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Archive for the ‘Safeway’ Category
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
Here is my belated “Super Savings Saturday” post! I came down with a flu over the weekend, so I’m a little behind on getting my deals posted.
First stop, Safeway:
Total spent: Zero
Total before coupons: $6.00
View receipt #1
View Receipt #2
Got:
6 boxes of napkins
These were on sale for $1, and there were coupons for .50/1 in the 6/22 newspaper inserts – free after doubles! Unfortunately, these coupons expired on the 12th, but there seem to be Dixie coupons in the inserts frequently, and I see these on sale for $1 at Safeway often; so keep your eyes peeled for this one in the future.
Then, it was off to Walgreens:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put $1.95 on a rebate gift card. And I got back $3 in Register Rewards!
Total before coupons: $13.99
View receipts – one of my items rang up wrong initially, so the first receipt is what I overpaid, and the second receipt is the refund back to my gift card.
Got:
1 Glade Flameless Candle – used a $5/1 coupon from the 9/7 newspaper inserts, and got a$3 Register Reward back for purchasing it.
2 bottles of Coffee-Mate – On sale for $1.50 each, and I used two $1/1 printables. You are allowed to print two coupons per computer, so I used my boyfriend’s computer to print these.
1 pez dispenser – fun stocking stuffer!
1 Lindt chocolate bars – These are on sale for $2.29 at my store. I used one .75/1 coupon and one “Buy One, Get One Free” coupon from the 10/5 inserts, and stacked them with a $1 coupon from the EasySaver catalog. This resulted in .46 cents of overage for purchasing 2 bars! Overage from chocolate – does it get any better than that?
I got last month’s rebate loaded onto my gift card, so I put it to good use during this trip. Remember how I spent $32.72 out of pocket for rebate items last month? Well, I got $42.60 back in rebates!
As a side note, you’ll notice that there is an item voided off my order. I had originally planned to buy one trial sized packet of Airborne for .99 cents, and use a $2 off coupon. However, the coupon would not go through automatically, and the manager said he could not accept it. The coupon was valid, because it says $2 off any variety of Airborne. The manufacturer reimburses the store for the full amount of the coupon, plus a handling fee. But the manager seemed to be confused about coupon redemption, as he said several different contradictory things regarding the redemption, and has been misinformed in the past also. This was the same manager from the last time I tried to redeem this coupon, and the register processed the coupon differently that time. But that’s OK; I just voided the Airborne off my order. Incidentally, my total was $1 higher than I had intended as a result, since I didn’t have the extra overage.
Then I stopped by Fred Meyer’s:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put .20 cents on a gift card I got for my birthday
Total before coupons: $21.70
View receipt
Got:
Over a pound of organic bananas
10 Dove deodorants – on sale for $1.99, and there was a stack of $2/1 Dove deodorant coupons right next to it on the shelf!
1 trial sized Zantac 75 – on sale for .99 cents, used a $1.50/1 coupon from the 9/7 SmartSource newspaper insert – resulting in .51 cents overage!
Then I went through the line one more time:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put .18 cents on my gift card
Total before coupons: $11.68
View receipt
Got:
1 gallon of milk
A pound of apples
8 trial sized packets of Zantac 75 – used seven $1.50/1 Zantac 75 coupons, and one $1 off any Zantac product coupon, both from the 9/7 newspaper insert. Both of these coupons say good on any size, so they can be used on trial sizes. The resulting overage paid for the milk and apples!
Then I stopped by Walgreens one more time:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put $23.73 on my gift card. And I will get back $27.50 in rebates!
Total before coupons: $122.77
View receipt – I had to fold it in half because it’s so long! I think this might be the most coupons I’ve redeemed in one transaction.
Got a bunch of stuff:
18 Lindt chocolate bars – MMM! As I mentioned above, for every two bars I used one .75/1 coupon and one “Buy One, Get One Free” coupon from the 10/5 inserts, and stacked them with the $1 coupon from the EasySaver catalog. And I got .46 cents overage for every two bars purchased!
2 bottles of Coffee Mate – used one $1.50/2 printable.
1 roll of foil
1 package of Windex Wipes – on sale for $2.50, used one $1.50/1 printable. I will get $1 back in rebates, making it free!
3 bottles of Pert Plus – on sale for $3.49, used three $1.50/1 coupons from the 9/7 inserts, stacked with a $2.50/1 coupon from the EasySaver booklet – resulting in .51 cents overage each.
