HUGE savings

Today was a GREAT day to go grocery shopping!! WOW! I got some great deals and used a lot of coupons, some of which were doubled, and took advantage of many sales and sales/coupon combos!

I did two transactions and spent about $60! Look at ALL the great stuff I got!

I usually don't blog about this kind of stuff but I am pretty proud of myself. I am not a die-hard couponer but this time there was too much to pass up! I really took advantage of coupons and sales. I think I used coupons for 90 percent of my purchases and bought store brand and/or sale-only items.

The best deal, in my opinion, was the cereal stock-up: buy 6 General Mills cereals and get $10 off your total grocery bill AND get a coupon for a free gallon of milk (to be used later).

(I didn't get the free milk yet because I have to consult with a die-hard couponer friend for some best bang for buck tips.)

Then I stocked up on Boxtop for Education brand items. If you bought 15 items, you got 50 free Boxtops to give to your local school. (Incentive for me to get my Boxtop collection together and to our local elementary school.) A majority of Boxtop items were on sale as well AND I got to use a lot of my coupons.

There were many P&G products on sale to coincide with the Savings Book that was in the Sunday paper. I was going to use the Oil of Olay coupon at Walgreens but the product was cheaper at the grocery store. ($3.99 minus $1 coupon, minus $1 from doubled coupon!).

I've got to say this was fun. I don't always take advantage of double coupon days. Sometimes the timing is off or we are pretty well stocked or I just forget. Right now I can say that we are pretty well stocked and what I do buy over the next couple weeks will be things like milk, bread and ground beef and chicken (to go with the six Helper meals I got today!)

A couple drawbacks:

Shopping with kids: The girls were fine but there were a couple moments where I wished they weren't with me so I could focus and make sure I was doing the right stuff

On-line coupons: I do love being able to get coupons on-line and using them at stores but I swear the check-out guy was going to kill me! I could see him furiously trying to get them to scan. He got frustrated quite a bit. I wish those coupons could all scan easily. I am just glad that I was able to use them all! On top of that, a line was forming behind us, which I tried to ignore.

Finding places to store all the stuff: One of these days I am going to have to clean off the pantry shelves we have in the basement. I can see now we are going to need more space.

If you want to know more about couponing or where to find the best deals, check out the Web sites I follow like Deal Seeking Moms, Mom For Him and the others. They keep an eye on all the deals, coupons to be had, freebies to be had and more. I also like that many of those sites scour the sale ads and give you savings scenarios (how to take advantage of sale prices with coupons to get a better bang for your buck!) They are definitely worth checking out!!

Happy shopping!