The art of stacking ... a savings strategy, if you're careful.
I always go through my regular store's (Meijer) online coupons and "clip" anything that I
think I may
even remotely use. I pretty much clip everything except baby products and items specific to men. Before looking through their weekly ad online and starting a list of what prices look good, I'll skim through my clipped coupons as a refresher and add any new coupons that may have come in. If there's something on sale that has a good digital coupon, I'll make a note of any restrictions, and also if there are any "must buy" a minimum size or quantity. My regular store is having a "buy 5" pre-Memorial Day sale this week and there's a wide variety of items to select from on the "buy 5" and get a special sale price on each item. And many of those items have had a coupon offer over the last 2 weeks. For example, Sweet Baby Ray's (all varieties) is on sale for $0.99 this week on the "buy 5" offer, so is Helmans Mayo ($3.99), Kraft salad dressings ($2.99), and my favorite taco sauce.
- Sweet Baby Ray's reg. $2.59, on sale this week $1.99, buy 5 and get additional $1.00 off = $0.99 bottle. Although I have 1/2 bottle left in the refrig, this gives me a back-up for summer BBQ season.
- Helmans reg. $6.49, on sale for $5.49, buy 5 and get additional $2.00 off = $3.49 + $1 digital coupon = $2.49
- Kraft salad dressing reg $3.15, on sale for $2.99, buy 5 get additonal $1.00 off = $1.99 + $0.50 digital coupon = $1.49. Like Sweet Baby Ray's, I have a partial bottle in the refrig. But, I make a lot of Italian pasta salad for summer parties, and I now have a back-up bottle at an excellent price.
- Klondike bars, reg. $4.59 on sale for $3.49, plus $1 off on the "buy 5" sale, plus I had a digital coupon for $2.00 off when you buy 2 = $1.49 each, and 2 packages forthe price of 1. While I don't often eat ice cream, these are a favorite sweet treat that will last forever if I bury them in the back of the freezer.
Once I have my "buy 5" items selected, I'll double check to insure that I have items to fill the right quantities. For this store, you get the discount in multiples of 5, so if I only had 14 items, I'd be paying regular price on 4 of them. If things don't add up, I'll add another sale item to make 15, in order to get the best price. And sometimes, there are different categories on sale, i.e. Buy 5 get $5 off, or Buy 5 and get $1 off each, or 7 for $7, so you have to make sure your numbers fit all of those categories. I keep the items in the child's seat part of my cart until I have the right number of items, and then move them to the regular part of the cart. Yes, a lot more work, but every dollar counts these days.
This store also had ground beef on sale for the lowest I've seen in awhile (in family packs @ $2.99#), and a good price on chicken breasts and breakfast sausage. Got the smallest family pack of ground beef I could find (just shy of 3#) and portioned it into 1/2# packages, which works best for my amount of cooking. I also grabbed a 3-pack of chicken breasts, portioned into single serving packages, and an 8-pack of breakfast sasuage patties, packaged as singles. All were vacuum sealed and went into the freezer.
Saved over $15 on my groceries this morning, just by watching the discounts for purchaing in quantity and to shore up my pantry, and by stacking a log of those sale prices with coupons. On the way home, I realized that I forgot to buy lemons for iced tea, and stopped at my local smaller grocery (better quality produce, anyway). They were having an unadvertised sale on strawberries for $0.99/quart, so got 2 lemons @ $0.69 each and fresh strawberries for an excellent price.
I think I'm probably set for a couple of weeks.