Friday, July 17, 2009

Day of Deals

Maria has been teaching me how to use coupons more efficiently. We had been using coupons occassionally (not so much me, more Hubs believe it or not), but apparently not using them to the best of our ability. I've read Maria's posts about her amazing deals and Hubs and I have read articles where women say that they get $200 dollars worth of groceries for something like $2 (I am exxagerating a bit). But, we, for the life of us, didn't see how that was possible. BUT, with guidance from Maria, I set out on my maiden couponing voyage today. My coupon inventory is very low (I have heard it can take 4-6 weeks to build up your supply), so I only went to get a very few things and practice my newly learned skills. So, here's what I got :

At Kroger-
Colgate Total
normally 3.49
on sale for 2.81
I had a coupon for $1.00 off Colgate Total
I had another coupon for $1.50 off my next Kroger purchase
making the price of the toothpaste .31 !!!

Also, Kroger was having their buy ten participating items and get $5 off your total. Hubs and I both really like Life Water, but it normally costs $1.49 a bottle. BUT, I got 9 bottles (the toothpaste was also one of the participating items and was my tenth item) that were on sale for .99. After the $5 off, I got $13.50 worth of Life Water for.......$3.91!!!

Then I went to Publix. The BIG boxes of General Mills cereal that are normally 4.99 a box were on sale for BOGOF. I also had a coupon for $1 off. So I got $9.98 worth of cereal for $3.99.

I'm still learning, but I thought I did pretty good! For me, it's just as much about the challenge as it is the money saving. After we were done grocery shopping we went to Toys R Us to find C a backpack for kindergarten. He really likes Transformers and BumbleBee is his favorite. He found the backpack he wanted and they were having a sale so we got a Transformer lunchbox for free!

Then for lunch, we went through the Little Ceasars (my favorite pizza) drive thru and got a $5 large pizza for the three of us and guess what... it came with a free Diet Coke! I texted Hubs after we left there and said I can't stop saving money today :)

3 comments:

Maria said...

This is me JUMPING up and down for you!!! I'm so proud of you. Of course, I still haven't mailed your coupons -- ARGH. If you'll be at the fountains/movies on Tuesday, I'll just bring them. I might have more after Sunday's paper anyway. YAY!!!! You did so well. Interestingly enough, what will happen next is you will have a hard time buying ANYTHING without a coupon. My friend Susan almost had a break down because she went to CVS one day and had to buy something without a coupon. *smile*

The O'Neils said...

You can send some of that money saving my way anytime!

Jamie said...

Yeh for you. I am getting ready to take advantage of the $5 for free. I have my list and 20 items I need to get!!