Let the reader beware

Disclaimer:

I post deals based on the coupons available to me in my local paper (Raleigh, NC's News and Observer) and the ads available in my area.  There are regional differences in both coupons and sales.  My local CVS and your local CVS may both have a sale on soda, but mine may be Pepsi and your's may be Coke.  My local CVS may have a sale on toothpaste for $2.77, and your local CVS may have the same toothpaste on sale for $2.99.  My Sunday insert may have a coupon for 50 cents off that toothpaste, your's may have 75 cents off, or $1 off 2, or no coupon for the toothpaste at all.  Check your local inserts and ads to verify you can get the same deals I can before you go shopping.

Where to begin? Right here!

My cousin and I swap coupons and deal information.  It seems that almost every Sunday I get a phone call or a Facebook message about this weeks coupons and deals.  I don't mind at all.  First, I really like her so an opportunity to chat is never unwelcome.  Second, talking deals is one of my favorite things to do.

I've been posting to Facebook about playing the drugstore game, and about the deals I get for a while now on my own page.  I think it was a comment by one of her friends on one of her posts that reminded me just how overwhelming it can be to start couponing.

So that got me thinking.  I remember being a new couponer, bemoaning the sea of deals I could not do.  Sure, there are deal match ups to view online, but what if you don't have 6 months worth of coupons to draw from?  There are lots of places online that do the deal matching for you, but how many focus on this week's deals with this week's coupons?  None that I know of.

I can do that.

I am pleased to announce a new feature, effective immediately.

This week's deals, this week's coupons.
Every week I will match up the current week's coupons with the current week's drugstore deals, and post what are, in my opinion, the best deals.  I will post the money makers and freebies I find, and any other really good deals using the coupons immediately available at the end of your driveway or at the local corner store.

There is no better motivation when you start on your personal road to savings than a little success.

Baby frugal - feeding for less

Let's look at baby formula.  My baby drinks Enfamil.  The doctor gave us a sample of the Newborn formulation, the manufacturer sent us a sample of the Newborn formulation.  He didn't like the Similac, so Enfamil Newborn it is.

A quick cost comparison of the different ways it is available, powder, ready to feed and concentrate, reveals, almost every time, that buying the powder is the least expensive way, per ounce of prepared formula, to buy it.

The powder comes in 3 sizes.  A small coffee can size, a larger reuseable plastic tub in the 22-24 oz range (depending on the formulation), and refill packs for the large tub which contain 2 pouches.  Oddly, the refill pouches are not the same size as the insert that comes in a new tub.  They are substantially smaller.

If you take the cost of the container and divide by the number of prepared ounces it should make, you will get your unit cost.  Everytime I do this, the new refillable tub is less expensive than the refill inserts and the small can.

My baby is almost 8 months old, and he is still drinking the Newborn formulation.  Newborn advertises that it is for babies up to 3 months old.  When he got to about that age, and I was looking to buy formula, I picked up a container of the regular Infant formulation and compared them side by side.

The reuseable tub of Newborn purports to make approximately 170 oz.  The Infant formulation of the same size and price makes about 167 oz.  That's close enough to the same to not be pursuasive one way or the other on its own.

Then I looked at the nutrition information.  The Newborn and Infant formulations offer identical amounts of calories, protein, fat and all nutrients except vitamin D.  The Newborn formula has more vitamin D than the Infant.

So, the Newborn has more vitamin D and makes 3 more ounces than the Infant formulation.

The last 2 nails in this particular coffin were finding a tearpad of coupons for the Newborn, and only the Newborn, reuseable tubs in my pediatricians office, and at my husband's insistance asking my pediatrician.  He didn't appear to have given the matter any thought, but when I told him the nutritional difference between them, and that I could get the Newborn cheaper (courtesy of the coupon) than the Infant, he gave me the go ahead to keep feeding Newborn formula.  He also mumbled something about marketing gimmics.

I found those coupons in January, and they didn't expire until June.  They still had more every time we went back in for a check up, and every time I grabbed more to keep the savings rolling on in.

On top of that, I watched the sales.  Grocery stores and supercenters, oddly, aren't usually the best places to buy formula, not if you watch the sales and not if you buy a couple weeks worth of formula at a time when it is on sale somewhere.  The drugstores, CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, have had some great sales on formula regularly enough that if you keep 2-3 weeks worth of formula on hand you can coast to the next good sale most of the time.

