I Met My Budget Goal, but...

Finally, after months of overspending, I limited my grocery/pharmacy purchases to $820.07.  What scares me is that I tried really hard this month, grouping coupons with sales and specials, using free coupons from store promotions, and yet, all I did was save $10 from my goal.

It is more than disappointing; even a little depressing.  We have seven members in our family, but surely there are other big families out there that spend significantly less.  Nevertheless, I must keep at it.  Maybe next month I can do even better.

Fall into Savings

Stop and Shop does it again with another free coupon booklet with over $33 worth of savings inside.  My favorite -- a manufacturer's coupon for $1 off two Tropicana orange juices.  I have plans on using this one at Roche Brothers this Tuesday.  Their sale this week is $1.99 for orange juice, not from concentrate, limit 6.  If I buy two, it will cost only $1.98 after using the coupon and having it doubled.  That's 99 cents a container!

Check out Stop and Shop's $10 off Holiday dinner promotion when you purchase $50 in gift cards (not Stop and Shop store cards).  Their Turkey Dinner for Two is only $24.99.  With ten dollars off, $14.99 is a great deal, especially with a nice 8" pie at the end (your choice of apple, pumpkin, or sweet potato).

Are you falling in love with Stop and Shop yet?

Tidbits

I finally made my way inside Roche Brothers last week.  It is an additional twelve minute drive -- a direction opposite to where I generally tend, but I must admit the free coupons I received in the mail from them were incentive enough to make the trek.  The store gave me a strong sense of professionalism, if that is a word that can be used for a grocery store.  The cart attendant, cashier, and bagger were extremely friendly and courteous.  The cart attendant even carried the water bottle packs I purchased into my car.  Someone from management, or someone dressed up in a suit anyway, greeted me in the aisle where my son spilled a mango smoothie which I had just purchased at the Panera in the same plaza.  Immediately someone rolled up a mop cart and took care of the mess.

Tuesdays are double $1 coupon days.  I didn't really have a stack ready (limit is 5), as I mainly wanted to make my minimum purchase of $25 to receive my free mozarella cheese package, tuna fish can, and Poland Springs 6 pack.  But I quickly saw that Kikkoman soy sauce was on sale 2 for $3.  It is a brand I rarely get because of the price (I usually use the dollar store brand).  But, I had a $1 coupon which doubled, making each bottle 50 cents!

My cart quickly filled up with great deals.  Dasani water and orange juice were on sale.  Apples and grapes were under a dollar a pound; apple cider samples were nicely offered by the fruit stations.  By the door a complimentary booklet of recipes and coupons called Tidbits was available.  Inside was a "totally free offer" of New Grain Berry cinnamon bran muffin mix.  I couldn't find the mix, but I used a coupon on the same page for $2 off The Silver Palate Grain Berry Bran Flakes whole wheat, multi-bran cereal with high orac, "more antioxidants than blueberries, pomegranate, or red wine" and "70% less sugar, 30% less sodium, and more crunch."  It was on sale for $1.99, so it became free with the coupon.  Plus, inside the cereal box are $4 worth of coupons.

In essence, I had a great shopping trip and would highly recommend this store.  My next stop this week:  Wegman's.  The grand opening traffic last Sunday (the store was expecting 15,000- 20,000 customers on that day; some people camped out in the parking lot and some travelled from NY and MD!) completely turned me off, but I'll see if the crowd has subsided this weekend and if they offer any good tidbits for coupon moms like me.

Celebrate

I don't exactly understand why the Shrewsbury, MA is celebrating their Re-Grand Opening (this is the second week of celebration).  It coincides nicely with the Wegman's grand opening this Sunday.  Whatever the reason, I certainly am feeling welcomed with their "A Celebration of Savings" coupon booklet.

With a minimum purchase of $15, you can use a $1 off coupon for cookies.  The Stop and Shop brand is only $1, so they come out free.  The $1 off frozen vegetables works nicely with their boxed chopped spinach, which is only $1.09 and their bagged veggies are on sale this week for $1.25, making it only 25 cents.

There are many other coupons I used on my last order -- $1 off eggs, $1 off sugar, $1 off soda, $1 off ice cream.  This week Hood ice cream is on sale 2/$4.  With the coupon, it comes out to only a buck for a half gallon!

If you self-scan your groceries, check and see if you get additional discounts.  Last week I was given a scanned credit of $1 off Tropicana, which combined with a $1 juice coupon from the booklet making it only $1.59 (a great price for my favorite OJ--Healthy Heart with Omega 3 never from concentrate Tropicana).

Finding these coupon booklets might be a little tricky.  The Grafton store had a nice display featuring them (hence the photo), but ironically the Shrewsbury store had the booklets hidden next to a stack of Spanish brochures by a desk in front of the registers (not the customer service desk, however, they had no idea about any coupon specials when I asked).  It might not be fun hunting around, but the coupons, if you find them, can save you a lot of money.

