Nix9to5

Free, free, and free

// February 9th, 2010 // Budget, Couponing, Money Matters

I went to the grocery store today to get my free guacamole.  While I was there, I also picked up free oatmeal and a free Japanese noodle dinner to take to school for lunch.  Of course, I still had to pay tax on my groceries, so my total?  Twenty one cents.

Yeah, you heard me.

My favorite part is on the receipt where it says:  “Total Savings:  100%.”  Until today, my best has been 91%.  In fact, the time it told me I saved 50%, I practically felt like I got ripped off.

What’s that you say?  You don’t believe me?

SCORE!

How did I do this?  Well, I read a few blogs that give coupon matchups for local sales.  At this particular store, oatmeal was on sale for $2, guacamole was on sale 2/$4 (and until a month ago, I didn’t know that you don’t HAVE to buy 2 to get the price), and the noodles are 10/$10 (again–you only have to buy 1, so they are really $1).  I had a $1 off coupon for the oatmeal, $1 off of the guacamole, and .50 off the noodles.  This store doubles coupons, so that made all of them free.

Even though this is my biggest percent off total, I have had better bargains.  In fact, at this same store, I basically got paid $1 to take two tubes of toothpaste from them.

I’ll talk more about how to save on groceries and household items and explain how I cut our grocery budget in half (more than half!) later.  For now, I’ll point you to two of the blogs that have helped me out with coupon matchups:  Simple Saving Savvy and Coupon Princess.  There are lots of others, but since these two are local, they have really helped me out a lot.

What’s your biggest grocery success or best bargain?  Where do you look to find great offers?  I’d love for you to share your money saving tips with us.