Saturday, April 25, 2009

I'm Back....

It's been a hella crazy week but I'm stoked to be posting here tonight. (I will show that sentence to my teenage son tomorrow just to see him roll his eyes at my feeble attempt to be cool.)

Last week I wrote about taking a picture of my Walgreens deals. It never happened. After four days of them sitting on the counter, I decided to just put them away. I'm quite sure my husband appreciated it. But, I do have two photos of Tuesday night's coupon run. I loaded up the dogs and we left about 11:00 pm.

First was Albertsons. I had three double coupons to use and it was the last day to use them. There are 15 Powerade drinks priced at $.75 each. The deal was "buy 10 get 5 free," which made each drink $.50. So 15 x $.50 is $7.50. Not a bad deal when you consider these are normally $1.99 each. But it gets better! I had 5 coupons ($.75 off when you buy 2) that gave me $3.75 off, bringing the cost of the drinks down to $3.75. Then I used one of my double coupons which took another $.75 off. Final cost of the 15 drinks was $3.00, or $.20 each.

The soup was $1.39 a can and I had a coupon for $1.00 off 2 cans. Doubled it became $2.00 off, so each can of soup was $.39. The cookies were $2.99 minus $1.10 discount ($.55 coupon doubled). Total was $5.58. I would never, ever pay $1.99 a bottle for Powerade. In fact I have never purchased Powerade before. But at $.20 each, it's a treat for my son....and yes, it's COOL.

Next the dogs and I went to Safeway. Here is what I purchased:

3 12-packs Pepsi ($2.00 each as part of Pepsi/Doritos promo 5 for $9.99)
2 large pkgs Doritos ($2.00 each as part of above promo)
1 12-pack Lipton Iced Tea ($3.99 in store coupon)
4 boxes dishwasher soap gel pack thingys ($3.99 each on sale - $15.96)

TOTAL: $29.94 (but we are going to say it was really $30.00). Now time for the coupons:

$2.50 off dishwasher gel pack thingys x 4 = $10.00
$.50 Safeway double coupons x 4 = $2.00

TOTAL after coupons = $18.00 PLUS I got a coupon for $10.00 off my next purchase, so my actual total for these items was $8.00. This is explained in the next paragraph.


Safeway is running a "Living Well" promotion. Spend $30 and receive a $10 Catalina (a coupon which prints from a little machine by the register - the marketing company's name is Catalina, hence the name of the coupon). Here's where it gets a little hairy. I was $.06 short of the $30.00 needed for my Catalina. It was almost 1:00 am - that's my excuse. The Catalina does not print until you have paid for your groceries. After analyzing the receipt myself and two very nice and very patient employees figured out my $.06 shortfall. Rather than void the transaction and re-ring it, they gave me my Catalina. Plus one of them walked with me to my car so she could meet the dogs.

To end the night I got a Big Mac (every once in a while, I just gotta have one) and the dogs got a plain burger to share.

Oh, forgot to say I would never buy that kind of dishwasher soap at the normal price of $5 to $6. It just so happened a great coupon came out, and the soap was on sale. Therein lies the "secret" - combining the coupons with the sales.

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