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How does he get a $4 reward buck? The fusion proglide doesn't come with ECB's unless you buy cartridges also.

I so suck at this.

Just the razor on its own gives a $4 reward (not ECB, that's CVS ) the week of 2/6. If you buy a razor and cartridges THIS week and next, you get another $2 reward on top of the $4 reward for the razor on its own.
So, week of 1/30 and 2/6, get $4 reward when you buy Fusion, get an additional $2 reward when you buy Fusion + cartridges.


EDIT: by the by, Starving, your Venus razors will be on sale at Walgreens the week of 2/6 - Venus ProSkin $7.99 with a $4 RR. Venus Embrace $9.99 with a $4 RR.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VZS0....

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You can also do multiple checkouts. For example, instead of purchasing all the toothpaste into one transaction, you buy the one for $2.50 and then use the $2.50 rewards for the next purchase.

Not at Walgreens you can't. Rite Aid, yes, and CVS you can if the limit is more than one, but at Walgreens you can't use the $2.50 reward to pay for another toothpaste. You won't get a second $2.50 reward.
Matt did his toothpaste buying exactly right.

Well dang, I was thinking CVS not Walgreens! Thanks for the heads up on the Venus razors Chellie!

ok, now we're talking. I love the bags of starbucks coffee and have some most mornings. I saw Walgreens has them on sale this sunday for $6.50. (Retail is $9) I went to southernsavers.com and they have a printable coupon for $1.50 off any size bag of starbucks coffee.

That takes it down to $5 a bag. Savings of $4 (45%) off retail. I'm loading the **** up this weekend. I can use that $7.50 in rewards I have too while I'm at it.

I got a copy of the Procter & Gamble Saver thing last week too and it had $2 off a cartridge of proglide razors.

If I were to just buy 3 bags of coffee and 1 pack of cartridges, i'll save $9.50. Not huge, but I can start to see how this snowballs over the course of the year.

edit- that $9.50 is just from coupons/rewards. Total savings over retail would be $14 bucks. ($12 bucks off from 3 bags of coffee, $2 from the blades). Plus whatever other item i need i'll use those register rewards.

Chellie-

do you do anything special with the amount of money you save? Perhaps cut a check and deposit into some kind of savings?

The biggest issue I see with this is that you have to keep discipline. You're not improving your financial situation if you turn around and blow the coupons on spur of the moment **** or stuff you don't really need.

Matt -

It goes in the savings account. It's not penny for penny, because I wouldn't "spend" $200 a week on shampoo or Advil at retail price, but I do keep a spreadsheet that tracks retail price less sale & coupon less rebate less rewards earned to determine exactly how much free **** I get each week. We have a set amount that goes into our "emergency" savings each pay period, and we move additional funds there as we don't spend them. (hope that makes sense!) Also, any rebate checks are deposited into savings.
We keep the unspent money in the (local) bank for emergencies. For example, a few weeks ago we got a snowstorm and the roads were bad. My fella swerved to avoid a car that lost control and he clipped the curb; the curb clip screwed up the rack & pinion and the car needed $500 in repairs. We had the cash in the bank to pay for it rather than pulling out a credit card.

You do have to have some discipline, yes. I'm pretty....Nazi...about our shopping, and it gets frustrating for my fella sometimes. If we don't have a coupon, I don't buy it (exceptions: meat, milk, produce). Simple as that. I've got us such an extensive pantry of food and household needs that we can be WAY more disciplined than most folks. It's hard for some people to maintain that discipline, my guy included, so periodically he says "**** it" and buys an expensive block of cheese or whatever at full price. And that's okay, because in January we only spent $89 in real cash money on all our grocery & drug store shopping, so we can loosen up sometimes.

Another aspect of discipline is, as you said, not buying stuff you don't need just because it's cheap. If Metamucil is $.50 after coupon & sale, I wouldn't buy it because I don't need it. If it's free, I would consider buying it for the cost of tax because my grandparents could always use an extra bottle for their medicine cabinet. If it's free food, I don't care what it is - I'll take it because there's no tax on food in my state and if we don't eat it the food pantry would love it. I pass up a lot of free stuff because it's a taxable item that I don't use.

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If I were to just buy 3 bags of coffee and 1 pack of cartridges, i'll save $9.50. Not huge, but I can start to see how this snowballs over the course of the year.

