Good Deal at Giant

Just wanted to share what I found at Giant last night. Kraft is having their cat promotion which is buy 5 Kraft products and get a $5.00 cat at checkout. This will be going on until 01/24. Giant has Breakstone Cottage Doubles on sale for $1.00 each this week. Breakstone is a Kraft brand, and even though the Breakstone sour cream had the Kraft promo label on the shelf, the Cottage Doubles didn't. I decided to try it anyway, and it worked. I bought 5 Cottage Doubles, paid $5.00, got a $5.00 cat at checkout, then rolled that to pay for the next 5. So, as long as you want to stand in a checkout line for a while, theoretically you could keep rolling those cats to get free Cottage Doubles for your initial $5.00. The only thing I have found is that at Giant the $5.00 cats always beep at self checkout. Last night I went to a cashier because the self checkouts were closed, and she had to override all of them. So you have to decide which is worse - having somebody come over to clear you at self checkout with every transaction, or possibly holding up a checkout line with massive amounts of Cottage Doubles and rolling cats!

Woo hoo!

I just had to share! I decided to make the most of the last day of the Conagra cat deal at Giant so here's what I put together:

T1:
4 Healthy Choice (HC) meals
Used (2) $1/2 coupon
OOP: $6.00, got $5.00 cat

T2:
5 HC meals
Used $5/5 coupon
Used $5.00 cat
OOP: 0.00 (just love seeing that receipt!)

T3:
5 HC meals
2 gallons milk
1/2 gallon chocolate milk
Used $5/5 coupon
Used $5.00 cat
Used Free Choc. Milk WYB 2 Gallons coupon
OOP: $1.58

So, I got 14 HC meals, 2 gallons of milk and 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk for $7.58. I'm pretty happy! At the first transaction the Healthy Choice coupons beeped (I used self checkout). Tom and Andy were with me and Tom told the man that came over to help that he should probably stick around because we had two more transactions to go. Every HC coupon beeped, so I'm glad he did stick around, but everything went through just fine.

Food Lion 01/13 - 01/19

Here are a few things I saw at Food Lion this week. I'll post again if I find more. Don't forget that the Food Lion brand sale and cat deal are still going on until 02/02.

Betty Crocker Fruit Shapes BOGO
Buy 4, $5.58
Use (4) .40/1 IP (make sure you look for this one; there is also a .50/2 on there; you don't want that for this deal)
Total OOP $3.98 for 4, or .99 each
Receive cat for $2.50 at checkout, making these .37 each

Chef Boyardee Pasta and Microwave Bowls 7.5-15 oz $1.00
Use $1.00/2 14.5 oz Microwave Bowls in 01/10 SS
Final Price .50 each

Campbell's Soup At Hand $1.19
Use $1.00/2 in 1/10 SS
Final Price .69 each

Giant Conagra Deal Update

It is official. I'm a dolt. After I went to Giant the other day and did this deal, I received another $5.00 cat at the end of the second transaction. I knew I hadn't spent the required $15.00 in Conagra products, but there had been major problems with my coupons that day (I did other transactions besides this one), and I figured something just got mixed up somewhere. Now I realize that the $15.00 requirement to get a $5.00 cat is based on pre-sale prices which at my store were $3.99! So, just buying 5 Healthy Choice meals (actually 4 if you're not using the $5.00/5 coupon) will get you to your needed $15.00. Wish I knew that earlier!

Okay, so everyone but me probably knows this, but just as I was mourning the loss of the Food Lion cat deal because my budget is depleted for the week, I discovered that this promotion is actually going on until 02/02. Yay! I see more Food Lion trips in my future.........

Food Lion Trip

Yes! It worked! The scenario I worked out earlier worked well, with a few minor changes. The prices were a bit different at my store; the beans were actually .50 instead of .69, the pot pies were .75 instead of .69, the potted meat was .45 instead of .33, milk was 3.09 instead of 3.49 and the sugar was 1.85 instead of 1.99. So, final OOP was $28.30 which worked out to .40 per item.

In the interest of full disclosure though, I paid $5.00 more than that figure because they were out of the Kraft cheese and I didn't have that catalina to use on the second transaction. Then my wonderfully smart husband suggested that I ask if they had any more in the back. Of course they did. So, after my three transactions, the cheese was rung up and I received my $5.00 cat which I will use on a future trip. That's why I'm figuring it as coming off my total above. If your store has the Kraft cheese on the shelf then you should be fine. Or don't be like me and wait until you're finished to ask!

Rite Aid Deal (Hurry!)

As usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short. You can get free Nivea Lip Care balm and Stayfree pads this week at Rite Aid. Today is the last day of this, though. I haven't been keeping up with the Rite Aid deals lately and almost missed this one! Anyway, Nivea Lip Care and Stayfree pads are both BOGO this week. There are BOGO coupons for each of these in the 01/03 RP (there were two RP inserts for 01/03 - one coupon is in each). Rite Aid will accept a BOGO coupon on a BOGO item, thereby making the items free. So far I have never had a problem using BOGO coupons at my Rite Aid, but I always carry a copy of the Rite Aid coupon policy with me, just in case. Here is a copy so you can carry one too, should there be questions. It clearly states their BOGO procedures.