2 bottles of Fantastik Cleaner – on sale for $2.50, used two $1.50/1 printables, and will get $2 back in rebates – making them free!
1 Glade carpet deodorizer – on sale for $1.99, used a $1/1 coupon from the 9/14 inserts, and will get back $1 in rebates – making it free!
2 packages of rubber gloves – used coupon from Walgreens sales circular, making them two for $1.
1 bottle of Scrubbing Bubbles spray – on sale for $2.50, used a $2/1 printable (I found it here, but I’m not sure if it’s still available). And I will get $1 back in rebates, so .50 cents profit!
2 bottles of Palmolive dish soap – used a coupon from the Walgreens sales circular to make them .89 cents each, and stacked it with two .25/1 coupons from the 9/28 inserts, making the final price .64 cents each.
3 boxes of pudding
2 boxes of Shout Wipes – on sale for $2.50 each, used two $1.50/1 printables. And I’ll get back $2 in rebates, making them free!
1 Glade Scented Oil Candle – on sale for $3.99, used a $2/1 coupon from the 9/14 inserts. And I’ll get back $2 in rebates, making it free plus a penny profit!
3 packages of TP
1 Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner – on sale for $19.99, used one $10/1 printable. And I will get back a $10 rebate, making it free! Score!
4 Scrubbing Bubbles Action Scrubbers – on sale for $3.99, used four $2.75/1 printables – two from my computer, two from my boyfriend’s. And I will get back $6 in rebates – resulting in $1.04 profit!
I also used my $3 Register Reward from the last transaction.
During this transaction, I had a problem with one of the coupons from the Walgreens sales circular – the coupon for the rubber gloves would not go through. The same manager I had talked to earlier tried and tried to scan it, but it just beeped. He looked at the rubber gloves and the coupon for a long time, and finally had to override the price manually. He couldn’t really say that he wouldn’t accept it just because it beeped, since it was from their own sales circular.
This was a great trip – not only did I not spend anything out of pocket, but if you add up the amounts I put on both my Fred Meyer birthday gift card and my Walgreens rebate gift card, it only comes to $26.06. I’m getting $27.50 back in rebates from Walgreens, so that paid for both the gift card expenditures and then some!
Big thanks again to Money Saving Mom, Deal Seeking Mom, and Common”Cents”ical for posting these deal scenarios! Also, bear in mind that Walgreens changes their sales on Sunday, so the sales this week are different. (I believe Fred Meyer’s also changes their sale prices on Sunday, although I’m not 100% sure. Safeway changes select sale prices on Sunday, with most of the prices changing on Wednesday.)
Posted in Fred Meyer, Produce Deals, Safeway, Walgreens | No Comments »
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
I’m a little behind in posting my shopping trips, so I have some catching up to do!
I did a lot of baking over the past few days, and on Thursday night I realized that I was all out of several ingredients. So a trip to Safeway was in order:
Total Spent: .13 cents
Total before coupons: $15.13
View receipt – note that the total on the receipt is $2.13. This is because an item rang up wrong, and I was subsequently refunded $2. I also cut the bottom of the receipt off, since it had my debit card info on it.
I got:
2 pounds of flour
1 dozen cage free eggs
1 package of margarine
1 bottle of shampoo
1 bottle of conditioner
2 bottles of aspirin
There is a promotion running currently at Safeway for Dove hair care, where if you buy 2 Dove products, $2 is supposed to come off your transaction automatically; I read about this on Hot Coupon World, and there was also a sign marking it in the hair care aisle at my store. There was also a “Super Coupon” in the Safeway sales circular last Sunday that makes the Dove shampoo & conditioner 2 for $6. Store coupons can be combined with manufacturer’s coupons, so I also used two $2/1 Dove hair care coupons from the 8/17 newspaper inserts in conjunction with the Super Coupon. After doubles, this would give me $1 of overage. The only problem is that the automatic $2 discount did not come off, which is weird, since the sign did say it was off any Dove. So the cashier just refunded me the $2 that I overpaid, but I did not get a receipt for that transaction, since he just handed me cash.
Also, the Bayer aspirin is on a great sale this week – selected varieties are priced at $1, and there were $1 coupons for Bayer in the 7/27 newspaper inserts! My store will also double these coupons, so I was able to get .50 cents overage on each bottle.
