Total spent: $16.57
Total before coupons & can refund slips: $39.24
View receipt

We had a whole bunch of empty cans that have been building up, and it was high time to return them. Safeway has it’s own bottle deposit center, and when you cash in your cans, it gives your refund in the form of a voucher. You can take this to a checkstand and either redeem it for cash, or use it to offset your grocery purchase. Since I needed groceries, I decided to do the latter.

Got:

1 bag of tortilla chips – Price: $2.00
7 oz bag of shredded cheese – original price $2.49, used a coupon from the Safeway sales flier to drop the price down to $1.49.
1 package of cheese singles – original price $3.49, used a free coupon that I got in the mail. I’m not sure why I got this – I think I won it from a Kraft sweepstakes? Either way, this made the final price free!
1 gallon of milk – price: $2.49
1 tub of sour cream – price: $1.49
1 lb of butter – price: $2.49
1.55 lbs of steak – originally priced at $5.10, this was placed in the clearance meat section with a 30% off coupon on it. Final price: $3.57
.39 lbs of pork chops – price: $1.75
.75 lbs of Rockfish – price: $2.99
1.93 lbs bananas – price: $1.33
1 cantaloupe – originally priced at $2.49, used a coupon from the Safeway sales flier to bring the price down to .99 cents.
1.11 lbs of zucchini – price: $1.11
2.37 lbs of cabbage – price: $1.40
3 ears of corn – price: $1.98
.94 lbs of onion - price: .94 cents
1.02 lbs of squash – price: $1.52
1 bunch of cilantro – price: .69 cents
1 brick of organic tofu - price: $1.50. I had a coupon good for a free package of Nasoya tofu, but Safeway was all out of that brand, so I settled for this.
1 package of sliced mushrooms - originally priced at $1.99, used a coupon from the Safeway sales flier to bring the price down to .99 cents.

The last two times I was in Safeway, I received catalina coupons good for $3 off your $10 produce purchase. So I made sure to purchase enough produce so that I could use that coupon, shaving another $3.00 off my final total. I didn’t bring a double coupon, because I didn’t think that any of my coupons qualified, but after the cashier rang up my coupons, he said, “Hey! Do you want me to double these? They don’t say ‘Do not double’.” Well, OK then! That shaved another $1.00 off my total. I also had $10.15 worth of can refunds – I told you we had a lot! – which brought my final total down to $16.57. My running total for the week is now $24.71.

To give you some insight into how I decide what to buy, here’s a run-down of my meal plan for the rest of the week:

Tofu & veggie stir-fry
Nachos and corn on the cob
Fish & chips (I have the chips in my freezer)
Steak and corn or a zucchini side dish (whatever we feel like at the time)
Creamy basil pasta with pork – I’m going to make this using a Macaroni Grill Dinner Kit from my stockpile.

We’ve got plenty of stuff in the stockpile for breakfasts, and for lunch we’ll have leftovers or sandwiches. The cantaloupe and bananas will make good accompaniments for these meals also.
So what’s on your menu this week?

There are some fantastic deals to be had at Safeway right now. Yesterday, I paid zero for my groceries – actually, they paid me .06 cents to take them!

Total spent: ZERO – they paid me .06 cents in bag credit!
Total before coupons: $19.00
View receipt #1
View receipt #2

In order to best utilize my double coupons, I split this into two transactions. The first time, I got:

4 bags of No Yolks noodles – on sale for $1.25 each, used four .75/1 printables, which doubled, making them all free! And, whenever you bring your own bag to Safeway, you get a .03 cent bag credit – and since my total for the pasta was zero, they actually owed me .03 cents!

For the second transaction, I did another deal with the “Buy 10, save $5″ promo:

2 packages of Dreamfields spaghetti - these come to $1.50 after the “Buy 10″ promo, so I used two $1/1 printables, which doubled. Final price: free!
4 bags of Halls cough drops - these are .75 cents per bag after the promo, so I used two .75/1 printables and two “Buy One, Get One Free” tearpad coupons that I found at Safeway a few months back. Final price: free!
4 Del Monte fruit cups – on sale for .75 cents each after the promo, used two $1/2 printables, which doubled. Final price: free!
And, because I had brought two reusable bags, I was paid another .03 cents in bag credit! (Note the six pennies in the photograph.)

