Shopping Success Stories!

I love, love, LOVE hearing stories from people who have attended my Grocery Smarts classes and are now on the road to saving big at the grocery stores. Here is one to inspire you today:


I attended your Grocery Smarts class last month. I wanted to share my most recent savings. I am really proud! I went to Albertsons' and spent $6.16 on groceries valued at $64.37 which is a 88% savings!!!! I did 2 separate transactions. I had $26.96 in coupons and saved $29.53 in store incentives. I went to Smiths' as well and spent $6.29 on groceries valued at $65.45 which is a savings of 91%!!!!! I only did 1 transaction and had $31.03 in coupons and $28.13 in store incentives. I am so glad (my friend) introduced me to Grocery Smarts. Our family has saved so much and I have only been using it for about 1 month or so. Thanks so much for teaching me the ins and outs of Grocery Smarts. ~ Amy

Great job Amy!! Keep it up!!

Shopping Trip Visual

I just hit my local Fresh & Easy (which was next to Walgreens, where I was getting my printer ink refilled and I wanted to kill some time with the kiddos without hauling them in and out of the car) to pick up a few essentials, taking advantage of sales and a coupon I received in the mail - $5/$20.

I thought this visual would be a good example of a couple of money-saving techniques and answer some "how" and "why" questions that I inevitably get.

1. Couponing allows my family to enjoy extra goodies at no extra cost. Notice the cheesecake on the right-side of the picture? It was marked down to $5 and I had a coupon for $5 off $20. Free cheesecake! And cheesecake is my husband's favorite dessert of all-time. So I snagged it as a nice little surprise for him and a way to top off an already frugal dinner or crockpot pot roast and cheddar rice (free with coupons).

2. Take advantage of seasonal produce. Bananas always seem to be a part of my shopping list, but the other produce I buy is always based on what is in season (and thus on sale). In this shopping trip I picked up oranges (under $.30/lb) and peaches ($.98/lb) as our fruit of the week. This rule also applies to vegetables. Asparagus and peppers are a few choices that I buy only when they are in season.

3. Time is money. Some of you reading this post may want to remind me that chicken breast is part of the Albertsons 8-hour sale today for cheaper than the Fresh & Easy price of $1.97/lb but with two little kids in tow is it really worth making another stop? When I did the math I would only save $.80 - and it's not worth it for $.80! A higher amount of savings might've enticed me into Albertsons tonight, but in this case I feel guilt-free passing on this deal knowing my kids are only good for a certain amount of shopping time before the meltdowns start to occur and I don't want to wear myself out getting them in and out of the car again in the heat, the traffic, the congestion at the store, etc. Don't beat yourself up moms! Sometimes that deal really isn't worth it; let it go.

Some Shopping of My Own

So today's shopping trip was a mixed bag. I started at Smiths - and there was nothing left! No I am not kidding! I wanted to take advantage of the "Buy 10 items, Get $5 off" sale but almost all of the items I wanted they were cleaned out of. The craziest thing was the American Pasta for $.49 (wyb 10). I know ladies, $.49?! Why wouldn't you clear them out? I thought I took what was the last 10 bags on the shelf (not even picky about what type of pasta at this point) - I am not kidding, there were no bags left - but when I went to check out some of the final bags weren't even part of the sale (probably why they were still there). So I had the cashier clear out my order and I just started over with no special sale items. I couldn't gather enough together to hit 10, they were out of so much stuff (and I was told they had just restocked the pasta yesterday!).

Anyway, the cashier offered to get me rainchecks (which you all know I am very keen on) and she wrote them up at the extra sale rate, assuming I would've bought 10. So now I have limitless rainchecks for the pasta, Colgate toothbrushes, and Dixie napkins (the items I was most interested in) at the extreme sale price. Awesome!!! So if you run into the same problems I did, don't waste your time running to another store to see if they have anything in stock. Ask them to write you up a raincheck (it is so helpful to have your Grocery Smarts shopping list in hand, so you know exactly what the product name and sale price are) and then you can have a sale day whenever you get a chance to get back to your store - after they restock of course.

Then I headed to the new Target to try and stack some Target/manny coupons and take advantage of the Grand Opening specials. It is indeed as good as had been reported. And the news is even better - the Grand Opening specials (tagged with "New Store Special" signs) will run through April 13 (this store only)! So you will have a month to stock up on $1 goldfish (get them free through tomorrow!!) and all of the other goodies I posted about here. I left the store spending only $30 for $60 worth of stuff (and using multiple Target coupon in one order). Score!

Happy shopping!

Walgreens Shopping Trip, 3/8/09

Trans. #1:
2 Glade Sense & Spray, 7.99 ea.