You now understand the "secret" of this hardcore couponing. The savings aren't always huge on a per-item or per-trip basis, but they snowball. That $9.50 you're saving on some coffee of your preferred brand and some razor cartridges of your preferred brand is $9.50 more in your budget for chicken breasts - AND how much future cash are you saving by not having to buy the coffee at full price later? The way coffee prices are going up, that may well wind up being a larger savings in the long run.
As you get the feel for how to play the drugstore game, you'll find your savings increasing a tremendous amount.

If you have a Rite Aid nearby, Matt, keep an eye on their sale ads as well. Their rewards program is much easier to use and their sales are usually better overall than Walgreens.


As an aside, a good friend of mine, while impressed at my couponing, didn't feel that it could help him much. He's a single guy, tends to eat more like Matt does, and wasn't really of the belief that coupons were right for him. He & his co-workers came up with a pretty ingenious plan to save some money by pooling their resources to use coupons. I posted about it on my blog here:
http://angrycheapskate.blogspot.com/2011....
It might be a worthwhile read for those of you who don't need 38 tubes of toothpaste.

Chellie, thanks for all the info. I found eaby listings for multiple sets of the sunday coupons. I picked up 30 sets of the red plum inserts for $13. I was after the $1.00 off coupon for Quaker cereal. I've got about 15 boxes in the garage that will last till october, and was able to get them for $1.00 each from VONS with the coupons. If I end up with all 30, I'll have saved over $50 just on cereal and I'm set for 4 to 6 months.

If anyone wants the leftovers from those inserts just let me know.

Sierraboy, before you get rid of the rest of those coupons - if you've got a lady in your life, clip all the L'Oreal makeup ones ($2 off any one, $5 off any two cosmetics) and hit Rite Aid & Walgreens. They're resetting to the new "season" of cosmetic products and many stores have a lot of it on clearance. I used those to get a lot of free lip gloss!

The $2 off Wisk should also get you cheap laundry detergent somewhere like Target or Walmart. Get the smaller size bottles.

Good job on the Quaker! Mmmm now I want some oatmeal.... gonna have to make some in the morning.

I loaded up on Quaker Oats (2 lb 10 oz canister) for $1.25 each, flour (4 lb bag) for $1.75 and Bisquick (48 oz) for $3.00 (got freebie eggs with it). Ground up a lot of the oats and used it, along with the Bisquick or Flour, to make bread and waffles. Have several unbaked, but shaped, loaves and a couple of bags of homemade waffles.

The rest, of course, keeps well in airtight containers.

I'll have to try eBay for coupons. Getting tired of paying $2 for a paper and putting 95% immediately in the recycling bin.

So I was in Publix last night and happen to walk by the personal hygiene aisle. I saw the toothpaste that I bought a couple weeks ago has a normal price of $1.99 at Publix. This made me go back and assess this “great deal” that I got from Wal-Greens.

The Wal-Greens ad stated the regular price was $4.99, but was on sale for $3.49 with a $2.50 Register Reward. They put a box that says “like paying $.99 cents”. Very, very misleading and incorrect.

I read up about these Register Rewards and it’s really like a combination manufacturer/store coupon. The $2.50 is being paid by Colgate (in this instance) and it’s only good at Wal-Greens. If you think about it, the real “savings” is only $1, and you only get to realize that savings *if* you purchase another item at Wal-Greens.

I ask myself, “what does Wal-Greens and Colgate gain by this?”

They’re selling $1.99 toothpaste for $3.49. That’s a $1.50 SURPLUS. In turn, they are issuing a $2.50 credit. You can see where this is now going:

If you don’t use the Register Reward credit, they just banked 75% additional revenue/profit for nothing. If you do use it, they really only sold the product at a 50% discount. Now it’s a balancing act and my guess is that the bean counters at these manufacturers have determined that more people don’t use them vs. people who do.

Now, even if you do use it, you have to make sure you use it correctly in order to come out ahead or you risk still ending up paying more.

In a scenario where I buy the toothpaste and decide to use the reward to just go buy another one:
Purchase the 1st one for $3.49, get a $2.50 reward, and purchase the 2nd one for $.99. That’s a total of 2 for a cost of $4.48. If the normal grocery price is $1.99 each, that’s only $3.98 so I still spent $.48 more than I needed to.

