Ukrops Double Coupon Wednesday!

I'm loving Ukrops double coupon Wednesday, however I do wish it wasn't limited to Wednesdays. Maybe someday not too far away that will happen, we know there are lots of changes in store for Ukrops and I'm hoping that's one of them.

So here's finally a picture of my sales stash for the week. It's not overflowing, but it was definitely a good value for my money. Here's the breakdown:

4 Cans Hanover Kidney Beans .66 ea (-1/4)
4 GM Cheerios 2.50 ea (-1 Savings Spot, -.55/1 IP x 4)
2 Halls Cough Drops .99 (-.50/1 IP x 2)
1 Chobani Greek Yogurt 1.00 (-1/1)
2 Yoplait Smoothie 2.50/ea (-1.50 Savings Spot, - 1/1 x 2)
4 Hormel Naturals Lunch Meat 80z 2.50 ea (-.75/1 x 4)
1 Steamfresh Mixed Veg 1.00 (-.50/1)
-.15 Bag Credit
Total OOP = 12.75
Total Savings = 17.40 or 57%

I will have to go back next Wednesday since they were out of the Johnsonville Sausages. They are 3.48 through 1/30 (I think) and with the internet printable from Hormel's website that makes is 2.38 a pack. Too bad I missed out on this .05 Bonus Fuelperks though!

Also another tip, stock on your vitamins. Ukrops has the Naturemade Vitamins 50% off combined with $1/1 coupons and Naturemade has a program to log their codes to collect points toward a $7/1 coupon. I think that is also good through the end of the month.

Hope that helps someone out!

Keep learning to save

Even though I've been doing the coupon thing for quite a while I'm still learning. Just like anything else you have to keep up with the changes. I love to share with my coupon buddies what I'm learning. After all that's how I even managed to get this far with the couponing bit.

What I learned this week.

Ukrops:
They will double coupons that are barcoded started with the number 5. Even if the coupon states not subject to double/triple. If it scans right the first time, then you should be fine.

The revised fuelperks format requiring a $50 purchase to earn a .05 discount/gallon is based on your out of pocket cost. (This is different from Kroger where you coupon value including the doubled amount counts towards your fuel savings).

Always scan your card at the Savings Spot for in-store same day savings. A couple of weeks ago I scored Bosc Pears for .49/lb.

Check out my friend Ann's blog http://annscrazyworld.blogspot.com/. She's been so kind to share her Ukrops coupon matchups. This has been helping me make it to Ukrops which I love since it's so close to my house that I could walk if there was a better pedestrian route--maybe someday. Wouldn't that be great if I could get some added excercise benefit, save on gas and save money on groceries too? I'll be the lady walking by the side of the road with my personal grocery tote, don't run me over please.

Kroger:
If you're getting ready for holiday baking or just bake regularly there is a catalina deal for Fleischman's yeast.

9/7/09 to 11/29/09 Buy any Fleischman's yeast strip and get .50 off a future order with coupon. But any Fleischman's yeast jar and $1.00 off a future order with coupon. I checked it out the other day and the yeast is either 1.56-1.59 for the 3 pack strip combine with .40/1 and that makes for some super cheap yeast. Net cost is max .29 after the catalina is accounted!!! What I don't yet know is if you can buy multiple packs all in one transaction or if you max out with a certain number of packets in your transaction. If it's like last year's deal there is no limit.

Any store:
ALWAYS no matter what take your entire coupon notebook where ever you go, at the least take keep it in the car so you can run back in. You don't want to kick yourself when you see a super deal that you know you have coupon for somewhere else. Last night when I went to Ukrops for double coupons I missed out on free Betty Crocker Whipped Frosting on sale for .99 each. I had just printed several .50/1 IP's earlier that evening. Oh well.

DON'T FORGET to make sure your get your bag credit. I seem to forget rather frequently and I am usually too done and/or too embarassed to ask for my .10, .15, .20, etc bag credit at the service desk.

Have you learned any tricks to the game lately? Please do share.

Fall Football, I Mean Coupon Training and Game Schedule

Well, after trying to get back into the swing of things this week I have a confession. Not only did I totally blow the budget but I did not do a good job with the coupons. I spent almost $100 in one trip to Kroger! *gasp* That hasn't happened in so long I was shocked.

