Free, just pay tax

I got two tubes of Crest toothpaste for free and 1 Reach toothbrush for free. I just had to pay tax on the items.

When I bought the toothbrush I had a $1/1 coupon so I got it free. The register printed out a Catalina coupon for $2/2.  If there were more toothbrushes I could have just done another transaction and gotten two more toothbrushes and another coupon. Looks like someone else figured out the same thing because there weren't any left at either Smith's near my house for me to snag a few doing that. I only wanted 6 :( 

Sometimes I wonder if couponing is really worth it because it can be extremely frustrating. I have gone to Smith's 4 times, Walmart twice, and Target once now looking for these toothbrushes and for the dental floss in my previous post but haven't had much luck.

Marie said...

I think the multiple trips and stores is where I hit my couponing limit. I'm lucky to find the time to go shopping at one store! April 29, 2011 9:33 PM

Chris said...

It does take a lot of time!

May 3, 2011 6:21 AM

Family Couponing

I've been looking for Reach dental floss for a week and a half now... Walmart and Target have been stripped clean of the $.88 - $1.00 Reach brand floss.  And here's why, there are coupons for $1.00 off any Reach floss.  I would be making money at wally world if they weren't out of stock. I stopped by Smith's grocery store this morning to see if they had any cheap Reach products.  There were only 3 flosses left. They were $1.05 each, but with my Smith's membership card they were only $1 each.  I got all three for free but I still had to pay tax.

Three dental flosses for only $.20 !  Not super impressive compared to the deals my family has been getting...

See below!

My brother Bently had called me the night before and told me about some of the awesome couponing adventures he and his wife Bonnie have had. Here's what they got the other night:

• 31 Reach toothbrushes (they'll be donating a lot of these)
• 3 pks of lady products
• 1 drink mix 11 oz.
• 5 bags of dog food
• 4 Soleil razors

 Total for all this, only $7.49!!!

My sister-in-law Lydia had an awesome haul at Walgreens the other day. All the stuff in the picture below for $6.21 !!! Holy smokes! I don't know how these people do it!

Walmart 4/26/11

Walmart 4/26/11

Got some free hot sauce, free vinegar, free tuna, free jam, free married ppl product haha, $.25 powerade with price-matching at buy one get one free coupons. Then some good deals on other stuff. I had coupons for everything I bought except the bananas but I price matched those.

Product review-  I LOVE the steamfresh corn.  I had to buy some more this trip because I've eaten all our other bags of it.  I had an entire bag of it for dinner a couple of times now. I know its probably not good to have that much starch and only eat that but its so good I can't stop eating it.

I also got a free avocado... no coupons, no price matching.

I found it in the parking lot on my way to the car. HA.

Walmart 4/19/11

Tuesdays are now officially my shop at Walmart day of the week.  Now that they double coupons up to a max. discounted price of $1.00 per item I got some stuff for free and Walmart actually paid me to take some other things out of the store!  So cool!!!

The chart below summarizes my savings from the trip. The items with a coupon of ex. $.50 that aren't doubled are because the coupon was actually for $1 off 2 of the product but I broke it down into two different line items to make the chart easier to read. (Same with the gum, it was $1.00 off two, and the medical supplies $1.50 off two, so they didn't double)

My bill would have looked a lot better if I didn't buy the cereal... that added a lot of expense.

That's right, they paid me to take the string cheese, tuna, and ketchup out of the store, and the mustard I got completely free. How sweet is that!?!?!

4 comments:

lydia said...

Wow, awesome haul Jordie! I fell asleep with Kate....didn't make it out. Lame, I know. Why didn't they double your gum coupons and all the .75 ones up to a dollar? Just curious. Also, I'm cracking up that you are taking a hobby that is SO time consuming and upping it by scanning your coupons and making fancy spreadsheets. Hmm, you must not have kids yet. ;) LOVE IT!

April 21, 2011 1:32 AM 

Marie said...

One thing I really like about your couponing is that it's not all shampoo, toothpaste, etc. I swear some people stock up on that stuff just to say that they saved money and then never actually use it.

April 21, 2011 1:37 AM 

the Villamor's said...

I agree w/ Marie....i have a friend who has hoards of drug store items(toothpaste and soap)...all for free but you can't eat body wash! This couponing takes a lot of thought and time and i want to have something I can eat at the end of the trip!!

April 21, 2011 2:42 AM 

leela said...

Good job. I wish I had read your post before I went to Walmart. I somehow misunderstood the doubling up to a dollar concept. I thought they doubled a coupon up to 1 dollar more in value, not that it was coupon + doubling does not exceed $1. So I ended up buying a bunch of stuff that I didn't need. Ha ha. I was a fool!!

April 21, 2011 7:32 AM 

Walmart 4/14/11

Walmart Trip 4-14-11

My shopping list with the price matching on it.

 All the coupons I used in this trip:

My cute hubby snuck this picture of me walking to the checkout stand.

