Grocery Coupon Guide

Taking away the chocolate by your sister was just plain mean. LOL. You should have given to the food bank. Excellent first day! What did you choose to eat? Love to hear your actual menu.

Incredible First Day! But where do you find all the coupons?????

Where I got the coupons I used – I have links in the post that will lead you to some of them if they are still available:

2 boxes of Quaker Instant oatmeal (peelie coupons on the boxes)
4 packs of Philadelphia Cream Cheese Minis (blinkie coupons in front of the cream cheese)
1 package of Knudsen Light sour cream (blikie coupon in front of the sour cream)
10 apples (register coupon from Safeway and coupon from a monthly booklet I found in the Safeway store)
2 lbs of carrots (no coupon)
4 boxes (small) of Wheat Thins (coupons from facebook)
1 jar of Skippy All Natural peanut butter (no coupon)
2 cans of pork and beans (no coupon)
1 bag of long grain brown rice (no coupon)
2 packages of Mission 100% whole wheat tortillas (printable Internet coupon)

The first day eats: http://www.grocerycouponguide.com/articles/eating-well-on-1-a-day-day-1-breakfast/

But where do you say you can eat a whole healthy food diet for $1 a day, allowing for needed calories as well as 100% healthy nutrition?

@MotherLodeBeth I purposely did not say that because there are so many interpretations there. I specifically said I would eat well meaning that healthy food would be involved and I would have plenty to eat. That was the goal.

Most stores don’t give you money back if your coupons exceed the cost of what you are buying.

@Julie Yes, that is why you fill in the overage with other items which you get essentially for free. You do get the overages if they come in the form of a catalina coupon.

But what did you spend in gas? (and how long did your shopping take?)

Could you explain more what catalina coupons are? I’m still confused as to what they are. Are they the additional coupons that print along with your receipt? Or the the coupons that are printed on the back on your receipt? Or like at CVS the coupons the print at the end of your receipt? I’m familiar with the bay area grocery store chains you’re shopping at, but have never heard of the term “catalina coupon” before. I would love to learn more about your technique.

@Jennifer

I am currently putting together a post that better explains catalina coupons. You can get a general idea here (along with other coupons you can find in stores):

http://www.grocerycouponguide.com/articles/finding-in-store-coupons/

They come out of a machine next to the cash register at grocery stores. The hard part is finding when these coupons are available since they are often not advertised. I will be trying to put together a list of the ones I know exist as well.

I thought those catalina coupons were random – based on what you purchased. Can you use them like cash similar to CVS ExtraCare Bucks? Were all the items you purchased at CVS on sale? I am trying to use some of these methods but its difficult because I am a picky eater!

One more thing – can you explain the concept of monoey-maker better? I believe it is when your coupons exceed the value of what you are purchasing but I am still confused. Thanks!

@Ruckus

The catalinas seem random, but they are almost always triggered by buying certain things (they only seem random because most people don’t know what those things are). They are used very similar to CVS Extra Bucks.

Most of the CVS items were on sale and I tried to add a coupon on top as well, but didn’t always succeed. I try to take advantage of the $5 off $20 coupons as often as I can as that can get me some good basics, but it can be difficult. Some weeks are definitely better than others.

Yes, the money makers is when the price minus the coupons (combined with Extra bucks at CVS)result in an overage in your favor. You can’t get overage money back at grocery stores, but if you purchase other things in the transaction, that overage will go toward the other items.

If that still doesn’t make sense, let me know and I will give a couple of current examples.

How long did your shopping take and how much did you spend in gas?? I guess this is all theoretically possible, but if you have kids to take care of and a job to be at I doubt you’d have time for all this. Also, how long did you search for coupons?

Yeah well…….

As an IT consultant that earns 3 digits per hour it would have cost me 700 dollars to scrape up all the coupons and do all the research. Then I would have spent 15 dollars in fuel at least driving all over town. After I ate all that “PRESERVED” food I would have had a migraine to end all migraines. To vanquish the migraine I would have had to take some expensive migraine meds costing me even more money.

All in all this may be good for a person who is out of work or on welfare. But if your a working stiff and a stiff with a wife and kids this is total crap.

i love how someone bragging about his 3-digit hourly complains about how worthless this is, but surely wasted 30 minutes reading a blog and trolling it. there goes $50.

