ECIA: Ultra Foods - The Results

Welcome to day two of Extreme Couponing In Action! We continue our journey by hitting the local Ultra Foods for a few items I needed as well as a few things I wanted to grab based on price.


Yesterday I estimated that I would spend about $50 after coupons.

I missed five things on my list and added two extra at the store. My final result?

Spent: $34.32. I am guessing that if I had stuck completely to the list I would have been right at about $50 still, so pretty much on the money.
Bonus: I received a "$1.00 off your next visit!" Ultra Catalina at the register (from the Pillsbury deal)! Didn't know about that!

How did this all work out? Here's the list I made prior to shopping, with notes from the actual store experience beneath each. If you don't want to bother with reading an in-depth analysis, and just want to know the outcome, here's what I saved (according to my receipt) AND a short list of important things I learned during this trip:

FINAL SAVINGS OUTCOME:
My Ultra receipt tells me I saved $13.11, and I'm not sure where it's getting that number from! My coupon total appears to add up to: $11.99
My sales-price savings appear to add up to: $5.91
For a total savings of $17.90
Which would make my savings percentage: 34%

The register doesn't appear to count the sales price on meats into savings either. If you consider that about half of my purchase was meat, with NO coupons, just meat at a decent price, the savings percentage should be a little higher, even.
(These numbers do NOT account for the $1 Ultra Buck I received this week. I will count that on next week's write-up.)


AAAAND, I just noticed that I was charged twice for my pork chops. GO FIGURE. Even when you're watching the register pretty carefully, things slip past. I will have to go back in and take care of that at my next trip! That's $3.53!! (Totals above are pre-extra pork chop removal!)

THINGS I LEARNED:
1) Ultra puts their weekly sales fliers coupons out by the service desk. This was important because the sales flier I got was missing the pop coupon I needed.
2) There were a TON of coupon tearpads and even a small coupon booklet right by the front door. I don't know if that's normal or not but I will be scouting out this area diligently next time I go!
3) Ultra does rain checks. They were out of the oil I needed, but gave me a rain check good for the next 30 days.
4) DON'T FORGET TO BRING YOUR OWN BAGS. I forgot mine again. Ultra is supposed to give you .05 off for each reusable bag you bring in (just like Target does). Every little bit helps, AND it's environmentally friendly too.
5) I was told Ultra's produce is kind of sketchy, and ended up not buying my two produce needs there because the zucchini was all really SOFT. I was wary of it.
6) Check your receipts, check your receipts, CHECK YOUR RECEIPTS! I try to watch my items as they ring up and make sure it's all correct, and somehow my cashier still managed to ring my pork chops twice. Not even right in a row either! It's pork chops - pork roast - pork roast (yes I did get two pork roasts) - PORK CHOPS AGAIN. 

Now, here's that detailed analysis I promised:

Things I needed:


parchment paper (found a $1 off Reynolds parchment paper coupon!): cost ??
- was on sale for $2.99! .20 off with the sale plus $1.00 off with the coupon. Nice!

zucchini: cost ??
-it was very soft. I don't want my zucchini to be that squishy. I didn't get it.

onions: cost ?? 
-since I didn't get my zucchini here, I didn't get my onions either. I need both items to make these zucchini-potato latkes I promised my husband I'd make for Hanukkah. So they might not make it on the table DURING Hanukkah, but if not they'll be close! I'll probably get these things tomorrow so we should be all right.

Deals I wanted:


Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Select Pepsi Brand Varieties - $.99 WYB 5 (With in ad coupon)

-the in-store coupon did limit me to 5 bottles. I actually grabbed six because I had the 3 $1 off 2 coupons. So I paid .99 for my first 5, $1.50 for my sixth one, and got $3.00 off. Worked out to .56 each.

Pillsbury Ready to Bake Cookie Dough - 4/$10, In ad coupon for free Dean’s milk WYB 4 packages of dough. I've got 2 - $1.25 off 2 coupons! So my cost for four will be $7.50, or $1.88 each, AND a free Dean’s Milk!

-SUCCESS! Extra bonus in that buying four Pillsbury refrigerated dough items is triggering a $1.00 Ultra Buck Catalina at the register. AND there was a hangtag on my milk for .55 off. They wouldn't let me use it at the register today because the milk was free, but I've got it for a future milk purchase!

Sanderson Farms Split Chicken Breast, Price: $.98/Pound

- I skipped this. It's a good price but I remembered I don't like dicking around with whole, bone-in skin-on chicken breast. LOL.

Bone in Pork Sirloin Chops, Price: $1.28/Pound

-SUCCESS!

Whole Pork Butt Roast, Price: $.98/Pound

-SUCCESS! I bought two. I am going to feed my guests BUTT at our holiday potluck this weekend. Heh heh. Heh heh. BUTT.

Crisco Vegetable Oil, 128 oz. $4.99 , use $.55/1 from RP 11/07/10, Final Price: $4.44 each

-this must be a hot deal because they were CLEAN OUT of this stuff. So I got a rain check! My coupon is good for at least another month!

Hershey's Chocolate Milk $.79 ,I have 2 .35 off coupons. Cost will be $.88 for two, or $.44 each!

-Success! These will be a nice little treat for my kids!

Things I added while in the store:


I count the sixth bottle of Pepsi as an 'addition' because I really only wanted to buy ten total; either ten here or five here and five at Strack's (which is also running the same deal this week). Now I need to buy 11 to get the deal, but that's OK. I got my six here, and I'll get my five at Strack tomorrow, and we'll be more than set on pop for the party.


I also count the second roast as an 'addition' to my list, because I was planning on buying only one. But at the last minute, as usual, I got panicky about not having enough meat for our guests this weekend, and I grabbed a second roast. I would much rather have too much food than not enough. We will definitely re-use the leftovers if there are any, and at this price it's hard to beat!

