On Thursday afternoon, I headed over to Safeway to use the last of my meat wine tags. I had traded for 20 altogether, and they all had an expiration date of April 30th. I had planned to make use of them throughout the month, but getting sick threw a wrench into my plans – so I had a big stack of coupons left that needed to get used up before they expired!
I came out of Safeway with $61 worth of groceries for $9.00. Here’s the breakdown:
Transaction #1:
Total spent: $1.18
Total before coupons: $7.18
View receipt
Got:
4-lb bag of chicken thighs – regularly $3.99, used a $3/1 poultry winetag that I got through trading; final price: .99 cents.
A little over half a pound of ham from the deli – on sale for $3.19, used a $3/1 ham winetag that I got through trading; final price: .19 cents
Transaction #2:
Total spent: .04 cents
Total before coupons: $3.04
View receipt
Got:
A little over half a pound of ham from the deli – on sale for $3.04, used a $3/1 ham winetag that I got through trading; final price: .04 cents
Transaction #3:
Total spent: .35
Total before coupons: $3.35
View receipt
Got:
1 Cook’s Ham steak – regularly $3.35, used a $3/1 ham wine tag that I got through trading; final price: .35 cents
Transaction #4:
Total spent: .47
Total before coupons: $3.47
View receipt
Got:
1 Cook’s Ham steak – regularly $3.47, used a $3/1 ham winetag that I got through trading; final price: .47 cents
Each time I went through the line, I would take my purchase out to the car, then walk back into the store and do it again. I went through the same cashier’s line each time, because she is an excellent cashier – she scans everything correctly, so you don’t have to worry about a coupon being overlooked, and she is also well versed in the store’s coupon policy. I’m well known at our Safeway, since it’s a small town, so I always have fun chatting with the cashiers and they get a kick out of my crazy coupon antics. After going through this cashier’s line four times, she looked down at the ham on her conveyor belt and started laughing – “I knew it was you again because of the ham and the reusable bag!”. She then asked me why I didn’t just use all the coupons at once, and I explained that the coupons were limit one per transaction. “Well, then just get the rest of your ham and I’ll ring each one as a separate transaction – it’ll be quicker for you that way.”
Have I mentioned lately how much I love the awesome cashiers at our local Safeway store?
Transaction #5:
First, I went to the deli once again and said, “I have a unique request for you. Can I please get eight bags filled with $3 worth of ham each?” They chuckled but were happy to oblige – and there were no other customers at the deli, so I wasn’t holding anybody up. Next, I grabbed one more ham steak and headed to the checkout. “Are you ready for all this ham?” I asked my good-natured cashier. To make it most efficient for her, I set down my club card and stack of coupons on the counter and had a big handful of change in my hand. This cashier can ring up faster than anyone I’ve ever seen – and it’s always accurate. It was pretty amazing to watch her fingers flying as she quickly swiped each coupon off the stack and keyed in each transaction. A big stream of receipts piled up at the register as she rang up each one! I was concerned that this would cause a delay for the person behind me in line, but get this – my cashier was so fast, that by the time the person behind me had finished loading their last item on to the conveyor belt, the cashier was already ringing up my last transaction! She pulled off the long strip of receipts and put them into my bag because there were so many – this is what it looked like:
So here’s the breakdown:
Total spent: $1.70
Total before coupons: $28.70
View receipts 1-2
View receipts 3-4
View receipts 5-6
View receipts 7-8
View receipt 9
I got 8 packages of deli ham, each of which ranged in price between $3.04 and $3.24 because they were all slightly different weights; after using 8 $3/1 ham winetags, the total price for all 8 packages was $1.07.
I also got one Cook’s Ham steak, which was priced at $3.63; after using my last $3/1 ham wine tag, the price came down to .63 cents.
Transaction #6:
Once I had the ham taken care of, I had two more necessities to pick up before calling it a day.
Total spent: $5.26
Total before coupons: $15.26
View receipt
Got:
2 half-pound packages of organic, fair trade Millstone coffee – regularly $8.99 per pound, used two $2.00/1 coupons from the 3/14 Red Plum newspaper insert, which doubled; final price: $3.28 for both. I had extras of these coupons thanks to a “Coupon train” which I participated in on Hot Coupon World – I mailed two envelopes of coupons to other members and received two envelopes of coupons from others in return. It was fun and I got some great coupons from it!
2 packages of Stayfree pads – regularly $3.49 each, used two $2/1 coupons from the 3/28 Red Plum newspaper inserts, which doubled; final price: .99 cents each. I got these coupons during a recent trade also!