As a side note, if anyone wonders why I use my debit card for such small transactions – the truth is, now that my groceries only cost me spare change, I’ve found that I don’t really need to carry much cash around anymore!
I also needed a few items at Rite Aid:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put $9.85 on 2 gift cards that I earned through various promotions
Total before coupons: $13.85
View receipt
Got:
1 box of band-aids
1 pair of nail scissors
1 pair of tweezers
No exciting deals here, just stuff I had to get. Rite Aid had the best price I’ve been able to find on band-aids currently, and I also needed the scissors. I used a $2/1 Sally Hansen Implement coupon from the 9/28 newspaper inserts to lower the price of the scissors, and since the Sally Hansen tools were on sale for “Buy One, Get One 50%”, I also picked up a pair of tweezers. After the coupon and sale, they were only .47 cents, which is not a bad price for something useful.
Posted in Rite Aid, Safeway | No Comments »
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
Today, I used some of those Glade catalinas that I earned to pay for a few things that I needed:
Total Spent: .17 cents
Total before coupons: $32.67
View receipt
I got:
Half a pound of organic, fair trade coffee
1 can of black olives
1 bag of chow mein noodles
3 bags of Wacky Mac – on sale for .99 cents, used three .50/1 coupons from the 6/22 newspaper inserts, free after doubles
1 bag of organic tortilla chips
4 8 ounce packages of cream cheese – on sale for $2 each, and Safeway is running a promotion where you instantly save $4 off your transaction for purchasing 4 Philadelphia Cream Cheeses. I then used a coupon for $1 off 4 Philadelphia Cream Cheese packages to sweeten the deal further. I got this coupon in a trade a few months ago, looks like it came from an in-store tearpad.
1 8 ounce bag of shredded cheese
1 bottle of International Delight coffee creamer
1 pound of roma tomatoes
1 pound of onion
A 10 pound bag of potatoes
Posted in Produce Deals, Safeway | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
Total spent: $9.45. But before you fall off your chair – I walked out of the store with $36 in catalinas!
Total before coupons: $128.88
View receipt #1
View receipt #2 (I cut the bottom of this receipt off, because it had my debit card info on it)
View receipt #3
View receipt #4
For some reason, my name didn’t show up on any of my receipts – I am now “Valued Customer”! It also didn’t register my Power Pump accumulation, my GroceryMiles, and so forth, so I’ll have to call customer service tomorrow and find out what’s up.
I got:
1 gallon of milk
2 1-pound bags of Healthful Life catfood – on sale for $1.50, used a $1 coupon from the 8/3 newspaper inserts. Free after doubles!
A 4-pack of TP – Came to $4.99 after $1 SuperCoupon from this weekend’s Safeway sales circular
2 South Beach pizzas – on sale for $2.50, used two $2/1 printables (link seems to be down at the moment), free after doubles. The tag in store said this price was only through 10/7 – I lucked out, since I didn’t know what the sale price was until I got to the store.
2 bottles of Coke – used two “Free Coke” coupons that I got in a promo from My Coke Rewards a while ago.
4 bags of Wacky Mac – on sale for .99 cents, used four .50/1 coupons from the 6/22 inserts. Free after doubles!
16 Glade plug-ins – used eight “Buy One, Get One Free” coupons from the 9/28 inserts.
1 3 pound package of Bar-S sausages – used $5/1 coupon that I received in the mail from the company.
1 pound of butter
Over a pound of bananas
A pound of Zucchini
So regular readers may remember that I set my grocery budget for October at $20 or less. So why, then, did I spend almost half of it at the beginning of the month? I chose to invest part of my budget in a new catalina deal, and I was able to leave the store with $36 in catalinas in my purse. My plan is to keep rolling this catalina deal throughout the month, and use the proceeds towards groceries during the rest of the month. This is the latest catalina deal at Safeway:
The Glade gel warmer deal is over, but has been replaced by a different Glade deal – this time, it’s the scented oil warmers! They are $5.79, and produce a $4 catalina. Used in conjunction with a “BOGO” (Buy One, Get One Free) coupon, this quickly becomes a moneymaker. The previous Glade deals seemed to be running throughout different grocery chains nationwide, so watch for this one.
I started off my shopping trip by using the last two $2 catalinas that I had left from the prior Glade deal, and bought 2 warmers utilizing the “BOGO” coupon. I also got 4 free bags of Wacky Mac, spending a total of $1.72 and receiving $8 in coupons back.
