Don’t be surprised if you see more consumer goods available on Groupon in the near future at more than 50% off. Today General Mills became the first major consumer product company to test the daily-deal site where they offered 4,500 packages and the deal sold out quickly (it was only available in San Francisco and Minneapolis).

General Mills offered 12 General Mills products for $20.00, a discount of more than 50% off the regular retail price. In addition, the deal included a $15.00 coupon book for General Mills products. The entire package was to be delivered to buyers’ homes and included the following items:

• 12.8 ounce Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal
• 13 ounce Reese’s Puffs cereal
• 12 ounce Kix cereal
• 12.8 ounce Cascadian Farms Organic cereal
• 5.8 ounce Fiber One 90-Calorie Chewy Bars
• 5.8 ounce Hamburger Helper
• 11 ounce Green Giant Corn Niblets
• 9.5 ounce Old El Paso Tortilla Stuffers
• 5 ounce Fruit Roll-Ups
• 10.5 ounce Chex Mix Muddy Buddies snack mix
• 17.5 ounce Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie mix
• 13.7 ounce Wanchai Ferry Orange Chicken dinner kit

So is it a good deal? For those that do not coupon, it certainly is. Not only do you get the food at 50% off, it is delivered directly to your door so there is nothing that you really have to do. For those that coupon, however, it probably isn’t that great of a deal. Even those that don’t extreme coupon, getting food for 50% is fairly easy and you get to buy exactly what you want. There is undoubtedly food in this package that are not regular items on the purchaser’s regular grocery list which wouldn’t be purchased on a normal shopping trip. That being said, I would expect to see many more deals like this on Groupon in the future.

If you have pets or buy food and other supplies for pet charities, you definitely want to keep an eye open for the winter 2011 Safeway Petpals booklet with $25 worth of coupons inside. The best part is that all the coupons in this petpals booklet are Safeway store coupons which means they can be stacked with manufacturer coupons to save even more money. I found mine near the exit. You may need to ask customer service if they have extra copies if you can’t find it. The coupons expire 5/31/2011 and booklet contains the following 18 coupons:

$1.00 off 1 Blue Dog Bakery dog treats
$3.50 off 1 Fresh Step cat litter
$3.50 off 1 Scoop Away cat litter
$1.00 off 1 Dogswell Vitality chicken breast treats
$2.00 off 1 Purina dry kitten chow
$2.00 off 1 Beneful dry puppy food
$2.00 off 1 Purina One dry puppy food
$2.00 off 1 Purina dry puppy chow
$2.00 off 1 Iams dry dog or dry cat food
$2.00 off 1 Newman’s Own organic dry dog or cat food
$1.00 off 1 Priority training pads
$0.50 off 1 Sergent’s puppy teeth bone
$1.00 off 1 Duel Action flea & tick small dog & puppy collar
$0.50 off 1 Sergent’s dog treat chicken wrap or drummies
$1.00 off 1 Arm & Hammar cat litter
$1.00 off 1 Cesar softies
$1.00 off 1 Whiskas Temptations cat food
$1.00 off 2 All-Natural Temptations cat food

I often find pet related items and food deep discounted when they get close to expiration at my Safeway. Combine that with the store coupon and a manufacturer coupon and there is a good chance of getting some of these pet items for free.

The next time you are in the produce section at Safeway, take a look around for the current monthly issue of Fresh Ideas magazine. While the coupons I have found in this monthly 8 page paper probably won’t get you any food for free, the coupons are often for food that you often don’t see coupons for elsewhere. The February issue has the following 4 coupons:

$1.00 off 1 Mann’s vegetable party trays
$1.00 off 1 Bella Sun Luci sun dried tomatoes
$0.50 off 1 Garden Highway stuffed mushrooms
$1.00 off 1 Bolthouse or Bom Dia 32 oz beverages

It is definitely worth taking the time to look to see if any of the coupons happen to be for food that you already purchase.

On your next visit to Safeway, be sure to wander by the pasta aisle to see if they have placed out a $1.50 off 1 Philadelphia cooking creme coupon. If they do, be sure to grab a few for yourself. Even though the cooking creme is found in the refrigerator section, this coupon is found by the pasta. The coupon is good until 5/31/2011. I’ve seen the coupon displayed in some stores, but not in others. This is a new Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese product and there is a good chance that it will be possible to get this for free or nearly free in the next couple of months for the following reasons:

New products are often listed at full price when they are brand new with coupons in store. Once the coupons have done their run, the new product is often put on sale to get people to try it. If you have saved the coupons, you can stack them on the sale to greatly reduce the price. Add that Kraft often offers Catalina coupons on its products and if all goes right, these should be free / nearly free down the road.

