I'm not much for couponing.
Most coupons are for prepackaged, processed foods, which I typically don't buy. When I read of a family "cutting their grocery bill in half" using coupons, it's usually, if not always, because that family buys pre-made foods, grocery store meat and eggs, disposable paper products, etc.
For me, the issue is the quality of my food dollar, not simply the dollar itself.
Every now and then, however, a good coupon comes along that I decide to take advantage of. I don't often buy breakfast cereal as we usually have homemade breads, muffins, pancakes, oatmeal, etc., available in the morning. When I do buy cereal, it's usually Raisin Bran, Grape Nuts or Cheerios.
Last week, however, there was a great deal at Hy Vee on General Mills Cereals for $2 a small box. I decided we deserved a treat, so I gathered as many additional coupons for GM cereals online, and headed to the store to stock up.
I bought 9 boxes of GM cereal for $18, but when you add in the extra coupons I had, my total was $14.90
Ever since my kids were little, we've mixed sweetened cereal with a non-sweet cereal, i.e. Cheerios mixed w/Honey Nut Cheerios, Trix mixed with plain Cheerios or Kix, etc. This stretched the usually more expensive sweetened cereal and cut the amount of sugar the kids were eating at the same time.
What really "made" this deal, however, was an additional promotion HyVee ran for "free milk up to $3.59," good on your next "visit," with the purchase of 3 GM cereals. The coupon for the free milk, however, disagreed with the advertised promotion, offering one gallon of free milk up to $4.59. I sought out the manager and pointed out the discrepancy and she immediately offered to honor the original - which allowed for free milk up to $3.59, but wasn't limited to one gallon - but she made the deal even sweeter. She gave us "free milk up to $4.59" for each of our coupons, saving us a total of $13.77. Below you see our free milk:
I think we ended up owing a little over a dollar for the milk.
Now, I much prefer the milk from my local dairy, but don't plan to drive out there until next week to stock up. Not a bad little trip to the grocery store.
2 comments:
Thank you for this post. I have often felt (and been frustrated by) the same thing - my purchases are not those for which coupons are offered.
I have gotten some good use out of coupons for paper goods/laundry soap etc. though... but not much else.
YEY on getting that discrepancy to work in your favor and wow on the savings!
sweet deal on the milk.
Post a Comment