Got a few deals tonight:
Total spent: .10 cents – .06 cents on the actual groceries, .04 cents for breast cancer research
Total before coupons: $31.56
View Receipt #1
View Receipt #2
And I got $4 back in catalinas to use on my next trip!
Also, I earned my first 125 miles in the United Airlines GroceryMiles program. I have to earn about 50,000 before I can get a plane ticket anywhere, but it’s worth noting that you can cash in 1,000 miles for Restaurant.com gift certificates. It’s free to sign up for the program – just fill in a form and it will add the promotion to your club card, and your grocery purchases will start to count towards miles.
I got:
1 can of corn
1 4-pack of TP
8 trial size boxes of Tide – used $1/1 coupons from the recent P&G newspaper insert
6 Glade plug-ins – used “Buy One, Get One Free” coupons from another recent newspaper insert. There’s also a printable here.
1 package of pasta – used $1/1 coupon from 8/24 SS insert
1 pint of milk
2 bottles of Coffee-Mate – used $1/1 printables, found here.
2 packages of Stayfree – used $2/2 coupon from 9/28 insert
For my first transaction, I used overage from the Tide to pay for my other items. The trial sizes are .89 cents at my store, and the coupon is good for $1 off any size Tide – resulting in .11 cents of overage (And the store is reimbursed for the full amount of the coupon by the manufacturer, just as a side note). And I was also able to double these coupons, giving me an extra .50 cents of overage each. At my store, any coupon can be doubled up to .50 cents; and there is no restriction on the amount, so your coupon doesn’t have to be .50 cents or less.
So, as an example, a .35 cent coupon becomes .70 cents, a .50 cent coupon becomes $1, a .75 cent coupon becomes $1.25, a $1 coupon becomes $1.50, and so forth. In addition, a coupon can be doubled beyond the item’s face value. So if an item is on sale for $1 and you have a $1 off coupon, it will still double – hence the .50 cent overage on the Tide. This was confirmed by several managers at my store, who said that yes, it’s perfectly legitimate and accepted to get overage this way. I’ve gotten some great questions from readers about my store’s doubling policy, so I wanted to explain it in a little more detail so that it makes more sense. Also, bear in mind that it is up to the discretion of each store to set their own coupon policies – some Safeways don’t double coupons at all.
At any rate, the first transaction was .10 cents, and I got $8 back in catalina coupons towards my next order. I subsequently made my next purchase, and used the catalinas to pay for all of it. And I got $4 back in more catalinas!
Then, I made a quick stop at Rite Aid:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put $2.69 on a gift card that I earned for free from a promotion
Total before coupons: $2.69
View Receipt
So this was a pretty good start to October’s budget!
