We’ve been talking a lot about trading coupons this week. I wrote an article explaining what it is and how to do it, and showed you an example of my savings after coupon trading. In my last post, I explained how I was getting Yakisoba bowls for free plus .10 cents overage – click here if you missed it – and as you’ll see in today’s recap, it was the first of many Yakisoba-filled shopping trips. I conducted two additional trades last week for the .50/1 Yakisoba coupons that were getting me this good deal; this time, I traded 8 stamps for 24 .50/1 Yakisoba and 5 $1.00/2 Yakisoba coupons. After the two stamps that it took to mail my trades out to the two people that I was trading with, my total cost for the coupons was $4.40 (the cost of 10 first-class postage stamps). So here’s the groceries that I got on Monday:
Spent nothing out of pocket, put .15 cents on my free gift card from MyBlogSpark, and came home with $11.83 worth of groceries.
Transaction #1:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put .10 cents on my gift card from MyBlogSpark
Total before coupons: $7.33
View receipt
Got:
One 70 count box of Snuggle dryer sheets – on sale for $3.99, used a $3/1 coupon from the 3/28 Red Plum newspaper inserts, which doubled; I also received a .40 cent deduction because of the 10% club card discount. (More about that here and here.) Final price: .09 cents.
3 Maruchan Yakisoba bowls – on sale for $1.00 each, used three .50/1 coupons, which doubled, and received an additional .10 cent discount each because of the 10% club card promotion; Final price: Free plus .30 cents overage.
1 package of Ramen noodles – regularly .34 cents, the 10% club card deducted .03 cents, and the .30 cents overage from the Yakisoba brought the final price down to .01 cent. This is what is known as a “Filler” item – something useful that absorbs a small amount of overage.
Transaction #2:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put .05 cents on my gift card from MyBlogSpark
Total before coupons: $4.50
View receipt
Got:
4 Maruchan Yakisoba bowls – on sale for $1.00 each, used four .50/1 coupons, which doubled, and received an additional .10 cent discount each because of the 10% club card promotion; Final price: Free plus .40 cents overage.
1 head of garlic – regularly .50 cents, I saved an additional .05 cents thanks to the 10% club card discount; and the .40 cents overage from the Yakisoba brought the final price down to .05 cents.
