Poorganic & Real Food Coupons for your “Normal” Grocery Store

If you are wondering whether or not couponing is worth your time, ask yourself how long you would look for a $20 bill that you lost? What about a $50 bill?

Many of you may have expressed that it is a challenge to find real food at a reasonable price.  When we first started eating real foods, I felt like I had to abandon couponing because it seemed SO MANY coupons were for processed foods. Additionally, I felt I had to shop at specialty or whole food stores that were further away and didn’t have great coupon policies. Try as I did to make real foods “poorganic”, I grew tired of traveling to far away grocery stores or getting mediocre prices.

Yet, the longer that we eat this way, the more I am able to find coupons for foods we consider “poorganic.”  Because my “normal” grocery store, Harris Teeter, offers terrific coupon promotions like triple coupons and super doubles, I opt to shop there. Then once a month, I go to Earth Fare or Trader Joe’s for more “specialty items.”  I DO still go to ALDI occasionally when I don’t feel like couponing, but ALDI prices seldom beat the price I get with a doubled or tripled coupon.

About the Poorganic Real Food Coupons List

  • All the products I’ve listed below REGULARLY issue coupons
  • Most of these coupons are often offered in printable form at least once per quarter, which means you don’t even have to take the paper.
  • These are foods I purchase at Harris Teeter (a “normal” grocery store) with coupons.
  • I didn’t include foods that don’t issue coupons or foods that I buy at a specialty store. I didn’t include foods we don’t eat, so if you see that almond milk or gluten free products aren’t included, that is because we don’t eat those things.  Feel free to add your recommendations in the comments for YOUR grocery store or favorite foods.
  • I probably should remind you that poorganic is NOT organic.  (Read the linked post if you’ve been wanting a definition for eating poorganically.) Not all our food is certified organic.  Primarily, we eat whole or minimally processed foods. Most these foods have 5 or fewer ingredients, no added sugars, whole grains, and healthy fats.

How to Use This List:

Coupon availability cycles, meaning that at an given moment, only SOME of the below coupons are available and the LOCATION of availability varies too.  (At the time of this post, about 1/3 of the items below had coupons available.)  Therefore, I am NOT linking to actual printable coupons below because they would only work temporarily.  Each product is linked to the company website, some of which allow you to register for coupons.

However, the best and FASTEST way to find coupons is to SEARCH a DATABASE for the coupons you want. A database shows you whether coupons are available whenever you search.  I use the databases at SouthernSavers.com and MyCouponTeacher.com.  If you are just starting out with couponing, prior to grocery shopping, go to a coupon database and search for any item in GREEN on the list below. Print the printable coupons.  Searching for these items and printing will take you about ONE HOUR per month.  If you check regularly, they will cycle availability.  Especially if your store doubles or triples coupons, you can easily save $20-$50 a month using these coupons alone. 🙂

Dairy

We buy dairy that is non-rBst, but not necessarily organic.  I buy plain unsweetened yogurt, block or string (not shredded) cheeses, and whole milk.   Read this if you want to hear more of my dairy journey. 🙂

Yogurt–I do make my own delicious Greek yogurt, but every few weeks, I like to buy new and begin with a fresh starter.

Stonyfield Organic Yogurt You will have to open an account with Stonyfield to print these coupons. They refresh on the first day of each month. I regularly get the 32 oz whole plain for about $2.50

Dannon Yogurt   They have PLAIN yogurt. I toss all the other coupons.

Milk– When coupons are available, I buy from the list of milks below. Otherwise, I buy store brand, which is non-rbst.

Horizon OrganicMilk  They have lots of other products too.

Simply Pure Milk  This is a new milk in my area so there are TONS of coupons. 🙂

Organic Valley Lots of products available.

Smart Balance Milk I never buy their hideously weird butter spreads full of plastiques.

Cheese–We LOVE cheese, and my youngest lives on cheese sticks and grapes, so these coupons are a necessity. I avoid dyed, flavored, and shredded cheese.  Trader Joe’s has great prices on cheese, but, if I have a coupon, it makes these cheeses less than TJs.

