Ok so in a recent shopping trip I was so excited with the savings Mike and I accumulated that I posted a picture of the bottom half of the receipt on Facebook. Here is said picture:
A few people joked and said do my shopping some asked me how did you do that or what was the original total. So we bought 62 items and the original total was $213.34 we spent $123.22. As you can see from the picture most of our savings come from card savings, then Just for U savings (which is Von's online coupon program) and then paper coupons. The paper coupons is actually $17.10 because the line right above that basket savings was a $10 off coupon we found in the paper. Von's, which is also known as Safeway in other places, is our main grocery shopping stop some other places we go to are a farmers market store that usually has a little better price on veggies and stuff but not the best quality and some other ethnic stores for specialty items.
Ok so what did we buy though? I sometimes hear people saying things like but the coupons you get are just for junk food. Not so! Here is what we bought:
- Canned diced tomatoes
- Fiber one bars (if you do Weight watchers the 90 calorie ones are only 2 pts)!
- Corn Tortiallas
- Carnation instant breakfast
- 3 Enchilada Sauce
- Natural Peanut butter
- 10 Smart Ones (for my lunches at work)
- Morning Star Burgers
- Jello pudding packs
- 4 Weight Watchers various Ice Cream bars
- 2 Thomas English Muffins
- 2 Hilshire Farms lunch meat
- Chicken Apple Sausage
- 2 James Dean Turkey Patty
- 2 Turkey Bacon
- Bananas
- Oranges
- Broccoli
- Celery
- Gala Apples
- Shallots
- Sliced Almonds
- Pistachios
- Mushrooms
- Baby Carrots
- Salad (in a box)
- Basil
- Mini sweet peppers
- Feta Cheese
- Mozzarella Ball
- Hummus
Before I started doing any of this I mostly shopped at Albertson's. I thought to myself why do I need to have a stupid card to save more. Cards like that are a form of marketing for stores so they can see what you buy and put it all in a data base. Anyway I came to realize It really didn't matter that much to me that the store was collecting information on what I buy. They aren't trying to using my information in a malicious way. Plus they are using this information to give me savings on things I buy.
Ok, so how do I do it. Well I do get the Sunday paper and I clip the coupons I think I'll use. On Tues or Wed the ads come out for that weeks grocery stores. I look through the ads and see whats on sale vs what I need. Simple enough. Then I log onto vons.com and sign in and look at what coupons I can add to my card. Also since they are collecting information on what I buy they offer me special prices on those items so I add them to my card as well. On top of those savings I can add the coupons I have and Von's usually makes the savings up to $1.00 off so if I have a $0.50 coupon they will make it a dollar. Different stores have different policies so you'll have to check. But really that's the trick, if something goes on sale and you have a coupon that's when you should buy it.
I don't dumpster dive for coupons or buy extra coupons or extra Sunday papers. I'm sure I could probably save a bit more that way but I'm not willing to put in any extra time into this. I hope I answered some questions let me know if you have more. Another store that I shop at often is CVS I usually buy all my toiletry items here and they have good sales on candy (which I sneak into the movies sometimes). I think the best thing about CVS is you earn CVS bucks which you can use to purchase things on your next trip. They usually don't scoff at you if you break a purchase down into two so you can use the bucks you earn on the first purchase to buy the things on the other.
Happy shopping :)
