It was my birthday yesterday, which is why I’ve been quiet for a few days. One of the birthday treats I received was a coupon for a free cookie at Quiznos – I got it in my email because I signed up for their mailing list. If you’d like to get a free cookie on your birthday, along with other coupons for Quiznos, click here to sign up for the QClub!

I did make a quick trip to Safeway yesterday, because it was also the last day of my 10% discount.

Total spent: .37 cents
Total before coupons: $47.07

And I got:

1 bottle of Coffee-Mate
A 6-pack of drinkable yoghurt
2 packages of TP
38 Pure Protein bars

Safeway has the Pure Protein bars on sale for $1 this week, and there was a coupon in the 7/20 newspaper inserts for $1.50 off two. If your store doubles, they’re free; if not, it’s .50 cents for two. These are pretty good – S’mores is my favorite flavor!

I never got a chance to post my second Safeway trip on Tuesday:

First transaction –

Total Spent: .25 cents
Total before coupons: $25

I got:

5 boxes of Nature Valley bars
5 boxes of broth

This was the last day of the $5 off 5 promo at Safeway, and these items were both included in the sale. I used .50/1 coupons for the Nature Valley, which I got out of a recent insert; I also rolled the $3.50 catalina coupon (more on that in a moment). For the Progresso I used this printable, which I had multiples of since we have many computers. The register then automatically deducted $10 for the promo!

I should have also received another coupon for $3.50 off for buying the Nature Valley, but there was a problem with the catalina machine (I’m guessing it was out of paper), and it didn’t print. However, I’ll just contact the catalina marketing company directly and they’ll mail me the coupon. But unfortunately, this messed up my second transaction:

Total spent: $3.40
Total before coupons: $6.00

Got:

2 packages of Kotex – used 2 $1 off printables

I was going to use the coupon that should have printed out to pay for the rest of my total, but alas. Although as it turned out, I wouldn’t really have been able to use it anyway, since the “on your next order” coupon would be for $3.50 off. For some reason, when I was deciding on the items to buy, I had it in my head that the coupon was for $3.25 off; I don’t know where I got that number from. Have I mentioned that it’s been a quad-shot week?

Total spent: .02 cents
Total before coupons: $12.83

And I got a coupon back for $3.50 off my next purchase!

View receipt

You may notice that at the bottom of my receipt, it says I only have 11 power pump rewards. I was at 20 yesterday and haven’t redeemed any since then, so I called the customer service hotline to find out what was up. The rep told me that while it showed my correct balance of 20, it had not updated to reflect the credit from this latest purchase, so she added that manually. I told her that sometimes the receipts will show my club card info and savings, but not register the fuel rewards or take off my 10% discount. She said that this is because the 10% and power pump are hosted on one database, and the club card savings and information are hosted on another. She said that the database will go down occasionally because the power pump rewards are a new promotion and they’re still working out some of the kinks; this is why it will sometimes register my club card savings without applying the 10% discount or crediting me for the fuel rewards. The rep was extremely helpful, and went through my purchases in August and September to see which ones I did not get the gas credit for, since this has happened quite a few times. There were only 3 total that hadn’t come off, because the other instances where it didn’t show up on my receipt were apparently credited later. This would explain the recent order I did where I got more rewards than I was expecting – I should have asked her about that! At any rate, she credited me for the purchases that weren’t logged, so now I will have 21 power pump rewards, with $42 towards my next one! Yay!

Total spent: $1.46 – but was subsequently refunded $1.99
Total before coupons: $17.19 – this is the true retail value of the items, not the receipt total.
And I earned a power pump reward, bringing my total to 20! That’s $2.00 off gas!

I got:

4 Glade plug-ins (but it should have been 5!)
2 corn muffin mixes
1 package of Kotex
1 can of beans
1 bag of Twisted Cheetos – not pictured, because we already ate them all!

The cashier who rang me up was extremely nice, but everything rang up screwy. I had it calculated that after coupons, my total would be 5 cents. It came out to $1.04 (Cheetos were bought in a separate transaction), so I paid and then looked at my receipt in the car. Sure enough, I had bought 5 plug-ins, but it rang up incorrectly as 6. So I took my receipt back into have it fixed. Now, my total was only $1.04, but the warmers are $1.99 – I gave her more ONYOs than I would have if my original total had been correct, so it got all messed up. I explained this, and she looked at the receipt and told me she was just going to refund the full price of the plug-in that rang in wrong, so I got a $1.99 refund. And it gets even more confusing – when I got home, I realized I now only had 4 plug-ins in my bag – she had pulled one out to scan it, and did not put it back in the bag. To top it all off, when I pulled out the receipt to add up the totals for this post, I realized that she had not rung up my can of beans at all!! I can’t believe I didn’t notice this when I was looking at my receipt in the parking lot, but I am running off so little sleep that I completely missed it. (And this is after drinking a shot of pure, straight espresso!) Another thing that dawned on me later was that it printed out too many Glade ONYOs, since she scanned it six times instead of five. I should have just gotten five, but I counted and sure enough, there are six. She just handed me a stack of them, and I wasn’t paying attention. What a mess!!!!

I was having a Hallmark moment this afternoon:

Total spent: 0 – I made .73 cents profit (see below!)
Total before Hallmark discount: $177.27 (may have been slightly higher, I don’t think I got a receipt for one of the transactions)
I earned 2 gas discounts, bringing the running total to 19! That’s $1.90 off gas so far!
I also got more of the plug-ins, so I received 6 of the $2 catalinas back.
And to top it all of, a customer in front of me did not want their catalina for free margarine – so they turned around and handed it to me!

