Hubby says I'm loosing my touch. He's kidding of course.

Albertsons is running a great sale this week where you spend $10 on select items and they immediately deduct $3. This is in addition to having double coupons in their ad. You can use 3 per transaction. If you pair your items correctly with your coupons and the sale, you can get many items for very low cost or free.

I ended up with 10 transactions to get all of the stuff in the picture below and a few things not pictured (one DiGiorno flat bread sandwich, a 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk and one more box of Planter's Big Nut bars)

Here's a list of all that's pictured & what's not:
13 boxes Ritz crackers
8 boxes Planters Big Nut bars
2 Easy Mac Individual Mac&Cheese
4 Land o Lakes Butter with Canola Oil
2 boxes Captain Crunch Cereal
2 DiGiorno Flatbread melt sandwiches
2 Nabisco Premium Saltine Crackers (8 sleeves per box)
2 boxes Velveeta Shells & Cheese
2 boxes Tazo Awake Tea
3 General Foods International Chai Latte
1 General Foods International French Vanilla Latte
2 Seattle Times Sunday Papers

Not pictured:
1 DiGiorno Flatbread melt sandwich
1 Half Gallon Dairygold Chocolate Milk
1 box Planters Big Nut Bars

My total out of pocket for all of this was $13.03. As it was, ALL of the crackers, nut bars, flatbread sandwiches and mac & cheese were FREE. I ended up paying some for the milk, cereal, butter, tazo teas, general foods coffees, and of course my Sunday Papers.

I plan to give some of the crackers to my MIL and a good family friend as well as donate what we won't use. My husband, son and myself LOVE the nut bars and I estimate those will last us about 3 weeks...really! And the rest just goes into the stockpile. I may use the teas and coffees as gifts because many of our family and friends love it. It's all just nice to have around.

Other than this shopping adventure, I have not spent any money on groceries this week. We've been eating out of the stockpile.

My DH was teasing me that I'm loosing my touch because rarely do I actually spend this much at the store anymore, but with the Ritz crackers retailing at $4.19/box and my having gotten 13 boxes....I'd say he's just razzing me. ;)

Victory!

I have been having trouble with a particular checker at my local Albertsons. Whenever there is an item on sale and I have a coupon for it, she refuses to take it if the coupon is $.01 over the value.

For example, I had a coupon for $1 off any refrigerated Nestle cookie dough. I found one variety of cookies on clearance for $.99 and was going to purchase them with my coupon and get them for free. She wouldn't take the coupon. I asked her nicely to reduce the amount of the coupon to $.99 so I wouldn't be getting an overage and she told me that was coupon fraud.

Please pardon my frustration, but that is CRAP! All the other stores do it.

So today, I decided I was going to call customer care because there are a couple of things on sale this week that I can get for free if they will just adjust the stinking coupon! The customer care associate was super nice and took all my info and told me she would have a service area manager give me a call.

About 5 minutes later, literally. A very nice woman called me back and went over the situation with me and confirmed my suspicions. They were supposed to take the coupon! VICTORY! She told me she would speak with the front end manager at the store where I had the problem and let her know (she actually is the one who I had the problem with). I took her name and title so I could let the cashier know if I happen to get to the store before the discussion happens.

I just love it when I'm right!

Great deals at Albertsons!

I got some really great deals at Albertsons this week! They were running a promotion where if you purchased $10 in selected various products, they would take $3 off your total right away. The deal was made sweeter when Sunday's paper arrived on my doorstep and had 3 coupon doublers in it. Naturally I obtained as many of these as I could without seeming obnoxious. I ended up with 3 copies of the ad which allowed me 9 coupon doublers up to $1 each. The trick was I had to separate my transactions into 3 because you were only allowed 3 doublers per order. So here's what I ended up with.

8 Easy Mac Individual Serving Cups
1 Capri Sun Sunrise Drink
2 Bagelful Frozen Bagels
4 Kraft BBQ Sauces
1 Kraft Ranch Bacon Salad Dressing
4 Kraft Mayo Squeezable
3 Kraft Miracle Whip Squeezeable
2 Bar-S Bun Length Hot Dogs

Between all 3 of my transactions, I used all 9 of my doublers which took off $9 and received $9 off because of the promotion. I also had $19 in coupons. The sale prices for all of my items was $37.

Here's the math $37 - $9 promotion = $28 - $19 coupons = $9 - $9 doublers = $0

There was tax on the Capri Sun drink so I paid a total OOP of $.04 for all of the above listed items. WHOO HOO!!

We are officially stocked up now of BBQ sauce and Mayo/Miracle Whip for awile.

Super Savings Saturday

I'm pretty excited, I finally get to participate in a Super Savings Saturday at Money Saving Mom!



