Total spent: .63 cents – .62 for the actual groceries, .01 for breast cancer research
Total before coupons: $69.41
I earned 1 Power Pump reward, bringing my running total to 3. I also walked out of the store with $11 in catalinas for next time.
View receipt #1 View receipt #2 View receipt #3 View receipt #4 View receipt #5
Got:
12 boxes of Frosted Mini-Wheats – used 12 $1/1 printables from Coupons.com (no longer available)
1 gallon of milk
2 cans of beans
1 packet of Ramen
2 packages of Wacky Mac – used a .50/1 coupon from the 6/22 inserts
6 Glade Plug ins – used six “Buy One, Get One Free” coupons from the 9/28 Smart Source newspaper inserts
1 trial sized box of Tide – used $1/1 coupon from the 9/28 Proctor & Gamble newspaper inserts
1 moon shaped cookie cutter
Here’s how I broke this down:
For the first transaction, I bought 3 boxes of cereal, 1 Wacky Mac, 2 plug-ins and the cookie cutter, which was the perfect filler item because it was clearanced to .10 cents. I then used $8 in catalinas to bring the total to a whopping .01 cent. The cashier was laughing and the customer behind me was amazed. Safeway is doing a charity drive for breast cancer research this month, and the cashiers usually ask if you would like to round up your total and donate the change. As I was handing the cashier a penny, she jokingly asked if I wanted to round up my penny for breast cancer.
“Wait! Hang on!” I said, reaching into my purse and pulling out another penny. I told her that I would double my total with a matching donation. She thought it was hilarious, and laughed that I was the only customer to match 100% of my total with a donation! Yes, I have way too much fun at Safeway.
I got $8 in catalinas back for the plug-ins, and was expecting another $3 catalina for purchasing the cereal, but it did not show up. Safeway is running a catalina deal on Frosted Mini-Wheats where you receive a $3 catalina for purchasing three boxes. This was mentioned on Hot Coupon World and also brought to my attention by a Super Coupon Girl reader. I realized that I must have bought the wrong kind – which is why I always double-check the details on catalina deals before I go to the store, but I neglected to this time. So I went through the line again, doing pretty much the same thing – except this time I got different Mini-Wheat flavors, two plug-ins, one Wacky Mac, and the packet of Ramen as a filler. But this time the cashier looked at my catalinas and said, “Oh, I’ll have to adjust the last coupon down,”. I had one $4 catalina left that hadn’t been scanned, but the total was at $3.94. I knew something must have gone wrong, so after she balanced me out to zero, I pulled my cart over to the side and looked at my receipt. I realized in horror that I had not put the packet of Ramen on the conveyor belt – it was still in my cart, hidden underneath a sales flyer! I showed the cashier what happened and apologized for my mistake. She was super nice, and when I said, “It’s a good thing I didn’t walk out of here without paying!”, she replied, “Oh, you would have been back in a minute to spend your $11 [referring to the catalinas I just got] anyway!”
So she rang up the Ramen at .29 cents, and then deducted .06 from the total since she had adjusted the $4 catalina down to $3.94. I didn’t ask her to, she just did – which was really cool of her. I paid .23 cents, but I didn’t get the receipt for this one, because I was on the wrong end of the checkstand and she just quickly rang up my Ramen before helping the next customer in line, and I was just trying to get out of the way as quickly as I could!
And all of the catalinas that I was expecting printed out this time, so I got $8 for the Glade and $3 for the cereal. The participating varieties listed on the catalina are Blueberry Muffin, Strawberry Delight, Maple & Brown Sugar, Vanilla Creme, and Cinnamon Streusel.
I still had coupons left for more cereal, which brought the total price for 3 boxes down to $2.16. I picked out a can of beans as a filler item, since they’re .89 cents; I then used my $3 catalina and paid only .05 cents, getting another $3 back! I was able to do this twice before I ran out of Kelloggs coupons.
But I needed some milk to go with all this cereal, so I went through the line one last time and bought a gallon of milk, two plug-ins and the Tide. I used $8 in Glade catalinas to pay, and after overage from the Tide, it came to .28 cents. They adjusted my coupon down again, which is the same thing that happened on Sunday, but I still got .50 cents overage because it doubled.
