Week of 8/3/14 Grocery Hauls

My goal is always to stay at about $50 for the week out of pocket (OOP.)  This basically means what I have to pay in the store after: coupons, e-coupons, catalinas, instant savings, promotions, gift cards, bring your own bag refunds, bottle return refunds or anything else that discounts the price I pay.  Since there were just too many good deals on things I really needed I went slightly over budget and spent about $15 extra.  I didn't mind doing it because I knew I would be receiving several dollars back via rebates and giftcards.

 There were a lot of big sales this week going on on paper products.  Which is always great.  Even if you don't need paper products they are one of the best items to stock up on because they do not expire; they don't need to be refrigerated or frozen.  I'm sure if you have too many there would be plenty of places that would take donations: food pantries, animal shelters, and your kids classroom or school for example.  My motto is "Don't Hoard!"  Buying things simply because there might be a rare chance you might need it and it's free or next to free isn't a good enough reason to buy out the store's stock.  If you buy things you really don't need you should have a plan of what to do with them and really all you should be doing is donating it.  As coupons do say on them not for re-sale or to be used for profit.

I had a few issues this week, but that just about goes with anything you do in life, especially coupons.  Sometimes things aren't in stock and require substitutions but they may not matchup with a coupon.  It has been known to happen that I misread a coupon as well.  The important thing to do is not get frazzled.  At most store you can always just finish you transaction, sort yourself out and then go to customer service to do returns or exchanges.

This week I had planned on doing 2 transactions one for 33 items totally $32.81 and one for 11 items under $20.  One order was done through Shop From Home.  This is basically when you go online and do your shopping and they do all the heavy lifting.  You stroll in with your coupons at the specified pick up time and walk out with your cart.  I did this order online because they generally run a special promotion every week for doing Shop From Home and you still get all the other special in-store promos as well.  So my intention was to do the shop from home, receive $17 in printout coupons for $$ off my next order (also called catalinas).  Then I would do my in store shopping and use the catalinas toward that order.


I realize when I got to the store I had made a mistake.  I was supposed to get 3- paper towels and get a $5 Catalina.  And then get 3 - toilet paper packages and get a $5 catalina.  However, I realized that this particular catalina I couldn't take advantage of twice in one transaction.  I needed to remove one of them and pay for them separately.  So that brought me up to 3 transactions.  Then there was an error when I processed it separately but already had my third order on the belt and people behind me, so I had to go to customer service to get another $5 catalina after I was done.  But I notice on my way out that they had bagels on sale so I went back in and used the catalina on those.  So a total of 4 transactions totaling $65.13 with 51 items.  I'll be receiving back, $1.70 from Inbox Dollars for coupons I printed from that site.  Another $1.25 from Ibotta App for the wipes & milk purchase.  $0.25 from Checkout51 App for the toilet paper purchase. $2.25 from SavingStar App.  I also be submitting for $10 Prepaid Visa Gift Card from another promotion that includes an additional $10 coupon booklet.

Here's what I got:

Transaction #1 (Shop From Home):

1- Multigrain Cheerios

2 - boxes Mott's Fruit Snacks

2- Nature Valley Granola bars

1- Nature Valley Breakfast Biscuits

1 - 40oz box Bisquick Baking Mix

4 - boxes Betty Crocker Mashed Potatoes

(Receive $10 off Shop From Home Order)

3 - Brawny 8ct Paper Towels

(Receive $5 OYNO Catalina)

2 - Purex Scent Booster Crystals

2- Dial Body Wash

2 - Softscrub Cleanser with bleach

1 - Right Guard Total Defense 5 Deodorant

(Receive $7 OYNO Catalina)

1- Yoplait 2% Greek Yogurt

2- Packs Bic Crystal Blue Ball Point Pens

2 - Wet Ones Wipes

1- Blue Bunny Ice Cream Novelty

(all items had coupons, e-coupons for Nature Valley, Bisquick, Yoplait, Wet Ones, Cheerios & Fruit Snacks, Submitting for $10 Visa Gift Card, $2.25 from Savingstar, $1.00 from Ibotta)

TOTAL OUT OF POCKET: $45.28

Transaction #2 (In-Store)

3- Quilted Northern 18pk Toilet Paper

(Receive $5 OYNO Catalina)

(all items had coupons, Submitting for $0.25 from Checkout51)

TOTAL OOP: $19.68

Transaction #3 (In-store using Catalinas)

2- Hunts Ketchup bottles

1- Gallon 2% milk

1- bag of onions

1- Cantalope

2- bags 16ct Oxiclean Dish Detergent packs

2- Pouches Starkist Tuna

1- box of Jenny-O Turkey Burgers

1 - 1lbs. of Black Bear American Cheese

1 - Jumbo Package of Purdue Chicken Wings

1 - 1lb of Fresh Green Beans

6 - Peaches (about 2lbs)

5 - Ears of yellow corn

1 - Loaf of Fresh Baked Italian Bread

(Received $0.25 for Bring Your Own Bag)

(used $12 in catalinas, used $25 giftcard from previous rebate, $1 cash received from coupon not used on a previous shopping trip, coupons for detergent, tuna, burgers, chicken wings, and Italian bread, submitting for $0.25 from Ibotta)

TOTAL OOP: -$0.10 

(It was $0.90 after giftcard use, then used $1 as mentioned above from coupon error the week before)

Transaction #4 (after receiving missing Catalina from transaction #2)

3 - 6pk of Shoprite Whole Wheat Bagels

(used $5.00 Catalina, $0.10 refund from transaction #3)

TOTAL OOP: $0.27

Total Price of items before sales & coupons: $266.73

Total out of pocket spent for all transactions: $65.13

Total Rebates from Savingstar App: $2.25

Total Rebates from Checkout51 App: $0.25

Total Rebates from Ibotta: $1.25

Total Rebates from Inbox Dollars: $1.70

 Grand Total After Rebates = $59.68 ~ 78% Savings

Submitting for $10 Gift Card Promo: $10.00

*I do not factor any gift card promotions into my savings.  Since I will be factoring them into my savings when I actually use them as I did today on this order.*