@Danielle,

I would never advocate someone trying to do it on $1 a day. My whole point was to show that you can probably save a whole lot of money over what you are currently spending with a bit of strategic couponing. Because I did use three stores, I used more gas than I would have if I only went to my one local store. Two grocery stores and the drug store were within biking distance if I had to. The third grocery store a car would definitely be needed, and I only hit it two times during the challenge when I happened to be in the area on other business.

I hate couponing and have a very simple system. I don’t cut, sort or arrange coupons. I just date the inserts and only print Internet coupons for things I know I will be buying because they match. Since I only went for the super deals, I actually spent far less time then a person normally would (I didn’t have to sort through the 50 deals that week and decide which were the best — I only looked at the top 3 and concentrated on those so in some ways, buying less and being limited made the time spent far less than in normal circumstances). I definitely spent more time in the stores because to make some of the deals work, I had to go through the checkout line a few times rather than just once.

I work a lot of hours and while this project complimented some of that work, I couldn’t spend all day doing it. It is definitely possible to cut your current grocery bill by 50% or more with only a couple of hours of work a week (there is an initial learning curve that takes longer). I only started couponing in February — never stepped into a grocery store or used a coupon really before then.

@bleem What makes you think I don’t work?

what kind of gross burrito are you going to make with cream cheese, carrots, and sour cream?

This is mesmerizing to read!!!! Thank you for doing this. Jeffrey.

BLEEM, go eat!!! Your kindness synapses are not firing properly.

I thought you did an amazing job and was very impressed by the details of this challenge.I don’t however consider many of the food choices “healthy” by any standards.There is alot of processed foods (crackers,cream cheese,instant oatmeal etc. And I would not buy the cleaning chemicals when baking soda,white vinegar,peroxide etc all can be safely used for very low cost.Things like brown rice,whole wheat tortillas were very nice to see on the list.Also recommending you see what is in refrig,on sale and at public market then put together the meal is most enpowering! Nice job

@bleem – Where else are you driving during the day? During the week? Add the grocery errands to your other errands.

It was no problem at all for me to make a stop at Food Town when I did a Goodwill donation this weekend. FT is next door to Goodwill in my city.

And when my daughter and I got haircuts a couple days ago, we popped in at a farmer’s market on the same block as our hair stylist.

This is really insightful, particularly the “catalina” bucks or whatever.

The fact that you can use the surplus created by coupons to buy other non-related food items is a major revalation.

This is awesome, whatever the trolls say.

I had to do this for real on EI with $45 to buy everything beyond rent for six months. It’s doable but you should have tried it without the car to do your shopping. Scrounging food takes all day when you have to walk five miles to buy peanut butter for $.99 on sale. I stopped short of stealing toilet paper from public bathrooms and porta potties.

Are you embarrassed at all to do this?

Imagine all of those poor people waiting on line in the store as the clerk scans all of those boxes of wheat thins– and THEN all of those coupons. And then in the safeway — the same thing: scanning the cream cheese — and then the coupons.

Have some self-awareness.

@bc – Wow, that’s probably one of the most callous things I’ve heard. Some people HAVE to do this. It has nothing to do with self-awareness.

He doesn’t have to do this. He’s being a typical pedantic nerd to win approval of the other pedantic nerds.

@BC: I don’t think you’ve shopped in a grocery store or a CVS lately. Unlike the old days, when coupons took forever, coupons and purchases are now scanned in literally seconds and the clerk doesn’t even have to look at the items – the computers check instantly to see if the coupons apply. This takes virtually zero time away from the next people in line, even with bagging. I’d be embarrassed to be *that* impatient.

bc, get a life. you’re one of those people that gets pissy if someone dares to use a cheque too, I bet.

Jeffery, this is incredibly interesting but hard for me to follow since I’m so bad at math, ha. but I am confused because I thought the rule was that you could spend ONLY a dollar a day, but here you’ve spent 4+ in one day?

@mirabelle

I had to average under $1 a day for the month meaning I could only spend $31 during the month. Since I started with no food at all, I had to spend a little bit up front so I didn’t starve to death

it looks like you done it with coupon fraud.
1)you can use only one manufcture coupon per itim it says
2)you can not get money back unless it says so on the coupon(its still free)
3)you have to buy what the coupon says in size, brands ,ect.
4) just because you get the coupon from the store dose not make it a store coupon (it says what type it is on top)

@Mike

It would be helpful if you actually read through the posts before you make that accusation (I have listed all the receipts and explained exactly what I have done in each post). Nowhere have I done anything illegal or any type of coupon fraud. Before you accuse someone of fraud, it would be helpful if you understood what they did. To answer you accusations

1. You can use only one manufacturer coupon per item it says. Absolutely. But you can use a store coupon with a manufacturer coupon and you can use eCoupons with manufacturer coupons. I have always only used one manufacturer coupon per item.

