifts With Purchase – Beauty product vendors are famous for giving away gifts when you purchase their expensive products. If you are going to be buying the product anyway, you might as well wait until they offer a free gift that goes with it. Other stores do this as well, like Shoppers Drug Mart will offer $10 or $20 gift cards to gas stations, stores, and restaurants when you purchase a $50 or $75 in the store on a special day.

15) Trade-ins – This isn’t something you will hear very much about because not that many people do it. It is particularly good for getting large discounts when buying video games. Stores will sometimes run promotions where if you trade in a few games with a minimum trade in value, then you can get a brand new game for free or very cheap. If you pay close attention to what games qualify, you can sometimes buy them new or used elsewhere for less than the total cost of the new game. If you can buy 3 games to trade in for $10 each and then trade them in for a brand new $60 game that you want, you’ve just saved $30!

Stacking Will Save You More Money Than You Can Count

I wanted to give a specific example of how much money you can save through stacking, but the truth is I stack so often and save so much money that I can’t really keep track of it all! Suffice to say that I save many thousands of dollars a year by stacking promotions and discounts in one way or another! I also know that I’m not the best stacker out there and that I miss good stacking opportunities all the time.

Do you have experience with stacking? If so, please leave a comment and share your methods and techniques with the rest of us! How about a personal story about how you’ve recently applied stacking to save money?