How could that happen to me you ask? Well it's been at least two months since I regularly snipped and organized my coupons. Coupons supplies have been depleted due to hit or miss newspaper purchases. Its been at least as long since I've regularly written a meal plan. Keep in my mind meal planning is more a list of ideas to prompt me on what I've got in the pantry and sometimes a suggestion about a day of the week to prepare it if I have schedule constraint. Works well enough so far, at least when I actually do it. Then while in the store I was not paying attention to details. I picked up wrong items, which not only cost more than the sale items, but they weren't participating items so I had to go to Customer Service. I called myself a dummy as I walked out of Kroger. I need to get my head in the game and keep it there. So I guess the next few weeks it might be a little rough getting back into top couponing shape but, I'm hoping it will get better. It's gonna take some work because with the economy being what it is everyone is looking for the deals more and it seems more competitive than it used to be when I really got into the coupon game about three years ago. That's okay I like a little competition anyway.

The consolation in all of this is that out of that $100 shopping trip some of that will actually go towards Christmas gifts so it's not a total negative reflection on loss of shopping skills. I also had a successful CVS trip-Free toothpaste, free toothpaste and razors (After ECB's). So next time I'm at CVS I will have minimal OOP (out of pocket) cost. I'd post a pic but it's not much to look at three free items. I also had a good trip to Target stocking up on the kitty litter deal this week. I'm loving that I keep getting $5 Target gift cards for buying kitty litter, that's the only positive I kind find about buying kitty litter so be excited with me okay! Everthing else about it stinks.

Good thing I've gotten the shopping out of the way early this week. Tomorrow I get to quilt. Maybe I can actually get some pics to share with you about my progress. I'm so looking forward to this project....I'll keep you posted.

Saving Strong!

Well as many of my friends know I love to save money. And I love to share with people in learning how to save money. I do that in large part by shopping the sales and clipping my coupons. I had to apologize to Rennie on Friday night, because it had taken me so incredibly long to get my stuff together for my first real grocery trip in a month. Yes, when I went on my blogging hiatus, that was not the only thing that got put on the backburner. Fortunately, my cupboards were well stocked and we could coast through that month without too much trouble. This is also the reason that I really needed to be organized and get as much as possible to restock (we were completely out of cereal)...but back to the story at hand, my time spent in preparation was not in vain.

I walked out of Kroger with all of this:

And it only cost me $41.24!!!

Here's what I got:

5 Cocoa puffs
3 Total Cereal
2 Trix
3 Hellman's Light Mayo
2 Strabucks Frappuccino (total splurge but still cheaper than going to Starbucks)
2 Nature Valley Trail Mix Bars
2 Fiber One Cereal Bars
1 Lipton Tea
2 Breyers Ice Cream (such a small package these days, it's a shame)
1 Activia 4 pack
2 Mountain 2l
1 Pepsi 2l
1 Nature Valley Granola Snack Mix
2 Reynolds Baking Cups
1 Clabber Girl Baking Powder
1 loaf of multigrain bread
2 loaves sesame seed italian bread
1 demi loaf
1 4ct sesame seed bagels
1 Uncle Ben's Ready Rice (FREE)
2 Sargento String Cheese
2 6ct Klondike Bars
1 Smithfiels Bacon (FREE)

Total before sales & coupons was $135.96 for 70% savings. I was so excited and that doesn't even take into account the regular price on all that bread since it was marked down. Usually I bake my own sandwich bread, but I picked up a bunch of markdown breads since I needed italian bread for Sunday dinner. Whatever I don't use, I'll just chop up to throw in the freezer for stuffing mix.

I owe all of the awesome savings to these sources: Kroger Mega Sale, Sunday newspaper insert coupons, internet printable coupons, shortcuts.com, cellfire.com, Kroger direct mail coupons, hotcouponworld.com and Rennie (he would run to the other end of the store for me when I forgot something).

I'd love to hear what you were able to score. I'm also glad to help you learn to maximize your savings too, so let me know what you need help with and I'll do my best.