Cabot Cheese

Sargento Cheese

Sorrento Cheese

Polly-O Cheese

Frigo Head

Helluva Good

Proteins

Eggs- We eat A LOT of eggs, probably 8-9 dozen a month.  While I do buy farm fresh eggs from a friend because we prefer the taste, I still use coupons to buy eggs, which I use for recipes. The companies below offer hormone free, cage free, or pasteurized eggs.

Eggland’s Best

Davidsons

Born Free

Land O Lakes

BF Family

Meat- Meat is probably the most “debatable” real food issue. Since we began eating poorganically, we’ve reduced out meat consumption by about 1/3.  But I do like being able to buy meat at the regular grocery store. These are items WE eat.  If you don’t want to eat them and have strong compunctions against doing so, don’t buy them. 🙂

Jones Natural Sausage

Hormel Natural Choice Deli Meat

Coleman’s Natural

Smart Chicken

Oscar Meyer Uncured Bacon

Perdue Simply Smart I don’t buy these often, but the ingredient lists look fine to me.

Applegate Farms Organic Usually these are too expensive even WITH a coupon, but occasionally they go on sale.

Fish- Canned tuna is about the only couponable fish product we buy. I used to buy tuna at ALDI because it was marked “wild caught,” but then I noticed it had soy in it.  Ickk! (Why would there be soy in my fish?) Now I buy PLAIN chunk light tuna in water when I have a coupon.

Starkist Tuna

Bumblebee

Chicken of the Sea They recently introduced a NO DRAIN peel top can that is awesome!! Very convenient and I think a great real food protein product for canned food or backpack food drives.

Grains, Pastas, and Cereals

Cereal- We really only eat four kinds of cereal. Oatmeal. Homemade Granola-my recipe is linked. Shredded wheat. Cheerios (one of our real food exceptions) I occasionally will buy a “processed” cereal with a limited ingredient list. Especially if the cereal isn’t organic, I buy cereals with only oats and wheat, which are both non-GMO grains. I always avoid soy and corn, which are USUALLY GMO. I’ve listed a few others cereals that occasionally make the cut if the coupon deal is good enough. (PS: Lots of other cereals are available, but these are the ones I find in my “normal” grocery store.)

Kashi

Post Shredded Wheat

Quaker Oatmeal

Bear Naked

Cascadian Farms Organic

Pasta- We buy whole wheat or whole grain pastas from the following brands.

Barilla Using 51% whole grain enables them to label their boxes as such, but I figure it is better than white pasta AND I often get it for free. 🙂

Muellers Now using 100% whole grain in their pasta!

Dreamfields My store doesn’t have a whole grain version, but I still get this if it’s free. I’ll donate it or use it for noodles and broth when my kids are sick.

Lundberg Farms Rice pasta for gluten-free folks!

Rice- I buy a lot of rice in bulk at Earthfare, but when a good coupon is available, I will use it to get free brown rice.  I also buy some basmati for Indian food. We avoid pre-cooked and rice mixes, which have weird additives.

Mahatma

Uncle Ben’s

Success Rice

Minute Rice

Rice Select (has organic rice)

Coffee and Tea–

Yuban Organic Even without a coupon, Yuban is the cheapest organic coffee I’ve seen at $5.49 for 11 oz. It’s even better when I can find a coupon.

Newman’s Own Organic

Eight o’ Clock

Caribou

Starbucks Truthfully, I almost never buy Starbucks because I think it tastes burnt, but I’m including it for you.

Dunkin’ Doughnuts

Chock full o Nuts

Millstone

Peet’s

Celestial Seasonings

Tazo

Bigelow

Canned and Jarred Products–There are boo-koodles of these. I just listed the products with coupons I see often and have used.

Oil and Vinegar

Filippo Berio Organic Olive Oil This coupon is frequently available so I typically use this oil.

Newman’s Own Organic Olive Oil

Newman’s Own Organic Balsamic Vinegar

Colavita Organic Balsamic Vinegar

Tomatoes

Muir Glen Organic Tomatoes I NEVER pay for tomato paste. I am always able to get it free with a regularly issued coupon

Newman’s Own Organic Pasta Sauce

Bertolli Organic Pasta Sauce

Jams- I buy all fruit spread sweetened only with fruit juice

Smucker’s Simply Fruit 

Polaner All Fruit

Peanut Butters-The top three on this list are called “natural,” but use “palm oil” rather than an hydrogenated oil.  They also use sugar AND molasses rather than high fructose corn syrup.  So while we prefer the bottom two PBs (just peanuts and salt), I buy whichever is cheapest.

