The Only Way To Use Coupons At Trader Joe's

At this point, the virtues of shopping at Trader Joe's are pretty well established. There are unique gourmet, organic, and imported treats. Then, there's the absolutely epic frozen food aisle, great prices, and the cool staff, as well as the fun TJ's-themed atmosphere, products, and bags. There's even quirky newsletters (printed Fearless Flyer and the e-newsletter), a podcast, tons of great recipe ideas, and the try-before-you-buy and liberal returns policies. 

And all of this is before you ever get to the holidays, when your local Trader Joe's stores are brimming with incredible gift ideas for the season including lotions, potions, specialty candy, and decor items, fresh wreaths, flowers, and poinsettias (at generously reasonable prices), advent calendars, gingerbread houses, excellent wine buys, and more pumpkin and peppermint flavored stuff than you ever dreamed possible but now somehow can't live without. 

Even so, there are a couple things missing at Trader Joe's: sales and in-house coupons.

You'll never find a sale at TJ's — it's just not their style. Instead, Trader Joe's makes it clear that they work hard to get their customers the best-tasting products (each product goes through a rigorous tasting panel before hitting TJ's shelves) at the lowest possible price. Those savings come from not only private labeling, bulk price negotiations, and side-stepping shelf-placement fees from manufacturers, but also from not wasting a ton of money on advertising and sales. In the FAQ sections of their website, TJ's comes hard with the anti-sale energy, stating, "'Sale' is a four-letter word." This means no membership cards, no in-store specials, no member rewards, and no Trader Joe's coupons. So, how can you save money? Well, Trader Joe's would assert that their everyday prices are so low, you'll never even think to worry about their non-existent sales, but there is one loophole where you can make a little headway: manufacturer's coupons.

While the majority of Trader Joe's products are private label (Kiplinger reports that 80% are the store's own brands), The Krazy Coupon Lady says, "It's a little-known fact that all Trader Joe's locations accept manufacturer coupons." Kitchn also notes that if you can get your hands on some of the manufacturer's coupons for non-Trader Joe's branded products, you can have your own private party in the land of no sales.