How I Purchased $900 Worth of Groceries for $240
Aug 25 '01 (Updated Jun 23 '02)
The Bottom Line By using a combination of coupons, store sales, and gimmick double/triple coupon promotions, you can purchase large quantities of food for substantially reduced prices.
It's 11:32 pm EDT, and believe it or not I just got in from the grocery store where I spent most of my day. Now I know many people are going to be thinking I am out of my mind for shopping this late at night, but hey, I don't care!
Why?
Because I have purchased $900 worth of groceries today for $240!
How Did I Do This?
Store Card
Kroger and Cub Foods now have cards for customers to use with their grocery purchases where you can get additional savings by using their card. This gives you a substantially reduced price on almost anything in the store that you can imagine up to 60 percent off or more!
Many of these prices for using the grocery card to record your purchases are advertised in the Sunday papers here in the Atlanta area, but when I went to Kroger today, I was dumbfounded by the amount of unadvertised specials. This included Hillshire Farms Ham that is usually $2 for regular price with an in store special of 79 cents. Naturally, since my boys eat a lot of sandwiches, I loaded up on this product!
Coupons
Ever since I left home back in 1980 to be on my own, I've been a coupon clipper. Most of the time, I am not organized with my using of these coupons. However, I know for a fact that by using coupons I save a substantial amount every grocery trip up to about 1/4 to 1/3 of my total bill without even trying "hard".
Even though I do have a coupon storage box that I have had for at least a decade, I really do not do well when I use this box at all. There are lots that you have between the coupons and there's a numeric key on the lid of the box showing you how things are sorted.
However, this doesn't work for me, so I use something that my grandmother taught me years ago -- I use clear quart Ziploc type storage bags to store my coupons into smaller groups and put them all in a huge gallon sized bag.
The coupons are grouped together according to basic items in the store. (Meats, Cheeses, Juices, Cereals, Canned Goods, Cat Items, Plastic, Paper, Frozen, and Junk Food) As I go through the rows in the store, I pull out the coupons I am going to use and I put them in a separate ziploc bag that I give to the cashier. This works really well and I usually have great results. However, I am really rather lazy at times and do allow some of my coupons to expire unnecessarily.
Several stores in my area offer double coupons daily up to 50 cents face value. So, if you use a 50 cent coupon in those stores, they double the value and take $1 off your total. Kroger doubles coupons every day here in my area.
Buy One Get One Free / Bonus Packages
Along with my coupons, I am always searching for bonus packages of items. If I can get 45 percent more shampoo for my money than a regular bottle, then that's something I will naturally grab in a moment! Today, I found Suave Shampoo in a bonus package for 45 percent more free. The shampoo was 99 cents a bottle, and I had a coupon for buy two get one free. So by purchasing shampoo in this method, I now have over 200 percent more shampoo than I would have if I had purchased the shampoo in a regular bottle. I look for these type of bargains constantly in order to stock up on non-perishable items.
Special Promotions
Every now and then Kroger does something utterly fantastic like a special coupon promotion such as triple coupons up to 50 cents face value, but this week Kroger did something really fantastic.
Kroger had Super Double Coupons this week.
The policy for redemption of the coupons was that the shopper had to use their Kroger Plus Shopping Card to initiate the purchase.
After this, all coupons up to a dollar were doubled. So, if you had a $1 coupon it was now worth $2. In addition to this, if you used a coupon between $1.01 and $2.00, the coupon would be redeemed for $2. Any coupon $2 and over was redeemed at face value.
Well, that was all I needed to be inspired to go shopping today. After spending about 5 hours in the grocery store today, I am sweaty and feel like I've been running a marathon all day long, but you can't beat the results that I have received with this day's shopping adventure.
What Did I Buy?
Now many people may think that I purchased things just because I had the coupon, and that the item will not be used -- but wasted.
However, that is not the case. Everything that I purchased today is an item that my family will be able to use or consume within the next few months.
Some of the items that I purchased included the following:
30 pounds of meat products
3 pounds of cheese products
2 gallons of milk
10 pounds of margarine
30 cans of canned fruit products
20 cans of canned vegetables
20 packages of pasta and rice products
6 bottles of salsa
15 gallons of fruit juice
25 boxes of cookies, fruit snacks, and crackers
20 cans of Spaghettio type products
6 cans of tomato products
8 boxes of toothpaste
15 bottles of shampoo
26 bars of soap
4 huge laundry detergents
4 packages of dishwashing tabs
4 boxes of ice cream treats
2 frozen pizzas
30 boxes of hot pockets and other related frozen
5 boxes of frozen breakfast items
20 boxes of cereal
12 boxes of Goldfish crackers
4 sticks of roll on deodorant
20 packages of gum and mints
4 bottles of mustard
2 bottles of mayo
2 huge packs of toilet paper
48 bottles of filtered water
20 pounds of cat litter
......and of course, I can't remember everything and my receipts are in the car right now in the car pocket!
Suffice to say this is an extremely large amount of food that I purchased today. The trunk of my Impala was full as well as most of my back seat.
My freezer and refrigerator are now bursting at the seams! I'll have to rearrange my pantry again and probably move several of these items into the excess one in the hallway, but to me this is worth it all to be able to have saved all of this money!
Recommendation
If you are able to purchase large quantities of items at a substantially reduced price as I have done today with my super double coupons and combination of sales, I believe this is one of the most effective means of providing for your family.
Even if your store only offers single coupon value, there are many ways that you can be an observant shopper by purchasing bonus sized packages of the products you use most often as well as purchasing a larger amount of those items when they are on sale. I know that if I did not use these means to provide for my family, I would be spending at least 50 to 60 percent more on my groceries as I do now.
Therefore, I highly recommend the use of any means possible (at least that's legal!) to help reduces your grocery bill! These tips and tricks work for me and I know that they can work for you as well!
Note: On the Hillshire Farms Ham that I mentioned earlier, I wanted to add that I had a coupon for that product that was 55 cents off of 2 packages. Because Kroger was doing Super Double Coupons, I was able to get this product for 24 cents each. That is an 88 percent savings.
Related Article
How To Stock Your Freezer for Less Than $100
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