Big Grocery Shop

In spite of the fact that it isn't my usual shopping day, I decided to go grocery shopping tonight because it was double coupon day. My local grocery store (Copps) doubles up to 5 coupons (up to a $1 value) with a separate $25 purchase. This could add up to an extra $5 savings. So, I decided to head out tonight. MISTAKE!!!!

I've fallen for this before and I can't believe I fell for it again. I get so angry every time I go. Since I work on Wednesdays, I always wait until after the boys are in bed. It's around 9 pm by the time I get there. Since there ad cycles end on Wednesday, they are busy tearing down the old ads and putting up the new ones. This means that other than to hunt and compare to the ads, I have no way of knowing what's on sale and if I'm purchasing the correct items. Plus they are regularly out of what is on my list. Like bread. It drives me crazy!

So, while I did get doubled coupons which saved me an additional $4.50, I did not find many of the other sale items which would have saved me as much money and a lot of frustration. So, I think I'll end going to Copps on Wednesday and go back to my usual Friday grocery shop.

I also spent quite a bit of time at Walgreens today. I couldn't pass up the spectacular deal on laundry detergent. You can probably tell because I bought 12 of them yesterday!! I got them for $8.51. This was for the 32 load arm and hammer liquid detergents. Fabulous deal! That's a bit over $0.70 a piece.

Here's how I did it: Walgreens is having a special where if you spend $25 (before coupons and discounts), you get a $5 Register Reward (essentially a $5 coupon towards anything in the store). I purchased 4 detergents at a time. Original price is $6.99 each. That rings up to $27.96 plus tax. On the back of their 3 day flyer that runs from December 10-13 there is a Walgreens coupon for the detergent bringing the price down to $1.99 each or $7.96 plus tax for the 4 of them. For one transaction, I used a$1.00 off coupon too but for the other 2 transactions I did not. Anyway, after you pay, the $5 Register Reward prints. So, while you'll pay $7.96 plus tax the first time you do the transaction, the next time you'll pay only $2.96 plus tax. Since I already had a $5 Register Rewards from last week (toilet paper), I never did pay the full $7.96! Yay!

I also bought Campbells Tomato Soup because it was on sale 4/$2, plus I had a coupon for $0.40 off 4. We use quite a bit of tomato soup. So I bought 4.

I got 3 boxes of Reynolds Wrap for free as well. I had a coupon for $1 off Reynolds Wrap. Walgreens has Reynolds Wrap (the 20 foot roll) for $0.99 after Walgreen's Coupon which was found in their ad. So, I actually made $0.03 on the rolls.

I bought two 3 packs of scotch tape because Walgreens had them on sale for 2/$2. Then, Walgreens has a rebate of $2 on 2. So they were free.

Finally, I bought 3 boxes of mead envelopes. Normally they were $1.09 each, but with a Walgreens coupon they were $0.59/each. Since we need envelopes, I bought 3.

Whew. That's a lot of shopping for one day. I might have to hit up another Walgreens tomorrow for some more detergent. We go through a ton of detergent here with 3 little boys. Can you believe it?