2. You can not get money back unless it says so on the coupon (its still free). What you should have said was that you can’t get cash back. You can get money back in the form of a Catalina coupon good for your next purchase and you can use overages towards other goods. That is what I do.

3. You have to buy what the coupon says in size, brands ,ect.. Of course. Where have I not done this?

4. Just because you get the coupon from the store dose not make it a store coupon (it says what type it is on top). Of course. If you try to use two manufacturer coupons on the exact same item the machine will beep and not let them both go through. Where have I tried to pass off a manufacturer coupon as a store coupon?

If you don’t understand what I have done, I am more than happy to explain in detail how I made it work, but I would appreciate you read everything and ask questions about things you don’t understand so I can explain before making general and false accusations like that.

In my couponing circles, we try very hard to advocate only taking 2 coupons out of the blinkie machines so you leave some for the other people. While it was nice of you to donate the food to the Food Bank, next time please consider the single-mom who comes up behind you to get the a good deal and is unable to do so because you took all the coupons out of the blinkies. Thank you.

@Tara

I agree with you and I always leave extras so that others can also get the deals. In this case, it was the last days of the promo which had gone on for several weeks and the stores were taking down the blinkie machines. Since everyone who wanted the deal had already taken advantage of it and the coupons were going to disappear, I had no problem taking extras (and I still left coupons available and cream cheese available for others that might do it that same day).

jeffrey there is two type of coupons dose not matter were you get them from catalina, blinkie, online or in the paper(catalina and blinkie are the companys in charge of them)and here is were you done wrong

1 Since this project is to eat healthy on $1.00 a day, I decided I needed to get some produce as well. I have $1.00 off Safeway Brand apples and another coupon for $1.00 off Safeway produce when you bought $5.00. The apples were $3.99 and I decided to get 2 lbs of carrots as well to make that work

cash is anothe rword for money so her is also what you done wrong

2 Using the coupons I had and the catalina coupons I had received for the Scrubbing Bubbles, I got all of the above and the cashier paid me back $0.09 so that I had now spend $2.85 of the $31.00:

at cvs

3 Next stop was CVS where I bought Skippy Peanut Butter, 2 cans of Pork and Beans, 8 boxes of wheat thins, 2 bags of Ghirardelli chocolate and 1 bag of long grain rice. I had planed to buy Fig Newtons as well, but they were sold out so I got a raincheck for them. I had $1.00 off 1 box coupons for the Wheat This and Fig Newtons and free bags of Ghirardelli chocolates that I had received from an online contest. Since the Fig Newtons were sold out, I substituted 4 more Wheat Thins (I could have done several other things to make it work — I had a $4 off coupon with the purchase of $20 or more), but didn’t feel like driving all the way back home to get the coupons to do it). The total for all the items after coupons came to $1.16 raising the total I spent to $4.01 of the $31.00:

and now 4 since you did not say if ther manufacturer or store so it is hard to prove but 9 out of 10 time if you done the frist one you done the last one.

every point i just showed you was from doy 1 only that is the only day i read. the worst you can get for fraud (were i live ) is 6 months and $10,000 but the cashier can be charge with employee theift witch can be several years in prision and the will probley not hald a job with money again.

@Mike,

It was a bit difficult for me to follow your explanations, but I think I get the gist of what you are saying. let me explain why you are wrong:

1. jeffrey there is two type of coupons dose not matter were you get them from catalina, blinkie, online or in the paper(catalina and blinkie are the companys in charge of them)and here is were you done wrong

1 Since this project is to eat healthy on $1.00 a day, I decided I needed to get some produce as well. I have $1.00 off Safeway Brand apples and another coupon for $1.00 off Safeway produce when you bought $5.00. The apples were $3.99 and I decided to get 2 lbs of carrots as well to make that work

I used 2 Safeway coupons for $1 off each on two different Safeway produce products: apples and carrots. Perfectly legal. If it had been illegal, the cash register would have beeped and the transaction wouldn’t have gone through.

