The shopping report, what I saved today!

I do my grocery shopping once per week.  I do a circuit of three different stores.  It starts at Walgreen's, then next door to CVS, culminating at Winn-Dixie.  There are only two chain grocery stores in my area.  Winn-Dixie is 7 miles away, Publix is 20 miles away.  To save time and gas I have opted to stick to one store and make the best of what they have to offer.   It does hinder my savings potential but it's the price we pay for living on a rock in the middle of the ocean.

Here's what I need to prepare for my weekly shopping trip:

 

 

Each Saturday I buy 4 Early Edition Sunday papers giving me 4 sets of coupons.  By buying the early edition I spend $4.00 each week as opposed to the $8.00 I would spend buying the Sunday edition.  Some people use more coupons but I find 4 is my magic number, anything more for me and my often hectic schedule would be overwhelming.

From those papers I pull out the coupon inserts and the ads for the stores I'll be visiting.  To clip the coupons I seperate them into single pages, stacking each like page together.  I then cut four like coupons simultaneously.  After cutting I take each stack of 4 coupons and file them into my coupon binder.  My binder is divided alphabetically.  I don't over categorize things, I like to keep it as simple as possible.  For example, the "F" section has fruit and frozen foods, the "M" section would have meat as well as medicine.  It's just easier for me to remember things that way.  If I try to micromanage my coupons I'll forget where I filed them and invariably waste them. 

After organizing the coupons it's time to make my list.  In addition to the items we need I like to check the ads for deals on items we might be running low on in the near future.  By buying extra and stockpiling when an item is at a great price I avoid having to pay full price on an item because we ran out of it.

For the CVS and Walgreens list I like to visit a site called HIP2SAVE.  There are many sites that can help you to find the best sales and coupon combinations but I like this one because for me it's extremely user friendly.  The site name is pretty cool too. 

As I make my lists, yep there's 3 of them, I look for buy one get one deals for products I use.  If I have a manufacturer coupon for the item I'm sweetening the deal.  The preparation process, start to finish, usually takes me about 2 hours.  Once my lists is done it's off to the store. 

After about 2 hours of shopping, I came home with this:

It's hard to see what's in the picture so here's a list:
4        Mrs. Smith's deep dish pies
2        Cool Whip
1        8 oz Philadelphia cream cheese
1        1/2 gallon whole milk
1        cucumber
3lbs.  sweet potatoes
2        32oz Kraft mayonaisse (with bonus Shake n Bake!)
2        boxes Stove Top Stuffing
4        Ritz Fresh Stack crackers
20      large cans Alpo Chop Filet dog food
4        cans Campbell's turkey gravy
2        packets McCormick brown gravy
1        McCormick Gourmet Chicken Rub
4        cans DelMonte vegetables
4        2 liter Diet Coke
2        15 pound frozen turkeys
6        6 oz cans Bumble Bee white chicken
2        Lady Mitchum antiperspirant
4        2 liter Mountain Dew
4        2 liter Diet Pepsi
2        12 packs Mountain Dew
5        12 packs Diet Pepsi              (yes, we drink too much soda at the casual shack)
2         2.8oz French's french fried onions
1        box Kraft Mac n Cheese
1        32 oz bottle Powerade
1        Phillips universal remote control
1        Easyfeet
1        Starbucks doubleshot
1        Starbucks refresher
1        Thermacare back wrap
1        Finesse shampoo
1        Advil 10count
1        Kotex U panty liner 18 count
1        1.25 liter Diet Coke
1        box Nature Valley Protein granola bars
1        Carmex lip balm
1        roll Charmin Basic

That's a lot of stuff. 

AT CVS I spent $45.02, saved $34.16 for a savings of 43%
At Walgreen's I spent $30.75, saved $33.00 for a savings of 52%
At Winn Dixie I spent $75.69, saved $90.06 for a savings of 54%.

My out of pocket for all three stores and the 4 newspapers was $155.46.  I saved a total of $157.22 using $11.05 worth of manufacturers coupons and taking advantage of sales.  That's a total savings percentage this week of 50%.

50% sounds good, right?  It gets better! 

Cash back!!  That's right, both CVS and Walgreens gave me coupons good toward future purchase.  At CVS I received 16 Extra Buck rewards totalling $32.92!  At Walgreens I got one for $4.00.  I will use these as cash toward my shopping trip next week and report back here as to how I'm going to maximize this $36.

But wait there's more!  Remember the Universal Remote and the Easyfeet in the list?  I don't need either of those items but by buying them I got an equal amount of Extra Bucks so in the cart they went.  I'll put both these items into the annual Trash to Cash yard sale for a potential additional $10 in my pocket.

So there you have it, $312.68 worth of products, $155.46 out of pocket, a 50% savings with a bonus of $36.92 in register rewards and 2 items for the yard sale.

Life really is good, keep it casual!