Harris Teeter Triples - A Primer & The Tally

Ah, the long awaited return of the Triples week-long event! Every so often, Harris Teeter would triple coupons up to a face value of 99 cents. For those new to coupon shopping, I'll provide a quick primer on Harris Teeter's rules during this type of promotion:

1. You are limited to tripling 20 coupons per day per household. This does not mean you can only use 20 coupons per day- this only means that they will only triple 20 of your coupons. So feel free to bring along $1 and up coupons as these won't count against the 20 limit.

2. Of the 20, you can only use 3 coupons per same item per transaction. By way of example, let's say you have a stack of twelve 75 cent coupons for Mt Olive pickles- you can only use 3 of the 12 during one transaction. Many times you can simply split up transactions with no issues. Other times, a cashier may give you grief over this. I'm of the belief that it's never really worth it to stand there and argue your point. Any time I have an issue with a cashier accepting a coupon, I simply have them remove the questioned item(s) from my order and give me the coupon back. Life is too short to waste any of it squabbling over a coupon.

3. Special rules apply to internet coupons- of these, you can only use 2 coupons per same item per transaction.

Harris Teeter was getting in the habit of having a triples weekend event once a month for several months. Then, they switched to "Super Doubles" weeks the past few months where they would double coupons with a face value up to $1.98- the last one taking place just two weeks prior to this week's Triples event. I'm hoping they will alternate between the two each month.

In either case, it's a great time to stockpile items. This go round we stocked up on GUM children's toothbrushes, small bottles of Tropicana Trop50 juice, Uncle Ben's Long Grain & Wild Rice, Mt. Olive Pickles, Curad bandages, Lysol toilet bowl cleaner, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray, Viva paper towels, Orville Redenbacher microwave popcorn and Snyders Pretzel Pieces. All these items were free or practically free thanks to tripled coupons. When all was said and done, we spent $82.80 this past week for $628.53 worth of groceries - an impressive 86% savings.

During the week, we also purchased various produce items, bagels, milk and other necessities at Harris Teeter. I believe I used a coupon for nearly every item purchased. During my last HT trip, I also picked up a beautiful little flowering plant for 49 cents- it was on sale for $2.49 and I had a $2 off flowers winetag coupon.