For the second transaction, I used a “$10 off a $50 purchase at Safeway” coupon that was in the Oregonian last week. The nice thing about this coupon is that it can be used in conjunction with manufacturer coupons. So essentially, you can buy $40 worth of products that you have $40 worth of coupons for, and then buy an additional $10 worth of merchandise for which you have no coupons, and use the $10/50 to pay for it. If this is confusing, just think of your $40 worth of coupons as cash – the store is reimbursed by the manufacturer for them, so it doesn’t really matter whether you’re paying for your $40 subtotal in cash or coupons.
So to get my pre-coupon total up to $40, I bought four more Glade warmers, using two “BOGO” coupons and the $8 in catalinas that I had just received to pay for all but $3.58 of it; I also used a lot of the “Free” product coupons that I had on hand. Altogether, my total ended up being $4.88 – and I got $16 in catalinas back.
The third time, I just got 2 Glade warmers, using yet another “BOGO” and one of the $4 catalinas, paying $1.79 altogether. I thought I might need this extra catalina for my next transaction, but I actually didn’t have to use it.
Finally, I made use of one more $10/50 coupon. This time, I got 8 warmers, which brought my pre-coupon total to $46.32. I then bought the butter and bananas to get me up to $50. I used the $10 off coupon, four “BOGO” coupons, and $16 in catalinas, bringing me to $1.06. I then got $32 in catalinas back!
Posted in Produce Deals, Safeway | No Comments »
Monday, October 6th, 2008
Total spent: .27 cents
Total before coupons: $14.77
View receipt #1 View receipt #2 View receipt #3
Got:
6 Glade plug-ins
1 Sunday newspaper
1 package of hamburger buns (3 guesses what we had for dinner tonight!)
1 head of garlic
Over a pound of apples
As I took advantage of the Glade catalina deal once again, I noticed that the tags marking the deal in the store stated that today was the last day of the promotion. In other locations, it’s marked as ending on the 7th, so if any of you still plan on doing this deal – BEWARE! Check the tags in your store and see what the end date is marked as!
As you can see, I broke this down into three transactions. For the first, I bought 2 plug-ins and utilized the “Buy One, Get One Free” coupon I had. The plug-ins are $1.50, so I bought a head of garlic at .50 cents and used the $2 catalina that I still had left from Friday to pay for the purchase. I subsequently got two $2 catalinas back.
For the second transaction, I bought 4 plug-ins and used 2 “Buy One, Get One Free” coupons. Since this brought the plug-ins to a grand total of $3.00, I bought the buns I needed for $1 and used $4 worth of catalinas to pay for the purchase. I then received $8 in catalinas back.
I still needed a Sunday newspaper, so I spent two of my catalinas on that and the apples. And I still have $4 in catalinas left for next time!
Later in the evening, I realized that today was the last day of the free Ronzoni pasta deal at Safeway. I had two $1/1 coupons left, so I headed back to the store! I live very close to Safeway, in case you’re wondering why I would bother making another trip.
Total spent: Zero. I didn’t even bring my purse with me – just my coupon binder!
Total before coupons: $3.00
View receipt
Got:
2 packages of spaghetti
The cashier who rang me up was very nice, and enthusiastic about my coupons. The customer in front of me was inquiring about a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase at Safeway that appeared in the Oregonian recently, and the cashier looked at me and said, “She knows all about coupons!” I ended up talking to the customer about when this coupon expires and when it came out (Last Tuesday’s FoodDay, for my local readers – I’ll be sure to give you a heads-up when the next one comes out, they seem to appear once every few weeks or so). The cashier raved about how well I do with coupons. Then when the total came to nothing, she dashed away from the checkstand, chasing after the customer in front of me who was starting to leave. She waved my coupons at her and said, “Hey! Look at this! She just got those for free!!” It was hilarious! She then came back to the checkstand and finished the transaction. As I was leaving, she yelled that I need to teach a seminar, and tell her as soon as I do!
Posted in Safeway | No Comments »
Sunday, October 5th, 2008
Yesterday I realized that I was almost out of coffee, so I made a quick run into Safeway:
Total spent: .10 cents
Total before coupons: $4.10
View receipt (looks like the register was running out of ink, but you can read most of it)
Got:
A little under half a pound of my favorite fair trade & organic Millstone coffee.
I used 2 of my catalinas from Friday’s Glade deal to pay for all but ten cents of it.