I had a two really great deals this week, but only have one picture. :( Next week I will be better about photos. My hubby thinks it's super funny that I've taken to photographing groceries.



Deal one at Walgreens.

Purchase was:

4 boxes Preparation H wipes (thank goodness I know someone who can use these as I have now 9 boxes!) They were free with $4 overage after (4) $2/1 IVC and (4) printable Prep H $3/1 coupons.

2 boxes Cheerios, 1 box Honey nut Cheerios, Free plus $.01 overage with (3) $1/1 coupon and using overage from Prep H.

4 jars Ragu Spaghetti Sauce, used (2) $1/2 coupons and earned $4 RR for purchasing 6 items all together with the Skippy too.

2 jars Skippy, used $1/2 coupon.

1 package Egg Noodles, free with purchase of two Ragu sauces. :)

2 bars Yardley soap, $.69 each after WAG 7 day coupon.

I also used a RR reward for $3 off my purchase.

Total OOP was $3.70!! Plus I earned the $4 RR from the Skippy/Ragu deal AND I noticed when I got home that the cashier gave me back my $3 RR that I tried to use on the purchase, but she did ring it in as a coupon...So, WAGS paid me $3.30 to shop!

Deal TWO at Walgreens.

3 more boxes of Prep H wipes, Free plus $3 oveage after (3) $2/1 IVC and (3) $3/1 coupons

1 more box of Cheerios, Free after $1/1 and overage from Prep H.

3 more Yardley soaps $.69 each, but actually only paid $.03 because of leftover overage from Prep H.

Total OOP was $1.29 because we have to pay sales tax before coupons in our great state!

In two deals, I saved $57.93! And I only spent $4.99! WHOO HOO! Not too bad for a newbie!

Yet another GREAT deal!

Total out of pocket (oop)...$14.96!

What does one get for $14.96?

4 boxes Kellogg's brand cereal
6 boxes Eggo waffles
2 boxes fruit snacks (Diego and John Deere)
a gallon of milk
a pound of margarine
2 pounds of ground turkey
a whole roasting chicken
a frozen pizza
a chocolate brownie Clif bar
a bag of Pirate's Booty
a box of Eskimo Pie ice cream bars

How does one purchase all of the above for so little? Coupons paired with sales...that's how!

Our local Top Foods grocery store is having a sale today (through next week Tuesday) on Kellogg branded items, they are priced at 5 for $10. But, if you purchase $20 worth of items (so 10 items) you get a store coupon for $20 off of your next purchase of $20 or more. Basically you get your Kellogg items free!

So, I went in armed with my list and coupons ($1/2 boxes of cereal, $1/2 boxes of Eggo's, $1/2 boxes of fruit snacks) I had 2 of the cereal coupons, 3 of the eggo coupons and one of the fruit snack coupons.

I separated my cart into two transactions.

The first was 4 boxes of cereal, 4 boxes of Eggos and 2 boxes of fruit snacks so I spent exactly $20 before coupons. Add in my coupon savings of $5 and that takes it down to $15, but the Eggos we ringing at $1.99 each that brought me down $.04 more to a grand total oop $14.96.
Out came my $20 off my next purchase coupon. Which I used to pay for my second transaction. :)

The second transaction was for the remaining 2 boxes of Eggos (which I had a coupon for), milk, margarine, ground turkey, chicken, pizza, clif bar, pirates booty, and ice cream bars. The total on this was $20.89. I handed over my $1/2 eggo coupon and my $20 off my next purchase and actually had an overage of $.11 but because the store can't pay you to take groceries, I politely asked the clerk to adjust the price on my $1 off coupon to $.89 to make my total $0.00! I was even complimented by the clerk who said that my use of this coupon was “the most effective she has ever seen!” I felt pretty proud of myself. This is only my second deal afterall.

This is going to be super fun for me as I love a challenge!

WOW! I'm loving coupons today.

All this for only.....wait for it.....$17.43!

I've been reading Money Saving Mom for nearly 5 weeks now and have been awe inspired by her and all of her readers with all of the really great deals that they've found. So, this weekend I decided that I was going to invest a bit of time and energy into seeing how great of a deal I could come up with at our local Walgreens

I purchased a Sunday paper and clipped some coupons and matched some deals and here you have the results. All of what you see pictured for only $17.43! I also received a coupon for $5 off my next purchse. :)

Here's what I bought: 4 boxes of cereal, 3 boxes of Pop Tarts, 2 boxes of Rice Krispy Treats, 3 bottles of Dawn Dish Soap, 2 dozen eggs, 1 box of corn dogs (for lunch today), and a Ring Pop for my son who was fabulous while we shopped. Not too bad if I do say so myself.