Most stores sell the refillable tub in the $25 to $28 range, as an everyday price.  At least twice a month, I've been finding it on sale for $20 to $23.  I get really excited when it goes on sale at Rite Aid or CVS.  At Rite Aid, I was working on "earning" my 1000 points so I could earn the 20% discount off the everyday price.  Courtesy of a lot of sales on baby items, I hit the Gold discount, and I get 20% off everyday.  At the most expensive Rite Aid in town, my baby's formula, after my discount, is under $22 everyday.  At CVS, my baby purchases count towards my quarterly ECB rewards.  It's not much, 2% of your spending rounded down, but 2% is better than 0%, and that's what the grocery store offers.

What about buying online?  I checked in to that.  The best prices I could find online were as high or higher than the sale prices I was paying locally, and I couldn't use my manufacturer's coupons to bring that down like I can at the store.  Some places offer free shipping, others don't.  I could not find a deal online that could beat what I was paying right down the street.  You may.

Rite Aid trips 5/7/2011

Have I mentioned how much I love Rite Aid?

I went to 3 different Rite Aids today, did 5 separate transactions, and walked away with a bunch of stuff.

Rite Aid has Pampers on sale through today for $9.99, with a $2 +UP reward on each, limit 4.  There was a $1.50 off Pampers coupon in last Sunday's paper, of which I had 4.  My personal limit on the price of diapers is that I refuse to pay more than $5.  Since the little guy came home, I haven't paid more than $5 for a pack of diapers.  Some weeks you can't find diapers for that little, but that's why I have a small stockpile.  I try to keep a month's supply of diapers on hand at all times.  My supply has been dwindling, having not found any spectacular deals for a few weeks now.

I love Rite Aid and their surveys.  Almost every receipt I have gotten for at least a month now has had a survey code on it.  Complete the survey online, print a $3 off $15 purchase coupon.  $9.99 Pampers is most of that, so by stacking $3 off $15 coupons with the Pampers deal, I could score, and score pretty well, today.

4 of my 5 transactions had a single pack of Pampers, and enough other stuff that I had coupons for or that were otherwise good deals to get me up to $15.

Today I came home with:
4 jumbo packs of Pampers
2 bottles of Scope (at a friend's request, I didn't have a coupon, but they were on sale)
2 tubes of Crest toothpaste
2 quart bottles of Similac Ready To Feed
2 boxes, 10 count each, of Breathe Right strips
4 tubes of Desitin that I had a rain check for from MONTHS ago, the rain check gods smiled upon me today

In total, I paid Rite Aid $17.69 more, in cash and +UP rewards, than they gave me back in +UP rewards.  If we assume everything else was free, then I paid $4.43 a pack for Pampers.  $4.43 is higher than I'd like, but still below my maximum acceptable price for diapers.

Super Doubles 4/27/2011 and 4/28/2011

Some weeks, there's just not anything that catches my attention.  Since my last post about Rite Aid, I haven't been particularly inspired by the local grocery deals or the local drugstore deals.  I ran in to CVS last week for the free egg coloring kit, and free Green Bag Tags, but those were no-brainers.  I popped in to Harris Teeter on Tuesday to get milk, before Super Doubles started, and picked up a couple of the better deals, like the brown sugar for 24 cents a pound and the free Yakisoba noodles, but it's an underwhelming sale when I can't even hit the maximum 20 coupons allowed per day at the store.

And the Coupon Gods spoke, "Let there be Super Doubles," and there were Super Doubles, and it was good.

On Wednesday, I paid $11.33, saved almost 86%, and walked out with:

6 individual Bounty paper towel rolls
2 two-packs of Seventh Generation paper towels
1 Lysol toilet bowl cleaner
1 Lysol disinfecting wipes
3 jars of Classico pasta sauce
9 assorted flavors of Powerade, 32 oz
6 assorted flavors of Propel Zero, 24 oz
4 boxes of Cheese Nips
2 boxes of Kahiki egg rolls

On Thursday, I paid $7.82, saved almost 90%, and walked out with:

2 boxes of Earth's Best baby cookies
3 jars of Classico pasta sauce
3 bottles of Log Cabin syrup
4 boxes of Cheese Nips
3 assorted flavors of Powerade, 32 oz
2 assorted flavors of Propel Zero, 24 oz
1 bottle Hidden Valley Ranch
1 twelve-pack of LaCroix seltzer cans, lime
1 tub of Seventh Generation baby wipes
3 single packets of Tide
6 travel-size Johnson and Johnson first aid kits
1 Calamari steak (it looked interesting)
2/3 lb of Roast Beef from the deli

Not at all shabby, if I do say so myself.