BONUS FUN:


Did I mention the $1.00 Ultra buck that printed at the end? That was a nice little surprise!



These sales run through Thursday December 8th, so if any of them appeal to you, you can run to your local Ultra Food and take advantage of them too! Let me know if you need help tracking down any of the coupons. If you're a new EXTREME COUPONER and you haven't yet subscribed to the Sunday paper or started saving all the coupon inserts, DO IT. You could be saving a LOT of money!

FINALLY, don't forget to call the feedback number on the bottom of your receipt(s) when you get home! You only have a few days to do it, it's a short survey, and you get entered in a drawing. Ultra's drawing this month is for a $500 gift card. That's worth a couple minutes of my time, for sure.

Extreme Couponing In Action: Ultra Foods - The Plan

Tomorrow I will be heading out to our local Ultra Foods to see if I can score some deals. I haven't been there in, oh, probably 15 years or more (I know I haven't been there since they became Ultra; they were still Cub Foods last time I went!), so I'm a little nervous about tackling a new store. However, I hear they have good deals and I have to admit: I'm a natural-born skeptic. Even though I've seen some great results with our Extreme Couponing, I have this burning need to figure out if I really am getting the BEST deals in my area. Which means doing a lot of extra research and work, hitting a lot of extra stores, and even keeping a price comparison spreadsheet (which I started today). Over time, I'll be able to share with all of you the fruits of my labors, and you'll be able to benefit from my hard work. Theoretically, anyway. So, my pain is your gain! Enjoy!


Here's my plan, after looking at the weekly deal matchup One Year To Disney put together (side note: there really aren't many Ultra Foods matchups for our area, it seems! Mummy Deals does them sometimes but she's very pregnant and thus gets a pass on keeping up with everything for a while, lol. Does anyone know of other deal blogs that do matchups for Ultra?):

Things I need:


parchment paper (found a $1 off Reynolds parchment paper coupon!): cost ??


zucchini: cost ??


onions: cost ??
Deals I want:

Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Select Pepsi Brand Varieties - $.99 WYB 5 (With in ad coupon)

I have 3 $1 off 2 coupons, and one $1 off 4 coupons. I don't know if this is a limit of 5 or not. I'm hoping I can get ten (we are having a party this weekend) and use all my coupons. Assuming I can, that would make my net cost $5.90, or .59 each.

FYI - Strack & Van Til is running this exact SAME DEAL WITH IN AD COUPON THIS WEEK

Pillsbury Ready to Bake Cookie Dough - 4/$10

In ad coupon for free Dean’s milk WYB 4 packages of dough

I've got 2 - $1.25 off 2 coupons! So my cost for four will be $7.50, or $1.88 each, AND a free Dean’s Milk!

Sanderson Farms Split Chicken Breast

Price: $.98/Pound

Bone in Pork Sirloin Chops

Price: $1.28/Pound

Whole Pork Butt Roast

Price: $.98/Pound

Crisco Vegetable Oil, 128 oz. $4.99 

use $.55/1 from RP 11/07/10

Final Price: $4.44 each, or $.03 per oz

(Crisco oil is on sale at Strack & Van Til this week for 1.99ea, 48oz size; it's the same price per ounce so I'm getting the bigger one.)

Hershey's Chocolate Milk $.79 

I have 2 .35 off coupons. Cost will be $.88 for two, or $.44 each!

Deals I was interested in but ultimately nixed:

Palermo's Pizza - 2/$8

$1/1 - Click here

Final Price: $3/Each WYB 2

I nixed this for two reasons:

1) California Pizza Kitchen pizzas are $1.50ea at Meijer this week

2) Palermo's Classic Pizzas are on sale 4/$10 at Strack & Van Til this week; I can use my coupon there

Contadina Tomato Paste $.59

Use $1/3 from RP 09/26/10

Final Price $.77/3 or $.26 each

1) I nixed this one because I don't have coupon fliers going back that far, and I couldn't find any Contadina coupons online.


I also am hoping that either my mom has the Ultra sales ad and I can snag it from her tomorrow, or that they have copies of it in the store, because I need those in-ad coupons for this to work. I don't get the Sunday paper yet; I signed up for the 2011 deal the Chicago Tribune is offering (Sunday-only paper delivery $20 for the whole year! GREAT price!), but that doesn't start until next year. Until then, I keep stealing my mom's papers. I'm sick and I forgot to go over there and get them tonight. So tomorrow morning I will go and hope she has what I need!

Final analysis: I'm guessing this trip will cost me a total of $50. I don't know the cost on a couple of the items, and I don't know exactly how much meat I'll be buying, but I'm hoping for a decent size roast at the very least. We're having a potluck this weekend and we are providing the main meat dish; $.98 per pound pork roast would be AWESOME. Here's hoping for decent meat tomorrow!

Walgreens: The Results

Based on the plan I meticulously crafted, I estimated that (not counting prescriptions) I would spend about $70 after coupons and would receive $9 in Jingle Cash plus $6 in mail-in rebates.

I ended up missing one product on my list and adding a couple more in-store, but my final result?

Spent: $70.16 RIGHT ON THE MONEY, BABY!
Mail-in rebate: didn't print! BOO! I may have picked up the wrong item. Probably will return it.
Jingle Cash received: $26!! JACKPOT!

How did this all work out? Here's the list I made prior to shopping, with notes from the actual store experience beneath each. If you don't want to bother with reading an in-depth analysis, and just want to know the outcome, here's what I saved (according to my receipt) AND a short list of important things I learned during this trip:

FINAL SAVINGS OUTCOME (not counting the prescription counter):
Wag Coupon Savings: $14.18
Wag Advertised Savings: $30.73
Mfg Coupon Savings: $35.69
My Total Savings: $80.60
Percent saved, based on that number: 54%
(That number takes into account the $11 Jingle Cash I redeemed from the previous week but does NOT account for the $26 in Jingle Cash I received this week. I will count that on next week's write-up.)

