June Totals!

We will be going out of town this week, so I am done shopping for June. Here are my totals:
Total Spent: $360.43
Total Saved: $341.86
Percent Saved: 49%

Total saved through FuelPerks program: $8.46

This Week's Numbers

I went to Rainbow again this week on Wednesday. I did well, saving 57%. I spent a total of $63.44 and saved a total of $86.69. That means that I brought home $150.13 worth of groceries for $63.44.

In the Rainbow ad from this week you may have noticed the back page featured many "Yesterday's Prices" coupons. I got 2 papers last week and was able to use many of those coupons twice. I have a large bag of items for the food shelf sitting at my back door to take with me to church on Sunday. I got 6 free tubes of toothpaste this week along with 3 4/packs of yogurt. I got 2 coupons for a free gallon of milk also. There are great deals out there weekly!

Remember to check you receipts when you get home. I checked mine and noticed that there were 2 coupons that did not get doubled. I went back to Rainbow and they kindly refunded me another $3.00. It all adds up!

Why Get The Sunday Paper?

It seems that every few weeks I read about a major newspaper going out of business. It's a sad sign of the times. It doesn't seem like that many years ago that we relied on this as a major source of news & information. Well, I hope the Star Tribune stays in circulation for a long, long time since it is a great source for coupons. Did you know that 82% of the billions of coupons in circulation come from the newspaper? That's a lot of opportunities for saving! I receive the Star Tribune Wed. - Sun. each week. Why only these days? Because it's cheaper for me to get the paper delivered for 5 days weekly than it is to get it delivered for just Sunday! It's hard to believe, but true. The Sunday paper sells for approx. $2.00 at the newstand and slightly less than that delivered. I'd suggest that you give the Star Tribune a call at 612-673-4000 and inquire about a subscription. Don't agree to the first quote that you receive! Tell them that you want a better price or a promotional price. They will come down and sweeten the deal for you if you ask! Try the paper for a month or so and see how you like it. It's easy to use their website http://www.startribune.com/ to suspend your service when you are out of town. They also offer the opportinity to donate your paper to schools, etc on days when you are out of town. Now, for those of you who really struggle with bringing volumes of paper into your home, I suggest that you take some of your initial savings and plant a tree in honor of the ones that were sacrificed in order to print your paper! That way it's all good!!

TIP OF THE WEEK

The tip for this week is to bring your own reusable grocery bags to the store with you. When the bagger (if there is one) asks you whether you prefer paper or plastic, simply tell them that you have your own bags. I always tell them to pack them heavy because most of the time they don't utilize most of the space in these bags. You'll be surprised how much weight these bags can take!

Where To Get Your Coupons

I get asked this question often. I get my coupons from several different places. My single best source is the Sunday edition of the Mpls. Star Tribune. I know, pretty old fashioned, huh? Most people don't get the paper any more, but guess what? This is the best place to get the bulk of your coupons.
Another source of coupons is junk mail. Watch for a small supplement in Wednesday's junk mail. Typically there are a couple of coupons for Rainbow that are good starting the next day (Thursday).
Online coupons are great! My experience is that these coupons, printed on your home printer, are accepted just like a coupon clipped from the newspaper. You can print computer generated coupons in color or black/white. Either way, they are accepted locally.
Buying coupons is another good option for getting the ones that you really want and use on a regular basis. Do a Google search for the various sites that are available. NOTE: IT IS ILLEGAL TO SELL COUPONS. WHEN YOU PURCHASE COUPONS FROM SOMEONE YOU ARE PAYING THEM FOR THEIR TIME.
Another source to look for are the coupon dispensers in the store. These are stocked periodically and placed at various places around the store. You'll find them mostly at eye-level. You can easily stand at the end of the aisle and look down the aisle to see if there are any dispensers. These are also found in the frozen food aisle secured to the outside of the glass doors.

