$8.00 Bananas and Other Tales from Shopping Day One

Last night I scoured my circulars and matched up my soon to expire coupons with some of the sales I found in them as well as lined up some coupons for things we needed. The baby and I headed out first thing this morning to hit the first of three stores: Publix.

Normally, Publix is my BEST store. I regularly average about $25.00 of spending on any one trip there when I match my coupons with the sales. I knew that this was going to be a bigger spending trip than normal because I had my $50.00 BP gas gift card to buy, and even with my $10 off coupon that meant spending $40.00 right off the bat. But I tried to put that out of mind and just focus on the task at hand: Getting the items on my list.

I generally like to meander around the store, which is the direct opposite of the first rule of saving money during a shopping trip. But I was doing research and needed to make a mental note of the the prices of things, so I just kept going on my merry meandering way. I saw the turnstyle of gift cards right off the bat and made sure I grabbed my BP card so I wouldn't forget it, but after that, I just sort of shopped by the coupons in hand. So here is what I got today:


All the stuff you see here cost me the whopping total of $95.33, but $40.00 of that is gift card, so I spent $55.33 on the grocery items pictured. And yes, for what's pictured, that does seem a bit high for someone who didn't buy a single thing without a coupon!

These are the items that ran my total up. The Nilla Wafers, the bananas and the ground beef all were $1.00 off IF I purchased the corresponding items of the Starbucks coffee, the Cheerios and the Hamburger Helper. Now, I did not have to buy two boxes of Cheerios or three boxes of Hamburger Helper to activate the other coupons, but since I had to have a coupon to purchase the other items as well, then I had to play by the rules of those coupons. So, I stacked the coupons like this:

• $1.00 off Starbucks Coffee + $1.00 off any Nabisco cookie or cracker with purchase of Starbucks or Seattle's Best Coffees.
• $1.00 off 2 boxes of any Cheerios + $1.00 off bananas with purchase of one box of Cheerios.
• $0.80 off 3 boxes of Helper + $1.00 off ground beef with purchase of Hamburger Helper

Now, if the Coffee, Cherrios, or Helper had been on sale, then I likely could have saved five more dollars on this deal, making it less of a total waste of money. And since I did not truly need the Cheerios or the Helpers, I feel like I ended up spending $7.98 to get some bananas and $8.40 to get slightly over a pound of ground beef. And it wasn't even ground sirloin! Oh, the things I do in order to have some fruit and beef.

It wasn't all bad, though. I got the Betty Crocker frosting for $0.50; it was on sale 2 for $3.00 and I had a $0.50 coupon that doubled to $1.00.

I got the Blue Diamond Almonds and Planter's Peanuts for $0.60 each; they were both on sale "Buy One, Get One Free" (BOGO) and I had $1.00 off coupons.

But I'd have to call this trip a bust, mostly for the extraneous spending I had to do to get what I wanted.

Next we went to Target.
I spent $45.53 on the items pictured here. The main purpose of this trip was to get my vitamins and the OFF! Clip-on mosquito deterrants. I've been trying to buy these things for a month, but they are always out of them when I go to the store! They were one of the "best buys" of the trip, because I had two BOGO coupons, making these only $4.47 each. The best deal was the razors. They were $2.59 and I had a $2.00 coupon, so they were only $0.59. I love these things to take on trips, because I hate to take my "real" razor anywhere! I usually end up forgetting it and then I have to spend big bucks to get a new one. These you can use and toss! And for $0.06 each, I don't mind that so much!

The worst buy: Can we just talk about Kleenex for a second? I have used some horrible generic tissues before, but Target brand tissues never bothered me. They are acceptably soft and meet my needs. So a coupon for Kleenex is really a waste of paper. The coupon I had was for $0.50 off THREE boxes. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Kleenex, for offering me not quite $0.17 off each box. I can go buy than mansion with all my savings. The point is, Kleenex was on sale for $1.29 and I had a coupon and it STILL was more expensive than the Up & Up brand!

Also, did you know you could be charged sales tax on the PRE-coupon amount? I did not until I checked out my receipt from Target tonight! Is that legal? I didn't buy any non-food items at the other stores, so I don't know if that's the case all over, or just at Target!

Finally I hit up BiLo.
I was a shopping rockstar at BiLo. I didn't buy much, but for what you see here I only paid $13.51. That's right: I essentially paid for all these items what you would normally pay for the two ice creams. Here's what happened: I had another Buy One to Get One situation, but it worked in my favor. I needed to buy 10 packs of Kool-Aid in order to get $2.00 off any granulated sugar. Then I had a coupon for $1.00 off 10 packs of Kool-Aid. So I picked out a sugar that was on sale for $1.99, which means I got 10 packs of Kool-Aid and a bag of sugar for $1.50!

So my first day spending total is $154.37, with a total savings of $81.85, but some waste, too.

And now I just need to find someone to come over and drink some Kool-Aid with me. Any takers? :-)