Reminder and an update: Kroger to give away free Pepsi Next Feb. 8

For the fourth -- and final -- week in a row, Kroger is offering customers a coupon for a free product through its digital coupon program.

Today, Feb. 8, you will be able to load a coupon for a free 2 liter of Pepsi Next to your Kroger loyalty card.

The coupon is only available on Feb. 8 but you have until Feb. 23 to redeem it.

Today's digital freebie is the final one in what Kroger Mid-Atlantic spokesman Carl York described as a four-week test to "jump start what we're doing digitally."

York said there will likely be future freebies -- and more digital coupons overall -- but "we want to take a breath and measure it to get some feedback from customers."

"We're going to put more and more coupons out there to drive people to our site," he said.

If you've never added digital coupons to your Kroger loyalty card, it's easy to do.

Go to Kroger.com and click on the "Coupons" link in the tool bar across the top of the page.

Next, either log into your Kroger account or click on the "Create an Account" link.

Once you're registered, you'll be able to pick and choose among dozens of coupons.

The weekly freebie coupon is typically at the top left of the page.

When using Kroger digital coupons, remember that the digitals cannot be "stacked" or used along with a paper coupon on a single purchase. (Only Harris Teeter allows the stacking of paper and store-sponsored digital coupons.)

My rule of thumb for using digitals at Kroger:

When you have identical paper and digital coupons with a face value of 50 cents or less, skip the digital and use a paper coupon, which will double in value.

If the coupon has a face value greater than 50 cents, go ahead and use it and save your paper coupons for Lowes Foods and Harris Teeter, which double coupons up to 99 cents in value every day of the week.