If the apples had been $5.99 and I only purchased them and tried to use both store coupons on them, then you would be correct, but this was not the case. I specifically stated that I bought the carrots to make the scenario work.

cash is another word for money so her is also what you done wrong

2 Using the coupons I had and the catalina coupons I had received for the Scrubbing Bubbles, I got all of the above and the cashier paid me back $0.09 so that I had now spend $2.85 of the $31.00:

It is now spelled out in the new Safeway coupon policy that came out a couple of weeks ago that giving money back is not allowed. When I did this transaction, the policy wasn’t spelled out. Sometimes the cashiers gave money back, sometimes they didn’t. Since this was a gray area at the time, it wasn’t illegal. It would be today.

at cvs

3 Next stop was CVS where I bought Skippy Peanut Butter, 2 cans of Pork and Beans, 8 boxes of wheat thins, 2 bags of Ghirardelli chocolate and 1 bag of long grain rice. I had planed to buy Fig Newtons as well, but they were sold out so I got a raincheck for them. I had $1.00 off 1 box coupons for the Wheat This and Fig Newtons and free bags of Ghirardelli chocolates that I had received from an online contest. Since the Fig Newtons were sold out, I substituted 4 more Wheat Thins (I could have done several other things to make it work — I had a $4 off coupon with the purchase of $20 or more), but didn’t feel like driving all the way back home to get the coupons to do it). The total for all the items after coupons came to $1.16 raising the total I spent to $4.01 of the $31.00:

I’m lost on what you think was illegal about this transaction since you just copied what I had written and did not explain what I did wrong. I think you might be referring to size, but all the coupons corresponded to the correct size.

and now 4 since you did not say if ther manufacturer or store so it is hard to prove but 9 out of 10 time if you done the frist one you done the last one.

I have no idea what you are talking about here. I explained where there were store coupon and where there were manufacture coupons and I never used two manufacturer coupons on the same item.

every point i just showed you was from day 1 only that is the only day i read. the worst you can get for fraud (were i live ) is 6 months and $10,000 but the cashier can be charge with employee theift witch can be several years in prision and the will probley not hald a job with money again.

Again, I don’t see any fraud at all — all my transactions were perfectly legit. Now, I don’t know about your area and your stores, but I get the feeling that you just have misunderstood what I really did and are making assumptions of what you think I did.

Again, the store scanners are pretty sophisticated so that if anything is deemed wrong, they beep and don’t let the transaction go through without the an override approval so if the store felt I had done anything wrong, they would have stopped it (and as I am sure you know, cashiers are far more cautious than cavalier when it comes to coupons).

Feel free again to point out any place you think that I have done something illegal and I will be more than happy to explain it to you again to show you I haven’t.

@Mike

Get a life. If you are going to come on this man’s blog and argue at least do so with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. You are wasting his readers’ time with your comments, troll.

First Jeff i would like to thank you for making my job so easy. My job is to find stores that do not follow coupon polices 100%. We do not pay them for that (depending on how the send them on time period).

Now to tell you the guy you have been argueing with is right.Your sophisticated scanners you talk about 8% or less. If your police department did that good a lot of officers would be out of a job. When I do store checks (yes we try to scam stores so we do not have to pay) and other on our crew cashiers miss it 75% – 80% of the time. When we catch them, the corpartion is notified and have to reteach their cashiers how to handal coupons to get some of thier pay.
P.S. please put more blogs like this up. I love it when my job is this easy

Wow, Matt — I guess it must be a total coincidence that your IP address (yes, every person who comments on any blog has their IP address logged) is the exact same as Mike’s IP address (imagine that?)

Now, let’s talk about who is being unethical here — making up multiple names to try and hide who you really are to justify a point that you were obviously wrong about, but refused to accept. You accused me of cheating and I explained in detail why each of your arguments were incorrect and how you had misunderstood them. If you felt i still hadn’t sufficiently explained them, I invited you to post your position in more detail. Instead you make up a new identity pretending to be a person that polices coupon policies. I thought I was having a discussion with someone that was simply misunderstanding what I was doing, but obviously that is not the case.