THINGS I LEARNED:
1) Prescriptions don't create Jingle Cash
2) Pay attention to your prices. Just because the card is sitting in the .99 section doesn't mean it's in the right place.
3) Know what triggers your deals well and pay attention / make sure you pick up the correct item. (Cortaid, possibly the greeting cards.)
4) Jingle Cash prints based on the pre-coupon price of your merchandise.
5) Many of the little free flyers in the pharmacy area have coupons hidden inside! I picked up free informational packets on things like 'vitamins and supplements', 'digestive health', 'sports medicine', and 'blood pressure', and they all had coupons within.

Now, here's that detailed analysis I promised:

Things I needed:
Neilmed Nasaflo Neti Pot solution packets - cost ??
-a 100-packet refill was $9.99 at Walgreens.
-I found a $2.00 off Wags coupon in the Dec booklet
-there was a $3.00 off manufacturer's coupon on the box!!
-total cost? $4.99 for nasal health! yay!

Peppermint mocha coffee mate - cost?? (but I have a $1 off coupon!)
-$2.49, not on sale
-buying the Peppermint Mocha variety makes my husband happy AND it keeps him out of Starbucks during the holiday season, so it is well worth it to me to buy even when it isn't on sale!

Prescriptions - cost $60 (I THINK)
-Actually $58.50. Close enough.

Dayquil - cost $8.99, get $2 Jingle Cash
- this was actually a 2-pack of Dayquil / Nyquil together

Christmas lights - cost??, on sale BOGO 100 pack
-$3.99 for two

file folders - cost ??
- $6.99 for 48. Probably overpaid. Needed them though.

Edy's Ice Cream - on sale BOGO, I think the cost was $3.49
-actually $6.29 for two. OUCH. But my husband promised ice cream to the kids, so...

Deals I wanted:
Cortaid Cream .5oz free after rebate - cost 5.99 (I think)
- my rebate didn't print. I actually saw this listed on a blog somewhere as costing $3.99, so I grabbed the tube that was on sale for that price (original Cortaid cream, 1 oz side). So I paid $3.99 and got nothing back. I will return this, and also see if I can find out which product WAS supposed to print a rebate form.

Skippy peanut butter, 2 (on sale 2/3), coupon .75 - cost 2.25
- Success!

V8 Fusion, 2/5 with in-ad coupon, man. coupon for $1 - cost 4.00
- success!

Crisco shortening sticks, $1.99 in-ad coupon, coupon for .50 - cost 1.49
- success!

Toll House morsels, in ad coupon 1.79, coupon 1.25 off 3 - cost 4.12
- success!

ziploc bags, 1.99 in ad coupon, coupon $1.00 off 2 - cost 2.98
- success!

revlon top speed nail color, $5 Jingle Cash - cost 5.99
- could not find this in my store. Throat was too sore to ask an employee for help. Just skipped it. May search it out later if I go back this week.

Wisk 48 loads, $2 Jingle Cash, $1.00 coupon - cost ??
- on sale for $6.99
- success!

Nyquil, on sale $8.99, $1.50 off coupon plus buy 2 get free Puffs (buying Dayquil above) - cost 7.50
- I only needed to buy two Nyquil's to a) stock up for the winter and b) get my free Puffs. So instead of buying the $8.99 pack from above twice, I bought a bottle of Nyquil that was on sale for $6.99. Used my coupon AND got the free box of Puffs for $1.69 value.

Welch's Sparkling Grape Juice - Wags coupon $1 off 2, Man. coupon $2 off 2 - cost ??
- original cost 2/$7, final cost after coupons 2/$4

L'Oreal Lipgloss, on sale 2/$13.49, coupon $5.00 off 2, $4 off from Wags Dec coupon book - cost 4.49
-success!

Things I added while in the store:
4 Hallmark cards
-I read right before I left that cards were on a Jingle Cash special this week: buy 2 cards, get $2 back. Buy 5 cards, get $5 back. I was going to ignore this because cards are usually expensive and I don't really need to stock up on them, UNTIL one intrepid person pointed out that Walgreens has an entire section of cards for .99! Which would mean that you could stock up on cards a couple different ways:
1) buy 2 at $1.98, get your $2 Jingle Cash
2) buy 5 at $4.95, get your $5 Jingle Cash
3) do the "buy 2" in multiple transactions, buy 6 (or more!) at $5.94, get $6 Jingle Cash back
-Since I had to do two different transactions anyway (one at the pharmacy and one at the front counter), I figured I'd pick up four cards for the heck of it and stock up on kids' birthday cards for next year. So I did.
-I rang up 2 cards at the pharmacy counter along with my prescriptions, and received my $2 Jingle Cash for them. (I also learned that prescriptions don't count for Jingle Cash, which will be relevant in a little bit.)
-I rang up my other two at the front counter with the rest of my groceries and did NOT receive any Jingle Cash for them. BOOO. I also accidentally, in looking at my receipt, picked up one card that cost $2, even though it was in the .99 section. DOUBLE BOO. So I paid a net of $2.97 for four greeting cards I didn't need. Contemplating whether or not it would be tacky to return two of them (since I'm going back to return the Cortaid anyway). Are you allowed to return greeting cards?

BONUS FUN:
This week at Walgreens it's SUPER JINGLE CASH week! You get $5 in Jingle Cash for every $25 you spend, up to $100 (or a printed return of $20 Jingle Cash) per transaction! Good thing I had a big week there, eh?
-This is how I learned that prescriptions don't create Jingle Cash. I spent $60 at the pharmacy counter but did not get cash for that, though I DID get the Jingle Cash for the greeting cards, so the pharmacy counter DOES print Jingle Cash. And yes, I asked the pharmacist if prescriptions counted, and she said no.
-I also learned that evidently Jingle Cash is triggered by the pre-coupon amount you spend because... I GOT $20 JINGLE CASH AT THE FRONT REGISTER! My pre-coupon total was $110, and even though I brought it down to $70 with coupons, I still got the full amount of Jingle Cash. Next week at Walgreen's is going to be super fun!