The cashier had trouble ringing my second transaction up, so a manager came over and ended up re-ringing my items at customer service. She keyed some of the coupons and doubles in differently than I had expected because of some weirdness with the “Save $5″ promo, but the math still worked out to be the same so it didn’t make a difference to me (I just thought I should point it out for anyone trying to make sense of my receipt). Also, she rang my .03 cent bag credit refund in a separate transaction from my groceries, and I did not get a receipt for that transaction.

Most of the employees at this Safeway know me, and as I was leaving one of them quipped, “So did you get $100 worth of stuff for $5?” to which I replied, “Actually, I made six cents!” (This is the same store where I was christened “Super Coupon Girl”.)

But this was only the start of my good deals at Safeway yesterday. Check back later today for part two – local readers take note, because I found an awesome new catalina deal that you won’t want to miss!

I got a great deal on salad and fruit cups yesterday:

Total spent: .13 cents out of pocket, put .34 cents on my free Safeway gift card
Total before coupons: $12.50
View receipt

Safeway has a promotion going this week where if you purchase 10 participating items, you will save $5 off your total. This has all kinds of interesting potential for good deals. Here’s how this scenario worked, and what I got:

8 Del Monte Fruit Natural Cups – when you buy 10 participating items, it brings the price of these cups down to .75 cents each. I used four printables for $1 off 2 cups, which doubled, making all 8 cups free! You can print two coupons per computer.
2 bags of Fresh Express salad – After the “Buy 10, save $5″ discount, these were also .75 cents apiece. I found a “blinkie” coupon dispenser at Fred Meyer on Thursday night, which contained coupons for $1 off any two Fresh Express salads. This brought the final cost down to .25 cents a bag.

Another tip for Safeway shoppers – if you can’t find coupons for Fresh Express, you could do a similar scenario with 8 fruit cups and 2 pouches of Bertolli pasta sauce. There is a blinkie machine right next to the pasta sauce at my store, with coupons for $1 off one sauce pouch; and from what I’ve heard on Hot Coupon World, these coupons can be found at most Safeways. The pasta sauce is part of the promo and comes to $1.50 each after the $5 discount, so the blinkie coupons would bring the price down further to .50 cents apiece. So you could possibly get 8 fruit cups and two Bertolli pouches for $1.00 after the promo and coupons. Or if you really need pasta sauce, you could buy ten pouches, use ten coupons, and pay $5.00 total.

Total spent – nothing out of pocket, put $13.90 on my free Safeway gift cards. And I got a $1.50 catalina back!
Total before coupons: $15.43
View receipt

Got:

1 one-pound bag of Starbucks coffee - on sale for $7.99, used a coupon good for $1 off your groceries when you purchase Starbucks coffee, which I got from Food & Family magazine. This coupon also doubled, making the final price $6.49. And I also received a $1.50 catalina towards my next purchase for buying the coffee! Thanks to Hot Coupon World for the tip about this catalina.
Food & Family is a recipe magazine that Kraft puts out – it used to be free to receive, and I signed up for it because it usually has coupons inside; but apparently they’re charging for subscriptions now.
1 box of gauze pads – final price: $3.09.
1 box of rolled gauze -final price: $2.29. I have to keep a bandage on my toe constantly, even though the nail surgery that I had happened in December.
.87 pounds of broccoli – final price: $1.56.
One onion (.63 pounds) – final price: .50 cents.

