Monday Shopping Trip: The Breakdown

Today's shopping trip included CVS and Walgreens. No Publix today (which NEVER happens!!) as I am going out of town for the rest of the week and I didn't want to buy real groceries when my husband is just going to eat trail mix and play video games while I am gone anyways :)

First stop: CVS

Now, I don't go to CVS to shop for my everyday essentials or when I am running low on things. I mainly go to get their weekly deals that I usually store in my food storage (which includes shampoo and things) for future use.

Using the CVS rewards program, to me, is the most simple out of all of the drugstores. CVS puts out an ad monthly and weekly listing what items will generate "Extra Care Bucks" (or ECB if you want to follow the lingo) when purchased. In order to get them, you have to make sure to scan an Extra Care Card that goes on your key ring and is connected to all of your ECB. It is free to sign up and is similar to grocery store reward cards that you scan. ECB print out on your receipt after you purchase one of the items. They come in separate coupons per deal, so if you purchased three different items and each generated ECB, you end up with three separate coupons at the end of your receipt. You can use as many coupons and ECB as you want when shopping at CVS, which you will discover is MUCH simpler compared to Walgreens.

Today's trip: (I had a few things on my list that I needed and wouldn't normally buy at CVS, but I had quite a few ECB that I didn't mind spending so I wouldn't use money from my weekly grocery budget.)

I bought:
-(1)Crest Spinbrush $8.99
-(1)Dove Chocolates $2.49
-(3) South Beach Protein Bars $10.00
-(1)Colgate Total $2.99
-(1) Ivory Soap 3pk $.99
-(1) Herbal Essences Mousse $2.88

Subtotal: $28.34 Yikes!!
Used Coupons:
-(3)$1 off South Beach Bars, $1 off Colgate, $1 off Ivory Soap 3pk
= $23.34 + $.83 tax (Used $21.95 in ECB + $2.23 cash)
Received:
$5 ECB South Beach Bars
$2 ECB Colgate
This is the perfect example of using previous sales to help you lower your bottom line. I really did need a new toothbrush and hair mousse and by using ECB, I didn't have to use my grocery money to purchase them. Also, I count ECB as coupons and not as cash mainly because it is easier for me to track my savings when I use them and not when I receive them. Just FYI if anyone cares.
Total left for the week: $47.77
Second stop: Walgreens

For me, Walgreens is a lot harder to navigate. There are a lot of rules attached to their coupons and keeping it all straight can be a hassle. They have the same basic principles as CVS, there are weekly and monthly circulars with different items providing money back in the form of "Register Rewards" which can then be used to at Walgreen's as a coupon. The trickiness comes in that while there are no limits to the number of deals you can do at Walgreen's, you can't use a coupon from a specific deal (like Colgate toothpaste) to buy more Colgate toothpaste. Keeping track of which coupon I can and can't use is a little too much for me, so I tend to just do each deal once unless it is something that I REALLY know I need to stock-up on.


Today's Trip:

I bought:

-1 Gallon of Milk $2.79
-(2) Boxes of Cereal $4.00
-(1) Cashews $1.99
-(2) Eggs $1.98
-(1)Hershey's Mint Truffles $1.75

Subtotal: $12.51

Coupons used:

-(2) $1 off GM cereals, B1G1 free eggs

= $9.52

Total left for week: $38.25

Hopefully this helps give a little overview of how a typical shopping trip works for me. I am excited to start planning more posts on ways I find to save throughout the week, so stay tuned!! (Also, a Publix post to come at the end of the week:)

The questions I get asked the most

I thought I would kick off this blog with some explanations to the questions/concerns I get the most from people when they find out about some of my best deals or how I save so much money:

1) It sounds good, but I just don't have the time.
Okay, I can completely understand this one. We are all super busy with day to day life, much less adding on more work to your daily errands. However, the most time consuming part of learning how to use coupons and sales to get your grocery bills down is in the beginning as you are learning how everything works. It is just like any other new skill you would like to acquire, it takes time in the beginning but once you get the hang of it you can choose just how much time you personally want to dedicate to maintaining it.

