Addicted to Target? Yeah, me too! I love Target, but NOT as much as my husband! Every time I check in with him we have a variation of this conversation:
Me: “Hey did you get the kids, yet?”
Him: “Yeah, T and I are at Target.”
Me: “Oh my gosh, stop going to the store!”
With how many times this family goes to Target
I am NOT coupon clipper, like at all. I pretty much am terrible at it. These tips are practical and simple but do save us quite a bit.
Target REDCard
The first and most obvious tip for saving at Target is to get the REDCard. I held off for a while because it was a credit card before. I was always told that store credit cards are the worst idea because their interest is through the roof. Also, we just don’t do credit cards, period.
But Target also has a DEBIT card. It just links to your regular checking account. There is literally no reason for us not to use it over our regular debit card. It comes out of the same account. The one big difference is that we save 5% off our total. 5% isn’t a ton, but it definitely helps! Now we automatically get 5% off our purchase just for using our REDCard. Super easy. This is on top of any store deals or Cartwheel coupons that we use.
If you shop at Target and don’t have the REDCard… Get it now. It’s silly not to have it! It costs you nothing! It also gets you free 2-day shipping when you shop online! The gift card deals are usually available online too!
To see how you can make money back on top of some of these gift card deals online, check out Ebates! You can also read my post about it HERE!
Use this link to receive $10 with your first qualifying purchase!
Cartwheel App
My husband is actually the expert with this! He is awesome at finding the right deals on the Cartwheel app and stacking them with the store deals. The free app is now combined with the regular Target Mobile app and allows you to browse the deals and place them on your list. At the register, you scan ONE barcode to apply ALL of your coupons that you added to your list.
Get the Target App to Watch Sale Cycles
I am addicted to soda… I know it’s bad for me, but you know what? It keeps me from killing people. Soda is one of those things that buying a huge amount at a deal is actually way better. It doesn’t exactly go bad… Does it even have an expiration date? Probably. But we’ve never reached it, because,
It turns out, the soda brands are on a sale cycle. The Pepsi products will be on sale for 3 for $10 or 4 for $12. Then the Coke products will have a similar deal. When we see that deal, we stock up on our Dr. Pepper for the addict (me). And stack it up in our supply closet. By the time we run out, it’s about time for the deal again!
Most of their sales are like this and once you understand the patterns on things that you buy often you can plan your budget accordingly. When we stock up we end up spending less overall. The mobile app makes it really easy to keep track of deals because you can use the search feature to quickly find any deals that are relevant to you instead of flipping through the paper catalogs.
Also Watch for Gift Card Deals
Household products, baby food, diapers and other commonly bought items in our house will often have a gift card offer. This is also on a cycle. Most of them are things that we can stock up on (like diapers) so it is worth it to buy $25 or $50 (with Cartwheel deals a lot of the time getting more product for our money) then getting a gift card back. We have gone to Target before and paid completely with gift cards that we had received from previous trips. All on things that we would have brought spread out.
An example of this is when we buy the little snack pouches for our kids. They are great for keeping in the car and having on hand, even for the three-year-old. These snack pouches are VERY OFTEN on the cartwheel app. We can usually get 5% off of four of the pouches. This allows us to get a couple more of them for the same amount of money.
If we also watch for the gift card deal that also happens a LOT with these pouches, we save some more. The deal is usually “buy $15 worth of the pouches and receive a $5 gift card.” That’s a pretty good deal on its own! Totally worth buying 15 pouches to get $5 back! The reasoning? Those pouches WILL get eaten. They don’t expire quickly.
We find deals like this throughout the store. It’s so fun to go to the register and pay completely or almost completely with gift cards then get some more gift cards back with the new deals.
Buying a gift for a mom or a teacher? Or a Target-a-
What about you?
There are probably a lot of ways to save even more! These are just the ways that take very little thought and so are ideal for us! Most of this I do AS I’m shopping. A quick search on the app. Add it to my “wallet” on Cartwheel and when we get to the register, we’re ready to go! As said in an earlier post, anything that we can, we get from Aldi but at this
How do you keep from spending your whole paycheck on Target goods? Leave your tips!
Great tips! I’m at target at least once a week! I’ve actually never tried the cartwheel app, I’ll have to download it.
Thanks for reading! I’m so glad you found it helpful!