Skippy Natural Peanut Butter

Peter Pan Natural Peanut Butter

Jif Natural

Smuckers Natural Peanut Butter

MaraNatha Organic Peanut Butter

Juices-This is another hot topic in the real foods world. We don’t drink much juice, but when we do, I buy 100% juice of all types. I don’t worry about the controversies surrounding reconstituted juice pulps. I just don’t care.

Old Orchard

Minute Maid Orange Juice

Tropicana –Don’t buy Trop50. That has artificial sweeteners in it.

Welch’s

Juicy Juice

Northland

Ocean Spray

Florida’s Natural

Simply Orange

Apple and Eve

Miscellaneous

Ortega Chilies and Fat Free Refried Beans These products are not organic, but they have very few ingredients. A $1/3 items coupon is often available.

Old El Paso Chilies, Beans, and Jalapenos Again, not organic, but pretty basic.

Thai Kitchen Organic Coconut Milk

Ketchup without HFCS. I buy Simply Heinz or Hunts. Heinz offers an organic ketchup as well

Wholly Guacamole  I often get these for free with coupons, which is awesome since you can freeze them for when Avocados are super expensive

Earthbound Farms Salads

Mott’s Applesauce I buy the natural with no added sugar

Fleischmann’s Yeast

Gold Medal White Whole Wheat Flour I actually don’t buy this flour, but I’ve seen the coupon and know Target carries this flour. Maybe you can get a deal?!

Whew! That list and all the linking took me a good while to type up.  Did you see any items on the list that your family eats? If so, try using the databases or the company websites to see if coupons are available. Just see what you can find in an hour.  Help me complete my list by commenting on what real food products you find coupons for!

PS: I am not a coupon affiliate and don’t receive any compensation for this blog; however, if you find this information helpful, you can use the orange button below this post to share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. The more money we can all save, the more we are able to share and be generous with others. 🙂 That’s my goal.  Thanks!

36 thoughts on “Poorganic & Real Food Coupons for your “Normal” Grocery Store

      1. A lot of times I end up printing at least one coupon from them every couple days, some are just on-line deals.

        1. I had completely forgotten about common kindness.com. Not only is the first set of coupons mostly natural/organic but each one you redeem benefits a charity you can choose. There are four different sets of grocery coupons. Also try mambosprouts.com. My newest discovery has been super cheap organic name brands at Big Lots if you have one near you. Just always check the dates.

          1. As much as I like using specific sites like organicdeals.com or mambosprouts.com, I find that a comprehensive coupon database sends me DIRECTLY to the coupons, so I don’t have to be constantly searching a bunch of different sites. Southernsavers.com database is great for my area, but I’ve heard good things about the site at moneysavingmom.com too. 🙂 You are right about Big Lots. I’ve also found good prices on organic foods at Olie’s and World Market. ALSO, after living in a developing country for two years, I pretty much never worry about expiration dates. 🙂
            Katrina recently posted…Poorganic & Real Food Coupons for your “Normal” Grocery StoreMy Profile

  1. From my very favorite-titled cookbook: Wild Boar on the Kitchen Floor, Cooking in West Africa:
    Tomato paste is really all you need for non-chunk tomato products b/c 1/3 c tomato paste + 1/2 water = 1 c tomato sauce; 3T tomato paste + 3/4 c water + 1 c tomato juice. tomato paste takes up less storage space, and if you can get it free, why bother w/ the other forms?

  2. I was just complaining to my husband that coupons are mostly for stuff we don’t touch! Thanks so much for this post-I am so happy to have some coupon options on food we actually eat.

  3. Thanks for posting. I line up with your views on minimally processed foods. As a SAHM of four, wife of a pastor on one income I try to stick to an as close to a real foods diet as possible. Using coupons and buying clearance or scratch and dent whenever possible really helps out. And if I need to splurge on an item that I can’t get for cheap, I.e. organic, uncured meats, I can afford them a bit more with the savings elsewhere. The way I see it, one of my jobs is making money by saving money. I wouldn’t be able to feed my family healthily without coupons.

