As college students, and as future real-worlders, we struggle to find any opportunity we can to save a few bucks. We pilfer fruit from the dining hall, sneak Tupperware in at dinnertime, and steal trash bags and toilet paper from the trash rooms in our halls. What if I told you there was another way to save money on everyday essentials (and nonessentials, too) that you can’t get in those manners? Ways to get more for less?
I’m betting at least half of you have heard of Target’s Cartwheel app, but do you actually use it? It took me two years to really get into it, and I’m so thankful I did. It offers you hundreds of coupons conveniently located in your pocket, with multiple ways to find them.
The first way is to sit down before it’s time for you to shop and scroll through all of the categories that contain things you’re planning on purchasing. They’ve got main categories like food, entertainment, and beauty that then break down into subcategories like dairy, snacks, and produce. When you find a coupon for something you want to get, you add it to your own personalized barcode that’s accessed through a link in the top right of your screen.
If you’re just going in for a couple of things, you can grab what you want and use your camera to scan the barcode in Cartwheel. If there is a current coupon for that particular product, it will pull it up and you can add it to your barcode!
When you’re checking out, you hold your phone with the barcode up out to the cashier. They’ll scan it, and it will apply all of your discounts at the end of the transaction. Each coupon has an expiration date listed underneath it, so you can use them as many times as you want until then. When they expire, they’ll disappear from the list and new coupons to use will filter into the categories.
Some coupons are minor, like 5% off nectarines. Sometimes you get 25% off a certain brand of frozen burritos. Once, I got 60 dollars off a PlayStation 4 with a 15% off all electronics coupon. You never know what kind of awesome deal you’re going to get, but even if you don’t, the little ones add up!