At home unloading my goods... yes I'm in pajamas. And Ellie if you're reading this, these are the pj pants you bought me a couple of years ago when I spent the night at your house and didn't have pj's with me :)

The checkout lady told me that Walmart in Orem, UT now DOUBLES COUPONS up to $1.00 on TUESDAYS!!!! I about had a heart attack I was SO freaking excited! If I had know that I would have gotten the carnation evaporated milk, the pickles, and vinegar for FREE!!!! I would have gotten the cookie mix for $.20 an extra $.40 off of yogurt (basically giving me one for free), and another $.25 off the jam.

Now I know, and I'm only shopping there on Tuesdays! Oh my goodness, I'm so excited about this!! Now I know I'll be able to get some stuff for free, YIPPEEE!!!!  Too bad not all Wally Worlds are doing this.  Apparently Lindon, UT Walmart is doing this too.

Total savings in coupons about $22. Total savings in Price Matching, not quite sure but I probably saved about $65-70 with price matching.

3 comments:

Ellie said...

jordan, you are so super cute! my mom and i use coupons all the time now. no one really does double coupons in centerville. but your blog is private again...what's up with that? add my other email elliemurphy@live.com

April 19, 2011 6:13 AM 

the Villamor's said...

what?? doubling coupons up to $1? what an opportunity!

April 19, 2011 5:59 PM 

Marie said...

That's an awesome discovery about Wal-Mart. At least we'll know to ask at other Wal-Marts if they do something similar. Maybe some of the coupon sites you visit have already told you about this, but smartsource.com also has online coupons, which you can print and use on top of coupons.com coupons. Pretty awesome!

April 20, 2011 6:59 AM 

Target

I think that shopping with coupons at Target is frustrating...

It is nice because you can combine a manufacturer coupon with a Target coupon for extra savings but honestly I think Target prices are more expensive that Walmart so it would be just as cheap to only use the manufacturer coupon at Walmart.

Here's what I got at Target for about $15.  I had a gift card too (thanks Mom) so I only had to pay $3 OOP (out of pocket)

Not the most successful trip and the cashier wouldn't let me use all my coupons... He wouldn't let me do all 4 waters and all 4 packs of gum in one purchase because the coupons said only one per transaction. If he knew anything he'd know that it's okay...  So I just ended up going through someone else's line to get the other 2 waters and 2 packs of gum. Lame. 

1 comments:

Marie said...

I've never been super impressed with Target's cashiers, but we love their $5 movie rack!

April 20, 2011 7:00 AM

Coupons

Too bad they didn't have this coupon out last week on www.coupons.com

I would have saved about $7.50 if I had this coupon for half of my powerades... although most of what I bought wasn't Powerade Zero but I would have bought those instead if I had the coupons. Dangit!! I searched everywhere for coupons like this last week but there were none to be had.  Well I'll go ahead and print them and be ready for next time powerade is on sale for $.39 each... with this they would have been about $.20 each. Craziness.

More about my shopping trip

Some of the other things I do on my big Walmart shopping trips...

• I organize my shopping list in the order the store is laid out. That way I won't forget anything on my list and have to run to the back of the store to grab it.

• If hate it when I'm in a hurry and all the lines are long so I just pick one... then I find out after I've been standing in line for 20 minutes that the person in front of me is price matching or doing food stamps.  I always wish they had warned me before I got in line behind them.  Because of this I like to tell the people getting in line behind me that most of my (overflowing) cart is price matching and so it will take longer than a normal transaction.  Most people are very grateful that I told them and then they pick a different line. Occasionally the person doesn't seem to mind and they stay in line behind me.  At least they were warned :) 

• I always try to find a clerk that looks nice (there is one guy at the Orem, UT Walmart that is always such a grumpy check out guy that I avoid him at all costs. His line was shorter the other day when I went but it wasn't worth it to me). 

• The clerks have never made me show them the ad except this time they wanted to see it for the roast that I was buying. They want to make sure you get the right grade of meat because there is usually a huge price difference. I didn't have the ad so I didn't end up getting the meat, I was not about to pay full price for it. 
• I do take the ad if I'm price matching something other than food. I took the ad for the movies I was price matching but they didn't even ask to see it. From now on I'll take it for meat too.

• I separate my cart as I'm shopping to have all the items that aren't price matched in one section so I can put those on the counter first. That gives me a little bit of time to arrange the rest of my stuff on the belt in order of how my shopping list goes. That way it is easier for me to tell them the price matched price for the items.  This time I was buying quite a few little items like makeup and nail clippers at regular price (some plus coupons) so I actually put a shopping basket in my cart to hold all those items. That way the wouldn't slide out of the cart and then I just piled all my other regular priced items in the basket. This made it really easy when it was time to check out. All my stuff was separated. The only problem was the basket had been buried by other things so I ended up having to do the regular priced items last.

• Then after everything was rung up I handed the lady my coupons one by one. In the past I'd give them the whole stack but I think they didn't scan all the coupons when I did that. And I read on some lady's blog that she handed them one by one to make sure they all went through so that's what I do now too. Overall the shopping trip went really well and I was able to get my price matching on everything except the roast I mentioned earlier. All the coupons went through and I didn't have any of the dreaded beeping when a coupon doesn't work.