Total Value: $433.78
Preferred Card Savings: $197.37
Manufactour Coupons: $150.50
Total Savings: 347.88
Total Out of Pocket: $85.90
Savings Percentage: 80%
Extras:
$10 off my next purchase
$.45 off 20 gallons of gas
The General Mills representative gave me the fun massive cereal box and bee (my girls LOVE them!)
Albertsons often has great promos. This one was AMAZING. Get $10 off your next purchase when you buy 10 participating General Mills items. The paper says you are limited to just 1 $10 "catalina" (coupon that prints when you check out) but I've done this several times and it always seems to print how many you've earned that trip. (so if you have 20 participating items it WILL print 2 $10 vouchers) To get the most out of these deals does take a little advanced couponing. So take a deep breath and let me tell you how I bought $433.78 for only $85.90. (that's 80% savings and I'll tell you at the end how I could have made it 82%!!!)
Step 1) Go to Grocery Smarts and start an Albertson's shopping list
Step 2) Look through all the deals and select the ones that you would like to purchase that you know you have coupons for
tip: I like to check and see if the printables are available as I go through the list because sometimes they have already reached their print limit or I have already used them for the month. Step 3) Print your shopping list and all printable coupons that apply to your list
Step 4) Clip your insert coupons
tip: If you know there are several coupons you will be clipping in one particular insert I like to clip them all from that insert at once and make piles as I go. For example this shopping trip I had several coupons to clip from each of my General Mills inserts I recieved on 2/8 so I clipped everything I needed instead of going back and forth.Step 5) Figure out how many of each item you have coupons for and write that on the side of your shopping list. (ex. I have 5 $1/2 coupons for "item x" so I can buy 10 total)
Step 6) Group your shopping list into groups of 10 to take full advantage of the promo and on the back of your list make a check out transaction list.
tip: I like to have a couple items that I am flexable about how many I am purchasing to help make perfect groups of 10. For this particular trip I had several extra go-gurt coupons and the corn did not have a coupon so I used those as my "fillers" to make sure I always had groups of 10.Step 7) Group your coupons into your separate transactions
tip: When I am going to have several transactions I like to put my coupons into separate envelopes and write the # of the transaction on it. (Ex. I bought 10 progresso soups as my 5'th transaction so I put all my soup coupons in an envelope and wrote #5 on the front)Step 8) Go to the store and shop, shop, shop
tip: to avoid frustration on your part and other shoppers and cashiers I recommend trying to go without children and during a time of day when the store is not busy (early morning to early afternoon and late at night) If you do have to take children like I DO be patient and prepared with extra treats to help keep them entertained. I let my 4 year old help push my extra cart and they each had lollipops to eat while I shopped. Also Albertsons offers free cookies to their little guests so you can use that as incentive too!Step 9) Check out.
Tips: This is the part that can become a little scary for me especially when I have my kids with me. I'm always afraid I'll miss something so here is how I do it:*I try to pick a cashier who has one or two people in line. This gives me a little extra time to load up my separate transactions before I need to interact with the cashier.*Using my pre-made check list I load my first transaction and put my coupon envelope and Albertsons preferred card on top. Why? because chances are that the cashier is still going to be ready to check you out of your first transaction before you are done unloading your cart(s). If you have your card and coupons out and on the order it buys you a little more time to keep loading the belt : )*Put the dividers in between your transactions.*Your $10 catalina will print as soon as your first transaction is complete. Put the receipt aside and for transaction 2 hand the cashier your preferred card, coupon envelope #2 and $10 catalina.*Repeat the process until you have completed your sale. I try to have my last transaction be anything that is not part of the promo so I can walk out of the store with no vouchers.***Final Tip*** if your final transaction falls just short of being able to use your voucher throw something in from the candy isle that is cheap. I didn't catch this on time on my last transaction for this trip. I had $19.40 after my manufacture coupons and $20 in catalinas. If I had just thrown on a couple candies I would have walked out paying nothing or a few cents and my overall savings would have 82% and total out of pocket only $75. Oh well, $10 extra dollars at Albertsons isn't a bad thing : )