Rite Aid Coupon Policy

Of course, being the last day of the sale, the shelves were empty when I went this morning. But that's what rain checks are for! I got rain checks and will be going back at the end of the week to get them. If your shelves are bare, don't forget your rain checks!

Food Lion Catalina Deal Scenario

Here's a deal I put together for the Food Lion (FL) brand catalina promotion and the Kraft promotion going on this week.

Transaction #1
5 Kraft cheese items 10.00
20 FL yogurt 8.00
10 cans FL tomato sauce 4.40
10 cans FL beans 6.90
Total 29.30

Use (2) 1.00/2 Kraft Singles coupons from 12/06 SS
Total OOP 27.30
Receive (1) 5.00 cat from Kraft and (1) 10.00 cat
___________________________________

Transaction #2
3 FL shredded cheese 5.00
10 FL macaroni and cheese 4.90
5 FL pot pies 3.45
5 FL potted meat 1.65
Total 15.00

Use 5.00 and 10.00 cats
Total OOP 0.00
Receive (1) 5.00 cat
___________________________________

Transaction #3
FL milk 3.49
FL sugar 1.99
Total 5.48

Use 5.00 cat
Total OOP .48

Using this scenario there would be a total of 70 items for 27.78 OOP, or .39 per item. I hope to go shopping early tomorrow morning, but we'll see! I have spent the last 14 hours repairing my crashed computer and then working out this deal, so I'm going to bed now. My brain hurts.

Giant Deal Scenario for week of 1/08 - 01/14

Starting tomorrow, 01/08, Giant is having a catalina promotion where if you buy $15.00 in Conagra products you will get a $5.00 cat on checkout. Here's a scenario I worked out to take advantage of this deal. You will want to print the coupons out now, as they probably won't last very long. As always, if you see a mistake in my math (which is ALWAYS a possibility - I'm a math midget, remember?), please let me know. Or if you have another scenario that works better, please share!

Transaction #1
Buy 5 Healthy Choice meals $10.00
Buy 2 Marie Callendar Pasta Al Dente meals $4.00
Buy 1 Hunt's Tomato item $1.00
Total $15.00

Use (1) 5.00/5 Healthy Choice coupon
Use (2) .75/1 Marie Callendar Pasta Al Dente coupons
Total OOP $7.00, receive catalina for $5.00 OYNO

Transaction #2
Buy 5 Healthy Choice meals $10.00
Use (1) 5.00/5 Healthy Choice coupon
Use $5.00 catalina
Total FREE

12 frozen meals and a can of Hunt's tomato product for $7.00 isn't bad - this works out to about .53 for each item.

Harris Teeter 1/6 - 1/12

Well, after looking over Harris Teeter's matchups, I'm afraid I'm going to have to sit this one out. Don't get me wrong - there are a lot of freebies, but an awful lot are non-food items. Which I have coming out of my ears. What I need is FOOD! Also, keep in mind when you shop that a lot of the items on the matchup lists are for BOGO products, which means you can only buy one item at a time, per transaction. That means a lot of trips if you want multiples of items. Harris Teeter is so far away from me that I need to factor in gas and time which would be about $50.00 just for the trip, and I just can't justify that. Oh well. You folks with a Harris Teeter close by, enjoy yourselves and let me know what you found! Again, Kathy from $30 Weekly Grocery Challenge has a great matchup list.

Food Lion 01/06 - 01/12

I don't see a whole lot at Food Lion this week. The sale on Food Lion and Home 360 products is pretty good, and the catalina deal might be okay if you can find the lower priced items. Kathy from $30 Weekly Grocery Challenge has the Food Lion matchups here.

Harris Teeter Super Doubles

Uh oh - rumor has it that Harris Teeter will be having Super Doubles starting 01/06. This means that they will double any coupon up to $1.98 face value - for example a coupon for $1.50 off will be doubled to $3.00 off. Super Fresh had triples this week but I had so few coupons under $1.00 that it wasn't really worth the gas I would spend to get to one. But Super Doubles.........now that's a different story!

Free MP3's at Amazon

Amazon was having a promotion over the holidays where if you purchased certain items you would receive credits towards MP3's or movies online. I ended up receiving $6.00 in credits for MP3's so while I was there today getting my music using my credits, I came across this page and it turns out several songs here are free anyway. I'm not sure how long these will be free, so I'd get them now if you want them. Amazon's free offerings seem to change from day to day.

Free Books to Review

I took a break from couponing over the holidays, but I'm ready to gear up again, so I'll be posting matchups by the end of the week. I wanted to share this site with you, though. It is a publishing company that sends free books to bloggers for review. You can request one book at a time and you cannot request another until you write a review and publish it on your blog and on one other retail site (Amazon, Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. - there's a list on the publisher's site). I applied and was accepted and asked to choose my first book. These are Christian books, so you won't be asked to read something questionable. I'll let you know how it goes, or you can go to the link and sign up yourself and enjoy your free books.