Extreme Couponing at Safeway - Parker, Az

Hi blog friends!  I have a Safeway shopping trip to share with you today from this last Friday.  As you know from reading my blog I'm a paper crafter so what you see pictured above are printed online coupons from Smart Source, Coupons.com and Red Plum mixed in with my card making/paper crafting stuff.  That guillotine paper trimmer sure comes in handy for all the manufacturers coupons I've been collecting lately!  

After looking over the local grocery ads Wednesday evening & sorting through my coupons I planned a shopping trip to Safeway for Friday.  Safeway has $5.00 Friday deals as well as weekend sales and there is a notice in this weeks grocery ad that if you spend $75.00 in one transaction they'll give you a $10.00 coupon to use on a future purchase.  You know I'm all in for that  (:    This shopping trip took a little time to plan because I don't usually spend $75.00 in one trip to the store, most trips they're lucky to get 20 bucks out of me all at once.  

My husband Rick and I took off for Safeway after getting the kids off to school.  I find it best to shop before 10:00 A.M. to be able to find everything on the shelves I need.  The $5.00 Friday items go pretty quickly.  

The photo above is everything we bought at Safeway for $103.31.  We broke our shopping trip into four transactions to take advantage of some of the coupons that you could only use one coupon per transaction.  Our first basket was filled with the $75.00 or more transaction and Rick's smaller transaction to take advantage of a Hormel coupon for the $5.00 Friday special Hormel Pork tenderloin.

We were at Safeway early enough that there was only one checker so their assistant manager Pete had to check us out.   I've known him for years, Pete started working at our Parker Safeway in 1983 at the same time I did.  He was doing great until he saw all my coupons and looked at me and said, "really"???  I just laughed and handed them over.  Some of the coupons beeped telling him I hadn't purchased the items he told me, I just smiled and asked him if he'd like me to get into the bags and show him the items - his answer was no.  

So that's why some of the clerks look at you like you're trying to pull a fast one on them...  I find that kind of frustrating, I put a lot of work into finding, printing, clipping and organizing coupons as well as looking over weekly grocery ads and planning shopping trips.  I also take the time to read the fine print so I can do the transaction correctly and not hold up the line.   I think it's time to fill out their online survey and let them know-

The big transaction was $94.70 and gave us Catalina coupons for $10.00 off any purchase, $2.00 off any purchase, $5.00 off frozen food and 2 free gallons of milk.  We took our groceries out and put them in the trunk of the car and came back in and headed for the meat department to pick up two more Hormel pork tenderloins, etc.

The items you see pictured above totaled $1.82.  Here's how I used that $10.00 off any purchase coupon along with coupons for each of the items shown.  I had a $5 off 5 Kelloggs cereals coupon making the Frosted Flakes 99 cents each, I had a Safeway store coupon that I could stack with a manufacturer coupon for the Hunts tomatoes, a $1 coupon for the Hormel pork tenderloin, $1 off the Land O Lakes butter making it 79 cents & four 29 cent coupons on the yogurts that doubled to make them free.  

You can get free stuff, I love free stuff!  

My husbands' transaction was $3.67 for the fourth pork tenderloin & three cans of tomatoes.

You already know our out of pocket cost, our total savings with coupons and the Safeway club card was $159.06 for an overall savings value of 60.6% 

I've really enjoyed learning how to save so much of our $$$ on the things we use and need & I know my husband appreciates it too. 

Thanks for visiting my blog, have a blessed day!

Adventures In Extreme Couponing

Rediscovering CVS Pharmacy -

I've lived in Parker 30 years now and remember when we had one small grocery store in town and one up river.   The Safeway was being built when I moved to town and Revco was the drug store going in next to it.  In 1983 the new shopping center opened with Safeway and Revco Drug.  The shopping center has changed over the years, Safeway is still there but Revco has changed names a few times and is now CVS.  

Until I started coupon shopping I'd ignored CVS, I'd bought into the idea that Walmart had the overall lowest prices...  my mistake!   I've been having fun getting to know CVS, they have wonderful sales and a great coupon policy.  I love their Extra Care Bucks too, they'll give you coupons for $$$ off your next purchase for buying certain items.  If they are items I'd normally buy and have a coupon it's like shopping the next time on them!   Many of their employees have worked there for years, they are well trained, polite, and helpful.