Rite Aid is right next door to Safeway, so I popped in to get a rebate freebie:
Total spent: $5.00 – but I’m getting $5.00 back in rebates, making it free!
Total before coupons: $9.00
View receipt
Got:
1 Gillette Fusion razor – used a $4/1 coupon from the 9/28 Proctor & Gamble newspaper insert
Then I came home and ate a coupon-funded dinner:
Baked Eggplant Parmesan – I used this recipe, which I liked a lot!
As you can see, I’m still trying to find a good setting on the camera for food pictures…
Posted in Rite Aid, Safeway | No Comments »
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
Here’s Friday’s haul:
Total spent: -.75 cents!
Total before coupons: $7.26
View receipt
Got:
4 Glade plug ins
Over 2 pounds of bananas
So for this transaction, I used 2 of the $2 Glade catalina coupons from my last Safeway visit, and 2 “Buy One, Get One Free” plug-in coupons. The plug-ins are on sale for $1.50, so after buying some bananas at .59 cents a pound, I figured my total would be roughly .20 cents, depending on the actual weight of the bananas. But when the cashier scanned the “Get One Free” coupons, they both took off $1.99. “Oh, look, it’s taking off too much,” I pointed out. “The plug-ins are only $1.50, and it’s taking off $1.99.” To which the cashier replied, “Well, if that’s what it’s taking off, then that’s what it is. I can’t argue with what my computer says.” And since I’d handed over $4 worth of catalinas, it put my total at minus .75 cents. “And you get change back!” she said. So the cashier pretty much insisted on giving me money back! Not to mention that I got $8 in catalinas from the plug-in purchase. Crazy!
Total spent: .05 cents
Total before coupons: $2.05
View receipt
I went through the line one more time to get another pound of bananas and one more plug-in. And I got the same $2 catalina coupon back, so I left the store with $8 in catalinas and an extra .70 cents in my pocket.
Then, I headed to Walgreens:
Total spent: $3.94 – but I’ll get $7.49 back in rebates
Total before coupons: $28.44
View receipt
Got:
4 bottles of Pert Plus – on sale for $3.49, and I used 4 $1.50 coupons from the 9/7 newspaper inserts, combined with the $2.50/1 EasySaver Pert coupon, to produce .51 cents of overage for each bottle.
1 bottle of Rimmel foundation – on sale for $7.49, free after rebate
1 box of Zantac – on sale for $4.99, used this coupon for $5.50 off.
2 packages of TP
This transaction was just a mess. Originally, I had planned to get 3 trial size packets of Airborne, on sale for .99 cents, and use the $2/1 coupon from the 9/7 inserts to produce $1.01 overage each. To soak up this overage, I picked up a package of Quilted Northern TP, which would have been $3 after using a $1 Quilted Northern coupon. The remaining 3 cents would be absorbed by the rebate item.
The first Airborne coupon scanned just fine, but then the register refused to take the other 2, or my Zantac coupon (which came from the Walgreens website!). The manager came over and had to push the Zantac coupon through manually. Then he looked at the Airborne coupon for a long time and said, “Oh, it won’t take it because it says limit one per purchase.” I mentioned that each item is considered a purchase, and that I had 3 items. He said that in this instance, “purchase” refers to the whole transaction. I knew this was not accurate information, because if that were the case it would say “limit one per transaction” – for an explanation of this, I recommend this great coupon basics tutorial on Hot Coupon World. But it’s not worth arguing over – if they don’t want to take my coupons, I will just politely put the item back. Anyway, since I had bought the TP as an overage eater for the Airborne, I asked the cashier to just void the TP and all three Airbornes from my transaction. In retrospect, I could have kept 1 Airborne on there and let the rebate item suck up the $1.01 overage, but I was getting so confused and was trying to keep the math simple so that I didn’t end up paying more than I wanted to.
At any rate, the total came to $3.94, which didn’t seem right at all – I had figured that it would come to over $6. So after I paid, I sat in my car with my calculator for a good 5 minutes or so, just staring at the receipt trying to make heads or tails of it. If you take a look at the receipt you’ll probably see why I was having trouble making sense of it! Finally, I realized that the clerk had voided off the Quilted Northern and handed me my coupon back, but the $1 coupon for it had not been voided off. $4.94 was still way lower than I was expecting, but I thought I must have done the math wrong on the Pert.