Definitely, definitely, definitely, have to research and calculate to see if you come out ahead. In my case I still came out ok since I used $1 off colgate coupons and saved some money, but looking back the savings was not as “huge” as I thought.

that said, i used my $7.50 worth of RR's and 2 coupons from the procter & gamble flyer that was in the paper 1st of the month.

$2 off proglide blades
B1G1 Free deodorant.

Wal-Greens had a sale of 32oz powerades for $1. (at the facility I play tennis at they charge $1.50 for a 20oz, so it’s a real deal).

So I bought my stinkin blades , 2 deodorants, and 3 powerades for a grand total of $11 bucks. Normal price for all the items would have been $33.50.

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In a scenario where I buy the toothpaste and decide to use the reward to just go buy another one:
Purchase the 1st one for $3.49, get a $2.50 reward, and purchase the 2nd one for $.99. That’s a total of 2 for a cost of $4.48. If the normal grocery price is $1.99 each, that’s only $3.98 so I still spent $.48 more than I needed to.

The real money-saving trick is to roll the rewards into new rewards (while using those coupons!). Warning: Walgreens has the most complicated rules for doing this of any store I know... if you use your colgate reward to pay for another Colgate-Palmolive product that is supposed to generate rewards, the new reward probably won't spit out of the machine. Say that Crest (P&G) has the exact same deal going the same week, and you have a handful of $1 coupons for each brand. Unfortunately at Walgreens you also need one item for every manufacturer coupon used... that means rewards too...!

Hypothetical example:
Transaction 1: colgate for $3.50 - $1 coupon, get $2.50 reward.
Trans. 2: crest for $3.50 and a $0.10 pencil or other really cheap filler (2nd item allows you to use another manufacturer coupon). Use $2.50 colgate reward and $1 coupon.
Trans. 3: colgate and a pencil. Use crest reward and $1 coupon.
Repeat 2 + 3 until you get sick of it/store runs out of stock/you run out of $1 coupons.

So you paid $2.50 + tax in transaction 1, and for every following transaction in the above pattern you pay 0.10 + tax, AND at the end you still walk out with $2.50 register rewards.

Other stores will allow a catalina/reward to roll right into an identical one and don't require "filler items" to use coupons, which makes this much easier. Some grocery chains will accept other stores' rewards so long as they are manufacturer's coupons - you could call and ask the ones in your area.

Well, here's my review of the couponing game, for any n00bs that are reading this thread.

Where I started: Married couple, no kids. I had never shopped at a "regular" grocery store before signing up for thegrocerygame - we did most of our shopping at Costco and Trader Joes and the farmer's market for produce. The only grocery store list available in my area is Safeway, plus Rite Aid, Walgreens and CVS lists. We're in the San Francisco area, so no double couponing.

Prior to switching to coupon shopping, we'd spend about 50 bucks per week at Trader Joe's, plus 75 bucks or so every 2-3 weeks at Costco on laundry detergent, soda, etcetera.) So, rough estimate of 350 dollars / month, depending on what we were buying at Costco. We didn't buy many prepared foods since I like to cook from scratch.

Couponing, first off, takes time. You go through what's on sale at thegrocerygame site, pick what you want to buy, then print your lists and gather your coupons. Took me a couple of hours to get everything together to go shopping. The more I did it, the faster I got, but it feels like a huge time sink at first. It is fun and addicting to get the freebies though.

Spending-wise, we didn't really spend less money, but my tiny pantry is now over-stuffed. Playing the grocery game, I averaged 55% savings at the grocery store, so I would get $130 "worth" of stuff for $60. I generally spent 20 - 30 dollars weekly at the drugstores. Rite Aid had the best deals in my area. Lots of free or nearly free stuff. Before couponing, we would buy stuff as needed, so we never had extras on hand. Playing the grocery game disciplined me to shop by price and to stockpile items on good sales. I now have a box of shampoo, a box of body soap, probably a year's supply of razors and toilet paper. I would never buy these items at Costco or anywhere else except on sale with coupons.

Food shopping is another story. It was an interesting experiment, but the quality of the food at Safeway was just terrible. Most of the coupon deals you'll find are for processed foods. You have to be really picky if you're going to shop at a major store for national brands - most of that food is loaded with salt, corn syrup, and preservatives. The quality is just not there. We get higher quality food at a better price by avoiding the packaged stuff, buying staples like rice, butter, olive oil, raw meats at Costco.