After I got back from Walgreens, I decided to stop by Safeway and get in on a few deals there. I did pretty well:

$25.15 worth of groceries for .59 cents – and I also earned $15 in gift cards! Here’s the breakdown:

First transaction -

Total spent: -.05 cents. They paid me .05 cents!
Total before coupons: $8.48
View receipt

Got:

1 box of South Beach Fiber Fit bars - on sale for $2.50, used a $2/1 printable, which doubled. Final price: Free!
1 bag of Purina cat chow - on sale for $2.00, used a $3/1 printable that I received for requesting a pet insurance quote. The coupon stated that it was good on any size or variety of Purina products, which is why I was able to use it on a lower priced bag to receive overage. Final price: Free plus $1.50 overage after coupon and doubles!
2 boxes of Hormel Pepperoni - on sale for $1.67, used two .75/1 coupons from the 1/18 Smart Source newspaper inserts, which doubled. Final price: .42 cents each.
.81 lb. of Bok Choy – .79 cents per pound, final price: .64 cents.

I thought that between the Bok Choy and the pepperoni, I would have more than enough items for the overage to pay for. However, the Bok Choy ended up weighing slightly less than I thought – the scales in the produce department just give you an approximate weight – so between that and my .03 cent credit for bringing my own bag, the register ended up negative .05 cents! Yes, they handed me .05 cents to take these groceries! Keep in mind, Safeway will be reimbursed for the full amount of my coupons by the manufacturer, plus a shipping and handling fee; so they did not lose any money by doing this.

Second transaction -

Total spent: .64 cents
Total before coupons: $9.17
View receipt

Got:

1 box of South Beach Fiber Fit bars – on sale for $2.50, used a $2/1 printable, which doubled. Final price: Free!
1 bag of Purina cat chow – on sale for $2.00, used another $3/1 printable. Final price: Free plus $1.50 overage after coupon and doubles!
2 boxes of Hormel Pepperoni - on sale for $1.67, used two .75/1 coupons from the 1/18 Smart Source newspaper inserts, which doubled. Final price: .42 cents each.
.89 lb. of onion – on sale for $1.49 per pound, final price: $1.33.

Third and final transaction -

Total spent: Zero!
Total before coupons: $7.50
View receipt

Got:

Three boxes of South Beach Fiber Fit bars - on sale for $2.50, used three $2/1 printables, which doubled. Final price: Free! You are allowed to print two per computer, and I printed these from my desktop PC, my laptop, and Jai’s computer – that’s how I get so many printables.

But that’s not all – every time I went through the checkout, I got a survey invitation:

These invitations printed out from the Catalina machine, and offered a $5 gift card incentive for taking their survey online. At first I thought these were invitations to the same survey, but when I got home I realized that these were all different surveys! I took each of them this morning and should be receiving $15 in gift cards for my time. I love taking these surveys – I got one of these invitations last summer, and I received a $5 Safeway gift card just for spending a few minutes answering their questions.

I’m so glad that the sales are starting to pick up again. The last few months have been pretty thin on the ground, at least in this area, so it’s fun to be getting the rock-bottom deals again!

Total spent: $2.21
Total before coupons: $6.81
View receipt

Got:

1 trial sized packet of Airborne – on sale for $2.19, used one $2/1 coupon from the 9/7 Smart Source newspaper inserts, making it free plus .31 cents of overage after doubles.
1 bag of Fresh Gourmet crispy onion salad toppings – on sale for $1.50, used a .55/1 printable – bringing the final cost down to .45 cents after doubles.
.31 pounds of green beans – free plus .12 cents of overage after using a peelie coupon found on the Fresh Gourmet – more details on this below.
1 head of red leaf lettuce
1 head of garlic

I just needed a few salad supplies for dinner, and I found a bonus deal on the green beans while I was there. I love the crispy onions on salad – they’re sooo yummy! And even better, there was a peelie coupon attached to the bag that said, “Save .55 cents on fresh green beans with your purchase of Fresh Gourmet salad toppings”. So I weighed out a small amount of green beans, which came to .93 cents. The coupon doubled, so I ended up getting them for free plus .12 cents of overage! What a deal! Keep an eye out for these peelie coupons if you see Fresh Gourmet products at your store.