Going Bananas

I mentioned in my last post how I initially went a little crazy with the coupons.
That may be a slight understatement.
You see, when I first started, Target was running a coupon special for 1lb. of free bananas. I discovered that I could print out as many Target coupons as I wanted from Hot Coupon World, and everbody here was on a banana kick anyway.
The girls came with me and we'd each buy 1 pound of bananas - and usually only be charged a couple of pennies (it's hard to weigh out exactly one pound of bananas!).
Now, the bananas weren't the only items I was buying at Target, so I wasn't making special, single-item trips. I usually did my weekly shopping at least one of the times. At the time their single-size artisan breads were also free with a coupon, as were single-serving Cheerios cups.
We went to Target so many times over the next several weeks that I think the sales people recognized us. I know the managers at a couple SuperTargets probably wanted to duck and cover when they saw me coming - apparently Target is notorious for not knowing it's own coupon policies and I started carrying the official corporate coupon policy in my purse!
Anyway, I probably "bought" more than 48 lbs of free or nearly free bananas during that promotion. And yes, that is a lot of bananas, but I have a great banana bread recipe that freezes well, so I don't think I threw away any overripe bananas.
I also have a lot of the mini-artisan bread loaves in my freezer. They make great garlic bread! We also are heavily stocked with our free single-serving Cheerios cups. Each holds about 1 1/2 cups of cereal, so it takes only 3 to make Cheerios treats - a favorite snack item around here.
No sooner had the Target promotion ended than I discovered HyVee had a one week only coupon for 1 lb. of free bananas. Chalk up another 10 lbs. during that week!
Alas, no one has free bananas right now, but that's really okay. The girls were starting to cringe when I called out "Who wants to go to Target?" and we're all pretty tired of bananas.
You may not think it was worth it, but I'm glad to have saved the $25-$30.
Plus, it's a real kick to walk out of a store with "free" merchandise.