Giving on a tight budget

For my very first entry, I thought I would combine two of my passions - saving money and helping others. I noticed the other day, in front of the Safeway, paper bags to fill with groceries for the Valley United Churches. I usually try to do this and since I've been getting into couponing lately, I thought I'd see how well I could do at getting this bag filled with as little money as possible. Ok, maybe that's not the main idea of the bags, but I figure this allows more people to give, if it doesn't cost so much.

So, I checked out the list on the bag:

1 canned ham or other canned meat
2 cans of fruit
2 cans of veggies
1 box of pasta or rice
2 cans of soup
1 dessert
1 box of cereal
1 sparkling cider
1 macaroni and cheese
1 peanut butter and one jelly
1 tuna
1 jello or pudding
1 toothpaste and 1 toothbrush

Well, right away I remembered that I saw an ad somewhere for a canned ham for $1.77 so I knew I was on the right track!

So, I scoured the new ads from the local stores - Safeway (SW), Nob Hill (NH), Walgreens (Wags), and CVS as well as all the coupons I've gotten recently. By the way, I don't normally shop at the SV Market at the other end of SV Dr. I've just never been impressed with their variety and prices.

Now, the secret that I've learned recently from my good friend Mary in Florida is that you have to "stack" coupons with the sales. Meaning you find coupons that match sale items - and you can use store coupons and manufacturer's coupons - and you can also combine these with what they call "catalina" coupons, which are those ones that spit out at the register after you've paid. I'll go into more on this on a later blog.

Here are the sales I found in the circulars that match the items I need:

Canned ham - 1.77 CVS
Martinellis - 1.88 CVS
canned fruit - 1.00 SW
Del Monte canned veggies - .49 SW - with coupon from circular
box of pasta - .88 CVS
Campbell's soup - .88 CVS
brownie mix - (dessert) .69 SW
Kellogg's cereal - 2.00 CVS
peanut butter - 2.00 SW
jelly - 2.49 NH
tuna - .88 CVS
toothpaste/toothbrush .99 each CVS

You can see these circulars at their websites:

Safeway
Nob Hill
Walgreens
CVS

Note - the NH deal isn't good until tomorrow, the 31st.

Ok, now it's time to find some coupons!

I thought that the 2.00 cereal deal at CVS was ok and I knew I had a coupon for $1.50 off of two boxes of Kellogg's mini wheats but once you buy 2 and take off the coupon, you're still spending more. So, I checked the NH circular more closely and found that they have General Mills Cereal on sale for 2.49. And, I looked more closely at all my coupon sites and found a coupon for .75 off of Chex cereal that I at GrocerySmarts in the singles section. This took me to either Betty Crocker, Pillsbury or the school boxtops site to get it. That makes it $1.74! That's a lot better.

Walgreens has a coupon for .69 tuna in its circular this week. That's better than the .88 at CVS so I'm going for that one.

There's an online coupon for Betty Crocker Warm Delights at Coupons.com for .50 off of 1. CVS has these on sale for 1.00 each which I originally passed up for the .88 brownie mix. That would make my dessert only .50. Of course, you have to balance this with how many brownies you can get from one brownie mix. I may get the .88 mix anyway just so I'm not short-changing the family because I'm so cheap!

I found a coupon for $1.00/2 Campbell's soups at GrocerySmarts in the singles section. This took me to the Campbell's website. Stack this with the sale at CVS and I'm only going to pay .76 for both cans!

So, I'm going to go shopping after work and will update this blog tonight with what actually happens.

This may seem like a lot of work to save a few pennies - and yes, it is time-consuming. But, I have found it really fun to find all these deals so it's been well worth it. Also, because we have 4 stores within a block of each other, going to each one for a few things isn't as cumbersome as if they were spread apart. I still think I spend less time than going to Costco and I can make small runs after work on my way home if there's a really good deal I want to take advantage of.

And of course, YOU don't have to do all that work. From now on, you can subscribe to my blog and I can do the work for you! I will go through the ads, check out the coupons and catalina coupons and let you know all the best deals in town!

I would bookmark the coupon and grocery store sites though to make it easier if you want to start doing your own searching.

Check back this evening!