There’s way too many receipts for me to scan them all in, as you can see!

ETA: I got so many groceries yesterday that when I got in my car this morning, I discovered 2 more bags that I missed when I was bringing everything in!! I’ve updated the totals to include these items:

Here’s what I got:

21 packets of Ramen
1 Spam Single
1 packet of “Choice” Ramen
2 cup-o-noodles
1 packet of plastic cutlery (for the boyfriend)
4 packages of TP (16 rolls altogether)
5 rolls of paper towels
2 packages of napkins (400 napkins total)
An 8-pack of purse sized tissue
6 plug-ins
1 package of cookies (notice how the package is already torn into? Yum yum!)
2 cans of black beans
2 cans of garbanzo beans
1 can of water chesnuts
1 can of corn
2 jars of artichoke hearts
7 Yakisoba bowls
2 Halloween cookie cutters
6 bags of rice (12 pounds altogether)
120 or so Halloween cards – I’m not sure if I did 30 or 31 transactions, but it’s somewhere around there. Um, it’s a lot of cards. When you care enough to send the very best….

Since the Hallmark promo at Safeway ends on the 20th, I’m trying to do it as many times as possible before it’s over. I had it worked out that after the $5 off for buying 4 cards, and my 10% discount, that I could buy 4 of the 99 cent cards and have $1.44 left over to pay for whatever I wanted. Naturally, there aren’t many items that are exactly $1.44, so I would get it as close as possible, and just pay a few cents for my items. Well, the other day I messed up – I meant to buy 4 cards, a Yakisoba bowl, and 2 corn muffin mixes, but I only grabbed 1 mix. This would make my total under $5, and I presumed that if you were under the amount of the discount, that it would either go into the red or just not work. But I was wrong, because the register showed simply a zero balance! This means, if you buy 4 cards, but only spend $4.50 altogether, the discount will still come off – it just takes off $4.50 instead of the $5, adjusting the discount down to what you are purchasing.

Well, this opened up all kinds of possibilities, since it’s much easier to come up with combinations of items if it doesn’t have to be so close to $1.44. The result? The majority of my groceries were absolutely free. You can imagine the amazement of the cashiers when I handed over my club card, and suddenly owed nothing! A customer in line behind me exclaimed that I was the smartest shopper he’d ever seen.

I only paid out of pocket for 3 of my 30 (or was it 31?) transactions. I spent .70 cents – but then, I got $1.43 change back in two other transactions! This is because I rolled my ONYOs to pay for the Glade plug-ins, as I get a small profit each time. Well, it got all confusing and I handed over too many, and it showed a negative balance, which she handed me change for as if I had paid in cash and not an ONYO. I did look at the fine print, and the Glade coupon does not say that you cannot receive change from it, as some of the Safeway sponsored ONYOs do. I have heard of other people legitimately receiving change from ONYOs before, so I’m assuming it’s pretty standard – I just hadn’t seen a Safeway catalina that didn’t state “will not give change” before. Anyway, this means that I was reimbursed for the whole .70 cents I spent, plus another .73 cents richer!!

Total spent: .06 cents
Total before coupons: $28.41

I got:

16 cards
4 Hamburger Helpers
4 packets of cornbread mix
2 Yakisoba bowls
1 roll of foil

I had an interesting experience at the store tonight. There are some awesome cashiers at my store, and I know them all pretty well, since it’s a small town. So when I got into the checkout line tonight, the supervisor who was ringing said, “Beeb! I’m so glad you’re here!” Apparently, someone in customer service was concerned about some of my sales. The CS staffer didn’t understand the Hallmark promo, or the 10% discount that I have loaded onto my card. She wanted to watch my transaction being rung up, so she could find out what was happening. When she saw the $5 come off for the Hallmark deal, she furrowed her brow and said, “It’s like we’re paying you to shop here, I don’t understand it.” My total at this point was 2 cents due, so it’s not like I was getting any overage back – I would understand them taking issue with that, since every cashier seems to make their own policy in that regards.

I asked if she would like to come over to the card section with me, and I could show her the sign that they have posted about the promotion. As soon as she saw the “Save $5 on your groceries!” on the sign, she understood. “Oh! Off your groceries!” She said that she had been confused, because she thought the discount was supposed to just be on the cards. I also pointed out the exclusions on the sign, and illustrated how the cards I had purchased were included in the sale. “That’s a great deal!” she said. I also explained how I had gotten the 10% discount – HCW has more info on this offer, as a side note to my readers.

So, I was able to clarify Safeway’s promos to their own customer service reps, and once I did, they understood what a good deal it is – both for the customer, and for Safeway, since they are being reimbursed by Hallmark for it (at least according to this CS rep)!

I guess there was also an issue, because the same supervisor who was checking me out had given me a refund for the 10% earlier in the month, because the register messed up and did not take the discount off. Customer service did not understand what had happened, so I ran home and got my receipts, and brought them back in so that I could show them what had happened and straighten it out. It’s no fair for the cashier to get in trouble for doing her job, and fixing something that did not ring up right. I also don’t like the insinuation that I was doing something wrong, because I am following all the coupon policies correctly and honestly. But I explained all this to Customer Service, and the cashier said that she was so glad that I had saved those receipts!

I’m sharing this story, because I want to illustrate how coupon users can be misunderstood by employees. They may question you if they don’t fully understand coupon redemption rules or in-store savings promotions, but if you explain clearly what you’re doing, it should no longer be an issue.