How did I get paid when I went shopping? Read on to find out.
It seems that there is always a debate about coupon cutting and grocery shopping. Some people swear by it, while others spurn it saying it doesn’t save any money. Debates will go back and forth between the two camps, with examples, digital photos of grocery receipts, etc. It is always a vigorous debate.
I fall into the side that believes in coupons, with the caveat that one must be cautious about which coupons to use. My favorite method is to combine coupons with loss leader sales on things that I would normally buy anyway. It doesn’t pay to save $1 off of something that either never gets consumed or has a retail price that inflated to twice as much value as the coupon saves.
Here is an example from today’s shopping trip that illustrates how coupons can save you a ton of money. Cereal around here normally goes for about $4 a large box, when you buy name brand. Generic is a bit less, but not by much. Since everyone knows that my family members are cereal hogs, we know that I would be buying cereal anyway.
Today, the local grocery store posted a sale of three boxes of General Mills Cereal for $6, bringing the price down to about $2.00 a box, which is not a bad deal. However, I still couldn’t justify that price. So I looked into my coupons, where I found two coupons, each for $1.00 off of three boxes, bringing the total for six boxes down to $4. I wasn’t done, yet, however. During a previous shopping trip, the cash register coupon generator spit out a coupon for General Mills cereal when I bought a competing brand. I saved that coupon, waiting for a good opportunity to use it. That was for $2.00 off, bringing the grand total of six boxes of cereal for $2, or about $0.33 a box.
The store is also running a promotion of an $8.00 coupon when you spend $25 worth of General Mills products (before coupons and sales). Because I decided to buy cake mix and frosting (with sales and coupons they cost $0.50 each), I made that cutoff and got that coupon. So, at the end of the day, the store paid me $6 to buy six boxes of cereal, a can of frosting and a box of cake mix.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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