This is what you are looking for:

There is a possible opportunity to get free Trident gum this week at Safeway. Yesterday while I was buying 225 boxes of fruit snacks for the local food bank, I noticed a large cardboard displaynear one of the cash registers for three new types of Trident Vitality gum: Vigorate, Rejuve and Awaken. On this display was a tearpad with buy one get one free coupons (up to $1.69 value) on it. The terarpad was in the middle of the display and because of the way it is set up, it is a bit difficult to see (I almost missed it).

I ended up going to a number of different Safeway stores yesterday, but only found the display at one of them.

I believe that these displays are new and will be going up (the store where I saw it usually displays stuff earlier than other stores in the area, but I haven’t been in Safeway stores much lately so I may be wrong) so it is well worth keeping your eyes open for it. This is what the coupon looks like:

What makes this coupon so valuable is that Safeway is currently having a buy one get one free sale of this Trident gum through 3/15. Using the coupon with the current sale means free gum. Apparently there was also a Buy 1, Get 1 Free Trident Vitality regional coupon from 3/6 Smart Source Sunday that you can use to get these free. I ended up getting 22 packs for free.

I just got back from Safeway and I was able to purchase 60 boxes of Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks for free. Even if you don’t have any coupons, you should be able to purchase 5 boxes of fruit snacks for $0.45 tomorrow (Tuesday 3/8)

The key is that the Catalina machines are printing out two coupons when you purchase 5 boxes of Betty Crocker fruit snacks. One is a manufacturer coupon for $1.50 off 3 Betty Crocker fruit snacks

The other is a $3.00 off anything Catalina Coupon:

If you can find one of the $1.50 off 3 coupons lying on the ground or in a shopping cart (I was able to find one rather easily in a shopping cart), you buy 5 Betty Crocker fruit snacks for $4.95, use the $1.50 off 3 coupon reducing the price to $3.45 and then you get a $3.00 Catalina coupon making the 5 boxes only $0.45. if you also have a $0.50 off 2 manufacturer coupon from the Sunday paper, the 5 boxes are free:

The best part of this is that you will get another $1.50 off 3 coupon and the $3.00 off anything coupon which you can use to buy another five boxes for $0.45, which will trigger the coupons again. Wash, rinse, repeat all without having to clip a single coupon. This deal ends 3/8 (Tuesday) — I purchased all these for my local food bank.

March is frozen food month. Last year Safeway had a pretty good promotion with a $10.00 Catalina Coupon with a $25.00 frozen food purchase. This year’s promotion hasn’t been announced yet, but the Safeway March Frozen Food Month coupon book has started to show up at Safeway stores. It includes $42 worth of coupons and can be found in the frozen food section at Safeway. It is definitely worth picking up a few on your next visit:

The Safeway March Frozen Food Month coupon book includes the following manufacturer coupons which all expire on 4/30/2011 unless otherwise marked

$1.00 off any 2 Birds Eye Steamfresh or Birds Eye C&W vegetables
$1.00 off any 1 Wanchai Ferry or Romano’s Macaroni Grill Frozen Entree
$1.00 off any 2 Tony’s Products
$1.00 off any 2 Michael Angelo’s Single Serve Entrees
$1.00 off any 1 Ore-Ida Sweet Potato Fries
$1.00 off any 2 Ore-Ida Frozen Hash Browns
$1.00 off any 3 Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers or Boil-in-Bag Frozen vegetables
$1.00 off any 2 Boca Meatless Product
$1.00 off any 2 Kashi Frozen Entrees, Baked Products and/or Pizza Products
$1.00 off any 2 MorningStar Farms Veggie Foods Products
$1.00 off any 2 Stouffer’s Entrees or Dinners
$1.00 off any 3 Lean Cuisine Entrees, 6 oz -16 oz
$1.00 off any 2 Healthy Choice Frozen Entrees
$1.00 off any 2 Alexia items
$1.00 off any 2 Frescheta Multi-Serve Pizzas
$1.00 off any 3 Hot Pocket or Leans Pockets brand Sandwiches or Snackers- 6.5oz-25oz
$1.00 off any 1 California Pizza Kitchen Pizza, 12.6 oz – 20.4 oz (excludes singles)
$1.00 off any 1 DiGiorno Pizza 12.6 oz – 36.8 oz (excludes singles)
$2.00 off any 3 Kellogg’s Eggo Frozen Products 5.3 oz+
$1.00 off any 1 Jimmy D’s product
$1.00 off any 2 Hungry-Man frozen meal entrees
$1.00 off any 2 New York Brand Frozen Product (expires 5/15/11)
$2.00 off any 4 Weight Watchers Smart Ones Frozen Breakfast Items
$1.00 off any 2 Krusteaz Frozen Breakfast Products
$1.00 off any 2 Pepperidge Farm Frozen Bread or Dessert Product
$1.00 off any 2 Weight Watchers frozen novelties
$1.00 off any 2 Dove Multi-Pack or Miniatures ice cream items
$1.00 off any 2 Snickers or Twix Multi-pack or 8.67 oz+ ice cream items
Buy 5 get 1 Free Haagen-Dazs 3.6 oz, Dreyer’s Fun Flavors 5.8 oz or Skinny Cow 5.8 oz Single Serve Cups
$1.00 off any 1 Skinny Cow Frozen Treats
$1.50 off any 1 Marie Callendar’s or Claim Jumper Pie
$1.00 off any 1 Marie Callender’s Meal

