My Publix Trip - Free Groceries w Gas Card Deal

 

I'm still not in the writing groove and don't really feel the inspiration to write some thoughtful blog posts. We've had a busy holiday week with several parties and events, and now it's time to figure out what we spent in 2013 and how the budgets all worked out. We had a pretty good year couponing, but not nearly as good as the past couple years - we've spent the same OOP but yielded less savings and product purchased. But its comforting to know coupons still save us money and the time and effort is worth investing in.

 

Anyway, onto my shop. We paid $48 for a $50 gas card and got all our groceries for free essentially (savings over $90). If you don't go shopping soon, you're going to find empty shelves for the Angel Soft TP, the Velveeta cheese,  Fresh Express Ceasar Kits and the Beneful dog treats. The shelves at one store were all empty of these items, and we just turned around and left. The Beneful dog treats are a money maker (-1.71 per pair) and the cheese is free with the family celebrations coupon (www.getthesavings.com/publixfamily ), and the Fresh Express lettuce is free with coupons (http://www.tonytantillo.com/newsletters/). It was also the last day to use the Hallmark bogo PQ's to give some overage on the Valentines .99 cards.

 

 

My Publix Trip - Paid $1.57

 

If you've been following for a few weeks you know I've been in Minnesota being caregiver for a family member. Well, I'm proud to say the patient is on track to being healthy and well by following doctors orders and medications, getting some daily exercise (a walk), eating right (no sweets or caffeine at night), and getting regular sleep with no naps.

But, I'm most glad to be back and able to finally use some of the new coupons from Publix. I had DH print off some of the Family Celebrations coupons and continue getting the All the Trimmings and Winter Savings Booklets from the store each trip. I also have some of the Beneful dog treats rainchecks that will expire in the middle of December that I'm anxious to use. There are new printables for the Baked Delight snacks and the Happy Smile snacks to stack with the PQ BOGO so the overage is great.

Anyway, after going to three different stores I finally found some dog treats at one. The shelves are cleared of these treats, so if you need to get some don't wait til the last day of your raincheck. I'm thinking I'll have to get my rainchecks extended if the product continues to be out of stock all week. Here's my shop, where I also got a $50 Visa gift card and my cashier let me just use two of the Winn Dixie coupons rather than making me split my order into two transactions. There was quite a bit of overage from the dog treats too covering the beer and paper plates we got. So essentially, we paid $1.57 for our groceries, and saved $84.49.

 

Men Can Coupon Too

I'm still up North being caregiver for a family member. The weather up here in MN is brutal, can't say I'd recommend it. I'm trying to be tough and have managed an hour of outdoor walking everyday for my exercise. I miss riding my bicycle and my hot tub, even though I hear the weather is warm and dry in Florida.

 

I've been shopping up here and I have to tell you people in Florida, we are very lucky with Publix and the generous coupon policy allowing a manufacturer coupon on the free item of a BOGO, plus the use of competitor coupons, and no minimum amount required to use coupons. I did a big shop at Rainbow here in MN and they have double coupons of up to 5 coupons if you spend at least $25, and you can stack with their store coupon and use expired coupons up to 30 days. I had a handful of coupons and it still didn't do much to help savings. We spent $118, and saved $60 (40 was store sales, 20 in coupons) for a 33% savings. With low savings like that it is going to be hard or impossible to convince my family up here to coupon.

 

Oh well, Publix is still great. Even DH can save money. He has done four shops with my input over Skype, and saved $342, spent $25.62 for a 93% savings this week.



 

 

 Saved $176.07, Spent $17.00 

 

 Saved $63.12, Spent $1.37

 

 Saved $53.58, Spent $6.55

 

Saved $49.99, spent $0.70

(There is a great deal on Duracell batteries this week using the Publix $1.50/1 coupon in the All the trimmings booklet + $3/2 MQ from 11-24RP. )

 

 



My Moneymaker Publix Trip - They Paid Me and I Saved $130!

