My adventures in couponing...

I really admire the people on TLC's show, Extreme Couponing. Somehow they manage to purchase thousands of dollars of merchandise for only a few bucks. I have tried to dabble here and there, but I get lost with all of the rules, and now my favorite grocery store doesn't do double coupons...and it's just way to much work for me.

I have gotten really good at spotting deals, especially on meat, and stocking our entire freezer full to save us big $$ down the road. A few months back, I scored chicken breasts for 67cents/lb, and I bought 15 packages (all that would fit in the freezer). Each package was regularly priced at around $9, and I got them for about $2.50 each, so I essentially saved $97.50!  But those sales don't come around too often, and we have finally used up all of our chicken storage, and I'm left wishing I bought more at the time.

Last week, I lucked out and got a great deal on Axel's favorite Gerber snacks.

We scored all of these food items for $10!

Fry's is currently having a sale where if you buy 10 participating items, you can save 50cents off of each one, totaling $5 in savings. Each of these snack items are regularly priced at $2.90.  They were on a slight sale, but were also part of the "buy 10, save $5" deal.  Now for this deal to work, you could buy ANY of the participating items across the store, but I also had this coupon:

The bottom coupon is what I received at the end of the order for buying 10

Fry's had noticed that I buy a lot of these snacks, so they gave me a coupon at the register, offering me a coupon to use on a future order, depending on how many of the snacks I purchased in a week.  So I'm thinking, $5 off (of the sale price, not the original price), $4 future coupon if I buy ten...so I might as well buy ten!  THEN I found (not pictured) another Gerber snacks coupon - $1 off if you buy three or more.

I was ecstatic.   So I went up to the register, with my 10 snack items- regular priced total: $22.90.  After the sale and the coupons, they were $14, and if I include my $4 off coupon (for next order), the grand total was $10. I spent $10, and saved $12.90.  I love it when I save more than I spend! I rock. :)

Unfortunately, the stars have to be aligned just right to score this deal, so this doesn't happen very often. In the meantime, I look out for sales on our favorite non-perishable items (like Axel's juice), and try to stock up. It's hard when you have to stick to a budget, but I try to remind myself, I may be spending $30 just on juice right now, but I'm also saving $1 per bottle, and that will help in the long run.

So good luck to you, future deal-finders! And if you see an awesome deal on chicken breast, please don't leave me out of the loop!