Rolling the Rewards

Here are my recent escapades.
At CVS this week, I bought a gallon of whole milk, two packages of Oreos, two packages of Special K cereal, and two cosmetics items for my daughter which she selected.  I paid $1 cash and then received $3 in extrabucks.

At Rite Aid, I treated myself to my favorite Cadbury fruit and nut bar, 3 packages of colored notecards from the 50% off bin, and four 8 ounce bottles of sanitizing gel.  I paid 38 cents and received $4 back in  +UP Rewards.

And today at Walgreens, I found on clearance eleven 1.5 ounce snack packages of Blue Diamond Almonds Wasabi and soy sauce flavored (8 g protein, 50% Vit E, 25% Magnesium, 10% Calcium and 8% Iron).  In addition, I bought two gallons of distilled water, Halls Warm-ups apple cider flavor drops, and a small package of Nabisco cookies all for 31 cents and then received a $1 rewards coupon.

These shopping experiences were rare to me once before, but now I get the hang of it. I believe it is what the experts (those coupon queens) call "rolling" the rewards.   I use the extrabucks or rewards coupons from previous trips, apply them to current ones, making sure I buy more items that will also bring forth more rewards coupons to use for the next trip.  For example, the Rite Aid sanitizing gels were essentially free since I received $4 in +UP rewards, plus I paid them with previous +UP rewards.

Of course, I had to make an initial purchase of $18, a month ago, for example, to be able to have the Rite Aid +UP rewards to apply to the most recent shopping spree.  But with that initial purchase, I did buy a lot of products (shampoo, toothpaste, body wash) and food items.  The main thing to remember is to keep track of when these rewards expire, because once they do, it is like cash lost.

Check out these Checkout Rewards

I just noticed on the racks where they hold the flyers that Price Chopper clearly prints out a brochure on what their checkout rewards are.  For Advantedge shoppers, for example, if you buy 2 Pedialytes, any size, you save $1.50 on your next shopping order.  Or, if you buy 20 Yoplait cups, you save $2 oyno, buy 4 YoCrunch Greek yogurt cups, sve 50 cents oyno, buy 3 Dole Real fruit bites, save $2 oyno, buy 4 Dole jarred fruit, save 50 cents oyno, buy 4 Dole 8 oz. pineapple, sve 75 cents oyno...

And the list continues.  The best way to use this info is to combine them with upcoming sales and coupons.  

Try Me Free

I love try me free offers.  I can't wait to try this one -- Reynolds Slow Cooker liners.  It's perfect with soup season coming up.  I found the rebate form at Price Chopper and I have until 12/31/11 to purchase it and mail it out.  Did I buy it today?  Of course not.  If I did so, the box would still cost me a stamp.  So I am putting it aside until a coupon comes along in one of the Sunday inserts for just this item.  They'll still refund me the purchase price and the cost of the stamp will most likely be more than covered with the coupon.

Wegmans Countdown

With the Wegmans grand opening soon approaching -- Sunday, October 16 at 7 am, I made sure to visit their website to sign up for their Shoppers Club.  Doing so made me automatically enter their sweepstakes for $500 a and gave me two nice, free gifts -- coupons for a Wegmans reusable shopping bag and a bottle of basting oil.  You can also enter their 5 word contest and possibly win a $25 gift certificate.

In the mail today I received a booklet of coupons for their first four weeks -- things like free (with $10 min purchase) eggs, wheat bread, apple juice, baby-cut carrots, Greek yogurt, steamable vegetables, pasta sauce, and $1 discounts off various items.

Check out their colorful and even instructional website at http://newstores.wegmans.com/Home.aspx
or wegmans.com/northborough

Cover Girl

My daughter was trying to help me out yesterday by cutting coupons.  After checking over her work, I found it ironic that out of all people she overlooked a high value Cover Girl coupon in the Proctor and Gamble insert -- $8 off two make up products !! CVS has Cover Girl products on sale right now, buy one, get one half off.  Applying the coupon, I made 50 cents after getting four products for free.  Check out Rite Aid and Walmart for even lower prices which the coupon can cover easily.

Sunday Inserts

I just loved all of the fantastic coupons (lots of BOGOs) in the inserts today that I had to get more.  I went to a dollar store and bought two more Sunday papers, each stocked with everydaysaver.com, SmartSource, and redplum.com inserts.  Plus, page A2 of the MetroWest Daily newspaper also had a coupon for a free small fries at the Acton McDonald's.  That by itself pays for the extra papers (of course, if I happen to pass by Acton sometime before it expires).

It's the beginning of a new month.  Don't forget to go online and print out coupons from http://www.couponmom.com/printable-coupons-242 .