The 4 Step Guide to Saving Big at Publix

Why do you shop at Publix?

I mean, sure their customer service is great, their store is clean, their deli and bakery are amazing, their stores are “user-friendly”, and the Publix brand is probably better than any other brand I can image.

But there’s a problem.

Whether it’s true or not, Publix gets a bad rap for being more expensive.

It’s that reputation that leads you to the temptation to “just go to Walmart”, as I’m sure you’ve said after a heated night of budgeting.

Hey, it happens to all of us.

You’re on a budget, you know you should just go to the “cheap store”, but you go to Publix anyways, and you feel selfish.

Like, “Maybe I could have gone without the free sample of warm chicken casserole. Who knows how much I could have saved if I bought this all at Walmart.”

No. You deserve that chicken casserole sample.

And in this article, I’m going to show you how to get the best of both worlds. How to get the experience of Publix on a Walmart budget.

Here are 4 steps to saving big at Publix:

Start by finding all Publix store coupons

Publix has two weekly ad cycles, so new ads should be posted on their website every Wednesday and Thursday morning.

You can find their ad by going to Publix.com and clicking “Weekly Ad” in the top right. You’ll have to select a store if you haven’t already, then you should be taken to the ad.

There should be a search box toward the middle of the page on the left hand side. There you can type in categories such as “diapers” to find ads quickly on the things you need.

(Note: I noticed the website showed more than the app did when searching for certain items, so it might be worthwhile to double-check the website if you’re using the app.)

When you find an ad you like, you can add it to your shopping list from either the website or the app.

I prefer to pull up the weekly ad on one screen, then pull up the page where I can search the ad on another tab.

The reason for this is once you see something you want to add to your list, there are two options:

You can hover over the item and add it to your list…

Or you can tab over to the page where you can search the ad, then type in the name of the brand.

As you can see in the second picture above, when you search for a brand manually, you’ll be able to see any manufacturer’s coupon Publix has in their system as well as the Publix coupon.

It’s coupon stacking made easy when you do it that way.

Here’s another example:

Adding the item from the weekly ad itself…

...vs. searching for the brand name…

Boom, that’s a little more money saved.

If you don’t want to search for each item in the search bar, you can also go through the weekly ad and pick out everything you need, then click then click the “Coupons” button just above on the right-hand side.

That will give you a list of all the manufacturer coupons available during that period.

However, Publix doesn’t always have all the available manufacturer coupons, which is why you’ll want to move on to the next step.

Use Dealspotr to find extra coupons

Now that you have your store coupons, BOGOs, and some manufacturer coupons lined up, it’s time to stack those coupons with manufacturer coupons.

This is a manual process, and does take a little time, but it’s well worth it.

Start by heading over to Dealspotr.com, then pull up your shopping list from Publix. One-by-one, go to Dealspotr and search for each brand on your list.

For example, with a list like this:

I would go to Dealspotr and search for General Mills, Jif, Nature Valley, etc., all the way down my list.

And you can see I found an additional coupon for the Sparkle paper towels I had on my list…

Then another one on the Bush’s Baked Beans…

You’ll have to print out any coupons you find, either on Publix’s website or through Dealspotr because Publix does not accept coupons from a mobile device or copied coupons.

Having said that, the entire process of looking for manufacturer coupons might take you an extra 15 minutes, so it’s not bad at all.

Now keep in mind, Publix accepts store coupons, manufacturer coupons, AND competitor coupon. You just can’t combine all 3 on one item.

In other words, you can’t use a Publix BOGO with a $1.00 off manufacturer coupon, then throw in another 10% off that a competitor is offering on the same product.

You CAN, however, use any combination of 2 of those 3.

So that means, if you’re looking at your list of store coupons, and you can’t find manufacturer coupons for some of them, try looking for competitor coupons for those items instead.

It doesn’t take any extra work, just be on the lookout for competitor coupons while you’re searching in Dealspotr for manufacturer coupons.

You’ll have to call or stop by your local Publix to ask who they accept competitor coupons from. Every Publix store is different when it comes to who they consider a local competitor.

Oh, and you might want to ask them if they’ll match Amazon coupons as well. My local Publix doesn’t, so I would say chances are yours won’t either. But hey, why not ask.

Now knock an extra 5% off your total bill (without Publix ever knowing)

This may seem random, but do you shop at Target regularly?

If so, then you could be saving 5% on all your purchases at Publix (and really everywhere else if you really wanted).

Here’s how:

Next time you’re in Target, use your Target REDcard to purchase a Visa or MasterCard gift card.

REDcard holders get 5% off pretty much all purchases at Target. I checked with customer service and was told that the 5% off also applies to third-party gift cards as well.

Which means you can buy a $100 Visa or MasterCard gift cards for $95. Then turn around and use that card to pay for your groceries at Publix.

If you spend just $600 per month on groceries, that’s $30 you get to keep for basically doing nothing.

Target offers both credit and debit REDcards, so if you shop at Target regularly and don’t have one of these, you should definitely look into getting one.

Finally, use Ibotta to get cash back

Ibotta is a wonderful site that allows you to get cash back on items you purchase from the grocery store.

It’s really simple. Here’s how it works:

Click here to see Ibotta’s cash back offers at Publix.

It’ll probably ask for your ZIP code, then you’ll get a list of items.

Scroll through the list of offers until you see something that’s on your list (or maybe something you forgot).

In my case, it took about 1 minute before I found a cash back offer on my Back to Nature juice…

...and on my Tostitos…

I also found a few other things that weren’t on my list before.

Now, in order to claim a rebate on an item, you’ll have to do a quick task. It could be a short video to watch, a recipe to look at, a survey question to answer, or another task.

Don’t worry though, I found that the tasks typically take less than a minute, and they’re super simple.

Here’s what one of the “tasks” looks like when you go to claim an offer…

You will need to have the app in order to actually redeem your offers though, so I would probably rack up on deals through the website (where you can use the tip below), then move over to the app when you’re ready to claim your offers and the offers that say “Any Brand”.

Tip: While you’re scrolling through the list of rebates available at Publix, when you see an offer you want to claim, right-click, or hold Control and click on a Mac, then click “Open Link in New Tab”. That way you can open all the offers you want to claim in separate tabs, then you won’t have to navigate back to where you were after you claim each offer.

Ibotta has a good bit of rebate offers at Publix (at least in my area), so it’s a great way to add to the savings you’re already getting, and save you money on the things that weren’t even on sale.