These sales run through Saturday December 11th, so if any of them appeal to you, you can run to your local Walgreen's and take advantage of them too! Let me know if you need help tracking down any of the coupons. If you're a new EXTREME COUPONER and you haven't yet subscribed to the Sunday paper or started saving all the coupon inserts, DO IT. You could be saving a LOT of money!

FINALLY, don't forget to call the feedback number on the bottom of your receipt(s) when you get home! You only have a few days to do it, it's a short survey, and you get entered in a drawing. Walgreens' drawing this month is for $3,000 cash. That's worth a couple minutes of my time, for sure.

Walgreens Plan

I am sick like woah today; stuffy and full of drainage and my throat is so hoarse I can't speak above a whisper. Joy! So what am I doing? GOING SHOPPING AT WALGREENS! I need some medicine and I have a few prescriptions to pick up, so I figured I might as well drag my ailing carcass out and just get the Walgreens part of the week over with since I need to go anyway.

So here's my plan, after looking at various weekly deal matchups:

Things I need:

Neilmed Nasaflo Neti Pot solution packets - cost??
Peppermint mocha coffee mate - cost?? (but I have a $1 off coupon!)
Prescriptions - cost $60 (I THINK)
Dayquil - cost $8.99, get $2 Jingle Cash
Christmas lights - cost??, on sale BOGO 100 pack
file folders - cost ??
Edy's Ice Cream - on sale BOGO, I think the cost was $3.49

Deals I want:
Cortaid Cream .5oz free after rebate - cost 5.99 (I think)
Skippy peanut butter, 2 (on sale 2/3), coupon .75 - cost 2.25
V8 Fusion, 2/5 with in-ad coupon, man. coupon for $1 - cost 4.00
Crisco shortening sticks, $1.99 in-ad coupon, coupon for .50 - cost 1.49
Toll House morsels, in ad coupon 1.79, coupon 1.25 off 3 - cost 4.12
ziploc bags, 1.99 in ad coupon, coupon $1.00 off 2 - cost 2.98
revlon top speed nail color, $5 Jingle Cash - cost 5.99
Wisk 48 loads, $2 Jingle Cash, $1.00 coupon - cost ??
Nyquil, on sale $8.99, $1.50 off coupon plus buy 2 get free Puffs (buying Dayquil above) - cost 7.50
Welch's Sparkling Grape Juice - Wags coupon $1 off 2, Man. coupon $2 off 2 - cost ??
L'Oreal Lipgloss, on sale 2/$13.49, coupon $5.00 off 2, $4 off from Wags Dec coupon book - cost 4.49

And I have $11 in Jingle Cash to redeem.

So this trip should cost me $100 plus the cost of neti pot solution, coffeemate, christmas lights, file folders, Wisk, and sparkling grape juice. I'm going to guess, oh, a total of $130. If you don't count the prescriptions, that would be about $70. And I should get $9 back in Jingle Cash and $6 back from rebate.

Let's see how I do. I'll figure out the actual savings amounts on my follow-up post!

Rockin', Tootin' Holidays

Every now and then I spend an inordinate amount of time playing around with videos over at JibJab. They have given me great joy over the years. It's things like this that make me love the internet. My kids love creating videos too, naturally. We spent several hours making videos today. Here are my two favorites.

WARNING: 12-year-old boy humor ahead! This never fails to make me laugh. From L to R is my daughter, my husband, our friend Justin, my brother, and me. I helped her pick 'farty' faces, but for the most part my daughter picked the people and put them in their places.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

I made this one. My friends and I have taken far more "metal face" pictures than your average person probably does, and it really paid off here. I have probably watched this 20 times today and it just keeps bringing joy into my life.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

lead singer - my friend Justin
guitars:
me - red hair
my friend Red - black hair
my friend Sarah - brown hair
drummer - my husband

Pay It Forward: Coupon Edition

Facebook keeps telling me that today is 'pay it forward' day. While I personally think that every day should be 'pay it forward' day, I'll honor the spirit of the idea by sharing my own little couponing 'pay it forward' that is still warming my heart.

When Leslie and I were shopping the other week (the day that we were photographed for the paper), and we were shopping the great toy deals at Target, we gave away a lot of coupons. I had printed a lot of toy coupons because I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to get for the kids; once I'd picked out our gifts, I just started giving my leftover coupons to folks that were looking at those items in those aisles. One lady almost started crying when I gave her a good coupon off the FurReal friend in her shopping cart! The lesson here is that we're ALL really broke this year (and often, many other years too), we all want to do the best for our kids that we can, and we all appreciate saving money.

When I ran out of people, I left the rest of the coupons on the shelves in the toy section. I didn't do any of this specifically to pay it forward; I wasn't thinking about other people doing the same thing and benefitting from it myself at some point in the future. I just did it because I wanted to help people. I did it because I've been amazed at some of the great deals I've been able to score using coupons, and I want other people to be able to do the same thing. Money is really tight for us at this time and I keep running into more and more people that are in the same boat as us or, unfortunately, an even worse one. I feel extremely fortunate to have the time right now to explore couponing, learn all the tricks, and be able to provide more for my family. If I can share that with other people, and help them even a little, it's worth all the time I've invested in the process.

