Tweet
You hear about people going into a grocery store with a fistful of coupons and $5.00, and coming out with two carts full of food. They are not exaggerations. I can?t do it?I don?t have the patience to spend hours poring through internet sites and cutting out newspaper coupons. But my daughter does. I?ve seen her walk out of a store with $200 worth of food and household products, and a store credit for $25 (for the negative balance she had after the coupons were added up). She brags that companies pay her to carry their products home with her. It takes a lot of work to be that good at it, and I never will. But when my daughter finds some particularly good deal that she knows I could use, I do take advantage of it.
The information is easily available to anyone who wants to utilize the power of coupons. The internet site Slick Deals is the primary place to start. From there you can link to other sites that have printable coupons, and learn how to combine manufacturers? and store coupons, and store special offers, to enhance your food stash without spending much money.
I don?t buy much supermarket food. Most of ours comes from produce stands and farmers? markets, and from a local farmer who provides our meat, eggs and milk. But I do buy medical supplies, some other non-food items, baby wipes (for my disabled housemate) and some non-perishable foods.
This picture shows part of what I brought home from a two day circuit I made of stores in a regional supermarket chain. I didn?t make any special trips?I was driving into those neighborhoods anyway for other reasons. I just detoured a block or two at the most to stop at these stores instead of heading straight down the interstate.
Here are eight boxes of aluminum foil, three 32-ounce bottles of hydrogen peroxide, nine packages of baby wipes, five boxes of pasta and five packs of sterile rolled gauze. There were actually another three cans of canned food that I left out of the box because they didn?t show up that well in the picture.
My total expenditure? Three cents! And that?s only because when I went to the first store, I only had one coupon with me. I paid thirteen cents for a single pack of baby wipes. When I visited the other stores, I had coupons for items which also had large store discounts.
The cash register total was zero at all but the last store, which evidently had outdated register software. If your total comes to less than zero, the registers are supposed to show a zero balance. In other words, the store isn't going to give you money. The last store I visited did show a negative ten cent balance. The cashier called the manager, since the register wouldn?t let him total out the sale with a negative balance. I protested that I wasn?t asking for money back?I?d be happy with a zero balance. ?Can?t do that,? said the manager. She inserted her key, took a dime out of the register, handed it to me with a smile, and totaled out the sale at zero. So my bottom line for all these items was a whopping three cents.
I haven?t added up the receipts to show what I would have paid for these things without the coupons, but a rough estimate in my head is approximately $40.
This is a fairly extreme example. I?ve seldom done this well. But every little bit helps. The hydrogen peroxide and rolled gauze bandaging will go into the medical supplies chest, and I won?t have to buy baby wipes for at least four months (and by then I?ll have more of these, because the coupon is good until September 30). The other items are things I wouldn?t have bought in those quantities if I?d had to actually pay for them. But hey, if you want to give it to me, I?ll be happy to find a place to store it!
The information is easily available to anyone who wants to utilize the power of coupons. The internet site Slick Deals is the primary place to start. From there you can link to other sites that have printable coupons, and learn how to combine manufacturers? and store coupons, and store special offers, to enhance your food stash without spending much money.
I don?t buy much supermarket food. Most of ours comes from produce stands and farmers? markets, and from a local farmer who provides our meat, eggs and milk. But I do buy medical supplies, some other non-food items, baby wipes (for my disabled housemate) and some non-perishable foods.
This picture shows part of what I brought home from a two day circuit I made of stores in a regional supermarket chain. I didn?t make any special trips?I was driving into those neighborhoods anyway for other reasons. I just detoured a block or two at the most to stop at these stores instead of heading straight down the interstate.
Here are eight boxes of aluminum foil, three 32-ounce bottles of hydrogen peroxide, nine packages of baby wipes, five boxes of pasta and five packs of sterile rolled gauze. There were actually another three cans of canned food that I left out of the box because they didn?t show up that well in the picture.
My total expenditure? Three cents! And that?s only because when I went to the first store, I only had one coupon with me. I paid thirteen cents for a single pack of baby wipes. When I visited the other stores, I had coupons for items which also had large store discounts.
The cash register total was zero at all but the last store, which evidently had outdated register software. If your total comes to less than zero, the registers are supposed to show a zero balance. In other words, the store isn't going to give you money. The last store I visited did show a negative ten cent balance. The cashier called the manager, since the register wouldn?t let him total out the sale with a negative balance. I protested that I wasn?t asking for money back?I?d be happy with a zero balance. ?Can?t do that,? said the manager. She inserted her key, took a dime out of the register, handed it to me with a smile, and totaled out the sale at zero. So my bottom line for all these items was a whopping three cents.
I haven?t added up the receipts to show what I would have paid for these things without the coupons, but a rough estimate in my head is approximately $40.
This is a fairly extreme example. I?ve seldom done this well. But every little bit helps. The hydrogen peroxide and rolled gauze bandaging will go into the medical supplies chest, and I won?t have to buy baby wipes for at least four months (and by then I?ll have more of these, because the coupon is good until September 30). The other items are things I wouldn?t have bought in those quantities if I?d had to actually pay for them. But hey, if you want to give it to me, I?ll be happy to find a place to store it!