My children LOVE to watch the show about the people who come home with BASKETS full of groceries and leave only paying a few pennies on the dollar. So we decided that we were going to try it. Every Tuesday after dark we walk the neighborhood to see who did not take their free newspaper inside. We collect at least 10 papers for their coupons. I have also found a dollar store that sells the Sunday paper for 1/2 the newsstand price on Mondays so I pick up 10 of these too. We also have a few mailers that come each week with some fun savings inside.
On Wednesday evening we gather all the coupons, organize, and clip. Once the kids go to bed I sit with the newspaper price ads and decide what coupons I am going to use. It is hard in our area to get great savings because NONE of the stores in Las Vegas double coupons like they do on TV. I look for items that are already marked down with my store card and then add the coupon savings ontop of that price.
Today was going to be my first truly extreme trip. My goal to get at least a 50% discount on my entire order with using my store card and coupons. I would be going to both of the major stores next to my house to try and make this happen.
I went to the stores armed with over 180 coupons, and over 300 items on my list. I enlisted the help of Emily since she did not have school today. We set out for the first store, Emily had fun picking out the 15 bags of candy for our trick or treaters. She did tell me that I bought too much, and she would be happy to eat the extras. I think her jaw got bruised when it hit the floor when I told her we needed to get 27 boxes of cereal. Every isle we walked down we looked for deals that were not listed in the paper. Pushing 2 baskets through each store, and adding multiples of many items we had on our list, people looked at us just as they look at the shoppers on the show.
The true excitement started when I got to the register each time. For the first time in over 20 years of shopping, they called for a back up cashier when I came up to the register. I began carefully unloading my baskets, grouping all of the like items together so that the coupons would be easy to sort. Once the last item had been scanned, I handed the clerk my store card. My heart skipped a few beats as I watched the total go down penny by penny. Once the store discount was applied, I handed over my stack of coupons. At one of the stores, the line of people behind me were a bit annoyed as it was close to lunch time and they only had a few items. This annoyance went away when the cashier announced "you saved 51% on your total today" and she said it loud enough that all the people smiled and I even had a few congratulations.
So what did this haul consist of? I find it interesting in watching those shows where they have 3 buckets in their pantry full of razors, make up, or even different deodorants. My baskets were full of items that we already use and even lucky for me the brands we like. My loot included over 20 packages of diapers and wipes, 27 boxes of cereal, 50 cans of soup, and 15 tubes of tooth paste and many more items. In total I came home with over 180 items, and spent less than 50% of the retail price for all of the items :) :) So did my hard work "pay off" you might ask. I spent 3 hours preparing, 3 hours shopping, and saved over $500. This means that I got paid almost $84 per hour for shopping today. That is the highest paying job I have ever had!