Finally a nice Publix trip that turned out better than I expected. I thought for sure all the Beneful treats would be gone but there were 5 of each left and I have to admit I took 4 of each. I was planning on holding out for the Beneful coupon that will be in the 11/17 SS insert, but I'm glad I didn't because the Tampa inserts that came in the free Spanish newspaper this morning had a $2 off dog food coupon instead of the BOGO dog treat coupon I was expecting to get. This would have made a good moneymaker deal into a great moneymaker deal with both a MQ BOGO and a PQ BOGO coupon on top of a BOGO sale. Whew, that's a lot of sales to stack and figure.

I happened to ask at Customer Service if they had the new All the Trimmings booklets and they had hundreds of them behind the counter. They don't plan to put them out, everyone must ask and they are giving out 4 per person at this store. Another note about this trip that makes it great is this store takes MQ's up to 30 days expired. This made a deal on the McCormick spices with the new PQ in the All the Trimmings book, black pepper was even a moneymaker. It also made the Oberto Beef Jerky free with the BOGO MQ printable that expired for me in October. I always keep my coupons up to 30 days past expiration and check the coupon databases using the expired filter so I can take advantage of this.

I did split my order into two transactions to be able to use two of the $5 off $30 Winn Dixie coupons. I wish Publix would allow the use multiples in one order because splitting is a pain. But I just don't even try to calculate the separate orders now, I just cut it off at $30 and if there's overage they can pay me. Then I just use what I got paid to pay for the next transaction if I have to. Last night I got paid on both transactions so that was nice, $5 of it was just from splitting the orders and being able to use another WD coupon. For my combined shopping experience they paid me $8, and I saved $129.83 for a 107% savings rate.

Tomorrow, I'm having to travel to MN to be a caregiver for a family member for a month and I'll be trying to coordinate some semblance of couponing for DH while I'm gone. He always shops with me and should be able to do this fairly well, but he's of course nervous that he can't do it. If he does any good shops I'll post them. I also am taking this opportunity to train my family to coupon in MN. I started them a newspaper subscription and have started following Pocket Your Dollars for the matchups there. Hopefully, I can help them lower their shopping costs even though they have me as an extra mouth to feed and take care of. And of course they use a whole bunch of other products that I would not normally buy here, but I know they use regularly. Maybe I'll post a shopping trip from up there to show everyone in Florida how lucky we are with Publix and the great coupon policy they have.

My Publix Trip 11/07/13

 

This week's Publix trip was spendy, due to the case of beer DH wanted. I usually make him pay cash, but I burned through a gift card instead. I used my Fresh Express raincheck on the last day so I could use my expired Safeway coupons, plus we got all the other salad fixins. I also picked up 10 of the cookie mixes that are BOGO, I hope they are good.

Again, there was not enough product to do the Dove styler deal, so I've missed that this month. It seems like every Purple and Green flyer, there is never enough product to even get the deals. I think it might be time to call Corporate and ask them to give out rainchecks for the flyer deals with coupons when they are consistently out of stock for the entire ad period.

So this shop I spent $18.44 (on beer), and saved $64.57 (77% savings).

#BuschGardens November Passholder Freebie

This month of November, Busch Gardens Tampa is offering FREE COFFEE to season passholders available at any cafeterias, except Sultans Sweets. Just show your pass to the cashier to redeem this deal, one per day per passholder. 

Frugal Fire Building For Backyard Fires

As I'm catching up reading my RSS feeds on Netvibes, DH is out splitting some Oak for our fire wood pile. A cold front moved through yesterday bringing temps down near sixty, which is a nice temp for a fire. Having a fire pit, chiminea or fireplace is a great, frugal way to enjoy some time with friends, or enjoy time outside when its nice. Anyone can safely have a fire in your backyard if you follow some simple procedures.

1. Location
Select a place for your fire that is safely distant from overhanging trees, at least ten feet away from your home or any other building, and away from electric, cable or telephone lines overhead.

2. Prepare Your Site
If you are building a fire in a fire pit or chiminea, be sure the bed of the container is dry. If you have wet ashes on the bottom they will heat up and steam and make any fire smokey. If you have dry ashes, leave them in the bed to help your fire stabilize and burn more clean.