Yesterday, Leslie and I were shopping at Jewel. One of my Avenu deals was .40 off 3 cans of Pringles. Pringles are something we love, but don't buy very often because a) it's junk food and b) it can be pricey. Definitely a treat item. I thought I'd check and see what the price was just in case it was worth a buy for us. We stopped in the aisle and Pringles were on sale, 2 for $3. With my $.40 off 3, I'd be paying 4.10, or $1.37 each. Which may not sound like much but money was really tight this week and this definitely wasn't a need, so I was going to pass them up. Then Leslie spotted three little pieces of paper on the shelf. Coupons. PRINGLES coupons. They expired that day. Some intrepid couponer obviously had decided not to use them, and rather than just toss the coupons later, they were kind enough to leave them for someone else to use. I snagged a $1.00 off 3 cans coupon. Now my 3 cans of Pringles would cost $3.10, or $1.03. Again, it's just a small amount, but it brought the price down just enough to justify a little treat for my family. (As a bonus, I had a $3 off your next shopping order Catalina in hand from a previous Jewel trip, so my Pringles were virtually free!)

I actually bought original, salt and vinegar, and EXTREME sizzlin' sweet BBQ. Which ended up being DELICIOUS. And also fairly spicy. But really good!

So thank you, anonymous coupon benefactor, for helping me treat my family yesterday.

For all you couponers, if you don't already do this, please consider paying it forward by leaving your unwanted / about to expire coupons on the shelves in the store for others to take advantage of. You might just be able to help someone give their kids an extra special Christmas. Or give their family a special treat they wouldn't normally buy. Or even help feed them milk, or eggs, or bread. It's a little thing that might just mean a lot to someone out there.

I know I'll be paying it forward this way from now on.

15 Minutes Of Fame

That's me, Leslie, then me again!

Leslie and I made the front page! BOTH 'front' pages! Holy cow! You can read the accompanying newspaper story here (where you can see a picture of my hands and Leslie's profile, heh).

A million thanks to Leslie for taking the initiative when she saw that the Southtown Star was looking for super shoppers, because this was a really fun experience. We had a great time going around with Joe (the photographer), snagging and sharing deals.

I hope everyone is enjoying a happy, healthy, safe Thanksgiving holiday with their loved ones today!

Build Your Stockpile Slowly

One of the things that new couponers seem to be most concerned about is the part where building a stockpile at the beginning can cost quite a bit of money, especially if you're like me and get carried away by all the Shiny Deals! What if you're on a limited budget and don't HAVE a larger initial output of money to spend? How can you become an Extreme Couponer then?

My advice would be to start small. You don't have to get $300 of groceries for $100 at first, and as a matter of fact, you're not likely to! What you CAN do easily though is start making small changes to your shopping habits and slowly build a stockpile. You may not save as high of a percentage on your total grocery bill at first, but you will begin seeing small savings as you make change after change, and soon you'll see a difference.

One of the first things you need to realize is that Extreme Couponing isn't solely about coupons. It's also largely (possibly primarily) based on SALES PRICES. Start changing your habits to shop based around the sales prices and you will start seeing differences. My advice would be to pick a coupon blog that posts the weekly 'best deals' in your area and see what they recommend, and then pick one or two deals that appeal to you each time you shop to start building your stockpile.

For example:

At Jewel-Osco this week, one of their deals is the "Instant Savings Spotlight: Save $5 when you buy any ten participating products in a single transaction!" (This is listed on the back of their current sales flier if you have it, OR you can simply shop the store and look for the little orange "save an additional 50 cents" tags hanging below products all throughout the store.) This week it covers items like Ragu pasta sauce, Green Giant frozen vegetables, and 3 General Mills cereals (Honey Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or Lucky Charms), amongst a variety of other things. All potential staple items for many people.

If one of those items is a staple item in your household, this would be a great time to stock up on it without spending a lot of extra money! You can mix and match in this deal (which is what I did), but I'm going to focus on building a stockpile one item at a time for our purposes here. This is what it would cost you if you picked one of the items listed above (prices and sale valid only through TOMORROW, November 25th 2010):

Ragu pasta sauce, 26 oz jars, select varieties:
Step one is to check the shelf in this section and see WHICH varieties have the little orange tags on them, then select ten Ragu jars from amongst those. These individual jars of sauce are on sale this week for $1.49 each. When you buy ten in one transaction, the price falls to $.99 each. A total cost of $9.99 added to your grocery bill (tax not included) to stock up on ten jars of Ragu.

This deal gets even better when you add coupons. In the 11/14 Red Plum coupon circulars, there was a coupon for "buy 2 Ragu, get 1 pasta (up to $1.25 value) FREE". It just so happens that Barilla pasta is on sale at Jewel this week ($1.29 a box), AND it counts in the "buy ten, save $5" deal (dropping the per-box price to $.79) at Jewel too. If you have multiple copies of this coupon (either by getting multiple Sunday newspapers, as some of us do, or by asking friends you know to give you their coupons (my Mom gives me her circulars, for instance)), you will do better and better!

With ONE coupon, you could:
a) Buy ten jars of Ragu for $9.99, get one box of pasta (Barilla or any under $1.25) for free!
b) Buy nine jars of Ragu for $8.91, get one box of Barilla pasta (MUST be Barilla in this scenario because you need it to be your tenth item to get the sale price) FREE!

With TWO coupons, you could:
a) buy ten jars of Ragu for $9.99, get two boxes of pasta (Barilla or any under $1.25) for free!
b) buy eight jars of Ragu for $7.92, get two boxes of Barilla pasta (MUST be Barilla in this scenario because you need it to be your ninth and tenth items to get the sale price) FREE!

And so on. Just keep couponing!

Green Giant Frozen Boxed Vegetables, 7-10oz, select varieties:

Step one is to check the shelf in this section and see WHICH varieties have the little orange tags on them, then select ten from amongst those. These individual boxes of veggies are on sale this week for $1.00 each. When you buy ten in one transaction, the price falls to $.50 each. A total cost of $5.00 added to your grocery bill (tax not included) to stock up on ten boxes of frozen vegetables.

