By Jeffrey Strain
I'm terrible with coupons, but this week I managed to get get $45.48 worth of food for $3.50 — if you have a Safeway (or Safeway affiliated) grocery store near you, I will show you exactly how to do it.
This week (good until 01/26/10) Safeway is offering Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-Ups for $1.00 each if you use your Safeway club card and you buy 4 of them.
You can print two “Save $1.00 when you buy TWO BOXES any flavor Betty Crocker Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups” You should be able to print two from your computer although it only let me print one from my second computer. You need two of these coupons.
Go into Safeway and buy 4 boxes of the whatever fruit boxes most appeal to you with your card and the two coupons:
They will ring up your purchase and it will come to $2.00 for a savings of 83%:
It gets better. With your receipt you will also get a register receipt $2.50 coupon off your next purchase. Walk out to your car and put the Fruit Snacks in the back seat and then grab the following coupons that you have also printed out:
Save $1.00 when you buy One box of Honeynut Cheerios. You should be able to print this coupon 2 times on your computer and since I have two computers, I had 4 coupons.
If you use Internet Explorer — Save $1.00 when you buy One box of Quaker Instant Oatmeal or Oats
If you use FireFox — Save $1.00 when you buy One box of Quaker Instant Oatmeal or Oats. You should be able to print out 2 coupons on each computer (for some reason, I could only print out one coupon on one of my computers, so I only had three — I was lucky and found a $1 off one box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch which is also part of the buy 4 deal).
Walk back into the store and you'll end up with this:
Since all these items are on sale for $1.50 each when you buy 4, and you have $1 off each coupon, that reduces the price for the 8 items to $0.50 each, or $4.00. In addition, you use that $2.50 off your next purchase coupon that you just got for buying the Fruit Snacks making your total bill for the 8 items $1.50 — a 96% savings:
What you end up with is $45.48 worth of food for $3.50 out of pocket and a 92% savings:
Seriously folks, if I can do this, anyone can. This deal is available until Tuesday 1/26 at Safeway so you still have time to get it. Use the food to fill your pantry and give a box or two of cereal to your local food bank. I guarantee you'll walk out of the store with a smile on your face on the deal you got.
Posted from Penny Experiment
Rebate Fanatic. Saving you money every time you shop online! Sign Up and Start Saving Today
This sounds really great on the surface, however, I have a complaint. I do save quite a bit with coupons and stocking up when the price on something is lower that normal. However, I only do it with things I normally buy. The foods you talk about buying, fruit roll ups and Honey Nuts Cheerios, are terrible, overprocessed foods loaded with sugar and a lot of preservatives. You call this saving money? What about your health?
Is this the healthiest food out there? No. Is it the worst food out there? Most definitely not.
My take on this is that you can go into a store and buy a package of Cheerios or Oatmeal for $3.50 at regular retail price, or you can get a package plus all the rest, keep one for yourself and donate the rest to your local food bank. I think the local food bank would much rather have the food than nothig at all because it isn’t “healthy.”
So what if it’s cheap and the food bank might like to have it. Even if it isn’t the worst food, I wouldn’t eat it. Why not eat actual fresh fruit which contains nutrients? Fruit roll ups have sugar and probably no nutritional value at all. Whether the food bank would like to have it is no concern of mine. If I wouldn’t eat it myself, I am certainly not going to buy it for someone else to eat. Anything else is against my personal ethics.
We just happen to disagree. You may not care that the food bank would want this, but I do. That is just a difference between us.
I try to help people when ever and where ever I can. If there is a need for it and it can help some people (I can get it to them for little cost) then I’m willing to do that.
I thought I’d share that with others that might like to help as well. If you don’t, then there is no reason for you to do it.
Crazyliblady it is your business whether you want to buy processed food or not. No need to complain about an article that just states how to SAVE money on your grocery bill. Worry about your health & stay out of what we eat & how we save money. It is OUR business whether to take advantage of a deal like this or not.
Thank you so much for this! While some people will not want these items, I do! And I love that we will be able to stock-pile these items for a rainy day. Thanks so much for your advice.
I must be a terrible mother for pumping my kids full of this “terrible, overprocessed food”. My first thought was, we buy these items often! My kids love Cheerios, and they take a fruit roll up as a “dessert” in their lunches. This is really interesting to me, as I’m making more of a focus on saving money while grocery shopping.