Buy Ten Get $5

What a savings bonanza. I had originally hoped to get some more of that bagged salad. I found another $1 coupon but of course because I arrived so late I didn’t find any marked down salad. Too bad.

I did find an unexpected treat. Cheese pizza, Kroger brand marked down to $3.99. This is half price and the pizza is much bigger than DiGiornos. We immediately grabbed the only two they had. Darryl was so excited you would have thought he found Big Foot. “Let’s get them both Cathy. This is such a great deal. Do you see more? You need to look for these each week.”

Here’s what I did save money buying. I bought some more Alpo canned food even though we didn’t need to buy that anymore. It’s normally sold for 61 cents but I had a coupon for $1 off five. This brought the price down to 41 cents a piece. I also had two coupons for free Mighty Dog canned dog food. These coupons were great finds because it was not one of the buy one get one variety but a straight free can of dog food. My dogs love canned dog food so for them it’s a real treat.

I was on a quest to save money on cereal. General Mills cereal like Cheerios and Cinnamon Crunch were on sale for $2 a box. That would be good except if you bought ten of them you received $5 off at the register. My cereal which was normally $3.79 a box was now down to $1.50 a box. I also found two coupons for $1 off three boxes of Cheerios or Cinnamon Crunch. I paid only $1.17 for each box of cereal (31% of the original price). Remember I had to buy 10 things in order to get the $5 off at the end.

With six boxes of cereal and their corresponding coupons used up, I had to four of something else in that discount grouping. Thank goodness for Orville Redenbacher. The microwave popcorn was on sale for $2.00 a box. I also had four coupons one for each box. Each coupon was for 40 cents off. Kroger doubles coupons 50 cents and under so let’s do the math. The microwave popcorn was originally $3.19 a box. It was on sale for $2 saving me $1.19. I can take an additional 80 cents off my price (40 cent coupon doubled) bringing the price down to $1.20. Finally if you remember I am saving 50 cents for each product in that group when buying ten items. This means I can take 50 more cents off, bringing the final price down to 70 cents a box. I paid only 22% of the original price for popcorn.

Be aware that when you take your husband or little ones with you the danger is they will always ask you for things not on your list. I’m not good at always taking a stand on that. My husband held up a package of Oreos and asked if he could have some. “Darryl I don’t have any coupons for that. How about I get you some the next time I have a coupon?” He began to put them back. “I just haven’t had one in years.” He looks at me. I say nothing. He picks up a Kroger brand pack of cookies and asks if he can have the store brand cookies. I see that the price is $1.79 and I want to say no but I look at his face and I can’t. I want to say Gosh Darryl, you’ve got all these treats at home let’s finish those before we buy more. What I wind up saying is “Sure get a pack.”

The next set of buy ten and get $5 is a bit more diverse. First I bought some Zatteran’s rice. They usually sell for $1.95 a box but they were now going for $1.50. I had a 20 cents coupon for that which doubles to 40 cents. This brought the price to $1.10. Factor in the 50 cents a box discount and now I’m paying 60 cents a box. This is a little less than one third of the price.

Two products down and eight to go. Duncan Hines frosting was part of that sale and I had two coupons for 40 cents off when you buy frosting and cake mix. Since this coupon doubled to 80 cents I looked upon my savings liberally. In other words, the cake itself was on sale for $1.00 instead of $1.29. I looked at it as taking 40 cents off the cake mix bringing the mix down to 60 cents. The other 40 cents I looked as a discount on my frosting. Duncan Hines frosting is normally $1.79 and it was on sale for $1.50. Now we take off the 40 cents bringing it down to $1.10. Remember At the end I get 50 cents off that so the frosting was 60 cents also. Darryl still wasn’t giving up on his Oreos even in the face of homemade cake.

The thing I was most excited about was oatmeal. Some people hate oatmeal but I love it. I love Quaker Oats and I’ve been waiting for it to go on sale. Normally $2.59 it was on sale for $1.50. For me that was great. I wasn’t finished yet though because I had a 50 cents off coupon. This brought my price down to $1 and then of course I get an additional 50 cents off with the deal and wow I’m down to 50 cents. It’s too bad that I only one coupon. Since it doubled I was able to get two of my favorite breakfasts for 50 cents a piece. It was such a great deal I even bought one knowing I paid $1 for the extra one. When you think about it even having paid for all three instead of just two, I still saved 74% on the purchase.

Hunts tomatoes were my final purchase in that group. Normally they go for $1.75 but they were on sale for $1.50. I had two 40 cents off coupons each one was doubled. My price went from $1.50 to 70 cents with the coupons and then to 20 cents after the 50 cents per item. Since I’m currently creating two tomato based recipes these will come in very handy.

Darryl needed bread for sandwiches so we checked out the day old bread table. Immediately his eyes fell upon day old cinnamon doughnut holes. “They’re half price he said as he scooped two boxes up. I can bring them into work. I haven’t brought anything to work in awhile.” What can I say to that? From the sounds of things I have him under this super oppressive regime where he gets little in the way of treats. He placed the donuts in the cart. Again I wanted to say something but was it really going to kill us to get two boxes of day old donuts especially when he wants to share them with his coworkers? Is it worth the happiness factor? I acquiesce.

Now comes the purchase that might not make as much sense, butter. Land of Lakes Butter. I love to make over the holidays and I use butter when I’m baking. A long time ago I would bake cookies with margarine and the cookies would virtually melt. No crisp yummy looking cookie. Just a melty looking round thing that was usually extra crispy on the outside.

I didn’t know that margarine wouldn’t work like butter. Once I learned I decided only to buy butter or only certain margarines that I have found work well like I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. Land of Lakes is normally $3.99. Wow! It was on sale for $2.50. I had coupons for 55 cents off some of the butter bringing it down to $1.95. Since the coupon was over 50 cents you couldn’t double it I was thankful for the extra 50 cents off for buying ten. These boxes only cost me $1.45. The better deal was the ones I had 75 cents off coupons for. I had three of these for the spreadable Land of Lakes Butter. Instead of being $1.95 they were $1.75. Take off the extra 50 cents and Those cost me $1.25. Thank goodness butter freezes because not all margarines do.

Darryl reminded me that he needed vitamins. We wound up finding some Nature Made Vitamins which were on sale bogo. Darryl was able to get two bottles containing 300 vitamins each. He was very happy and that should last him awhile.

How much did I spend? Out of pocket $86.90. Before we rang up Darryl looked at our full cart and said, is this going to be under $100? Remember we need to be under $100. I assured him that was no problem. As a matter of fact when the register showed $115.95 Darryl’s face blanched a bit. Then I handed him the coupons. Off came $29.05 in coupons. I saved about 25% on my order. If, however, you had the amount before any of the Kroger plus savings and brought that back to $170.18 my savings would be about 49%.