Friday night was my local Safeway’s grand re-opening party. They just finished remodeling the store, and celebrated by hosting an event from 4pm to 8pm. For those four hours only, you could receive 10% off your purchase of $50 or more; they also sent out a coupon booklet in the mail that included coupons for all kinds of freebies and great deals. Because of these deals, I decided to take advantage of the savings and stock up some things which I know we will need this month anyway. In all, I spent $58.71 for over a hundred dollars worth of groceries – according to the receipt, I saved $89.12, but that is slightly inflated because it’s including club card savings. I don’t count those, because I would never shop without my club card – then again, some people never bother with it. (I can’t imagine, because the prices are so steep without the club card savings!)
This was a little more than I usually like to spend out of pocket for one trip, but worthwhile since buying all at once allowed me to save more with the 10% discount. I bought 44 items, so that averages out to $1.33 per item.
Total spent: $58.71
Total before coupons: $107.32
View receipt
Got:
1 24-pack of water – on sale for $3.49, used a free water coupon from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet. Final price: Free, with a $1.20 bottle deposit.
1 bottle of apple juice – on sale for $1.99, used a free apple juice coupon from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet. Final price: Free
4 cans of refried beans – on sale for .89 cents each, final price: $3.56
12 oz bag of Hazelnut coffee – on sale for $7.49, used a coupon for $2 off from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet. Final price: $5.49
1 jar of peanut butter – on sale for $2.00, used a free peanut butter coupon from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet. Final price: Free
1 package of tortillas – price: $2.29
3 packages of Philadelphia cream cheese and two 8 oz bags of Kraft Natural shredded cheese – the cheese was on a sale for “Buy 5, save $5”. This brought the price of the cream cheese down to .99 cents each and the shredded cheese $1.49 each. I then used one $1/2 Kraft cheese printable and one $.55/2 Philadelphia cream cheese printable, which both doubled, making the final price .68 cents each – $3.40 for all five.
2 dozen eggs – this one is a little complicated. There was a coupon for a free dozen eggs in the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet, so I bought 2 dozen and paired it a “Buy One, Get One Free” printable egg coupon. The “Buy One, Get One Free” coupon came off, and there is a second “Egg Coupon” listed for .00 cents on the receipt, but I realized later that it didn’t actually deduct the price of the eggs – the coding on these particular Safeway coupons is a little odd, and a cashier mentioned yesterday that if you don’t hit “Enter”after scanning each one, it will show up on the receipt but not take anything off.
2 gallons of milk – on sale for $1.69 each, final price: $3.38. Lower shelf prices appear to be a part of this re-opening, so I hope these last – this is the cheapest I’ve seen milk for a while.
6 Banquet pot pies – on sale for .69 cents each, used a coupon for .60 cents off six, which I found inside a frozen dinner package; this also doubled, making the final price .50 cents each – $3.04 for all.
1 bottle of Peppermint Mocha Coffee-Mate – I’ve been waiting all year for this flavor! On sale for $3.49, used a $1/1 printable that I received after sending a “Cup of Confidence” on the Coffee-Mate site (they also donate $2 to “Dress for Success” in addition to giving you a coupon!). This also doubled, making the final price: $1.99 Never mind – just opened my coupon binder and saw the $1 off coupon still sitting there. I forgot to hand it to them! DOH! (In case you’re wondering why I didn’t use my free International Delight printable – Safeway no longer accept printables for “Free” items, so I’ll be taking those to Fred Meyer. Safeway do take printable “Buy One, Get One Free” however, which is why I used the egg coupon.)
1 lb of butter – price: $1.69
1 package of O Organics frozen enchiladas – on sale for $2.00, used one coupon good for $2.00 off any O Organics item from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet. Final price: Free
1 bottle of Gillette Shaving Gel – I mentioned yesterday that there are few things I am brand loyal to. This happens to be another one of those items; many of the things I am loyal to are due to allergies – most other shaving gels give me an awful rash all over my legs. I had a great stockpile of this for a year that I got super cheap with coupons – time to stock up again, since that stash finally ran out! Price: $2.49
1 bottle of Bright Green Toilet Cleaner – on sale for $2.25, used a coupon for $2 off any Bright Green product from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet. Final price: .25 cents. Not bad for toilet cleaner – for some reason, that seems to be a harder cleaning item to get deals on. I used to use bleach to clean the toilet, until I found out you’re not supposed to use it with septic systems – oops.
1 package of Dramamine – this was a last minute addition to my shopping list, and I didn’t think I had any coupons for it. However, the night before, I had gone on Safeway’s website and loaded a bunch of e-coupons onto my club card. Apparently, there was a $1.00 off coupon for Dramamine on there, so hooray! It pays to load all the e-coupons you can, even if you don’t think you’ll use them. Final price: $3.29
1 dozen bagels – regular price $5.99, used a coupon from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet that brought the price down to $1.50.
1 loaf of French bread – regular price $1.59, used a coupon from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet that brought the price down to .49 cents.
About two and a half pounds of steak – price:$10.82
Another two and half pounds or so of steak – price: $9.11
One and a half pound beef roast – price: $4.69
1 package of beef cube steak – price: $1.36
I then used a coupon from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet for $5 off your $25 beef purchase, making the total for all beef $20.98.
A little over two pounds of natural boneless, skinless chicken breasts – need this for a recipe – price: $5.35
1.83 lbs of grapes – on sale for 1.28 per pound, final price: $2.34
3 avocados – on sale for 3 for .99 cents
1 pineapple – regularly priced at $4.99, used a coupon from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet that brought the price down to $1.00.
1 package of O Organics salad – regularly priced at $3.49, used a coupon from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet that brought the price down to $1.00.
1 package of O Organics basil – also need this for a recipe – on sale for $1.99, used a coupon for $1.00 off any O Organics product that I found at customer service – final price: .99 cents
1 24oz Signature Tomato & Basil soup – regularly $3.99, used a free soup coupon from the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet. Final price: Free
.55 lbs of deli pastrami – there was a coupon in the “Grand Re-Opening” booklet for a free half pound of deli meat. Half a pound of deli meat is $5, so that’s how much the coupon took off – since they gave me .55 lbs at the deli, I ended up paying .77 cents for it. We love pastrami, so that was OK with me.
The 10% coupon then deducted $10.81, making the final total $58.71. Although the coupon stipulates that you purchase $50 or more after all coupons, the 10% discount itself was calculated on the pre-coupon total. So the re-opening party made for a productive shopping trip – and they also handed out free samples of food as you shopped, so that was fun.
So here’s my basic meal plan – no set days for the meals, we’ll just eat whatever needs to be used up first and is most convenient at the time. I find that having a flexible list of easy dinner options works well for me, because then I can pick and choose what to have on any given night according to what we have and what we need to use, like leftovers or produce. Note the simplicity of the meal plan- I have some major work projects coming up this month, not to mention the holidays; so now is not the time for complicated dishes!
Breakfasts:
Bagels & cream cheese
Scrambled eggs, fruit
Stockpile Special: Oatmeal, cereal, or pancakes
Lunches:
Pastrami sandwiches on French bread
Peanut butter toast
Egg on toast
(We’ll do fruit, salad, and/or hardboiled eggs with the sandwiches)
Leftover buffet
Dinners:
Quesadillas with black beans & avocados
Grilled cheese sandwiches served with tomato & basil soup
Refried beans & rice (leftovers from this make great burritos the next day)
Red Curry Chicken
Steak & salad
Shepherd’s pie
Frozen dinners
Zucchini dish of some sort – I was given a huge home-grown zucchini that I need to use or freeze. Feel free to share your zucchini dishes in the comments!