I also like that we can look at their ads online as well as preview their next ad before it comes out here.

So far thanks to sales at CVS and coupons our family has at least a two year supply of deodorant/antiperspirant for 25 cents or less each, living in Arizona that's a good thing!

Thanks for visiting my blog today -

Adventures In Extreme Couponing

Shopping - Saving & Coupon Policies

Do you know what your stores coupon policies are?

It can be very helpful to know the coupon policies of the stores you shop at.  I have links to the coupon policies for the stores I shop at in Parker, Az.  Bashas, CVS, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Safeway, Walmart - click on the store name and the link will take you to the coupon policy for that store.  

Unfortunately I've found at some of the stores the employees don't know or don't follow the coupon policies so in those cases they aren't very helpful.  My top stores for hassle free coupon shopping and saving in Parker are Safeway, CVS and Bashas, their employees are friendly, courteous, knowledgeable, well trained professionals.  

A lot of work goes into gathering inserts, coupon clipping and organizing, reading over the grocery ads for your area and compiling a shopping list matching your coupons to the sale items.  Before I head out the door to shop I've read the fine print on the coupons to see how many I can purchase in one transaction, how many I need to buy to use the coupon and what size not to mention written down the exact product I need to put in my shopping basket.  I've done my best to not hold up the line with my coupons so I really appreciate a store and clerk who knows how to handle the transaction.   I'm trying not to sound overly critical but I spent 18 years working behind a check stand at one of our local grocery stores, I do understand what it's like to be on both sides of the register. 

Adventures In Extreme Couponing

Learning As I Go...

Hello, I'm learning how to use coupons to save money on our groceries and having lots of fun with a little frustration thrown in to keep it interesting.

Today I wanted to be sure to tell you about Sunday Coupon Preview, it's a very cool website that has previews of what coupon inserts will be in the Sunday newspapers for the entire year, you know Red Plum, Smart Source, General Mills, etc.   Each week they also give a printed preview of what coupons will be in the coming Sunday newspaper inserts.  

I have a coupon shopping adventure for you today, it's one that was kind of discouraging.  I saw a great deal in the Family Dollar sale flyer for laundry soap and happened to have a couple of high value coupons to make the deal even better.  I was so excited!  I collected my coupons and headed for Family Dollar, picked up two laundry soaps and headed for the check out.  After ringing up my order and giving my 2 coupons to the clerk I was told they can only use one coupon on the laundry soap per transaction.  Oh... I politely asked if she'd take off the one laundry soap I'd have to pay full price for and went home with my one laundry soap that was a deal.  It didn't occur to me at the time to ask if I could do a separate transaction for the second laundry soap or that Walmart will price match that same size laundry soap for Family Dollar's price.  Like I said I'm learning as I go...

On a happy note I did go into Basha's to shop their ad specials with my coupons, they didn't have everything on the shelf but I did get some of the goodies I'd come in for and walked out with a canvas bag full of deals for $3.81. 

CVS Adventures in Extreme Couponing

Jenny and I went to CVS Sunday afternoon to see if we could pick up 10 boxes of the Kelloggs Raisin Bran & Raisin Bran Crunch cereal that are on sale for 3 boxes for $7.00.  We were in luck none of the signs for the new ad were up yet so there was still cereal on the shelf - lucky me (: 

I picked up five of each so I wouldn't clear their shelf, we have a small CVS store here in Parker.  They also have 500ml bottles of Listerine on sale for $2.99 but there was a tag on the shelf for this larger size that read $3.69 each, an even better deal with my two $1.00 off coupons.

I had two coupons for $1.00 off the Listerine and two coupons for $5.00 off 5 boxes of Kelloggs cereals, both were printed from Coupons.com.  

There is a link in my sidebar to coupons.com - way down toward the bottom.

There was a slight problem at the register with the Listerine but they fixed it after they checked the shelf tag, my total was $16.47 for ten boxes of cereal and two nice sized bottles of Listerine with a savings of $40.26 - wow! 