• Magazines are also a great place to find good coupons! The best magazine that I have come across is "all you". It's published by the same folks that publish PEOPLE, but this is a much more down-to-earth version! This month's edition has over $69 in coupons for things like health & beauty products, paper products, beverages, vitamins, and a wide assortment of food items. I often find several BOGO coupons as well as $1 coupons in this magazine. Another feature is that this magazine offers a lot of user-friendly tips on all sorts of Mommy things (buying groceries, cleaning house, staying organized, buying clothes just to name a few). They offer realistic suggestions and show real people in their ads and stories. I highly recommend this magazine if you're looking for something that is useful and has great offers! http://www.allyou.com/

Buy One Get One Free Coupons BOGO

BOGO coupons are a great find! Here's how they work. Cub Foods and Rainbow Foods handle these coupons the same way. Get two of the coupon products. When the cashier rings up the groceries both items will ring up at full price. Give the cashier your coupons after the items are totaled. BOGO coupons are scanned just like other coupons. You should see the deduction posted at the bottom of your receipt. When I get a BOGO Coupon, I hold on to it for a few weeks to see if the item will go on sale. Watch the expiriation dates so that you don't lose out on chance to use it. You will notice on these coupons that there is always a box where the price of the item needs to be entered. Cashiers LOVE it when you fill this in for them! It keeps them from having to scroll back through your order to find the price of the item. You are saving the person behind you a few more minutes of waiting when you do this too:)

Today's Numbers

I shopped today at Rainbow Foods. I spent $99.84 and saved $95.36. That means that I brought home $200 worth of groceries for $100. That's a 50% savings! I can teach you how to do this too!

TIP OF THE WEEK

When you are working with your coupons you may notice that many of them say DO NOT DOUBLE OR TRIPLE. Disregard this when you are planning your shopping list. I have never had anyone tell me I cannot double one of these. Don't pay any attention to this warning. Use these coupons as you would any others.

Double Coupons

You may be aware that some grocery stores will double coupons. Some stores double on a certain day each week, some will have certain weeks during the year where they double for a whole week and some stores double every day. Here locally, Rainbow Foods doubles coupons on Wednesdays. Their policy is that you can double 5 coupons up to $1.00 with a $25 grocery order. When you check out at Rainbow you need to hand your coupons to the cashier in the order you want them redeemed. That means that you want your biggest coupons on top to be sure they get doubled. The cashiers will not typically organize the coupons for you so that you get the maximum savings.
Doubled coupons are processed the same way as other coupons. However, the manufacturer only reimburses the grocery store for the face value of the coupon plus the 8-16 cents mentioned in the previous posting. Who pays for the other half of the savings you received by using this coupon? The grocery store itself eats the loss on the doubled portion of the coupon. I guess they are hoping that you will do enough impulse buying during your trip to cover this loss.

How Coupons Work

I find that the more I talk to people about grocery shopping, the more I realize many people don't understand how coupons work. Here are the details about coupons. There are 3 types of coupons: Manufacturer's Coupons, Store Coupons and Catalina Coupons.

• Manufacturer's Coupons are the most common type of coupon. These are the ones that come in the local papers. At the top of the coupon it will say Manufacturer's Coupon or MFR Coupon just to the left of the expiration date. This is the manufacturer's way of advertising a product in the hopes that you will purchase it. These coupons can be used at almost any store that carries the product BUT you can only use one MFR Coupon per item. This is a universal policy.
• Store Coupons come directly from the store. These coupons are found on the store website and/or in the store circular typically found in the Sunday paper. At the top of the coupon it will generally say the name of the store (i.e. Cub Foods Coupon). These coupons can only be used at the store they come from.
• Catalina Coupons are the coupons that are generated at the check out. These coupons are generally for something that you have just purchased. Read these carefully because some of them are MFR Coupons and some are Store Coupons. These can have a shorter life-span than other coupons, so check the expiration dates carefully. Occasionally you might get lucky and receive a really great Catalina Coupon (i.e. $5.00 off any meat purchase).