    1. Beth, I’m so glad to hear your story. Are there any coupons that you use that I didn’t mention? I’d love to add to my list to help out more people. 🙂

  4. Hello, I’m one of your followers, and I LOVE this list:) Thank you Thank you Thank you!!! I can totally emphasis with you about feeling like giving up couponing since switching to whole foods, but this list is soo amazing. I love that you compiled it all together. I’ve used some of these coupons, but will be checking some other ones out to use in the future. Definitely pinning so I have this on hand:)
    Erin Anne recently posted…Homemade Fabric FlowerMy Profile

    1. Probably only you will understand HOW LONG this kind of post takes. 🙂 It makes me appreciate you all the more. How are you liking the blog-free life?

  5. What a great, comprehensive list. I bookmarked this page although I will admit even trying to find an HOUR sounds daunting to me…

    My only other concern is the canned goods. I worry about the BPA in can liners and Eden Organics is the only company I know that has created a BPA-free can. Do you know of any others? BPA levels in your blood rise an inordinate amount after consuming anything in a conventional can. Scares the you-know-what outta me.
    MyPeaceOfFood recently posted…Food, finance and election seasonMy Profile

    1. As for the hour, just start by going to a database and entering three or four items that you need immediately. Truthfully, it may take you a while the first time because you often have to “register” with coupon printer sites, etc., the first time you use them, but don’t let that discourage you. It really is worth it.

      Here’s a link about Muir Glen using BPA free cans, which made me feel better. http://www.eatallaboutit.com/2011/01/19/when-will-muir-glen-tomatoes-be-bpa-free/
      Pouch tunas, rather than canned, are a good option for avoiding BPA. Based on my brief research, it seems that the largest dangers for BPA were from heavily processed food (like Campbell’s cream soups).

      Here’s another link about some BPA free can’s including Hunt’s (which also provides coupons). http://inspirationgreen.com/bpa-lined-cans.html

      However, I will tell you that my honest skeptics reaction is not to worry. I’m not saying starting eating all your foods out of cans like a hobo, but the evidence that BPA is damaging was found when EXTREMELY high levels were fed to animals constantly. If you’re not heating Campbell’s cream soups in plastic bowls and feeding them to your kids six times a day, I’m guess you will be fine. As with everything, moderation seems to be the key. But, just as a reminder, I’m no scientist or nutritionist, so do what makes you feel comfortable. 🙂

  6. Thanks so much. I am intimidated by couponing and this has really helped me be less afraid! I will start small!

  7. I love this list, I too shop at my local grocery store and try to buy the natural or simpler version of name brand foods but have trouble finding the coupons in the regular paper inserts. Now I don’t have to go on a wild goose chase they are all here! Thanks!!

  8. Thank you so much for this list!! Its exactly what I need 🙂 Though I don’t comment a lot, I love reading all your recipes and blogs. I really appreciate how you aren’t “stuck up” so to speak with non-organic foods… You make it really easy for a normal person to follow. Thanks again!

    1. Hooray for non-stuck up people! 🙂 I don’t have the time or money to beat myself up over imperfections. Hooray for grace! Thanks for reading and commenting.

  9. PS – While I’m commenting I might as well tell you, I’ve been making your hummus and yogurt recipes for months now and my kids love it, its a real hit! I’m not sure if I commented on your hummus recipe to tell you that or not, but if so I’m telling you again. This post put me in a good mood and made my day… I’ve been following another blog and she is so strict and perfect with food that I often feel overwhelmed, guilty and like I’m not good enough bc I can’t feed my family the way she feeds hers. I’ve strayed from real foods lately bc I’ve just been so overwhelmed and my husband lost his job 2 months ago and money has been tight… But I’m glad to be back in the game! Thanks!

    1. We can DO IT (says the mom who just fed her daughter a Nutella on white bread sandwich)! Rejoice over successes and move on from concessions. You’ve reminded me to make that hummus again. We haven’t had it in an eon. 🙂 And of course, stop reading all those other blogs and just read this one. 😉 (Just kidding–there are some sane ones out there.)

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