So, at the conclusion, we unsubscribed from the grocery game. Still are shopping at Rite Aid with coupons for personal care items. Going back to Costco to load up on staples and concentrating on longer-term food storage of grains and legumes. For produce, high quality organics and supporting local producers is our priority, so we've subscribed to a CSA.

It's useful to know all of the "tricks" of the coupon queens, and I'm glad I tried it.

thanks for you feedback Plaztiq
kindof what I figured— I too mainly cook from scratch and I Love Costco meat.

plus, I pay $100 for Costco card and get 145$ back at the end of the year PLUS I use my AMEX Blue card that gives me back cash for purchases so I save there.

I do gather coupons I get in the mail and free paper once a week and use them all when I make a monthly trip to WalMart

I notice that some checkers at Walmart are too in a rush/incompetent to correctly decipher some of the coupons so where the coupon said two-2 lbs Timilmoulk Cheese for 5.89
they just took 5.89 off my bill

Mid month update:

In my first 3 weeks of doing this, I've saved a total of $85.57.

Being new to this and an unmarried male with no kids, my purchases have been really simple. I'm a bit brand loyal and use the same products, so my purchases have been stuff that I generally consume only: toothpaste, deodorant, shaving supplies, paper goods, multivitamins, brown rice, cheese, powerade, etc.

I know there's crazy savings potential when you start diving into medications and stuff, but i'm not there yet.

There was an AWESOME sale this past week that unfortunately everyone knew about. Publix was selling $50 AMEX giftcards for $40. I was only able to get one. I tried to go back the next day and they were all gone. I went to 4 different Publixes in the area and all were toast. My goal was to go in the middle of the day while busy and just keep buying one at a different register.

Matt, the one time I bought an AMEX gift card it had a "activation charge" like $4.95 or something like that. Did you check to be sure that one didn't?

yeah, it had an activation charge, but the net cost of the card was like 43.

$43 for $50 worth of purchasing power. That's still a 14% gain on your money.

Anyone with a baby/small child, or who knows someone with a baby/small child - head to Rite Aid on Sunday.

Johnson & Johnson baby lotion, wash, shampoo, etc; Desitin diaper cream; and 500ct J&J cotton swabs are $2.99ea and you get a $2 reward back per item.
You can print two of each of these coupons per computer for $1 off various items included in the sale:
Wash, shampoo, Desitin: http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?bt=v....
Desitin: http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?bt=v....
Shampoo: http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm....
Wash: http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm....
Lotion: http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm....

Buy a few products (say 3) with $1 off coupons, pay $5.97 cash, get $6 in rewards back, use the $6 rewards to buy three more J&J products with coupons (add a piece of candy or something small to cover the excess), get more rewards back, repeat.

Free baby cleaning stuff. What my sister doesn't need I'll be taking to a battered women's shelter.

"baby cleaning stuff" :-)
is that like "floor cleaning stuff" and "window cleaning stuff"?

soap.com

today only 50% off all Gillette products.

they also have e-coupons.

I just bought a new fusion power razor, 6 replacement cartridges, and 4 deodorants for $23.05 to my door.

I'm full up on razors dammit!

:)

Chellie, is the Rite Aid dael Sunday only? Didn't see it in the weekly flier.

I think you get the early ad in SoCal, Sierraboy so it would be 2/18-2/24. Look on the last page of the ad, bottom right corner.

hey all... my 2¢... The same page in the Rite-Aid circular has Osteo Bi-Flex at buy one get one free PLUS if you buy 2 you get $2.00 in UP rewards. Not sure if it is this week's or last week's paper coupon inserts - there is a $5.00 off coupon. Rite Aid lets you use one per item so... Regular price of $39.98 ($19.99 each)translates to: $7.99!

$39.98
-$19.99 (the get one free savings)
-$10.00 (use of 2 $5.00 off coupons)
- $2.00 (UP Rewards)
---------------------
$7.99!

For the month of Feb:

Paid $190 on $358 worth of stuff retail value. Savings of $168, or 47%.


I've got a clear plastic bin of personal hygeine products, and a freezer full of bags of broccolli as my main savers for the month. Normally $2.50, publix had a sale for $1 a bag.

I've set out a goal to save a thousand bucks for the year.

No coupons, but local discount store had $0.19/can tomato and chicken noodle soup as well as $0.09/can tuna.

DEFINITELY worthwhile to keep an eye out for deals without coupons too. :)