When The Student Becomes The Master: How My Fiance Got 20 Free Lunchables & $18 in Catalinas During His First Coupon Trip

Tuesday was the last day of the $1 Lunchables sale at Safeway, and I still had 20 coupons left that I had planned to use. I’ve been under the weather and really did not feel like trying shop in my Sudafed haze, so my fiance Jai was so sweet as to offer to go for me. He’s never done any coupon shopping before, so offering to jump head-first into my extreme couponing world was brave! I do all the shopping for our household, naturally – I’m Super Coupon Girl, why send anyone else? – and Jai thinks that what I do with coupons is totally awesome. He’s never tried using coupons before because trying to wrap his head around sales or rebates is just overwhelming to him. (Likewise, the kind of work he does troubleshooting computer software would overwhelm me, so we’ve all got our areas of expertise!) So while I was grateful for the offer, I wondered how it would work out. What if they rung up the coupons wrong? What if the store was out of stock? I’m used to handling the crazy world of coupon shopping, but Jai had never dealt with this before.

When Jai returned, I asked him how it went. He smiled and said that he thought it went very well – and then handed me a huge bag full of Lunchables and $18 in catalinas good on my next shopping order.

And this, my friends, is how the student became the master.

Total spent: Zero – and got back $18 in catalinas that can be used like cash towards my next purchase!
Total before coupons: $20.00
View receipt

Got:

20 Lunchables – on sale for $1.00 each, used twenty $1/1 coupons that I got through trading; final price: Free, and $18 in catalinas printed out courtesy of Lunchables! I had no clue this catalina deal was going on – file this under the “Hit The Jackpot” category! You can imagine my face when he handed me this stack of ONYOs!

Since this was the last day of the $1 Lunchables sale, I was so very tempted to go back to the store and “roll” the catalinas – IE purchase 18 more, pay with the catalinas, and receive $18 back in catalinas. But every square inch of my fridge is stuffed, since I’ve purchased 83 Lunchables in less than a week! (Had I not been so sick, I would have done it anyway and just given the Lunchables to friends or donated them!)

And the cherry on top: Remember how I paid $12.62 in handling fees for these Lunchables coupons? Well, since I received $18 back in catalinas, that means I actually made a $5.38 profit in addition to getting 83 free Lunchables. This is a prime example of how trading can really pay off!

We’ve been discussing the benefits of coupon trading recently, and this trip is another example of how to make it work for you. Safeway recently ran a promotion where Lunchables were on sale for $1 each. There happened to be a coupon in the 3/21 Smart Source newspaper inserts for $1 off any Lunchables, so I logged on to Hot Coupon World’s trading forum and ended up paying $12.62 in shipping and handling fees for 80 of these coupons.

Next, I saw that another user had 20 “wine tag” coupons available – 3 of which were good for $3 off any meat or poultry, and 17 of which were good for $3 off the purchase of any ham. Wine tags are special coupons offered by wine companies, which are often good on items like meat and produce and are usually found in stores, just like blinkies and tearpad coupons. These coupons will either be a savings offered when you purchase a specific brand of wine (“Save $1 on onions when you buy Brand X wine”), or they will be a general coupon offered with the company’s compliments (“Save $3 on shrimp now, courtesy of Brand X wine”). Sometimes the purchase requirements of these coupons will vary depending on the alcohol laws in each state – as I understand it, some states prohibit coupons from requiring an alcohol purchase, so the coupon might say “Save $2 on rice when you buy Brand X wine – no alcohol purchase required in X, Y, or Z states”. The 20 meat coupons that I found on Hot Coupon World required no wine purchase of any kind here in Oregon, so I spent $12.88 in shipping and handling fees to order them. My savings strategy here was that spending $25.50 total on coupons that could get me $140.00 worth of meat and Lunchables for free would be a good deal.

So here’s what I got on my first trip:

Total spent: Zero
Total before coupons: $46.00
View receipt

Got:

43 Lunchables – on sale for $1 each, used 43 $1/1 coupons that I got via trading! Final price: Free
1 package of Oscar Mayer Deli Shaved Ham lunch meat – on sale for $3.00, used one wine tag good for $3 off any ham, obtained via trading; final price, free.

Once I got home, I re-arranged my fridge and saw that I still had plenty of room – I wanted to gauge how much space I had before getting them all in one trip! – so I went back for round 2:

Total spent: Zero
Total before coupons: $23.00
View receipt

Got:

20 Lunchables – on sale for $1 each, used 20 $1/1 coupons that I got via trading; final price: Free
1 package of Oscar Mayer Deli Shaved Ham lunch meat – on sale for $3.00, used one wine tag good for $3 off any ham, obtained via trading; final price, free.

I must confess: I’ve always loved Lunchables, and before I started using coupons, I would occasionally buy them anyway just because I like them! Now keep in mind, although I may buy 40 Lunchables in one afternoon, that doesn’t mean we’re going to eat them all at once. These all have long expiration dates and will keep well in the fridge, so I’m just planning ahead and stocking up while they are free; subsisting solely on processed foods like Lunchables or Yakisoba bowls isn’t healthy and I don’t plan my meals that way.