I haven’t been clipping coupons like I used to. I’ve just been too busy with my blog. I know how much I can save when I’m serious about clipping so I sat down the other day and clipped some coupons while checking out the Back To School grocery ads. Albertsons makes it the easiest for me to save money, especially when General Mills is giving Albertsons a kick back and Albertsons shares that kick back in an extra savings event.
For every 10 items you purchase within the General Mills savings event, you receive and additional 5.00 off in savings. I ended up saving 111.81 with combined in store sales and grocery coupons. I spent 51.27 and had five paper bags packed to the brim with groceries.
All five bags:
This is couponing at it’s best. How do I do it? I sign up for coupons at every turn. I sign up for free product coupons when they come out on facebook, or on all of the freebie sites. You could spend a lot of time hunting everything down yourself, or just do a few searches on-line and you’ll find places that do all the work for you. The Coupon Mom does some of the stores for you and shows you how to get everything for free. She isn’t very big in the Pacific Northwest but she does do Safeway, Rite Aid, and Walgreens.
The coupons I used were just from the Sunday inserts in the newspaper, and a few peelies from products in-store. Peelies are the coupons that you find on package inside the store. Boxes of Betty Crocker potatoes ended up being 50 cents a box and so were Old El Paso refried beans. We eat burritos a lot so I just stocked up my pantry on these items that we use often. Making yourself familiar with brands that are under a particular manufacturer also help when trying to maximize your savings for events like this. For more on this topic see Matching ads with coupons!
All binder and coupons burned up….5 weeks in a hotel and now in a 34 ft trailor, just can’t seem to get to excited about starting again….no. room for any extra food anyway.
I miss my Albertson’s store! In Colorado, I used to use coupons a lot and save an average of 50-60%, sometimes higher between Albertson’s and King Soopers and Safeway. Here, I have none of those stores! And I have not been successful in starting up couponing again to save money here. I remember the General Mills sales fondly, I would come home with a variety of foods for next to nothing!
Thank you so much for the suggestions about entering the facebook coupons, I have wondered if they were actually worth it. My paper out here does not have coupons like I was used to in Colorado. There are rarely any coupons in the paper at all. I think they get one insert (not the three that I was used to), so I need to be creative when it comes to finding coupons. Your tips are very helpful! Thank you!!
Great job!! I usually save between 50-60 % with my coupons combined with store sale at Krogers. It’s takes a little time but well worth it.
Posts like this inspire me to get more focused and organized in my couponing/grocery shopping. I do clip coupons from the inserts and have signed up for some of the online coupons but haven’t been able to reduce my grocery bill by anything nearing what you’ve shown here. Bet it feels good to save that much money!
(The peelie coupons drive me crazy. I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten home from the store and noticed I forgot to peel the coupon off at the checkout. They don’t do much good stuck to the side of your items at home!)
Way to go! 🙂 Frugallivingnw.com has matchups for Pacific NW stores – also, MoneySavingMom.com has a big list of regional store matchups. And of course Hot Coupon World!
I wish I were better at coupons!
That’s awesome how much money you saved!! I’m still learning the ropes to all the coupon sites. The hardest part for me is getting organized with what I need, what store to go to, and what coupons to use to best maximize my savings. Hopefully, soon I’ll get! I was very excited when I went to Safeway the other day, and my total savings was $83!!! Most of it was from using the Safeway store card, but a little over $15 was from coupons alone! I felt so proud of myself, LOL!!!
Thanks so much!!
Michele R.(CA)
Luvkittysgiveaways at Gmail dot com
Butterfly Whispers
Excellent!
My name is Julia Hart I recently joined MyBlogSpark and the blogging community! I started a MyBlogSpark Facebook group to create a forum for bloggers to share ideas and experiences! I’m a new mom interested in healthy products for my family, conscious parenting, and networking with like minded moms, and I thought you would be interested in joining the group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=107751569267018&ref=ts
Have a great day!