I headed to Safeway on Wednesday to take advantage of the one day General Mills overlapping promotions. This is what I purchased:
2 boxes Apple Cinnamon Cheerios
2 packages Nature Valley Nut Clusters
1 box Nature Valley granola bars
1 dozen eggs
1 cup Fage yogurt
2 green bell peppers
1 stalk celery
1 garlic clove
I ended up paying $2.95 out of pocket and received a $1.50 Catalina back (all my saved Catalina coupons were also lost when I lost my coupon envelope) meaning the total cost was $1.45 (and I must spend $1.50 of my money at Safeway)
Here is the step by step process of how I went about doing this (while the Apple Cinnamon Cheerios Catalina coupon is no longer available, you can still get some great deals)
1. I looked at the products participating.
2. I decided what I was going to buy: 2 boxes of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios and 2 boxes of regular Cheerios with 1 free box of Nature Valley granola bars.
3. I went and loaded the eCoupons here for 0.75 off 1 Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, $0.55 off 1 Original Cheerios, $0.50 off 1 Nature Valley granola bars.
4. While there I noticed an eCoupon for $1 off 1 Nature Valley Nut Clusters and an older one that I already had on it (so two in total). While not listed as participating in the grocery store advertising circular, I knew that these often participated in General Mills promotions, so I noted it as well (I actually load all the eCoupons available whenever given the opportunity).
5. I went and loaded the eCoupons here for $0.50 Nature Valley Granola Bars and noticed that I also had two $1.00 off 1 Nature Valley Nut Clusters eCoupons there as well.
6. I found a blinkie coupon I had for $1 off 2 Cheerios that I would use for the 2 boxes of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios:
7. I found two $1 off 1 Cheerios coupons to use on the Cheerios boxes (I actually had two types – online printable coupons from here – it takes a few days for the coupons to arrive in your email after signing up – and peelie coupons. I took the printable coupons because they had a sooner expiration date than the peelie coupons)
8. I printed an online printable coupon for $0.50 off 1 Nature Valley granola bars here.
9. I printed two $1.00 off 1 Nature Valley Nut Clusters online printable coupons here.
10. Since I thought I might have an overage if the Nature Valley Nut Clusters were included, I look for more deals. The weekly advertisement circular had a store coupon for eggs for $0.99 a dozen with a purchase of $10 or more:
11. I had also been looking for cheap plain yogurt because several people had mentioned that could make my own if I got some and I noticed that Fage Greek yogurt was on sale for $1.25 and there was a $1 off 1 online printable coupon when you like on facebook making it only $0.25.
12. I also noted some other things I might like to get — green bell peppers were 2 for $1.00 as were celery bundles.
13. I headed to the store with all of the coupons and my basic plan.
14. When I walked in, I went straight to the service counter and asked how the promotion worked with the free box of Nature Valley granola bars. Was it a Catalina coupon or was it automatic? I was told that it was automatic. This meant that I couldn't use the $0.50 off 1 Nature Valley granola bars printable coupon since the new Safeway coupon rules say that you can't use coupons on free items.
15. I walked over to the cereal section to see if the Nature Valley Nut Clusters were participating. They were, so I decided to buy them instead of the 2 Cheerio boxes that I had originally planned to buy.
16. I made the following calculations of what I though would happen:
Buy 2 Apple Cinnamon Cheerios at $2.99 each = $5.98
+ Buy 2 Nature Valley Nut Clusters at $2.99 each = $11.96
– $4.00 off instant savings for buying 4 participating products = $7.96
– $0.75 off Apple Cinnamon Cheerios eCoupon = $7.21
– $4.00 off Nature Valley Nut Clusters 4 eCoupons = $3.21
– $1.00 off Nature Valley granola bars 2 eCoupons = $2.21
– $1.00 off Cheerios blinkie coupon = $1.21
– $2.00 off Nature Valley Nut Clusters 2 printable coupons = -$0.79
– $1.50 Catalina coupon for Apple Cinnamon Cheerios = -$2.29
(notes: Because I had two $1.00 off 1 Nature Valley Nut Cluster eCoupons on both cellfire and shortcuts and I was buying 2 bags, I assumed that all four coupons would come off for a savings of $4.00. Even though I couldn't use a physical coupon for the Nature Valley granola bars, the eCoupons automatically come off. Since there was one on both cellfire and shortcuts, I assumed that would be $1.00 savings)
17. Since I had an overage, I needed to buy other things to make sure the total wasn't negative. These are the other calculations I made.
+ $0.99 for 1 dozen eggs = -$1.30
+ $1.00 for 2 green bell peppers = -$0.30
+ $0.50 for 1 celery bundle = $0.20
+ $0.25 for Fage Greek yogurt = $0.45
18. Even though I was positive, I know from experience that eCoupons don't always work like I assume, so I added a clove of garlic as well:
+ $0.50 for a clove of garlic = $0.95
19. So I expected to pay $2.45 and get $1.50 Catalina coupon back for a total of $0.95 spent.
20. In reality, only 3 of the Nature Valley Nut Clusters eCoupons came off for $3.00 savings ($1.00 less than I expected), but 3 Nature Valley granola bar eCoupons came off ($0.50 more than I expected). Why this happened, I have no idea so please don't ask me to try and explain. In the end, I ended up paying $2.95 and getting a $1.50 catalina coupon back for a total cost of $1.45 for everything ($0.50 more than I expected).
This is the current list of food I still have
This is the current list of what I have purchased:
Goal: 100 days eating on $1 a day
Current Money Spent: $49.15
Money Left to Spend: $50.85 ($5.83 must be spent at CVS, $1.50 must be spent at Safeway)
Retail Value of Everything Purchased: $1370.97
The Beginning ::: Day 75: Can I Take Condiments From Restaurants?
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Something I noticed tonight at the local Safeway is that they’re phasing out the Go2Cola, so have it for 39 cents a bottle, plus CRV. I don’t know if this applies to other Safeways or not, or if there are coupons, but I thought it might be worth mentioning, in case you need something inexpensive for overage.
Just to forestall any recipe disasters, what you have there is actually a “head” or possibly a “bulb” of garlic. It will break up into smaller pieces, those are the “cloves”. Using a whole head where a clove is called for would rather drastically change any recipe 🙂
Along the same lines, a ‘stalk’ of celery is one of the individual pieces the head breaks down into. And in case it comes up a ‘stalk’ of celery is the same as a ‘rib’ of celery.
Great price on celery and bell peppers even without your coupon skills!
Yogurt is easy, but I don’t know how well it will work starting with Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt has been strained and is much thicker than normal (and it’s delicious!) Someone with more yogurt making experience can correct me if I’m wrong!
@ The Saved Quarter
You can make any yoghurt thicker, by lining a colander with cheesecloth, putting the yoghurt in it, and letting some of the whey drain out. It’s just a matter of how thick you like your yoghurt.
You can also let most of the whey drain, and have a ‘yoghurt cheese’ (still soft and spreadable, of course), which is quite good, especially if you mix it with a little honey.
Another little $$ saving tip… I always set my printer to use a minimal amount of ink and print only using black ink when printing coupons. In the 6+ months I’ve been doing this, I haven’t ever had a store reject a coupon for not scanning properly. Great blog, I’ve been reading since the beginning!