1 Colgate toothpaste, 3.49

2 Huggies diapers, 10.00 ea.
1 Huggies wipes, 6.00 ea.

- $7.99 Glade BOGO

- (2) $4 Glade Easy Saver Q
- $1.50 Colgate
- $2.50 Colgate Easy Saver Q
- (2) $5 Huggies
- $3 Huggies
- $2 RR

Total OOP: $14.00, receive $10 RR

Trans. #2:
2 Glade Sense & Spray, 7.99 ea.
1 Mylanta, 1.89
2 Huggies diapers, 10.00 ea.
1 Huggies wipes, 6.00 ea.
- $7.99 Glade BOGO
- (2) $4 Glade Easy Saver Q
- $1.00 Mylanta
- $1.89 Mylanta Easy Saver Q
- (2) $5 Huggies
- $3 Huggies
- $2 RR

Total OOP: $13.39, receive $10 RR

Trans. #3:
2 Glade Lasting Impressions, 7.99 ea.
2 Huggies diapers, 10.00 ea.
1 Huggies wipes, 6.00 ea.
- $7.99 Glade BOGO
- (2) $4 Glade Easy Saver Q
- $5 Huggies
- $3 Huggies
- $1.50 Huggies

Total OOP: $19.74, receive $10 RR

Trans. #4:
2 Glade Lasting Impressions, 7.99 ea.
2 Huggies diapers, 10.00 ea.
1 Huggies wipes, 6.00 ea.
- $7.99 Glade BOGO
- (2) $4 Glade Easy Saver Q
- (2) $3 Huggies
- $1.50 Huggies

Total OOP: $21.74, receive $10 RR

Grand Total: $68.87 ($22.54 gift card & $46.33 debit card), receive $40 RR

Albertsons - My HUGE Shopping Trip

I hit up Albertsons last night after doing some homework and coupon clipping. I don't have a picture for you because I was just too tired to bring it all in from the car and line it up. I also don't have a complete breakdown because the manager had to keep several of my receipts (with my permission) since the $10 catalina was being temperamental in coming out and he had to prove (via my receipt) that I deserved it. But in the end I purchased:

12 Betty Crocker Warm Delights
2 Betty Crocker cookie mixes
2 Betty Crocker Frostings
1 Betty Crocker brownie mix
16 Progresso soups
4 Campbells soup at hand (not in catalina sale, but CHEAP)
20 Pillsbury Grand biscuits
9 Pillsbury cinnamon rolls
10 Pillsbury toaster strudel
16 Fruit flavored-shapes
12 Fruit Gushers

I spent about $55 OOP and still have two catalinas for next trip: $10 off next order and $3.50 off next order (which is printing out because of a concurrent promotion when buying fruit snacks). So if you factor in the leftover coupons I spent about $40 for all of the above items!

A couple of things that made my shopping trip smooth:

1. I wrote out my transactions separately, so I knew what I wanted to buy when in order to maximize savings.

2. I also made a second list (which might be too much) where I wrote "20 Progresso soups", etc. so even though the soups were broken up into multiple transactions, I knew how many I had to get in the end which saved me LOTS of shopping time in the aisles.

3 I made sure my first transaction would leave me as little OOP as possible, so I that I had more cash to use for the other transactions.

4. I communicated what I was doing with the one cashier on duty, asking if maybe there was another lane they could open so I didn't hold up the line. I found that this time (as with almost all of my shopping trips) that being polite and flexible pays off. Even though I had many separate transactions, due to my positive attitude and willingness to be considerate to other customers the managers made sure to be very helpful and cheerful during my checkout.

Vons Shopping Trip - 2/14

I took my own advice and headed to Vons yesterday to score the deals I posted about. The only extra items I picked up which I didn't post about were five 12-packs of Cherry Coca-Cola Zero, which were on sale for $2.49 each when you bought three or more; I realized I had picked up five $1 off coupons for Coke Zero somewhere in my travels, so I snagged five boxes for $1.49 each.

Total value: $89.52
Total spent: $17.60
80% savings!

Albertsons Trip #2 - 1/9/09

No picture this time, but I wanted to tell you that I did indeed head back for a second Albertsons trip to stock up on more Pampers diapers. I bought 6 more packs for a cool $17.94 (minus $15 Q, minus $5 baby Q again, minus 3 Pampers Q). Yeah! $.10 per diaper is an awesome price!

In the end I decided against any more grocery-sale shopping. I have plenty of food in storage, both the pantry and the freezer, and decided that the last bit of $15 Q would be better used to purchase my essentials this week, such as dairy and fruits. Not taking advantage of sales and spending money, just because I can save it, is my frugal challenge for myself this year.