This deal gets even better when you add coupons. In both the 10/03 and 11/14 General Mills coupon circulars, there was a coupon for "save $.60 on 3 boxes of Green Giant frozen vegetables". Again, having multiple copies of this coupon will make this deal even better.

With ONE coupon, you could buy ten boxes of frozen vegetables for $4.40. 

With TWO coupons, you could buy ten boxes of frozen vegetables for $3.80.

With THREE coupons, you could buy ten boxes of frozen vegetables for $3.20. That's only $.32 a box!

At this point, you would either want to stop OR you would want to buy TWENTY boxes of frozen vegetables to save the extra money. Jewel does allow you to repeat this "buy ten, save $5" multiple times in the same transaction, so you could buy 20 of the applicable items in one trip and save $10. And, of course, keep couponing!

General Mills Cereals, select varieties:

Step one is to check the shelf in this section and see WHICH varieties have the little orange tags on them, then select ten from amongst those. These cereals are on sale this week for $2.49 each. When you buy ten in one transaction, the price falls to $1.99 each. A total cost of $19.99 added to your grocery bill (tax not included) to stock up on ten boxes of cereal.

This deal gets even better when you add coupons. You can find cereal coupons all over the internet (go some google searches, check some couponing blogs, or wait a bit, I'll talk more about coupon sources in the future), as well as in the weekly circulars. Let's say you have the "save $1.00 on 2 Honey Nut Cheerios" coupon from the 10/31 circular, and your family REALLY likes Cheerios.

With ONE coupon, you could buy ten boxes of HN Cheerios for 18.99.

With TWO coupons, you could buy ten boxes of HN Cheerios for $17.99.

With THREE coupons, you could buy ten boxes of HN Cheerios for $16.99.

With FOUR coupons, you could buy ten boxes of HN Cheerios for $15.99.

With FIVE coupons, you could buy ten boxes of HN Cheerios for $14.99. That's $1.49 a box!

At this point, you would either want to stop OR you would want to buy TWENTY boxes of HN Cheerios to save the extra money. Jewel does allow you to repeat this "buy ten, save $5" multiple times in the same transaction, so you could buy 20 of the applicable items in one trip and save $10. And, of course, keep couponing!

So there you have three examples of ways you could spend a mere (maximum, often less with coupons) of $20, $10 or $5 on your weekly shopping trip at Jewel and stock up on a bunch of cereal, pasta sauces (possibly with pasta), or frozen vegetables for your family.

Playing the sales is what will save you money; adding in the coupons is what will REALLY start making your savings spectacular!

Pick one deal like this per week and start building your stockpile that way. I'll try to post individual super deals like this each week to help you decide which ones might be a good buy for your family!

As a final note, if you're not already getting and saving the coupon circulars, I highly recommend you do it now! You don't have to clip ANY coupons, just save the circulars in a folder or bin somewhere. Write the date on the front of each circular when you get it and keep them in date order. Most coupon blogs will tell you where to find coupons each week and you only need to clip the ones you need. Saves a TON of time. There are even searchable coupon databases online (Coupon Mom has one). But to take advantage of it, YOU NEED TO HAVE THE COUPON CIRCULARS. And many of them have coupons that don't expire for up to a year. So start collecting and saving them now!

Welcome New Readers + A Speedy Stocking Stuffer!

Yesterday Leslie and I spent a very long day doing some Extreme Couponing. We had a BLAST! Not only did we snag some really great deals (which I will talk about in the near future), we also spent a lot of time in the morning with a photographer from the Southtown Star (rumor has it we will be in tomorrow's paper, so watch for us!) talking about our super shopping habits, we were able to share many coupons and tips with random shoppers we met along the way (welcome, if you're one of our new friends from yesterday!), we just about finished Christmas shopping for our kids, and we just had a lot of fun overall. It was great to save money and really see the results of couponing and planning, and it was truly rewarding and heartwarming to be able to share even just a small fraction of that with some of the people we met along the way.

If you haven't checked out Leslie's blog, One Year To Disney, yet, make sure you do because she's running a great contest featuring FREE Culver's custard! It ends today (at 11:59pm central time) so don't wait!

I'm working on a list of tips for new couponers, based on our recent experiences, and I will post it soon. If you're a coupon shopper who has some tips for new couponers, I'd love to hear them!

Finally, I am going to watch for stocking stuffer deals over the course of the next few weeks. I'd like to feature stocking stuffers that are a dollar or less, so as I come across them I will share them with you. Here's one I came across yesterday:

In the Walgreen's ad this week, there is a coupon for Speed Wheels (off-brand die-cast metal cars, Matchbox / Hot Wheels size). $.49 each, limit ten. My kids LOVE playing with cars and as long as they aren't terribly cheap looking, we're not picky about brand! That's a pretty good price on individual cars. My Walgreens had a great selection (lots of variety in types; they even had Hummers, race cars, school buses and ambulances). Grab the coupon out of the Walgreens paper and pick up a few this week! Sale ends Saturday.

Jewel-Osco: A Very Time Consuming Lesson, Part One of Two

Boy, here it is the start of another week and I'm still blogging about my shopping experience from last week! Analyzing this is really helping me sort out how it all works though, so even if it isn't helping any of you (or worse, is boring you to tears), I'm going to keep at it because I do believe this will become easier as I learn more about it.

Using Jill Cataldo's great site again, I checked out the deals available at Jewel last week. Jill, by the way, recommends changing the way you shop: you don't shop based on what you 'need' for the week. You shop based around the best deals available and build a stockpile. Sometimes you'll even end up buying things you don't need (aforementioned moneymakers), which you can always donate to charity. My family is pretty malleable in terms of what we will eat (we like food), and I like to cook so I'm more than willing to change up my order. In the past I would look up recipes I liked for the week, make a list based on those ingredients, and then go shopping - and spend a ton of money buying everything I needed! Now I will go shopping based on deals and coupons, then see what I have in the house, and then make up the week's meal plan based on that stuff. Just a change in habits, that's all.