A lot of my deals would not have been possible without the help of my swap buddies.  Both my local swap group and some of my family members hooked me up, big time, with some excellent coupons.  For that, they are rewarded with reciprocity (I give them coupons too) and presents (the Freebie Fairy brings gifts at random to those in need, or just those in need of a proper thank you gift).

Rite Aid trips 4/16/2011

Today, I made the happy mistake of checking a local Rite Aid that I generally avoid to see if they had any of this week's sale items in stock.  Specifically, I was hunting Biore strips.  Not only did they have them, they had them in abundance, and I was inspired to visit all 3 of my local Rite Aids to score some deals.  Between the 3 stores, I did 7 transactions so I could use soon expiring $1 off you order Video Values coupons.

As I am generally opposed to shelf clearing, I limited myself at each visit based on how much stock the store had.

Today's score: 5 packs of Biore strips, 5 assorted Biore cleansers, 5 John Frieda shampoo, 2 John Frieda conditioner, 5 John Frieda Full Repair stylers, 1 John Frieda Weather Works/Frizz Eaze styler, and, not pictured, a lip gloss and 2 Old Spice body washes.

The lip gloss was courtesy of my daughter, who came with me and was lobbying for make-up.  After coupons, one of my transactions had a subtotal of $9.99.  I had $10 +UPs that I had planned on using to pay for the purchase, and, as teenagers are want to do, my daughter recognized a moment of weakness when I said, "Really?!?" to the cashier, and I caved.  At that moment, being short ONE cent to be able to use the +UP, and knowing I was going to be making money, I let her have a full priced item.  I don't carry make-up coupons in my binder, unless they're a known moneymaker, because I don't wear make-up.  $4.99 for lip gloss, yikes!

Even after expensive lip gloss, I made money on this stuff today.  I had spent my last few +UPs last week buying baby stuff that is never free (though I do insist on getting a good deal), so I had to actually spend real money today.  Here's the break-down.

Spent $25.99, got back $30 +UPs.

Spent $10 +UPs and $6.61, got back $14 +UPs. (lip gloss, anyone?)

Spent $4 +UPs and $2.66, got back $10 +UPs.

Spent $2.31, got back nothing.

Spent $6.93, got back nothing, but I should have received $10 +UPs.

Got $10 gift card back, because my +UPs didn't print.

Spent $2.31, paid using GC, got back the $10 +UPs I should have gotten before.***

Spent $7.93, most of that what was left on the GC, got back $10 +UPs.

I got back $15.26 more in +UPs than I spent in the store.  Even if you subtract the $10 I made that I shouldn't have because their computer burped, I still made money.

***Failure to print was in one store, printing was in a completely different store.  I didn't even look at the receipt before putting it in my pocket, because there shouldn't have been a +UP.  Didn't even notice it til I came home and wanted to see how much I made.

I work pretty hard trying to make money at the drugstores.  It's all a cleaver ploy to reduce my cost for items I actually need, like diapers, that are almost never free.  The drugstores have pretty good diaper prices frequently enough, at least once a month jumbo packs are under $5 after +UPs and coupons at Rite Aid.  I haven't paid more than $5 for a pack of diapers since the baby was born, and the lowest I've lucked in to was $2.99 each.  Making $15 equates to 3 or more free packs of diapers later, when they go on sale.

Free is the greatest four letter word in the English language.

Starting a price book and meal planning

Ah, normalcy.  In the past 2 weeks, Super Doubles came to a close, there were 2 birthdays in my household, lots of doctors appointments and assorted other weirdness.  It is good to be back.

I mentioned in a previous post my rules for stockpiling.  I've also talked a bit about how I shop.

If you're a shop for the week shopper, you need some place to start.

First, you should consider meal planning.  I, personally, fail at this for a number of reasons, many of which are outside my control.  If you're a new convert of the stock up and save cult, you'll really want to give this a try.  As a lifelong stockpiler, I do a pretty good job of anticipating what my family will eat or want prepared and keep enough around to keep everyone happy without a meal plan.

First, what does your family eat regularly.  Write it down.  Figure out how much of what you consume in an average week or month.  Maybe you do Tuesday pasta night and use 2 lbs of pasta a large jar of sauce.  Maybe you make meatloaf twice a month and buy 2.5 lbs of ground beef for that.  Over the course of the average week maybe you open 9 cans of veggies.  Whatever it is your family eats, and eats on a semiregular basis, write it down, both the meal and the ingredients.  Make absolutely sure you include your go-to recipes.

