Couponing Successes

Posted on October 2, 2007 by Melissa
Filed Under Coupons, Groceries, Shopping

That’s a lot of coupons! This weekend I got my biggest coupon savings total ever – a whopping $40.05 or almost 30% on the bill. I’ve had much higher percentages before but only on targeted trips where I only bought specific sale items and didn’t buy fresh food for the week. Although I was thrilled, I was a little embarrassed because the checkers were so impressed they called over other employees (including a manager) to look at the total.

As anyone will tell you, if you are eating primarily fresh foods this kind of savings is unlikely to happen. We did buy a lot of fresh food but this week we also stocked up on some staples and convenience foods with coupons that were about to expire. This week was not representative of a normal shopping week for us – we typically save around 20% in coupons.

I thought I’d share some of the great deals we were able to find:

BBQ Sauce – Yes, BBQ sauce is usually cheap but we got it really cheap. Eric eats the stuff by the gallon so we can’t afford to be too picky and get the gourmet stuff anymore. We had 3 $1 off coupons for Bulls Eye BBQ sauce that we got from the paper. The 18oz bottles cost $1.46 each so we figured $.46 a bottle was still a good deal. But wait! Are those bottles hidden behind the others labeled 55% more? Yes! So we scored 3 28oz bottles for $.46 each. Nice!

Soda – I was running low on soda so we were hoping to find a deal this week. I had a coupon for Sprite 12-packs for “buy 3 get the 4th free” but often the price is still too high to justify buying it over the store brand. Sprite was on sale but only for $3.39 a 12-pack. That’s not much of a deal, really. We were surprised to see the store brand shelves wiped out of everything but the regular cola. Turns out that they were having a promotion that if you buy a Coke or Sprite 12-pack you would get a free 12-pack of the store brand to try. Wow! Suddenly, my “buy 3 get a 4th free” coupon was looking pretty good! We were able to get 4 12-packs of Diet Sprite AND 4 12-packs of off-brand cola for only $10.17. That is about $1.27 a 12-pack!

Bertolli Skillet Meals – These are expensive (and surprisingly tasty) frozen bag meals for 2 that cook up in a skillet in 10 minutes. They are pricey at $6.58 a bag. We found $2 off coupons online and used those to buy 4 different styles. At $4.58 that works out to be $2.29 a portion. On those nights where we don’t have time or the inclination to cook these make wonderful and relatively cheap meals. It sure beats ordering out!

Febreeze Noticeables – I recognize this purchase is not essential so I won’t buy refills until I see a sale. The problem is that they rarely go on sale and at $4.49 regular price it is just too expensive. I saw a rare deal at 2 for $7 and paired it with my $1 off 2 coupon. Not earth shattering savings but the point is that I waited to buy these until they were at the lowest price point of $3 each. Saving almost $3 is better than saving nothing!

Dijon Mustard - I had been hanging on to these Grey Poupon coupons for months now waiting for a possible sale to no avail. These coupons were from the bottles themselves not from the paper. After doing some price checking my $1 off coupons dropped the price below all the off-brands by over $.50. It was a no-brainer to use these coupons even without a sale. A sale just would have made it sweeter.

Believe it or not, there is actually a method to all of this. Check back later today for the next post on this couponing strategy!

Comments

2 Responses to “Couponing Successes”

42 on October 2nd, 2007 2:37 pm

nice, but think how much more you’d save by not buying soda, especially, at all. I can’t think of a more useless waste of money other than cigarettes and lottery tickets.
Melissa on October 5th, 2007 9:17 am

42 –

Yeah, I know. Soda is one of those things I really like so in order to allow it in my budget without feeling guilty I only buy whatever is on sale (if no sale, no soda). I stick to diet soda but I have no brand loyalty to save money.

I know I’m still “wasting” money by not drinking straight water but it is one of those luxuries I’m still not prepared to give up yet. But I’m working on it.

Thanks for your comment!

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