The Safeway March Frozen Food Month coupon book includes the following Safeway store coupons which all expire on 4/30/2011 unless otherwise marked. use of these coupons requires a $10 minimum purchase with your Safeway club card. These store coupons are valid at Safeway, Vons, Dominicks, Genuardi’s, Randalls, Tom Thumb & Pavillions. They are not Valid in Alaska or Hawaii.

$9.99 Safeway Select Complete Meal (Limit 1)
$2.99 Safeway SELECT Pizza 14.25 oz to 32.7 oz (Limit 3)
$1.00 off any 4 Eating Right or Safeway Select Entrees 5.25 oz – 12.4 oz (Limit 4)
$1.99 Lucerne 12 count Novelties (Limit 3)
$1.99 Safeway Select 1.5 quart Ice Cream (Limit 3)

Awhile back Niki mentioned that it would be worthwhile picking up $1.00 off 1 Ronzoni Garden Delight pasta tear pad coupons as she thought they would make for free pasta down the road. She was absolutely correct and this week we have hit that part of the road if you have a Raley’s affiliated supermarket in your area (I did my shopping at Nob Hill) where Garden Delight pasta is on sale for $0.99 a package through Tuesday.

I don’t usually shop at Nob Hill because it is a bit farhter away than the other supermarkets in my area, but the transaction when smoothly and their cash registers automatically make the $1.00 take off $0.99 so there is no beeping cash register. I was hoping to get a lot more for local food banks, but the manager at the closest Nob Hill wouldn’t make a special order for me for several hundred. I will see if I can drop by a few more stores that are close to where I am traveling this weekend.

Although hot chocolate was not on the original list of things I was planning to get for the Thanksgiving Dinner For 6 For $1 Challenge, it seemed like a good addition for the kids, and especially if Thanksgiving ends up being a cold day.

Swiss Miss 10 pack boxes are currently on sale for $0.99 at Target and there is a $1.00 off 1 Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate coupon in the Safeway Thanksgiving Coupon Book making them free (it has also been left in the comments that the Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate is also on sale for $0.99 at WalMart). I ended up buying 10 boxes worth $16.40 for $0.00:

This was the first time I had ever used coupons at Target and it was painless with there being no issues even though the coupon was for $1 off and the price for the item was $0.99 (this can cause problems at other retail outlets sometimes). I will definitely be doing more coupon shopping there when good deals arise. I will be keeping two of the packages for Thanksgiving dinner (one with marshmallows and one without) and will give the other eight to the local food bank. I also hope to be able to purchase more hot chocolate for the food bank this week as well.

I now have been able to purchased stuffing, gravy, biscuits and hot chocolate for my Thanksgiving dinner without spending any money up to this point, but I have a lot more that I need to buy to make this a successful meal. I still have my fingers crossed that some good deals will be announced this week.

You may want to keep an eye out for a “Deliciously Simple Holiday Recipes” coupon booklet. I found it on an endcap at my local grocery store. It has twelve recipes in it along with 4 manufacturer coupons on the back. The coupons do not expire until 3-31-2011 meaning there should be plenty of chances to use these coupons. The four coupons that are included are:

$1.25 off 3 Kraft dessert brands (Baker’s Bar, Jello, Nilla Wafers, Philadelphia cream cheese)
$1.50 off 2 Ziploc brand holiday containers
$1.00 off 2 Ziploc brand holiday bags
$1.00 off 3 Dole canned fruit

I would probably not even mention this coupon booklet except for the $1.25 off 3 Jello brand pudding or gelatin which combines with the Walgreens in ad coupon for 2 Jello gelatin packs for $1.00 (11/7 – 11/13). This means that you can buy three Jello packs for $0.25 at Walgreens this week.