So I was most interested in the following deals:

JEWEL TURKEY DEAL - On page 9 of Section 1 of the 11/14 Chicago Tribune (the actual newspaper part) there's a coupon for $10 off any Jennie-O, Farm Fresh, Perdue or Butterball fresh OR frozen turkey with the coupon and a separate $20 purchase. This is a pretty good deal, particularly if you want a smaller bird. The ad shows sample prices with coupon:
16lb. frozen Jennie-O turkey - $6.24 after coupon (.39/lb.)

"Buy 10, Save $5" Instant-Savings sale
Buying any ten of these items, mix or match, will result in $5 worth of instant savings. Prices shown are AFTER "Buy 10" discount. Remember, you must buy ten items in the same transaction to receive the discount.
Jill lists all of the items in the sale on her site; I wrote down the ones I was most interested in on my list. There were a decent amount of baking supplies on there as well as some instant foods we would eat, and some of them were on sale and/or had coupons that could be applied to them as well.

Jewel is running a Catalina sale involving Kellogg's products. Buy any 10 participating Kellogg's, Keebler, and/or Sunshine products and get a Catalina for two free movie tickets plus $10 Concession Cash by mail (to be spent in the movie theater.)
Here are your products and matchups. (A UPC list is here.)Note that if you have the $50 Kellogg's Your Ultimate Holiday Guide coupon book, you'll do very well here. Also, Coupons.com has a link to $10 worth of Kellogg's coupons on their site, and here's another link to print $5 worth of Kellogg's coupons to use with this deal too.
Again, Jill lists the products on her site, and the provided UPC list is great too. Lots of cereals, crackers and snacks.

"No Coupon Needed" Deals:
Homelife toilet bowl cleaner is $1.69 for a 24oz. bottle
(remember where I said the other day that I have no memory at all for numbers and prices? Yeah, that applies to cleaners too. If she tells me this is a good deal, I'm all for it. We always seem to run out of toilet bowl cleaner for some reason.)

Coupon books currently found at Jewel:
Share Something Delicious - here's what's inside.
$50 Kellogg's "Your Ultimate Holiday Guide - here's what's inside.

Jewel meat deals:
Jewel chicken drumsticks or thighs are $1.49/lb.
Jewel Stockman and Dakota roasts are on sale B1G1F this week (these are pricey at $25.) This Sunday's Chicago Tribune has a coupon for $5 off the roast on page 9, near the $10 turkey coupon. If you buy two roasts, use the $5 coupon on one and get the second free with the B1G1F, paying $20 for both, or $10 each.

Jewel produce deals:
1lb. bags of Jewel frozen vegetables or 12oz. Steamy vegetables are .69 each
Red seedless grapes are $1.28/lb.
Anjou, Bartlett, Bosc or Red pears are $1.29/lb.
Farm Stand baby-cut carrots are $1.29 for a 1lb. bag

Jill says: Anytime meat is under $1.99 a pound (no matter what it is -- beef, pork, poultry) it's a buy in my book, because $1.99 is a cycle low and a good benchmark for meat prices -- ditto for most produce. Seafood, by its nature, is more expensive per pound, but a good "buy" benchmark is $4 per pound or less for fish or shrimp.

Wow. A lot of deals at Jewel already, some of them pretty complicated for a newbie (the two "buy ten of the listed products" deals were making me quite nervous, because the PLAN was to try to find the best deals for me within those listed items, AND match my coupons to all of them. It was definitely in the 'intermediate-to-advanced' coupon category, heh, but I was determined to give it a try!), and I hadn't even checked Coupon Mom or Avenu yet. (I'll get to the Avenu thing in my next post!)

However, I have promised my son I would play some video games with him today and it is time, so I will continue this post a bit later!

Target: Things Were A Little More Complicated

After CVS, I headed to our local Target. Target's a dangerous store for me because I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I walk in and I just want to spend money.

Thanks to Jill Cataldo once again, I was on the alert that Target's coupon accepting was all kinds of screwed up, but after reading the post on it I'm still a bit confused so I just vowed to be careful and make sure everything rang up as it was supposed to. Yes, I decided I'd be one of those slow old ladies who watches the register and double-checks everything. Annoying, I know. It sucks double for me because I am not used to doing it, and it's hard! Things ring up really fast. Luckily I had a really friendly checker, so that all went pretty easily (couponers suggest going for the younger cashiers, they seem to be more tolerant of our couponing ways).

Using Jill's deals of the week, I had my eyes on:

"No Coupon Needed" Deals: One-dozen Grade A large eggs are .99 a carton.

Deals continuing from previous weeks: Buy any 5 Glade Holiday items and get a free $5 Target gift card. This sale runs through December 26th, and many Glade items will go on and off sale prices during that time. UPDATE: This deal got more interesting this week, as aerosols, candles, candle tins, candle refills, and plugins oil refills are all on sale for $2.50. DEAL SCENARIO: Buy any 5 products priced at $2.50 each ($12.50 total) that you have $1 coupons for. Use a $1 coupon on each item ($7.50.) Pay $7.50 and get $5 back, which knocks the price of each to .50 each!
There were a variety of coupons available for the Glade items as well; I didn't list them all here, but they're on Jill's site.

Target meat deals: Archer Farms spiral-cut honey hams are $1.99/lb.
Target produce deals: 5lb. bags of russet potatoes are $1.99.

