Safeway trip

This is for those of you who have been asking about my couponing adventures. There's a ton of great blogs out there to give you ideas, so I'm not going to make this a regular thing, but I'm going to give you a really simple, quick illustration of how couponing works.

1. Read couponing blogs like this, this, and this.
2. Wait for a great sale. This week, it's cereal, oatmeal, and fruit snacks at Safeway.
3. Plan, scheme, strategize, and dream about your shopping trip and all the great deals you will score (oh wait, that's just me).
4. Make a list and grab your coupons. You can clip them from the Sunday paper, print them online from one of several websites, or electronically load them onto your store loyalty card (i.e. Safeway Club Card) from one of two sites. In this example, all my coupons were either printed from online or loaded onto my club card.
5. For a super deal, choose items that trigger a Catalina. A Catalina is simply a long, thin strip of paper that prints out along with your receipt that is good for some amount of money off your future grocery purchase - of anything. I found out about this Catalina from the coupon blogs I read.

Here's my haul....


I earned $1.70 for buying all this. Before coupons, my total was $11.50. After all my paper and electronic coupons, my total was $1.80. But, I received a catalina for $3.50 (triggered by the 5 boxes of fruit snacks), which I can spend on anything at Safeway, so that's as good as a gift card to me. Thus, I earned $1.70.

And what do I do with all this food, you ask? Well, my kids eat the cereal and the oatmeal, and I'm going to use the fruit snacks to bribe the jr. high youth group we lead on Sundays. The frosting will be used in a pinch on cinnamon rolls or a birthday cake, or it may end up going to a food bank. It was free after my coupons, so I couldn't pass it up.

So, that's basically it. Every week there's a different item (or two or three or ten) that is an amazing price when you combine a store sale with some coupons (and/or a Catalina offer). Once you get past all the lingo (couponers abbreviate everything!), it's just a matter of determining which deals are worth it and which ones aren't. You pick up some free stuff, some cheap stuff, and then used the money you saved to splurge on wine and chocolate (oh wait, that's just me again).



P.S. If you want to try this out, the deal at Safeway goes through Tuesday 1/26 and these things and some others are a great price when you buy in multiples of 4. Links to the coupons I used are here (note that I got slightly more savings because when you load coupons online, it saves them up until you use them, and I had several coupons that came off on the same item - I have no idea why it is set up this way, but it is). More specific breakdown here. If you have specific questions you can email me or contact me on facebook.