You might have noticed in my photo the piece of paper under the cereal boxes.  You can get a $10 pre-paid rewards MasterCard® that can be used for gasoline purchases when you make a Kellogg’s Cereal purchase, size 10 oz. or larger mix & match.  Those 10 boxes of cereal end up costing just 33 cents a box - wow!

This is fun!

Thanks for visiting my blog today -

Adventures In Extreme Couponing

 I'm back today to talk a little more about using coupons to save money.

I've started following a couple of Extreme Coupon bloggers that are in Arizona.  I have The Cents'able Shoppin and Passion For Savings on my home page so I can check in with them periodically throughout the day to see if they've found any new deals I should know about.   These two bloggers have alerted me to high value coupons on Facebook and other websites as well as bargains at CVS, Safeway & Walmart.  I've found the bargain information to be very reliable for CVS and Safeway in my area but not Walmart.  Safeway and CVS prices are in line with their stores in the Phoenix Metro area, Walmart's prices are higher in our area than what these bloggers have quoted so I'm assuming Walmart charges more for their products in areas where they don't have as much competition. 

Yesterday I talked about buying the Sunday Arizona Republic newspaper for the coupon inserts,  Sunday papers are $2.50 plus tax in Parker these days.  That's not a great price when you want 4 to 6 or more Sunday coupon inserts for your coupon shopping adventures.  I tried to find a deal on Sunday papers but they don't deliver in our area anymore.  In Phoenix you can get a discount on multiple Sunday papers and/or just one Sunday paper and extra coupon inserts.  I decided to search the internet to see if I could buy Sunday coupon inserts and found a few resources, E Bay is one of those resources as well as Kayla's Bulk Coupon Inserts.  I like Kayla's because she has photos of the coupon inserts you'll be receiving, her prices are reasonable and she has quick shipping, all in all great service.

Another resource for coupons are FREE PRINTABLE internet coupons.  There are counterfeit coupons out there so please be careful where you get your printable coupons, you can be fined and prosecuted for using counterfeit coupons.  I've found Coupons.com and Red Plum to be  reliable places for printable internet coupons.  You'll need to enter your zip code for coupons that apply to your area and download their software to print the coupons.  Once you've done that you can print a maximum of two coupons per computer to use on your shopping adventures.  

One last bit of information for you today,  Passion For Savings has FREE Extreme Couponing Classes, I've watched the videos and put her strategies into practice.  I'm happy to tell you they work, I saved a lot of $$$ last month on our groceries!

My photos today came from Pinterest and Google Images -

Adventures In Extreme Couponing

I'm back to tell about my "Couponing Adventure" today!

Thanks for all your encouraging comments on my first Extreme Couponing blog post.  I thought Cherie's comment was really cute and appropriate, she said that extreme couponing was just another form of paper crafting - she just might be right! 

I've been wanting to go to Havasu to do some coupon shopping but hadn't decided what day yet.  Lake Havasu City is about 35 miles from where we live and is a larger city with a lot more shopping opportunities.

Our clothes washer's spin cycle stopped working today so that decided how I was going to spend my Saturday, doing laundry isn't as much fun anyway.  I needed to go to City Maytag in Lake Havasu for washing machine parts so why not make the trip worthwhile and do my coupon shopping?  

This isn't our washer and dryer, we have an old Maytag set, lol.  These would be more like my "dream machines"... 

I gathered my list and coupons along with the old washer parts that needed to be replaced and headed out around 10:30 AM.  

My first stop was City Maytag in Lake Havasu, the parts needed were a special order and will take about three weeks to arrive at the store.  They will call me when they come in and yes I needed to pay for them today - $168.00 ouch.  I called my husband after I paid for the parts and he asked what I thought about replacing our washer and dryer.  I'd rather not have to make that investment until we absolutely have to, our set was purchased new in 2004 - I wish they'd last 20 - 25 years!   After returning home today I realized I did something really dumb while at City Maytag...  I paid cash for the new washer parts and didn't get a receipt, oh I hope when I call Monday it's not a problem and they can e mail or snail mail me one.    

 My next stop was...

I had two $8.00 off coupons for Science Diet dog food and cat food as well as other dog food coupons and theses items were all on sale - score!  

