Extreme Couponer For A Day

When I shop with coupons, I save an average of $25 to $30 each trip.  My savings run about 50-60%.  Sometimes, I only save $10 off $70, but hey, every little bit helps.

Once in awhile, I save big and it makes me feel like I'm one of those crazy coupon ladies that walk out of the store with $300 worth of groceries and only paying $5.

I had one of those days recently! I have to share:

 Martin's food stores was running a special-- Buy 5 Quaker Oatmeal bars at $2 each, and recieve a $5 catalina to use on your next shopping trip. (A catalina is a coupon that prints out with your reciept, to be used later) They happened to have coupons on the display for 75 cents off 1 box. I grabbed 15 coupons and made 3 trips. Here's what I did:

1st trip: Bought 5 boxes = $10  Used 5- $.75/1 coupons (the first gets doubled to $1) for a total of $4 off. Pay $6 and get a $5 catalina.

2nd trip: Bought 5 boxes = $10  Used 5- $.75/1 coupons for a total of $4 off AND the $5 catalina.
Pay $1 and get a $5 catalina.

3rd trip: Repeat #2, pay $1 and get a $5 catalina.

That makes $30 worth of Quaker Oat bars for only $3 after subtracting the catalina! That equals to .20 cents a box!!   Nice!  A round of applause please!  Thank you, thank you! 

Next, I went to Target.  They will price match any store's current ad, so I took a Food Lion ad which had a sale on 12 oz boxes of Rice Krispies for $1.50.  That alone is cheap, but there was also a manufacturer's coupon for $1 off 2 kellogg's cereal AND a Target coupon for $1 off 2 Kellogg's cereal-- nice! Instead of paying $2.94 a box, I price-match and save $1.44 per box. After price-match, buy 2 boxes for $3, use both Target AND manufacturer's coupon and pay $1 for BOTH boxes! I got lucky today, though, because the clerk made an error and entered $1.25 eight separate times for eight separate boxes! So I ended up getting 8 boxes for 50 cents each after coupons! Sweet!

I also had my eye on a large picture frame that suddenly went on clearance and with a birthday gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket, it was the perfect time to pick it up. It was marked down 50% off, $24.99 down to $12.48. A twin-size sheet set in a boy theme I had my eye on was also on clearance, and I was waiting for it to come down lower, but since there were only 2 left, I had to grab it-- marked down 50% off, $17.99 down to $8.98.

Picked up the new Velveeta Cheesy dinner kit, too, for $2.04 and 2 toy cars, priced at $3.29 each. Lucky for me, there was a coupon on the Rice Krispies box that stated: Free car with purchase of 3 boxes of cereal! With 8 boxes of cereal, I had more than enough, and I found 2 coupons, which means 2 free cars! The cars will be put away for Christmas.

Here's the breakdown:
8 boxes Rice Krispies- $1.25 each
2 toy cars- $3.29 each
1 Velveeta Cheesy dinner $2.04
1 Frame $12.48
1 sheet set $8.98
Grand total: $40.08 (Total value is $75.12)
Used 4- $1/2 Kellogg's cereal Target coupons
         2- $1/2 Kellogg's cereal manu. coupons
         1- $1/1 Velveeta coupon
         1- $.50/1 Velveeta Target coupon
         2- FREE car wyb 3 boxes Rice Krispies coupons

Paid: $27.28!!  Had I not bought the frame and the sheets, my total would have been only $5.82 for 8 boxes of cereal, 2 cars, and the velveeta dinner!!  Pretty good to me!!

Any good couponing trip for you lately??  Do tell! :o)