When you check out at the grocery store you give your coupons to the cashier. Once they are scanned and you receive your discounts, the coupons go into a drawer. At the end of the day the coupons are totaled and included in the drawer total when the drawer is reconciled. Once a week the grocery store gathers all of the coupons and sends them off to a clearing house where they are sorted and totaled. The grocery store then receives payment from the various manufacturers for the face amount of the coupons PLUS an additional 8-15 cents per coupon. YES, the grocery store does make a profit off of the coupons used in their store. Don't ever feel guilty for using a lot of coupons! Many grocery chains will receive a million or more coupons each week.

Roundy's FuelPerks Program Is A Winner!

I started using the new Roundy's FuelPerks program at the end of May, and I have to say that I think it is the best promotion we've had like this in this area in a long time. You sign up at the check out. They enter you electronically and give you a credit card type card and one to put on your keychain. If you want 2 cards, one for your spouse, then be sure you specify this when you sign up.

Each time you check out give the card to clerk. For every $50 you spend, you get 10 cents off your next 20 gallons of gas at participating BP stations. The beauty of this card is that it keeps track of all of you spending and continually earn credits towards more savings at the pump. For example, today my husband went to pick up just a couple of things for our backyard bonfire and the bottom or the receipt says that we have a total of 30 cents in FuelPerks, meaning that we can go to BP today and save 30 cents a gallon on 20 gallons of gas and we have $29.72 towards our next reward. You don't have to start over at zero each time you go shopping!

Be sure to check the bottom of your receipts for your current status with this program. There is a mention of expiriation, but so far I haven't had anything come up in this area. I imagine that you can accumulate for a certain period of time and then you lose the savings. This makes sense to me because this needs to be a win win for both Rainbow Foods and BP.

To use the savings at BP, simply follow the prompts on the screen at the pump. One word of caution: You must have the larger rewards card with you to use the savings! You cannot just have the little card attached to your keychain. You need to actually swipe the rewards card like a credit card during the transaction to redeem your rewards.

You might be wondering how this promotion compares with the one that Cub Foods has been doing for the past year with Holiday Stations. Well, the Roundy's FuelPerks is a much better program! Here's why:

• With Roundy's you continually earn rewards even when you don't spend $50. The card keeps track of your spending and you add to your previous total the next time you shop.


• At Rainbow Foods you have to spend $50 to get 10 cents off of 20 gallons of gas. At Cub Foods you have to spend $100 to get 10 cents off of 12 gallons of gas. **Cub Foods does occasionally alter the conditions of this program so watch your weekly Sunday circular for the latest details on this promotion**


• With Roundy's you only hang on to the rewards card, no coupons. With Cub Foods you have to hang on to the coupons to redeem the savings.


• With Roundy's you can take care of the entire transaction at the pump. This is great when filling up with kids in the car! With Cub Foods you have to pay inside to redeem your coupons. Makes it trickier with kids!

These are just some of the benefits that I find in using the Roundy's FuelPerks program over the Cub Foods program. I am sure there are others that have I have overlooked. If I think of other details that you should be aware of, I'll let you know.

Here We Go!

I am so excited to finally be taking my journey of saving at the grocery store one step further! For the past year I have been making a consistent effort to be a wise consumer when it comes to purchasing food. I have learned a lot and saved a ton! It was been really exciting to get to the point where I save approx. 50% on my weekly grocery bill.

As the months have passed by I find myself telling more and more people about how I do this. I have been able to teach my sisters, my mom and many friends a new way to look at their trips to the grocery store. It is so empowering to save big and be able to have more variety in my home while having several items each week to give to our local food shelf through our church donation program. It feels great to be a good steward of the grocery dollars! It has made a huge difference in our family budget for which I am grateful.

My dream now is to share this knowledge with more and more people. I would love to speak to groups that are interested in knowing what I know about shopping for food. I am interested in speaking with church groups, moms groups, corporate groups, etc. I am working on a website that will be a place for people to go for more information. This is so exciting! I am a teacher to my very core I have realized as I have gotten older. No matter where I end up, I find myself in the teacher role wanting to share what I know with those around me. I am hoping that this new venture will bode well for me. We'll see!