I was at the Hill's Science Diet website and found an additional rebate for a bag of their dog food up to $12.99 so I need to pick up an extra bag for that too.  

My out of pocket at Petsmart today was $39.30, the total before coupons and Petsmart savings card was 84.27, my total savings was $44.97, that's a savings of 53%.  I do have bad news about the rebate I bought the extra bag of Science Diet dog food for...  it's the wrong one!  I discovered after I'd cut the UPC code off the bag it was the wrong flavor, lol.  We have to go to Havasu later this week so I'll try that again and Maxine won't mind eating that extra bag of dog food I paid full price for.   There was a small problem when I checked out with my coupons and dog food sizes so I put back the correct dog food for the rebate and got the right one for my coupon, times two.  It got a little confusing... so I learned to be a little more careful - maybe I should write these things down?  Over all it was a good experience with excellent savings.

My next stop was...

I was out of paper to print all those wonderful online coupons...

I picked up two reams (1000 sheets) of copy paper for $5.99 each and turned in the "Easy Rebates" for them online when I got home so they will end up costing $2.99 each when the check comes in the mail (:

Have you been to Staples.com?  They have a Rebate Center, instead of mailing rebates in you can turn them in online, no postage, cut out UPC codes, or paper receipts necessary.  I went to Staples.com yesterday to look at the ad and learned about their rebates.  I did a Staples online search for antivirus software that I needed, found it for free after the rebate, I love it when that happens!   Staples also has excellent customer service, I had a problem downloading my new anti virus software, e mailed them about the problem I was having, it's all taken care of now.  Thank you Staples for making my life just a little easier!

Oh, I almost forgot, I went to Walmart in Havasu too.  I've been having problems at our local Walmart so I avoid going there if possible.  I picked up their store brand bathroom tissue that I had $2 off coupons for along with some other bargains.  My out of pocket cost was $17.00, the total before coupons was $31.00, a total  savings of $14.00, for an overall savings of 45%. 

I had a pretty good savings day if it hadn't been for those darn washing machine parts!

I just need to remember it's cheaper than a new clothes washer...

Adventures In Extreme Couponing

I've been working on a different kind of project at my house since the first of this year and have thought about sharing it here but it's not paper crafting so I've been undecided.  It's been fun and frustrating and lots of work but very rewarding too.  I've also saved a ton on money so I thought maybe I should talk about it here on my blog. 

I've watched a few episodes of Extreme Couponing on t.v. and been skeptical about all the "savings" these women rack up in the shopping trips they show.  It's hard for me to believe you can shop for free.  
But... costs are rising for everything we purchase and our income stays them same, what to do, what to do?

I think I should give you some of the reasons I'm skeptical about this too:

I worked as a grocery clerk at one of our local grocery stores for 18 years.

I live in Parker - a small resort town along the Colorado River in western Arizona.

We have a family of four living at home along with 2 cats and a big dog.

These things seems like obstacles to me so I need to change my thinking and consider them simply challenges.

Watching extreme couponing on t.v. made me curious so I "googled it" and was surprised to find Extreme Coupon Bloggers!  Okay I'm intrigued... 

I've been doing my homework reading the blogs and have found a few Arizona Extreme bloggers to follow so I can see just how it works and how to put it all into practice.   I've started buying the Sunday Arizona Republic so I can get the coupon inserts, organizing, clipping, planning shopping trips after looking at grocery ads for our local stores and I'm on my way to becoming a bargain hunter!  

I've been at it six weeks now and have to tell you that using coupons is a lot of work but also fun and very rewarding.  I also understand that not everyone has the time or the interest.  The retail stores count on consumers being busy, busy, busy and get a great deal of our hard earned income because we are in such a hurry all the time.  I'm tired of paying through the nose for everything we purchase and having very little to show for our grocery shopping trips. 

 My adventure into Extreme Couponing starts here.  We have three grocery stores to shop at in Parker.  Safeway, Basha's & Walmart, one drug store - CVS and two dollar stores, Dollar General & Family Dollar.

I'll be back soon to share some shopping stories, valuable tips and links.

See you then...