Huge Savings over the weekend!

This weekend I went first to Albertsons to take advantage of their amazing soda and produce deals! I bought 8 2 litres of Coke, 2 heads of lettuce (1 romaine, 1 iceburg), 1 3 lb bag of onions, 1 1 lb bag of baby carrots, 2 Rootbeer 2 litres, 2 boxes of popcorn and 4 12 packs of 7-up brand sodas. After we rang up these transactions we received a catalina for a FREE pack of albertsons brand diapers so of course we ran back to the diaper aisle and grabbed a bag of diapers, then after we bought those another catalina printed out for $4.00 off the same diapers so we went back and grabbed another pack of diapers. After all that we walked out of Albertsons spending 32.54 and saving 62.44!!

After we went to Albertsons we went to Smiths for their HUGE stock up sale and well you can just look at the picture to see what all we bought for 110.09! We saved $138.98 and walked out with 2 carts full of food and beverages! One trick I use when planning out my buy ten get $5 off transactions is I create an excel spreadsheet where I list the quantity I am buying, the item, the price of the item before the coupon but after the promo and the value of the coupon. This way as I make adjustments to the quantities I want to buy I can make sure I am still buying within groups of ten and it is easier to look at while I am at the store. I still bring the grocerysmarts lists so I can make sure I grab the right items!

So after all is said and done I spent a total of $142.63 and saved $201.42! I spent more than I normally do but I didn't have anything else I needed to spend money on this week so I splurged!

Value of the Newspaper

I have had several people tell me that they use more printable coupons than they do from their paper. Some weeks that may be the case, however this week that is definitely NOT the case! After making my list and clipping my coupons I found that I am using $26.75 worth of coupons just from the paper and ONLY $1.00 from the online coupons! Considering the fact that I get one additional subscription to the newspaper for less than $20.00, this week alone I more than paid for one 6 month additional subscription and a fourth of another paper!! Now some of the coupons you could print or clip, and when deciding which one to do for me, I always think that it is better to clip then print because I have already spent money to get the coupon in the paper and to print it costs extra money (ink and paper) so I will always clip it first and then if I want more then I will print the coupon.

As a side note for those of you who are using coupons from the paper watch the expiration dates some of them expire SUNDAY!!

FAQs of Printable

Printable coupons are one of the easiest ways to begin couponing because you don't have to wait for a paper to come, you just have to go to the grocerysmarts website and click clip and print and you have a coupon. Sounds easy enough right? Well actually you will be surprised by how much drama these coupons can cause if you don't know some simple facts about them.

1. The best way to guarantee that you will have access to a printable coupon when you need it is to print it the minute you see it!! The reason this is is because manufactureres will release a set number of online coupons (like 50,000) and as soon as that number is reached the manufacturer will pull the coupon from the website it is located on. So if you see a 1.00 of Wanchai Ferry coupon and you think hey I might want to try that but it's not on sale print it anyway because it doesn't cost much to print and if Wanchai Ferry goes on sale two weeks later the coupon may have also disappeared two weeks later! So if you think you might want it print it the minute you see it! This is what happens when on the grocerysmarts website it says coupon is on this link and you go to the link and the coupon isn't there, it is because it has been pulled from the internet.

2. To save yourself money in ink the best way to print a printable coupon is to set your printer settings to print in black and white only (no one cares about the colors they just need the barcode) and to put it on the lowest setting available. I have a Lexmark printer and so the lowest option for me is to set my printer to quickprint. This will save you loads because it uses the least amount of ink as possible!

3. You can only print 1 or 2 printable coupons from your computer!! This is important because in the Grocery Smarts class I teach that you need to have 1 coupon per consumer in your home however the most you can print out of a printable at one computer is 2. This is to ensure that the coupon can go out to a lot of people instead of one person printing out 20 and others feeling frustrated.

4. If your printer jams up you are out of luck, because the website will read it as though you have already printed it so make sure your printer is functioning properly before you select print.

5. I have only had about an 80% success rate with printables so I don't rely on them. Once upon a time I felt like I was saving more with the printables than with my newspaper but now I hardly ever print out printable coupons and am saving just as much as before. The only guaranteed coupon is the one that comes in the mail or the newspaper.

I do not return phone calls in regards to printable coupons because it is not something I have control over so if you have any questions about printables that I didn't talk about here leave a comment and I will answer it to the best of my ability!

There is a new Proctor & Gamble out

For those of you who are lucky enough to get the proctor and gamble insert in the mail you should have received one today, if you aren't one of the lucky ones (like I used to be) then have no fear you can head on over to coupons by dede (see the link on the right side) and you can order as many as you want!

I scored at Albertsons!

We were running low on fruit snacks and cereal and now we are well stocked on the above items! I did 3 transactions and spent 52.68 and saved 89.61! I went over to Smiths to pick up milk and produce items because well let's be honest here they are cheaper and I spent 30.00 on that (plus I picked up 4 bags of hostess donuts and refried beans and hunts spaghetti sauce since they were such a good deal!) Not bad to spend a little over $80.00 at two stores for a ton of groceries!

Want to teach your friends and family members how to save like I am? Give me a call or shoot me an email I am looking to book classes for January and February and the new hostess incentives are AMAZING!!!

email: tkmiller81002@yahoo.com
phone: 362-8959

Alphabetical Coupon Index . . .

Have you ever needed to buy something but it wasn't on sale and you didn't want to go through every one of your coupon inserts to see if you had a coupon for it? Well luckily for you Grocery Smarts has this wonderful thing on their website called an Alphabetical Coupon Index. This is a list of every good (meaning nonexpired) coupon that has been distributed to the Las Vegas valley either in the Smart Source (SS), the Red Plum (RP), the General Mills (GM), or the Proctor & Gamble (P&G) inserts. It doesn't matter when the coupon came out if it hasn't expired then it will be on this list!

This is a great tool because let's say I am out of shampoo and it isn't on sale but I don't want to pay full price for it, then all I have to do is click on the alphabetical coupon index link at the top of the home page and it will display a list of all coupons in suprise alphabetical order! I can then scroll down to say the H's for Herbal Essence and it will show me if there is a coupon available and what insert I can find it in. I can then go to that coupon clip it and head on over to Wal-mart to pick up some shampoo. The items are listed by brand name and not by type so if you need toilet bowl cleaner you are going to need to know the brand name. i.e. scrubbing bubbles, to see if there is a coupon for it.

Now obviously if this item is not on sale then I am not going to stock up on the shampoo by using all of my coupons but I will buy one to get me by until it goes on sale at a great price!

Triple Bonus!!!

Did you guys see that there are THREE coupon inserts in todays paper? That is triple the savings in just one week! Also in one of the smart sources it has my FAVORITE coupon of all time . . . 2.50 off of electrasol dishwashing tablets, SWEET!

If you didn't receive these inserts in your paper today go ahead and give the RJ a call at 383-0400 and they will redeliver your papers for you!