I headed back into the store, explained what had happened and showed the manager my receipt. “So I owe you a dollar!” I said. He looked a little stunned that I would want to fix an error that was in my favor. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” he said. “It was our mistake. But thank you for coming back in!” So he appreciated my honesty, anyway.
And when I was scanning the receipt in today, I studied it further and added everything up several times, and it finally dawned on me – the $2 coupon for the Airborne hadn’t been voided off, either!! So that’s why it was so low. What a confusing mess that transaction was!
After all that, I headed over to Fred Meyer:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put $7.97 on a gift card that I got as a birthday present. And I got $16 back in catalina coupons!
Total before coupons: $37.95
View receipt
Got:
1 Dove deodorant – on sale for $1.99, and there was a tearpad of coupons for $2/1 sitting right next to it. So watch for these if you shop at Fred Meyer!
4 Glade Flameless Candles – On sale for $8.99, and I used 2 $5/1 coupons from the 9/7 inserts, and 2 “Buy One, Get One Free” coupons that I printed here. And I got a $4 catalina back for each candle that I bought! This promo is running at other Kroger stores, Safeway, and probably a few other chains as well.
These candles are great, especially with power outage season fast approaching!
So essentially, I was able to double the amount I had to spend by turning $7.97 on a gift card into $16 in coupons. My cashier was super nice, and couldn’t believe the deal. As I was leaving, I heard her say to the next customers in line, “Did you SEE that?! She got all those $4 coupons back!!”
I then used those coupons to pay for the following items:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put $1.54 on my gift card
Total before coupons: $19.54
View receipt
Got:
1 head of organic red leaf lettuce
Just under 2 pounds of organic apples
1 Eggplant
A pound of organic oranges
A pound of broccoli
1 gallon of milk
1 8oz bag of cheese
2 ears of corn
1 canister of bread crumbs
Another free Dove deodorant
Then I made one last stop at Safeway on my way home:
Total spent: .04 cents
Total before coupons: $2.04
View receipt
I used one of my $2 Glade catalinas to buy:
1 package of TP – my favorite overage item! After all, you can never have too much of it, and there’s rarely good sales on it in my area.
1 bag of Cheetos – I was hungry for a snack. The bag was empty by the time I snapped this picture!
Posted in Fred Meyer, Produce Deals, Safeway, Walgreens | No Comments »
Friday, October 3rd, 2008
Got a few deals tonight:
Total spent: .10 cents – .06 cents on the actual groceries, .04 cents for breast cancer research
Total before coupons: $31.56
View Receipt #1
View Receipt #2
And I got $4 back in catalinas to use on my next trip!
Also, I earned my first 125 miles in the United Airlines GroceryMiles program. I have to earn about 50,000 before I can get a plane ticket anywhere, but it’s worth noting that you can cash in 1,000 miles for Restaurant.com gift certificates. It’s free to sign up for the program – just fill in a form and it will add the promotion to your club card, and your grocery purchases will start to count towards miles.
I got:
1 can of corn
1 4-pack of TP
8 trial size boxes of Tide – used $1/1 coupons from the recent P&G newspaper insert
6 Glade plug-ins – used “Buy One, Get One Free” coupons from another recent newspaper insert. There’s also a printable here.
1 package of pasta – used $1/1 coupon from 8/24 SS insert
1 pint of milk
2 bottles of Coffee-Mate – used $1/1 printables, found here.
2 packages of Stayfree – used $2/2 coupon from 9/28 insert
For my first transaction, I used overage from the Tide to pay for my other items. The trial sizes are .89 cents at my store, and the coupon is good for $1 off any size Tide – resulting in .11 cents of overage (And the store is reimbursed for the full amount of the coupon by the manufacturer, just as a side note). And I was also able to double these coupons, giving me an extra .50 cents of overage each. At my store, any coupon can be doubled up to .50 cents; and there is no restriction on the amount, so your coupon doesn’t have to be .50 cents or less.
So, as an example, a .35 cent coupon becomes .70 cents, a .50 cent coupon becomes $1, a .75 cent coupon becomes $1.25, a $1 coupon becomes $1.50, and so forth. In addition, a coupon can be doubled beyond the item’s face value. So if an item is on sale for $1 and you have a $1 off coupon, it will still double – hence the .50 cent overage on the Tide. This was confirmed by several managers at my store, who said that yes, it’s perfectly legitimate and accepted to get overage this way. I’ve gotten some great questions from readers about my store’s doubling policy, so I wanted to explain it in a little more detail so that it makes more sense. Also, bear in mind that it is up to the discretion of each store to set their own coupon policies – some Safeways don’t double coupons at all.
