Taken during my flight home – en route from Iceland to the US

Hello everyone! I arrived home in Oregon late Monday night, so I’m getting settled in and resting up. I just wanted to pop my head in to say “Hi” and tell you about this great coupon that JANE4Girls shared on Facebook:

Click here to “Like” Safeway on Facebook, and you will be able to print a coupon for $1.00 off your produce purchase of $5.00 or more.

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween yesterday! Jai and I spent the afternoon at The Pumpkin Patch in Sauvie Island. Not only do they have a pumpkin patch, but free hayrides, a corn maze, an animal barn, and more. The photo above is me wearing my Pink Power Ranger costume, getting ready to pick the perfect pumpkin!

The pumpkins were a great price – the ones we chose were only $1.00 each. The Pumpkin Patch also offers a produce market, which had a wide variety of lovely fresh produce grown at their farm. The prices were good, and since my fridge was still bare, this was the perfect time to re-stock!

Total spent: $10.15
View receipt (We paid for the pumpkins separately in the pumpkin patch, and did not get a receipt for that.)

Got:

2 pumpkins – $1.00 each, final cost: $2.00
2.97 lbs of apples – .89 per pound, final cost: $2.64
1 head of green onions – price: .50 cents
.54 lbs of red onion – .99 cents per pound, final cost: .55 cents
1 head of red leaf lettuce – price: .99 cents
6 ears of corn – I used this coupon from their website to get these 6 ears of corn for $1.00.
1 large stalk of Brussels sprouts – I’ve never seen them sold this way before! Price: $2.49

We had a very fun day – and stocking up on produce was a nice bonus!

My finished pumpkin!

How did you spend your Halloween, readers?

Target just released a printable coupon good for $1.00 off your produce purchase of $1.00 or more – click here to access the coupon. Select produce that is priced around a dollar and your purchase will be free or pennies after this coupon! I haven’t had the greatest experiences at Target, but if we had one nearby I would probably stop by to use this coupon! According to Money Saving Mom, this coupon can be printed twice per computer, and is limit one per transaction.

I mentioned recently that I just planted my second crop of garlic. Planting garlic was my first real foray into growing my own food, and I’ve been eager to do more of it – so I made some time last week to plant a few more fall crops.

We had wood left over from recent construction projects, so Jai and I built our own planter boxes from the scraps. This was an economical alternative to buying planters new, which can be expensive.

How about you, readers? Do you grow any of your own fruits or vegetables?

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?

So a few hours after my 100% savings trip, I checked the Safeway forum on Hot Coupon World, and read about a great catalina deal with Bertolli pasta sauce. I couldn’t wait to check it out, and since I’m only three minutes away from Safeway, I went back again to see what new goodies I could score:

$39.04 worth of groceries for $4.98; but I walked away with $10 in catalinas!

Here’s how I did it – my first transaction looked like this:

Total spent: $4.97 – but I got back $10 in catalinas!
Total before coupons: $20.00
View receipt

I also earned one Power Pump reward during this trip.

Got:

10 Bertolli pasta sauce pouches - on sale for $1.50 each after the “Buy 10, Save $5″ promo. There is a coupon machine right next to the Bertolli sauce at my store, containing coupons for $1 off one pouch. So I used ten of these $1/1 coupons, making the final price .50 cents per pouch. And, there’s a catalina deal going on now where you get a $2 catalina back for every two pouches that you buy! For those of you just joining us, “catalina” is a nickname for coupons that print out at the register – and this type are dollar off coupons that can be used towards anything on your next purchase (with narrow exclusions for alcohol and lotto tickets). For more info about catalinas, check out my articles here and here.

So with $10 worth of catalinas in my wallet, I went back for round two:

Total spent: .01 cent – and I got $6 in catalinas back!
Total before coupons: $19.04
View receipt

Got:

7 Bertolli pasta sauce pouches – used seven more $1/1 coupons from the in-store display. Final price: .50 cents each.
2 bags of Fresh Express salad – I needed a few more items to qualify for the “Save $5″ promo, and I’ve been enjoying this salad and wanting to pick up more. I used one $1/2 Fresh Express salads coupon that I found in a “blinkie” dispenser at Fred Meyer. After the “Save $5″ discount and this coupon, the final price came to .25 cents per bag.
1 can of corn – this was also included in the promo, and I needed one more item to qualify. I like having canned stuff on hand, so this worked just fine! Final price: .75 cents.
1 pint of half and half – it was on my list anyway, and I needed a filler item. Final price: $1.29.

After my .03 cent bag credit, the total came to $6.01. I then paid with one penny cash and the $6 in catalinas that I had just earned – and I got back another $6 worth! So I walked out of the store with all these items plus $10 worth of catalinas to use next time. I plan to keep rolling this deal with the pasta sauce as many times as I can!

Also, for my local readers: someone on Hot Coupon World mentioned that they found the same $1/1 Bertolli coupons at Fred Meyer. So check there as well! This is a fantastic deal, and it’s really easy to do!

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.