Sales: Is buy one get one free really just that?

Scanning the grocery ad, you will likely see promotional sales such as the "buy one get one free" (bogo). But is the item really buy one get one free after all? Perhaps not. Smart shoppers know their stores' methods for ringing these items and plan accordingly with coupon usage.

For instance, the Rite Aid near me runs bogo sales quite often, but their sales are really that, you buy one item at full price, and the second one rings up at $0.00. Therefore, if you want to use a coupon on the item in question, you only get to use one coupon.

Conversely, the Food Lion next door also runs bogo sales often, however, their registers ring each item up at half off, thus not a true "bogo." While some would argue that this is deceptive marketing, to most people it doesn't make a difference. The only time where it really would make a difference is if you had a coupon that was bogo for the item, and then the cashier would pull the tape and only take off the amount that was half off. So instead of getting both items for free, you would get both for 25% of the original cost. Whereas, if you use coupons on bogo sales where each item rings up at half off, you can use a coupon on each item. For the most part, this type of situation works out best for me. For instance, recently Food Lion had 100 count Equal on sale bogo (regular price of $3.99). Since each box rang up at $2, I was able to use 2 separate coupons for $1 off of 1 box of Equal, reducing my cost to only $1 per box (.01 per packet). What a deal! So I got the maximum 4 boxes I was allowed per the ad and stocked up.

Know your store policies regarding promotional sales. With a little investigation, you too will find that "bogo" promotions can mean two different price configurations depending on which store you shop.