Again, I am more than happy to explain exactly what I have been doing if you still have questions or don’t understand…

I just found your blog and have only read day one so far. I have a question though….exactly how did you come to the decision to buy the scrubbing bubbles to begin with? Did you look through store ads and plan out your trips to the stores ahead of time? I am sure you didn’t just walk in and think…hey…how about I start my food adventure with scrubbing bubbles. LOL

@roxie

Exactly right. There are a large number of websites that match up these deals for you (we do Safeway, Albertsons, CVS and Walgreens on this one) so you don’t have to waste the time figuring it out yourself. You can do it yourself, but why when someone else has already done it?

Wow – this is terrific. As someone mentioned, I too never realized that you couldn’t use coupon overages in the same transaction towards other items. coolio.

PS. unlike some ***others*** that complained of fraud back in May, I really was a “coupon verifier”. It was side work that I was subcontracted out on doing my usual line of work at that time that tied in nicely.

Here’s exactly what I looked for boiled down:
1) was there really a retail establishment at that address
2) did they sell the product
3) did they tape manf. coupons to the products or have a coupon exchange bin (both big no-no’s for clip out coupons)
4) did they usually accept coupons as policy

So, basically we weren’t looking to see if they “scanned it right” we were looking for coupon fraud by the actual store.

Fantastic stuff! I just wanted to write in support of your project since several internet trolls seem to have paid you a visit. I’m definitely going to watch for more coupon opportunities from now on.

People pray! What is with the haters on this blog?! I think this is a fantastic idea. I’ve never really been much for coupons and likewise I spend about 200 a month on groceries. I always figured the coupons wouldn’t make much difference / my preferred brands weren’t included in the deal. You’ve proven me wrong. Fantastic work, simply fantastic!

Am learning so much from you posts. Even though I find very few coupons I can actually use since I only eat whole healthy, organic foods and actually detest shopping as it is. Have to stay away from peanut butter and other commercial foods which often have additives that effect my body in a negative way. Again, thanks for the great teaching you are doing.

Time is money. The amount of time I would spend doing this would far offset any money that I saved. Plus I would get to spend time doing things i actually enjoyed with my free time and I’d eat much better than you did. If you’re a stay at home mother then it might make sense. Other than that, it’s an exercise in futility.

@jon

There most definitely a learning curve where you have to spend more time to understand how the system works. That being said, I bet now that I have the system down I spend a lot less time than most people do shopping. I usually only take one trip a week now that I have a base of food build up (most people start with what they already have in their pantry) and there is also no reason to do it as extreme as I have.

Just a quick note to say thank you for doing this. I am in my mid 20′s, own my own business and have a lot going on on a day to day basis. I eat on the road a lot and rarely have ‘good’ food at home. This has inspired me (on a rare day off) to do a bit of couponing and head over to the grocery with a new ‘keen’ eye out for ways to bring healthy food home without breaking the bank!

Thank you!

Jeffrey – I think I was directed to your site by consumerist.com and am just now getting around to reading it. I’ve only read day one so far but after reading your post and the menu, as well as the comments just wanted to say thank you. I am currently on unemployment and life is hard for me right now, so getting this insight I think may be invaluable. Don’t listen to the trolls, ya know they say misery loves company. Well, I’m off to eat my lunch of ramen noodles :-/

I could spend 30 bucks a month on groceries if I ate the kind of shit you do. My goal is to find a way to eat cheap an healthy – not cheap and shitty, or expensive and (overly) delicious.

Great work! I also, when I’m organized enough, try to take advantage of the deals that are out there. It’s amazing how a little bit of work can really pay off. For those of you complaining because it’s not healthy enough.. of course in a perfect world everyone would eat from farmers markets and organic grocery stores.. however the sad reality is that people who suffer with poverty often eat the cheapest possible stuff which is nutritionally far inferior to what was purchased here. I’d rather see someone eat wheat thins with natural peanut butter and an apple for lunch than something from a fast food value meal.
And regarding “Mike”.. just wow. You were infinitely nicer and more respectful in dealing with what was essentially just an baseless attack that didn’t even make sense. Keep up the good work.

@Paul

I’m sorry that this challenge did not meet your expectations. What I would suggest is that you go out and do it better than I did which is certainly possible and the food banks are always in need of good quality food. I”m still learning about both couponing and cooking.

What I can say is that if you already have a stockpile of food (look at my meals at the end) you are able to be much more choosy about the food you get. There is nothing that says you need to buy what I did, but you can still use the concepts to save a lot of money.