One last big tip -
If you have yet to pick up any Pampers diapers, but it is on your to-do list (perhaps when the store is restocked with your size), you will generate your own catalina coupon for "$5 off your next baby care purchase" when you purchase $25 worth in one transaction. Since I purchased $30 in diapers at a time, it printed out an the $5 baby coupon each time I did that, which I just then rolled into the next diaper purchase. Thank you to my friend Jennifer for figuring out what triggered the catalina.

Albertsons Trip #1 - 1/8/09

I will entitle this "Trip #1" because, believe me, I am not done with Albertsons yet. To the contrary - I am just warming up. Ha ha!

What I really want to get during this Albertson's sale is Pampers diapers. I was severely in need of another diaper restocking sale and here is the jackpot. My problem was how to do it without outlaying a cool $30 for the first three packs. I decided to try and plan a grocery transaction before getting my diapers so as to reduce my out of pocket costs to as little as possible.

Transaction #1

11 Cheerios (multi-grain, regular, honey nut)
4 Betty Crocker Instant potatoes
1 Progresso soup

Total before coupons - $30.68

Total after coupons - $19.58

Received $15 in coupons to roll into the next transaction

Transaction $2

3 Pampers diapers

Total before coupons - $32.33
Total after coupons (including $15 catalinas) - $13.33

Total of 67% savings this trip

Received another $15 in coupons PLUS another catalina for $5 off my next baby care purchase (bonus!). Yeah, because you know I am going back for six more packs of Pampers (to match my 6 more Pampers coupons).

Just a note to those of you in NW Las Vegas - don't bother going to the Albertson's on Farm & Durango for Multi-Grain Cheerios or Size 4 Pampers. Cause they were cleared out before I got there. It wasn't me, I promise. You guys are catching on to the whole saving-money-thing, aren't you?

And here's a couple of my tips for you to save the most on your Albertson's shopping trips:

Tip #1: Do what I did and try to make your first transaction as low out of pocket as possible. The lower the cost here the better off you are, because you are still going to get the $15 in coupons. So why not do the transaction with the most coupon savings first (like I did) then roll your $15 into higher priced items (like the diapers.)

Tip #2: Go ahead and do multiple transactions during your visits to the grocery store. Some people ask me how many trips I make. I make one; I just make it count. I will place everything for one transaction on the belt, then I will place a divider between my orders. It's that simple. I get asked if you can do that (yes you can!) and if the cashiers get mad (maybe annoyed sometimes, but they really shouldn't).

Walgreens Trips - 1/8/09

As you know from my previous post that I am having a love/hate relationship with Walgreens at the moment. It took me two tries to take advantage of all the great sales they have there this week, but I did it!:


Trip #1

2 Ben & Jerry's ice cream - $3 each
Electrosol tabs - $3.50
L'Oreal concealer - $2.60
- (2) $3 Ben & Jerry's coupons
- $3 L'Oreal coupon
- $2.50 Electrosol coupon

Total OOP - $1.05
Total Value - $25.45
96% Savings
Additional rebates expected - $1.50 (from Electrosol)
Bumping me up to 102% Savings!

Trip #2

3 Smart Start cereal - $2.50 each
1 Special K cereal - $2
2 Garnier Fructis conditioner - $2.20 each
2 Garnier Fructis shampoo - $3 each
4 Glade Plug-In refills - $2.50 each
6 Hunt's tomato sauce - 3/$1 with in-ad coupon
- (4) $2 Easy Saver Garnier Fructis shampoo or conditioner
- (4) $1 Garnier Fructis shampoo or conditioner
- (4) $ Kellogg's cereal
- (2) BOGO Glade Plug-In refills

- (2) $1/3 Hunt's tomato sauce

Total OOP - $10.44
Total Value - $53.99
84% Savings
Additional rebates expected - $4 (Glade Plug-In refills)
Also received $3 Register Reward
Bumping me up to 94% Savings!

Walgreens Trip - 1/3/09

One of my New Year's resolutions is to be better at posting pictures and how-tos of my shopping trips here on this blog in an effort to prove that I follow my own advice and that it is possible.

To that end, here's what I got on my shopping trip to Walgreens today:

3 Dimetapp - $12 ($4 each on sale)

2 Robitussin - $8 ($4 each on sale)

- (3) $2 Dimetapp coupons

- (2) $2 Robitussin coupons

Total - $11.55

Received $10 Register Rewards AND a catalina for BOGO Enfamil formula

Since I was also going to pick up some baby formula (original plan was to buy Similac with the $2 Walgreens coupon) I quickly switched gears and purchased:

2 Enfamil Lipil formulas - $13.79 each

- $13.79 BOGO catalina

- $10 Register Reward

Total - $3.79

Total OOP - $15.34

Total savings - $45.24

75% percent saved!