Do You Shop Walmart?

I love Walmart. I really do. But I hate that they don't double coupons. However, with their price matching policy [which I've never done] and low prices, sometimes it works out well with high value coupons. I will still shop my local Giant Eagle because they always double coupons but I just wait until the an item goes rock bottom before I purchase it with my coupon and usually end up with a better deal than at Walmart.

There are a few coupon blogs I read. When I am heading to Walmart, I will read I Heart The Mart website. Paul has a great handle on the entire Walmart experience. He points out items I would have never even checked. Paul has saved me money. Going to Walmart, check out his websit

To Buy or Not Buy at Sam's Club

We used to belong to Sam's Club years ago, but haven't renewed our membership for a while now. We just would use it for a purchase of outdoor furniture, a trampoline, a grill, video games, etc. we really didn't use it for food, although i would always pick up some food items while there. Before i began really, really couponing, I didn't realize shopping for non-perishable food at big box stores wasn't really a deal.  I can't tell you how many big boxes of cereal I purchased that I "thought" was a deal, only to see when my local Giant Eagle has a great sale on cereal, plus the coupons I have, it makes the cereal only $1.00 or $1.50 per box.

Here is a list of things NOT to buy from big box stores:

• Soda and Chips [wait for great sales at your local store]
• Produce [usually one thing will be priced great, the others are comparable to market]
• Candy and unhealthy snacks. I certainly don't want supersize of anything around the house.
• Mayo and other condiments, unless they are packaged in smaller bottles
• Spices [unless you use spices all the time, shelf life for spices is only 6-9 months]
• Toothbrushes and toothpaste. I cannot remember the last time I paid money for toothbrushes and toothpaste. I get them free, on sale, with coupons. I have a huge stockpile. 
• Razors and Shaving Cream. Again, another staple we could go for. A refill for men's razors was like $50 for 15 cartridges. I won't pay more than $2.00 for a new razor that already has two blades in it. My husband [and now son] have a couple razors in our stockpile with one blade attached, plus two more for later. And with coupons I practically get these for $2.00, along with additional cartridges. Shaving cream is usually get for $.50 per bottle. 
• Hair color. Personally my hair color runs $8.99 everywhere. I frequently get $4/2 coupons. When it goes on sale, I buy. This week, for instance, it was on sale 2/$12, which made my hair color, with coupon, $4 each. That's quite a savings, let alone the savings of me doing my own hair. If you're a brunette, go with Ash in the color name, ten it won't turn red on you. 

Giant Eagle bonus fuelperks Cereal Sale

Beginning tomorrow, July 1, Giant Eagle begins their 4th annual bonus fuel perks cereal sale. You should always take advantage of this sale. It's a good one. Especially during the summer when my kids seem to go through cereal like crazy.
Now this is good for two reasons. If you picked up any newspapers last weekend, there were some good coupons for Kelloggs [SS 7/8] and also I have some General Mills coupons from a while ago which expire on Saturday.
But even if you don't have any coupons, this is still a great sale because of the fuelperks you earn. The sale includes over 40 varieties, some are 4/$10 and some are 4/$12, but for every 4 cereals you buy, you'll earn $.20 in fuelperks. Now I just filled up my big Yukon yesterday and it was $91. So you betcha I'll be in Giant Eagle taking advantage of those fuelperks.

Market Tally & Why Shopping at Giant Eagle Rocks

I haven't posted a tally for quite a long time so here is the end of April's tally.
This is a running 12 month tally. So when I get to June, when I first began keeping track of tallies, I'll be able to better figure out my true yearly savings.

From Fuelperks:           $1743.87 [this is free fuel we have received]
From Foodperks:             388.44  [this is extra money off our total from buying fuel]
Weekly Specials:            2095.92  [these are in-store specials]
Coupon Savings:            1121.17  [that's free money people]

So I have saved, just in coupons, more than $1,100 for the last 12 months. Keep in mind, all I had to do was clip, organize and save.  I try to buy extras on weekly specials.  When we buy food at Giant Eagle, we earn $.10 for every $50 spent. If a trip costs us $150 then we just earned $.30 off each gallon of gas up to 30 gallons.  It is not hard for us to reach the cost of gas every 6 weeks. We will up one of our cars, take several gasoline containers and get our entire 30 gallons free. $1700 on fuel is quite a savings.

So then when you fill up, for every 10 gallons at Giant Eagle you earn 1% of foodperks. So for 30 gallons of gas, we earn 3% off of our grocery bill. We usually what until we reach 20% and then buy $300 worth of groceries and use our 20% off our food bill to get $60 off.  So this really adds up fast. My husband fills up every week and I usually am every week or week and a half, depending on where we have to drive for the weekend. We have to fill up at a GetGo which is Giant Eagle's gas station. Basically we got 6 free 30 gallon fill ups in the last 12 months.

Market Tally ~ Giant Eagle

September:

From fuelperks: $1328

From foodperks: 364

weekly specials: 1649

coupons 903

total 12 month savings:

$4,245.71

Check your Sunday papers

We get a paper delivered to our home on Sunday. I always wake up and check the coupons. I then determine whether I should go buy more papers at the market or just forget it. Some weeks there are no inserts, so I'm not doing this every weekend.

When you purchase papers at the market, check your inserts before you leave the store. Many times I have found our city newspaper purchased at the market does not contain everything. Or some inserts are duplicated, other are missing. I bought 5 more papers today because there were four inserts, at least that's what came to our home. At the store I went through at least 10 papers to find the ones which contained all inserts. I got lucky a couple times and some things were duplicated. On two papers, two inserts were missing. It will only take you one time of buying extra papers and getting home to realize that you didn't get everything you thought you were getting.

Why? Well, the newspapers are only given a certain amount of inserts each week. The subscriptions are the first ones to get all the inserts. And then the store copies get the remainder of the inserts. Once certain inserts are gone, they're gone. These are inserted by a machine so easily a mistake can be made.

So double check those papers from the market. You might even get lucky and find a couple newspapers with extra inserts like I did today.

Market Tally - Giant Eagle

12 month savings:

Weekly Specials $1580.67

Coupons 845.74

I have been saving approx. 40% on my food bills by using weekly specials combined with coupons. I hope to get that up to 50% - 60%.