At any rate, the first transaction was .10 cents, and I got $8 back in catalina coupons towards my next order. I subsequently made my next purchase, and used the catalinas to pay for all of it. And I got $4 back in more catalinas!
Then, I made a quick stop at Rite Aid:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put $2.69 on a gift card that I earned for free from a promotion
Total before coupons: $2.69
View Receipt
So this was a pretty good start to October’s budget!
Posted in Rite Aid, Safeway | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
This was a nice way to finish off my shopping for the month:
Total Spent: Zero!
Total Before Coupons: $6.00
View Receipt
Got:
4 packages of pasta
Safeway has Ronzoni pasta on sale for $1.50, and there was a coupon in the 8/24 newspaper inserts for $1 off one. My store doubles coupons up to .50 cents, making these free! I needed this, because I was planning to make spaghetti for dinner tonight, and realized that I had none left. Which brings us to this week’s edition of: What does a coupon user eat, anyway?
Spaghetti and meatballs with mushrooms, tomatoes, black olives, and artichoke hearts.
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
Today was all about fuel discounts. First, I received a $5 Chevron gift card in the mail, from taking part in a quiz contest a few months ago. Second, it was time for me to redeem my Power Pump Rewards!
The first quarter of Safeway’s fuel discount program, Power Pump Rewards, ends tomorrow. This means that any points accumulated during the quarter must be redeemed, or you will lose them. Discounts are earned for every $100 you spend at Safeway. Each time you accumulate $100 worth of purchases on your club card, you earn a .10 cent per gallon discount. Even better, it counts your total before manufacturer’s coupons, and the discounts stack. Since I redeem so many coupons, I waited until the very end of the month to save up as many rewards as I could. I ended up with 22 rewards, which equals a discount of $2.20 per gallon! That’s a pretty big savings, and I was mulling over how I could best utilize it.
Safeway allows you to get up to 35 gallons with your Power Pump discount. My car has a 16 gallon capacity; my boyfriend, Jai, has a 12 gallon tank in his car. “We should borrow someone’s truck, fill it up, and then siphon the gas off into both of our cars,” Jai suggested. You know gas prices are high when this seems like a perfectly reasonable idea!
As a result of this brainstorm, we decided to ask Jai’s dad if we could use his truck today. As luck would have it, this truck has a gas tank capacity of exactly 35 gallons, and the tank was almost empty when we borrowed it. So, we took it over to the nearest Safeway gas pump to fill up.
My Power Pump discount brought the price down to $1.49 a gallon – a good deal in today’s world.
We filled the tank with 32 gallons of gas, for a total of $48.25. Here’s the receipt – I blacked out my debit card number, for obvious reasons:
Jai’s dad noted how $48 would normally get just 1/4 of a tank in his truck.
As we headed home, we passed by Walgreens, and I took the opportunity to nip in and grab a few deals. I had some Pert Plus coupons that expire tomorrow, and I wanted to use them up since they’re a moneymaker right now.
Total Spent: .22 cents
Total before coupons: $27.22
View Receipt
As I mentioned over the weekend, you can combine the manufacturer’s Pert coupons with this month’s EasySaver $2.50/1 coupon, resulting in overage. Here’s what I got:
6 bottles of Pert
1 pound of butter
2 packages of TP
1 Halloween gift bag – cute filler item!
After this quick WAGs run, we returned home and began the adventure of siphoning off gas!
Jai hooked up a garden hose to the truck’s gas tank, parked his car on a slope, and let gravity do the rest. Knowing that we would use this gas discount at the end of the month, he had let his gas tank get as low as he could, and was able to put a full tank into his car.
After his car was filled, we moved my car into position. In the meantime, we had to keep the hose elevated so that it wouldn’t slosh gas around, so Jai tied it up into a tree. People driving by must have wondered what on earth we were doing!
My car had a little more gas in it than Jai’s, but I still got at least 10 gallons or so. And after both our cars were full to the brim, the truck still had half a tank left! Suffice to say, I am pretty pleased with the Power Pump Rewards program. I wonder how much of a discount I can rack up in the next quarter!
Posted in Power Pump Rewards, Safeway, Walgreens | No Comments »
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