Wednesday, April 13, 2011

SWEET SAVINGS – ZIPLOC BAGS

Although this coupon savvy mom is just starting out, I did gain quite the sense of accomplishment this past Saturday with a quick stop at my local Superstore. Thanks to Mrs. January (a new site I came across late last week) I printed off some manufacturers Ziploc coupons and hit my local Superstore. The coupon was a savings of $4 when you bought any two Ziploc products. Here’s my experience at the checkout:

8 boxes of Ziploc sandwich bags for $2.36 each = $18.88 (plus GST)
With my coupon I ended up paying $0.36 per box since it was $4 off when you bought two boxes.
Total paid = $2.88 (plus GST)
Total Savings before GST = $16

Thanks Mrs January!

EXPRESS YOUR LOVE

After you’ve collected coupons in the mail, online and through cutouts in your weekly sales flyer, your next step is to contact companies that make some of your favourite foods. Being a gluten intolerant, I find a lot of the coupons useable for my husbands groceries, but not for those labeled gluten free. The answer – I sent the supplier of my favourite bread a quick email expressing how I loved their product and simply asked for some coupons. Within days they sent me a handful of savings I could use on any one of their products in any of my local supermarkets.

Then I waited for my bread to be on sale (and it was within a number of days) and hit the store for my discounts. Here’s what I saved:

Gluten Free Bread on sale for $4.34 (regular $6.99)
Used a Buy One Get One Free Coupon and one $1 off coupon
Total = $7.68

My total savings was $13.29, since regular price would have been $20.97!

To sum it up – my tip to you today is to write your favourite food manufacturers and express your love for their product. Bottom line you’re not out anything in the end if they reject your request.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Flyer Find

After sending off for a handful of coupons and scouring my house for ones I already had kicking around, I knew I had to start looking for deals at my local supermarket to maximize my savings. There are two ways to do this: online or with flyers.

In the beginning I didn’t get flyers in my mailbox so I simply went online to flyerland.ca to check out local deals. Some prefer this method as it saves them from having to go through the sales flyers manually and doesn’t add to clutter around the house. I prefer the manual method however – I like having the deals in my hot little hands.

Since I don’t subscribe to our daily newspaper, I needed to find out how I would receive sales flyers at my doorstep. After a little searching I contacted a local company that delivers all the sales flyers on Tuesday and Thursdays for FREE. I was set, now all I had to do is combine my coupons with the sales!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

HOT FREEBIE OF THE DAY!

Milestones Free Date Night – April 27, 2011

Head to Milestones this April 27th anytime after 4pm and order an appetizer, entrée or both and your date will get theirs free of charge. Offer applies to groups in multiples of two, so grab your significant other, your best friend, a family member or co-worker and hit up Milestones that night!

Visit their website for more information.

Check Out These Canadian Coupon Sites!

The one thing I learned from The Krazy Coupon Lady is to sign up for as many coupon websites as you can. I started by signing up for three Canadian ones which included websaver.ca, save.ca and brandsaver.ca.

These websites offer manufacturers coupons that you select to be directly mailed to you. I sent off my request for over 50 coupons, totaling over $100 in savings. Most coupons range from 0.50 to $1, with some$3-5 savings when you buy more then one select product. This combined with a sale at your local store ends up adding to big savings at the checkout!

For example:

Crest Toothpaste on sale for 0.99 (with a 0.75 coupon) = 0.24 toothpaste
Cheerios (small box) on sale for 1.99 (with a $1 coupon) = 0.99 cereal
Tide (60 load box) on sale for $7.96 (with a $5 coupon when u buy 2) = $ 11.92 for 2
Degree (large size) on sale for $1.99 (regular 3.99) (with a 0.50 coupon) =1.49

According to each of the coupon sites, once you submit your coupon list, it takes approximately 2-3 business days to receive them. I recommend checking the sites every few days to see what new coupons they have or if you need more, simply click away.

NOTE: Each website has a minimum of days between clicking on an already issued coupon and the minimum coupons they will send at a time since postage is on their dime.

Start clipping Coupon Goddesses!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Hot Freebie of the Day!

Yoplait is giving 100,000 tubs away of their Asana yogurt! Simply visit their website or click here to get your coupon!

Let the Coupon Clipping Begin

After searching our house for long lost coupons I had laying around, I found a handful of savings for baby food as well as a few to my local Co-op store. I was about to test the coupon clipping waters for the first time in 28 years and see what sort of savings I could come home with. First place I hit was our local Superstore, here are the savings I found:

Goodstart Formula $25.44 (regular $28.99) with a $5 off manufacturer coupon
Danone Baby Rice Cereal 2/$6 (regular $3.99 each)
Nestle Baby Rice Cereal $2.77 each (regular $3+) with a 0.50 off manufacturer coupon
Gerber Baby Food 0.60 each (bought four) (regular 0.70 + each)

Now I know just looking you’re probably thinking that it doesn’t look like I saved a ton, but by not only buying products on sale combined with some coupons I doubled my savings! Think about it this way, normally a can of formula would run me $29, but I got the above list for only $31.11. That works out to a savings of over 12.43! Not bad for my first time out.

My next stop was my local Co-op store where I had a few store coupons, paired with a sale and some rev up rewards (money you get off groceries for gassing up at any Co-op gas station). Here are the savings I found:

Co-op Gold Potato Chips Free Large Bag Coupon (regular $1.66) = FREE
Co-op Gold Maple Cookies $2 off coupon (regular $3.49) = $1.49
Ocean’s Tuna 3/$2.97 sale
Rev up reward $0.57
Rev up reward $0.83
Rev up reward $1.80

This trip ended up leaving me with a savings of 84% and a very big sense of accomplishment. Even though I only bought five items here, regular price they would have cost me $8.12 and I spent a mere $1.26. That adds up to $6.86 in savings!! There’s nothing wrong with that!

Two shopping trips in and what can I say, I’m hooked .Let the coupon clipping begin!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

My Aha Moment!

I would never call myself a savvy shopper, in fact, even though I bought things on sale and would often buy generic to save a little cash at the register, I never really used savings tactics to the full potential. That was until I became what is now to be called a Coupon Clipping Goddess!

Like many others, I’m currently a stay at home mom trying to pay bills and make the all mighty dollar stretch as far as I can. And to do that I cut back on some bills, got companies to lower payments and so on. But it wasn’t until I learned about The Krazy Coupon Lady out of the U.S. that coupon clipping piqued my interest.

I just happened to have The Nate Burkes Show on in the family room while I was busy working on one of my websites and a story came on about a mother of four spending an outrageous amount every week at her local grocery store. Originally her bill came out to $414 at the till but with help from The Krazy Coupon Lady team, she got her bill down to an astonishing $37 for the same products plus some! This was my “aha” moment like Oprah likes to call it. How in the world can you save $377 on groceries? And to boot she got lots of them free or for mere pennies!

And from then on I was hooked!

I may be just starting out but already I can feel a sense of accomplishment on the handful of shopping trips I have set out on. I may not be at Krazy Coupon Lady level yet, but no doubt I will get there! And in the very least I have been saving upwards of 50% on my grocery store purchases.

Follow my blog and learn how to be a coupon clipping goddess yourself.