For example, I probably spend about 30 minutes a week getting my shopping list and coupons together right before I head to the grocery store. I usually end up saving about $35-50 on that weekly trip. For me, that time would be worth it regardless because I think it is fun to find the deals, but for someone else that might not be worth their time and effort after a long day of work or taking care of the kids. I suggest that it is at least worth a try, you can always decide that this coupon thing is for the birds :)

2) I don't know where to start!
I completely understand this feeling too! Just google search all of the coupon/personal finance blogs out there and you will get overwhelmed just reading the link summaries. The key to not getting overwhelmed/frustrated is to allow yourself to start small. This is an especially difficult task for me, I always want to go all out and be just as good as someone who has been doing it for a long time. Then I feel let down and crummy about myself when I fall short of my ridiculous expectations...not a good plan.

So, set small attainable goals for yourself. Evaluate your grocery shopping habits that you would like to change. (You know what I am talking about, there isn't a woman out there who hasn't said to her friend at one time or another "I need to really start _____ (looking at the circular, making a menu, clipping coupons, not going to the store hungry, sticking to a weekly budget, etc...) Now pick one!

For example, if you don't use coupons regularly, start by setting a goal for yourself that you are going to use 2 or 3 on your next shopping trip. It might not be a great amazing shopping trip where you spend 2 cents on a grocery cart full of food, but it is a step in the right direction! The key here is to get your feet wet, not to jump into the deep end.

3) But all of the coupons and sales are just for junk food!
I can agree with this on some level, a lot of the "best" deals can be for more unhealthy products that my family and I don't typically eat (i.e. toaster strudel, pop tarts, sugar cereals, ice cream, potato chips). You have to remember that no matter how cheap something is if you aren't going to eat it than you don't need to spend your hard earned money on it. $1 is better spent on a pound of bananas (which we go through in a few days at my house) than 10 packages of pop tarts that you got for 10 cents each.

That said, there are a lot of deals for healthy foods that are staples in my house. In the course of a month I am consistently able to find coupons and deals for yogurt, granola bars, soymilk, cheese, oatmeal, protein bars, vitamins, bread, nuts, frozen and canned vegetables.

4) Where do you find coupons?
This is probably the easiest question to answer. By far I get the majority of my coupons online and print them from home or work. I get the Sunday paper every week, but I hardly ever use those coupons. For one it is easier to get multiples of one coupon when you print them online and the value of online coupons are usually higher than the ones found in the paper. I use a few different go-to blogs that match up the sales and printable coupons for Publix (my main grocery store to shop at) and I am set for my weekly trip. Check out my side bar for the blogs whose match-ups I use the most. These bloggers take the time to go through the weekly circulars, pull out the best deals, and put a direct link to where to print coupons for those items all in one spot. They take a lot of the guess-work and time out of finding the best deals and they deserve all the credit and props for what they do!

5) What's the deal with buying things at drugstores? Aren't they way more expensive than wal-mart or the grocery stores?

Drugstores, mainly CVS and Walgreens, have become my main source of toiletries for our household. I don't think I have paid money out of our budget for shampoo, deodorant, or toothpaste since June 2008. The main reason is that these drugstores have their own reward programs that give you "money back" for buying certain products. When you pair that with your own coupons you can end up getting a lot of products for free or sometimes better.

For example, this week at CVS, Colgate Total Toothpaste is $2.99. When you buy 1, CVS will give you back $2 to spend on your next trip to CVS. BUT, Colgate's website has a $1 off coupon you can print from your computer. End result: spend $2 out of pocket for toothpaste and get $2 back.

6) What's the catch to all of this? If you are really saving all of this money, why isn't everyone doing it?
I really don't have an answer for this. I know that more and more people are becoming adept at using coupons, but why everyone isn't doing it is a mystery to me. Everyone wins in this situation. The manufacturers get to promote their new or existing products by putting out coupons that they hope will increase sales. The retailers (Publix, CVS, etc...) benefit from coupons by being reimbursed for the coupons they redeem and by getting people to come into their stores who hopefully buy more than one thing. And we, the consumers, get to save money on everyday expenses that can then be used to either buy more of what we need or be put to use in other areas of our lives. It is not a scam, or a way to cheat the system and I could probably write a whole other post about using coupons ethically and responsibly.

So there you have it. The answers to the most common questions I get asked. Stay tuned for tomorrow, I will take you through step by step of my weekly grocery store trip.