3. Gather Materials
We always build our fire in layers, and in a Teepee shape. Gather newspaper, dry leaves, dry tinder and sticks, small wood logs and then larger firewood. If you plan to have a fire for four or more hours, you'll need at least a dozen pieces of firewood. If you have fires regularly, you'll want to keep a container of dry leaves, a container of dry sticks, twigs and branches, and a container of small wood splits. Your firewood should be moved out of the elements several days prior to burning so you are sure it is completely dry.

4. Build Your Fire
We always build TeePee shape fires with plenty of air space between the layers and the wood. Air is important to help the flames reach higher for more wood to burn. It's a good way to use up those extra Sunday newspapers as a bed to start your fire, and then scavenge around the yard for some dry leaves, tinder sticks and small branches for a layer that will start easily beneath your larger logs.

5. Feed Your Fire
Your fire will burn best if you leave it alone. Light the paper on the bottom from a few different areas and let it reach up to burn the next layer above it. It will be smoky at first, but within 5 minutes or when the newspaper is burned up, you should have a smoke free fire if your materials were sufficiently dry. If your fire goes out right away, get something stiff like cardboard and "fan" the fire to get the embers to relight. If that doesn't work, get some more dry tinder and just put a couple on a time. Your teepee will collapse as it burns, so you can gently add another log to perpendicular to the layer of logs currently burning. Your criss cross pattern will help the air flow through the fire and keep it burning.

6. When Your Fire Is Over
When its about an hour before you want to end your fire, start winding down on the size of the wood you are adding. We usually wind down our fires by putting on only bark scraps (from splitting wood) on the fire. Bark will be smokey, but burns quickly and gives flames and heat. If you have a nice bed of embers you can easily burn bark. You may even want to strip your firewood  before you burn it so you can save the bark for the end of the fire. If you have a reliable fire pit, you do not need to douse your finished fire with water. Just let it burn out naturally. If you have a screen cover, you should cover it at the end of the evening.

7. Safety
Don't use any combustible fluids like lighter fluid or gasoline to fuel your fire, that is extremely dangerous. Don't play with the fire by poking sticks around too much or letting children play with the fire. Be aware of where your nearest water source is, and have a bucket or container located so you could stop any wayward flames. Do not leave your fire unattended or out of your sight.

@frugalapolis

My Publix Trip - Real Life Eating



Publix Shop Spent $12, Saved $92

I was disappointed to find there were no Dove Stylers because of the stacking MQ + PQ deal, but I'm not surprised. I don't really expect to find any throughout the sale which ends on the 8th of November. I did bring along my expired coupons because this store accepts manufacture coupons up to 30 days expired, so I was able to get a good deal on the Muller yogurt and the Yakisoba noodles. Most of the overage from the Winn Dixie coupon went toward Tostitos which we have been wanting for a while, and this is the first sale.

I split my orders to use an extra $5 off $30 Winn Dixie, but my second order was pretty big OOP. I really have been wanting some glass bowls with lids so I thought I'd get some of the snapware using my expired coupons. I think I'm going to be disappointed that the lids don't really click on very snug though, and may return them.

Got the picture set up late since we just ran quick to the store before going out for Halloween. There were a lot a things in this trip that we use regularly and just don't have great deals so it cost a little more. Anyway, this shop was kind of expensive for us, but we've had a few promotions lately and got Publix gift cards, so we used those. In trip one, I spent $1.84, saved 37.70 (96% savings), and trip 2 spent $10.22, saved $53.99 (84.85% savings).

I'm excited to say I also received my pink P&G pancake cookware set today! I also got my own google.com/+FrugalapolisFL URL, so follow me there!

 

@frugalapolis

Happy Halloween

Have fun this Halloween, but please be safe.

I just got my personalized link for http://google.com/+Frugalapolis so follow me there!

My Publix Trip - Saved Over 99%

The trip to Publix this week was to get some produce for salads, and to use a couple more Publix coupons that expire today - the vitamins, corn dogs and mentos deal. The store manager was nice enough to let me use more than one Corn Dog coupon per transaction because she thinks the coupons are getting too restrictive. What a pleasant surprise. I spent $0.38 and saved $51.07, for a savings of over 99%.