I'm a fan of spreadsheets, but you can do it on paper.  Take your list of ingredients, and select 10-20 that you use most frequently.  Also list things your family eats regularly that may not be an ingredient, like cereal.  Grab the sale fliers for this week, and flip through.

When you find an item on your list in the sale flier, next to that item, write down the price you'll pay both before and after coupons, the unit size, the sale date (keep it simple, just pick the start date of the sale week), and the name of the store with the best deal.  Your price book is born!  Gather your sale ads weekly and repeat this process, updating with the best price you find on your items to get a good feel for how things are priced at stores in your area.  As time goes on, add items to your price book.  You don't want to start by tracking 100 items, that's too daunting a task.  As time goes on, you may eventually want to track that many, but start small with the items you buy most frequently and then expand from there.

The best deal isn't always the jumbo package.  The best deal is the item with the lowest unit cost.  This is why you start off by jotting down the price and the unit size.  For example, let's say you're pricing your favorite cereal.  Normally, the 20 oz box is $5 and the 12 oz box is $3.50.  5/20= .25 and 3.50/12= .292, so normally the larger box has a lower unit cost and is a better deal.  But you have a coupon for 75 cents off one box, 11 oz or greater, and your store doubles 75 cent coupons, so your coupon is worth $1.50 off a box.  Now the big box is (5-1.50)/20= .175 per ounce and the small box is (3.50-1.50)/12= .167 per ounce.  The small box is the better deal this week.

With your price book in hand, you can go to the store every week and see if the price on the shelf is a good deal or not.  Sales cycle every 3-4 months, so after a while you'll find the rock bottom pricing on the items in your price book.  Everytime you find a better price, you should make a note of it in your price book.  After a while, you'll be able to glance at your price book and know that it's about time for an item category to go on sale at a stock up price, and you can plan accordingly.

Once you know what is and what isn't a good deal, you can begin stocking up.  A stockpile is like a house, you build it one piece at a time.  The longer you stockpile, the larger it can become.  The more items and the more quantity in your stockpile, the longer you can hold out for a good deal.  Ideally you will get enough stock in what your family uses when it's at rock bottom pricing to bridge to the next rock bottom sale.  It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.

Now, back to that meal plan.  You've written down meals your family eats regularly, made a list of items needed for those meals, and started a price book.

Let's say, in an average week, your family spends $35 on meat and usually eats chicken for dinner twice.  You pick up the sale flier, and chicken is on sale BOGO.  You can buy twice as much chicken as you usually do for the same money.  If you do nothing to change what your family eats this week, you just buy extra chicken and add it to the freezer, you're ahead.  You haven't spent any more money, and you've added to your stockpile.  Next week when the chicken isn't on sale, you don't have to buy it.  You can spend your grocery dollar on something else that is on sale and add it to your stockpile.

If, however, you decide to make chicken 3 times this week instead of 2, and pass on the full price ground beef you'd be making into meatloaf, you can stretch your grocery dollar even further and add more chicken to your stockpile for the same money or spend less this week on groceries without actually adding to your stock.  If money is tight, I recommend meeting in the middle, buying a little extra for your stock and adding it to your meal plan, that way you see a reduction in your grocery bill right now and have added a little to your stock so that next week you don't have to pay full price for chicken.  The money that is freed in next weeks budget that would have gone to buying chicken can be spent increasing your stock on what is on sale that week.

It's a wonderfully vicious cycle.  Once you get a good stock going of items your family regularly consumes, you get to stand back and marvel that people pay more than $1 for a box of cereal and over 50 cents for a jar of peanut butter ever.

Getting a stockpile built takes time.  You won't get every good deal, and you should never beat yourself up because you got what you thought was a good deal last week (and last week it was the best deal you could find) only to find the same item cheaper this week.  I beat myself up once, early on, for having "wasted" a coupon so I could get toothpaste for 24 cents only to find it was free with that same coupon the next week.  I was new at couponing, and 24 cents for a tube of toothpaste was an amazing deal to me at that point.  The longer you stockpile, the lower your buy price will be.  Before couponing, I wouldn't dream of paying more than $2 for a box of cereal, now I won't pay more than $1, and even at $1 I'm not happy about it.  I know that soon enough it will be 50 cents, or even free.  There's actually a deal this week near me for free cereal, and if you "buy" 3 or more boxes of the free cereal you get a catalina coupon for a free gallon of milk.  :D