Coupon Shopping: Publix? Consider It Rocked

Hi friends. This NaBloPoMo 30 posts in 30 days thing is really something. I feel like I was just here. Are you sick of me yet? Don't answer that.

I wanted to share my fantabulous Publix trip from yesterday. I got more systematic about my couponing, and it made a big difference. A couple of things clicked for me. For several months now, I've been a more frugal shopper, but I've been kind of hit-and-miss with using coupons. I would plan grocery trips using Fiddledeedee and Bren and others, but if a coupon wasn't an internet printable, I was sometimes too lazy to go and find the right newspaper insert and cut out the coupon. Even though I might have the insert crammed in a drawer. I obviously need the remedial coupon class. I had not discovered Sharpie technology, and the fact that writing the date of the newspaper on the front of the insert makes this all much easier.

So yesterday I stood in my kitchen and went through about a bushel of coupon inserts that I had magically been storing in a tiny drawer. I wrote the date on each one, and made a pile of Redplums and a pile of Smartsource. Then I put each pile in a folder, and I sat down in front of the computer and spent just a few minutes with Fiddledeedee and Southern Savers. I remembered that my Publix doubles coupons of fifty cents or less. That means, I realized, that a newspaper coupon for fifty cents is just as good as an internet printable for $1. (Duh! I told you I need the remedial class.) So when an item is bogo, and I have 2 fifty cent coupons, that is a big savings. I knew my Publix doubled, but it never really hit me before.

Then I went on a delightfully child-free trip to Publix, and I spent $42.15 and saved $60.15. It was fun--lots of good match-ups. My store actually had those winter savings coupon booklets. Grab those and get the College Inn broth coupon and the Hunt's tomatoes coupon out of there. With coups, those 32 ounce cartons of broth were 40 cents each. Score! I got one of the Thai curry ones to try in addition to the regular chicken. Other highlights included those Bertolli pasta meals for $1.25 apiece. The bogo Nabisco crackers with coupons were like 40 cents each too. And I picked up some non-dairy creamer, the bogo canned tomatoes, and the Lysol wipes, among other things. The Last Tango peaches were 69 cents a pound at my store too. Ooh, and with the printable coups, the Stonyfield yogurt cups were like 16 cents apiece. Love it.

At CVS, I only did one transaction. Cassie at Envirosavings had custom-built a great CVS scenario for me, and I did the first half of it. I was pleased that my store had the Revitalift that paid $11.98 in ecb's. I basically rolled 10 ecbs into that. Joke's on you, L'Oreal! I am in a committed and serious relationship with Origins. Then, that store didn't have several of the things I needed to do my wonderful second transaction, so I panicked and bailed. I considered going to the other CVS, but to do that I had to actually drive by my house, and I realized I would only be going so I could use my $5/25 coupon that was expiring, and that it didn't really matter that much. So CVS was short and sweet.

Then, when Laura and I took a ton of clothes to Goodwill, we browsed around their kitchen section, and I found two Denby mugs and a creamer in the Potter's Wheel pattern, for fifty-five cents each. Like this:
The pic doesn't do it justice. I've been drinking my coffee from one of them today and loving the gorgeous texture of the stoneware. So that was it for my getting and spending. Hop over to Supersavers to see what the coupon gurus are up to.