Saturday Savings

The deals to be found this week were a little on the sparse side. That was ok with me though as I have a pretty good stock pile to work from. My shopping this week is not yet complete as I foolishly left a couple of key coupons at home yesterday (gah! I couldn't believe it either!). Today I'll be stopping at Hen House where I'll snag 2 boxes of Multi-Grain Cheerios for .99 a box which is 78% off (on sale for $1.99 and I have two $1 off coupons) and a box of Cap'n Crunch for $1.48 (60% off).

All the stuff you see to the right cost $30.79

Whole Milk - 3 gallons
All Purpose Flour
Flour Tortillas
Bananas - 1.25 pounds
Red Delicious Apples - 3 pounds
Peanut Butter
Bread
Hunt's Ketchup - 2 bottles
Dill Pickles
Marshmallow Fluff
Charmin TP - 9 count
Van Camp's Pork and Beans - 3 cans
Taco Seasoning - 3 packets
Kraft Mac 'n Cheese - 4 boxes
Canned Pasta Sauce
Pretzels
Sherbet

The Deals: Kraft Mac 'n Cheese has become a lunch staple in this house. The boys can scraf down a whole box in no time so I get excited when I see it for only .48 a box (52% off)! Thanks to my husband putting ketchup on just about anything, the boys are now addicts of the red stuff so we fly through the bottles. I was able to pick up a couple of bottles (the limit was 2) at Price Chopper for .78 a bottle - that's 48% off the regular price. The Charmin was also a nice deal at only $2.77 or 53% off.

Some of you locals may be wondering how I got the Charmin for $1 less than the sale price... I had a dollar off coupon, which are hard to come by! This is where paying attention to coupon book offers comes in handy. This past winter Proctor and Gamble ran a deal where if you spent $100 (I think that was the number) on Proctor and Gamble products over the course of 6 weeks, and sent in your receipts with their items circled, they would send you a coupon book. This was a piece of cake for me as Pamper's is a Proctor and Gamble brand and we spend about $100 a month on diapers alone! The coupon book they sent me has been fantastic. Usually P&G coupons in the Sunday paper aren't that great (.25 on Bounce sheets?! What a joke!) but the coupons in this book have been fantastic - most are for $1 or more off items.

You don't always have to track receipts and spending in order to get specialty coupon books. Watching sites like Money Saving Mom, Frugal Freebies and Deals and others can help you find coupon opportunities. Just yesterday I received a coupon book from P&G that I signed up for online. It has over $30 in coupons (mostly for cleaning supplies) and even has a coupon for Free Cascade Crystal Clear Rinse Agent.

To give you an example, here's a link to a coupon book from Simple & Delicious - it includes a coupon for a free bottle of ketchup! Keep an eye on those sites I listed above (better yet, subscribe so you don't miss anything) and you'll find other offers like this one!

Total Before Sales, Tax and Coupons: $45.37
Total After Sales and Coupons: $28.27

For those of you interested, I will be presenting my grocery saving tips at a free event at my church in the Kansas City Area! To register (so that they have an idea who is coming) or to check out the other seminars in the Simple Living Teaching Series, click here. I speak on Saturday, May 9th.