I finally did it. I saved a ton of money using coupons. For one brief moment, I became that lady, who cut her grocery bill by 60 percent via coupons.
Can you tell I'm excited. On a lark, I decided to check out couponmom.com and see what kind of deals I could get this week. Kroger is having its Game Day promotions. Things are on sale, then if you buy 10 participating items, you get $50 cents off of each.
I have a decent stock of coupons built up, because my mom brings me her Sunday circulars, ad I combine those with mine.
I spent 45 minutes combing through fliers clipping multiples of a few coupons. Then I tackled the grocery store. At the checkout, I was convinced it was too good to be true. I was scanning my Game Day items, and none of the discounts were showing up. I thought I had been had. Now I know they don't show up until you or the cashier hit the Pay button, then all the discounts magically come off.
I was sweaty palmed as my bill hit $80-- way more than I was planning to spend. By the time the cashier handled my stack of coupons AND I got the gameday discount, I was down to $35.19. Totally awesome!!!
I got:
2 giant tubes of colgate, for free. On sale for $1.50 and had two 75 cent D (double)coupons
2 giant tubes of Crest for 50 cents each, $2 on sale, had two 75 cent D coupons
3, yes 3, free Dove deodorants. On sale for $2, and had three coupons for $2 off. Too too good to be true.
I also bought 9 cans of Hunts diced tomatoes, reg. 99 cent, on sale for 49 cents, plus I had three 45 cent coupons (off three). I paid about 20 cents a can at the end.
And, as if the stars aligned, Kroger mailed me a packet of coupons to thank me for being a customer. Four of them were for FREE store brand items. I got 1 lb of butter ($3.29), 1 pack of cheese ($4.19), 1 dozen eggs ($1.69) and 1 free jar of peanut butter ($1.99).
All told, I saved $52.57 due to coupons (according to the receipt). $16.90 in manf. coupons, plus $35 in coupons including the Game Day discount and the store coupons for free items.
It felt really good to have this sort of degree of success. I know I won't be able to do it all the time, but I certainly will do it as often as I can.
After I went to Kroger, I took a trip to ALDI to fill in on basics that weren't on sale at the regular store.
The items I bought today-- some are now in the basement cabinet, which is where my stockpile is. The more I can stockpile for deep discounts, the more I will be able to wait to buy until we have a great deal in the future. It just takes time, I suppose.
Coupon nirvana!!!
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I've been living off my stockpile for so long, I hardly have to go to the grocery store these days.