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That ain’t workin’! That’s the way you do it!
As I’ve mentioned before, Olay often provides mail-in rebates when you buy a certain amount of their products (usually totaling $50). And as I’ve also mentioned before, Mr. Jones and I tend to use our credit card rewards points for Amazon gift certificates, which are then used to purchase (among other things) fancy-pants moisturizer for me.
On Monday, these things came together for us in a magical, magical way, when Olay sent us a check for $20 in return for buying $50 worth of Olay products with free money on Amazon. In other words, Olay paid us $20 to buy their stuff. Custom kitchen deliv-er-ies!
“That’s good,” the lady at the checkout said to me when she saw my haul. “You are eating healthy!” I was absurdly proud.
OK, yeah, there are some instant mashed potatoes there. But look at all that veggie goodness!
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HT was having neither Triples nor Super Doubles this week, and yet I managed to score mightily. Not that I’m proud, or anything. Observe:
After the jump, the details.
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First things first: Mr. Jones got a job! WOO HOO! I cannot tell you how excited we are. He starts Feb. 8, and I would be lying if I said we weren’t indulging in a little debauchery: We ordered Papa John’s the night we found out, and then last night we went out to eat — granted, to Fuddrucker’s, but still.
With that in mind, we went to Target in a joyous mood. And everything went our way. Observe:
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I’m putting this one up a little late, but I’m pretty proud of it. CVS has some great deals, but they only come around once in a blue moon. This was a blue moon!
Trip One: Six cases of Pepsi products for $20. Using a coupon for $4 off a $20 purchase made it six cases for $16. With tax, it was $16.40, and I got $10 back in Extra Care Bucks.
Trip Two: One 20-pack of Charmin. Regular price $15.99, sale $12.99. Using the $10 Extra Bucks from the first trip, plus $2 more in Extra Bucks I had as a reward for my fall spending, it was 99 cents out of pocket. $1.04 with tax, and I got $4 back in Extra Bucks for this one.
Trip Three: One six-pack of Bounty paper towels. Regular price $10.99 (really?!), sale $6.88, minus the $4 in Extra Bucks from the second trip = $2.88, or $3.22 with tax.
All told, I got $56.92 worth of stuff (the Pepsi is $4.99 at regular price) for $20.66, or 64 percent savings. And we’re good on Pepsi for a good long while. Hooray!
On Sunday, I made a big batch of food to take to work for the coming weeks. Specifically, I made 12 Sausage Egg Biscuits for breakfast purposes, and 10 burritos for lunch purposes. The breakdown:
Biscuits: Bisquick and milk, approximately 50 cents; sausage, $3; 10 eggs, about $1. Total, $4.50, or 38 cents per biscuit.
Burritos: Tortillas, free; black beans, $2 (but I didn’t use all of them, so say $1.50); rice, 50 cents (again, didn’t use it all; say 25 cents); spices, negligible; cheese, $1.67. Total: $5.42, or 54 cents per burrito. Add in the two jars of salsa and one container of sour cream I will need to make these truly shine, and you get $10.42, or $1.04 each. Not bad for a tasty lunch.
Our Target recently became a SuperTarget, and I have been shopping there for groceries a time or two. My theory was that they have generally cheaper base prices on most things, but that their sales aren’t as good, since their loss leaders tend to be non-grocery items. Also, they don’t double (or triple, or Super Double) coupons, which is where a lot of the really good deals are to be found. But if you don’t have time to clip coupons or comparison-shop, or there just aren’t any good sales or coupons at the grocery stores, I thought Target was generally going to be your cheapest option.
But I wasn’t sure. So I thought I would get started making a price book. Basically, a price book is a list of the regular price of various items at various stores. You can get more complex than that, but in essence it’s a tool for knowing whether you’re getting a good deal or not — the price book allows you to see what the average price of the item would be, so you know if they’ve marked it up before discounting it, whether it’s cheaper somewhere else even if it’s not on sale, etc.
I wrote down everything we needed that week grocery-wise (and everything I had multiple coupons for) and noted its price at Harris Teeter using their Express Lane feature. Then I went to Target and compared. The results:
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We were out of town from Wednesday, directly after my last Super Doubles trip, until today, and the first thing I did was head for Harris Teeter.
OK, that’s a lie. The first thing I did was take a long, long shower (what is it about a road trip that makes you feel so grimy?) and start some laundry. Then I clipped today’s coupons. Then I went to Harris Teeter.
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What I learned today: If you save enough at Harris Teeter (I think more than $100), they have to get a manager to come over and approve it. Super Doubles, I missed you. I missed you, I missed you, I missed you!
Here’s how I did.
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I’ve got a friend who wants to get started couponing, so on Saturday we went to Harris Teeter together. She lives in the city and doesn’t have a car, so she usually walks to the Safeway; I drove, so we had our choice of supermarket. We picked HT.
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