Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Yesterday's Shopping Trip



I spent my morning organizing my coupons, cleaning out the expired ones, and putting together my plan of attack for the day. I hadn't done a cleaning out all summer, it was time. Sunday's paper was very useful. On page C4 I found the Hobby Lobby coupon, remember I get five Sunday papers now, Yeah! more savings. I needed the flat glass marbles and round magnet discs for a YW project. I spent $7.19, it will make 50 magnets, and saved $3.91 on these supplies.

Next we, my daughter & I, were off to Staples. I wanted composition books to decorate the fronts of and turn into journals. These are sale priced at $.25, when I had searched a few months ago for a good price on them the best I could get was $2. There is a limit of 5 per person. We bought ten, since there were two of us there. The cost was $2.66 and saved $17.50 + tax. Yeah!

There were still a couple of items on the list of school supplies that my daughter's teacher had sent us that we didn't have yet. One of the items was a pack of skinny markers and Shopko has them for $.99 with a limit of two. They have a good selection of back to school supplies on sale right now. Don't forget to get a stock up of supplies for your house too. I love throwing out the broken crayons and replacing them with fresh, sharp crayons. The old markers are drying up too.

Sam's Club was next. Drink & pretzel break! I have mentioned before that this is where I get my block of cheddar, milk, & my 5 dz eggs. It is the best value I have found. I also bought a 25lb bag of flour, beef & chicken bullion as well as gravy mix in each flavor. These are found down the spice aisle in 20 oz canisters. I love the gravy mix for quick throw together meals.

Albertson's was next on the list. In Sunday's paper there was the insert with 3 coupon doublers, 5 papers x 3 coupons each = 15 coupon doublers! I couldn't be happier. I used four sets of them. My first transaction had chili, shortening, bread, Kraft Deluxe mac & cheese, 20lbs of chicken breasts, & Tabasco. Items needed, I don't have a stock up of everything I need. Spent $57.22, saved $37.34, not bad. Then the register printed out my $5 coupon, Kraft promo, and a $1 coupon that I really don't know how I got. Plus I now have a $20 rebate form to send in on my Kraft purchases!
Second transaction was for craisins, earth grains bread, & two bottles of teriyaki sauce. I had a coupon and a doubler coupon for each of these items. Total $4.52, savings $6.24.
Third transaction is Jet Dry & two packages of Huggies baby wipes, the last item on my daughters supply list for school is s a package of wipes. Once again I have a coupon and a doubler for each of these items and my total was $6.63. I then remembered that I have my rebate Visa and use it. My savings was $5 plus the $6.63 by using my Staples Rebate Visa.
I then got out of line, three transaction maximum, and my daughter stood with the basket while I went around to the back of the line with my final purchase. Mr Clean erasers, Bounce Dryer Bar, Mighty Dog canned food, & Finish Power Tabs. I used coupons on each with three doublers and my previous $6 register printed coupons. I used my Rebate Visa again for the total of $5.49 with the savings being $18.89. I love saving money!

I did go to Macey's after that. I don't have as much fun with them because they don't show your total savings with sale prices and coupons. I'll survive. I did get stocked up on ground beef, a couple of roasts, six bags of frozen burritos, brown sugar, honey, canning supplies, string cheese, and other items. I also got the #10 cans of Morning Moo in white milk and chocolate milk, long term storage items. I only had $7.00 in coupons for these items but everything else was a great price.

Why do I tell you all of this? In hopes that you can see using your Sunday paper with the coupons and ads is worth a couple of hours effort to organize and shop. I do organize my shopping trips before I get to the store to make that process smoother. I can't make the nearly $100 savings I received yesterday in a day at my job. The time was worth it and I saved nearly six times the amount of my monthly subscription for the newspaper. It is worth it for me, I hope it is worth it for you too.

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