I have to take a moment here to confess that I have a TERRIBLE head for numbers. TERRIBLE. They just don't stick in my brain. Which means that I have pretty much no concept of whether or not something is at the high end of its price range or the low end. This is why I was tracking all my spending on my own grocery spreadsheet when I tried to do this myself - because despite the fact that I'm 32 years old now and have been an adult for quite a few years (no matter how often I don't FEEL it), and despite the fact that I have been a grocery shopper on my own for more than a decade now, I STILL just can't remember how much groceries cost. The odd item will stay with me for a while, but mostly I couldn't look at a loaf of bread and tell you if it's a good price or not. Even milk, and we go through 2-4 gallons a week in my house! It just doesn't STICK in my brain. So if these websites are going to tell me that meat or produce or eggs are at a great price this week, I'm probably just going to listen to them without question. I'm not doing any better on my own!

I also knew that I would be perusing the dollar section for holiday gifts for my kids. Christmas is looking like it'll be pretty lean this year, and I'd like to make the most of whatever I can. The Target dollar section is always enticing and gives me a few great stocking stuffers. I was not disappointed, and left with 12 $1 stocking stuffers.

Per my friend Leslie's suggestion, I also used the free website Coupon Mom to check Target's deals for the week, and was informed that I could take advantage of:

click to enlarge

I was most interested in the Suave deodorant as well as the Friskies treats and the Beggin' Strips.

I cut out the required coupons from my 11/14 papers, and I checked Target's website for the recommended printable coupons. (It's under the 'see more' section at Target.com, in case that link is personalized. I'm not sure if they do it based on IP's/areas or if they're all the same for everyone.) I could not find the russet potatoes coupon mentioned by Coupon Mom, but I did get Target coupons for Friskies, Beggin' Strips and Suave.

In case you didn't know it already, it is important to have both the Target coupon AND a manufacturer's coupon for every item you're getting because you can use one of each on EVERY purchase. Meaning if you have a Target coupon for $1 off X ITEM and a manufacturer's coupon for $1 off X item, you can use both those coupons on ONE package of X ITEM and get $2 off. That's called stacking in Extreme Couponing. Most stores will accept their coupon AND a manufacturer's coupon on every item.

So I got my potatoes, my ham (which we cooked last night and IT IS DELICIOUS, we love ham so much, I'm so happy about it), my eggs, and I threw in a thing of madeleines for good measure, because they're delicious and also because it was getting late, I'm diabetic, and for some reason I always get low blood sugar when I'm grocery shopping. The excitement of it all, I guess (har). I was starting to feel a little shaky and decided to head that off at the pass. MMM, cookies.

Oh, and the Glade deal? I didn't end up with any Glade products. I brought coupons and picked five out, but while it is true that they WERE on sale for $2.50 a piece, the "buy 5, get a $5 Target gift card" deal was no longer going on, and I decided it wasn't worth it. And honestly, I thought most of the scents smelled pretty fakey and not all that delicious. So the Glade stuff went back. (I would have lived with the fakey candle smells if I had gotten the $5 back though, lol!)

At my Target, the Beggin' Strips, Friskies and Suave were not on sale. I hadn't brought a copy of Coupon Mom's list though, so I just remembered that I had coupons and the deals were supposed to be good, and I forged ahead anyway.

The Beggin' Strips were $2.49 a bag. My coupon was $1.50 off 2, and I had a Target coupon for $1 off 1. I picked up two bags for $2.48. Not 66% like Coupon Mom proposed but not bad either.

The Friskies cat treats were $1.42 each. I had a $1 off 2 Target coupon and a newspaper coupon for $2 off, I think, if I'm reading my receipt correctly. So I spent $2.48 and got $3 off; that's what's known as a MONEYMAKER item in Extreme Coupon lingo. You have to have other stuff to get the 'extra' money off your total though, which I did, so this one worked well for me. I actually did better here than Coupon Mom's suggestion of FREE! I think I got a better coupon somehow though.

The Suave deodorants were .99 each. I had a Target coupon for $1.00 off 2 and a manufacturer's coupon for .75 off one. I spent 1.98 and saved 1.75, so my two deodorants cost .23. Not free as Coupon Mom suggested, but I think I can handle two deodorants for less than a quarter.

THEN, and this was awesome, I brought my own bag into Target for my purchases. Why was this awesome? Well, not only am I helping the environment by reusing bags, but also Target gives you 5 cents off your total for EVERY REUSABLE BAG YOU BRING IN.

My percentage savings at Target was considerably weaker than my CVS savings. For one thing, Target doesn't list the 'regular' price of sales item on their receipts like many other places do, so I can't calculate how much I saved by picking up the potatoes, ham and eggs on sale. For another, some of the things that were said to be on sale actually weren't (though I don't think I did too badly on them with coupons anyway). My pre-coupon total was $48.99; I actually spent $40.49. A savings of only 17.4% off the total.



Here's why you can't always go by just the numbers though:
1) I bought a ham for $18.71, almost HALF my total spent. That ham will feed my family of four for 3-4 days. That's $1.50 a person or less for those meals.
2) I got 12 stocking stuffers knocked off my list for a very minimal price.

Those two points also make up the bulk of my receipt, at $30.71. Given what they were, I still feel that my Target experience was an overall success and provided me with savings. (Especially since I saw some hams at Jewel later that were over $3.50 per pound!)

After checking out, I also received a Catalina (one of those coupons that prints at the checkout) - $1.50 off Pup-Peroni. I may or may not use that in the future, depending on how the deals go, so we'll see if that ends up being useful or not!

Lesson from this time: I will write down or print a copy of the supposed sales prices (from Jill's site or Coupon Mom or anywhere else I may come across them) and bring that with me next time so I can compare the actual price at my store to what was listed on the internet. That way I can decide on the spot if the deal is still good for me or not!

Even though my couponing percentage was much lower here, I left my second store still feeling like I was getting pretty good deals AND getting things my family would use.

Experienced couponers, how do you think I did? Would you have done anything differently? Have any other lessons to impart for me?