My Albertsons Breakdown & Strategies

Since I was asked to talk more about my couponing deal I talked about here, here we go!

I'm not really a heavy coupon user. (Well, compared to some) I buy one paper a week unless there's a killer coupon in the paper, and even then I'd rather just buy a stack of that coupon from one of the coupon clipping services or eBay then. I also get the All You mag every month, and I get the back issues of Sunset magazine via the used library for sale section. Sunset usually has some really great coupons that end up matching up well with Albertsons sale ads. If I had to buy the magazine full price it probably wouldn't be worth it, but getting it for 25 cents at the library sure does!

I also rely on printable coupons via being on many different brand's email lists. I try to post as many of them as I can on here to share with everyone. (Some are linked to me only so I can't)

I clip all my coupons as I get them, even if I probably won't use them. First of all, you never know when you might find a really awesome deal that is worthy of donating even if you can't use it. And second, I like being the coupon fairy and handing them to people if I see it in their cart. I do this a lot with pull ups coupons since we're not using them.

When the sales ad arrives, I always try to sit down right away with my coupons to do a match up. I sale stock pile, so some weeks it looks like I have a lot of weird stuff to make dinner with - but what I buy each week isn't necessarily my groceries for that week. In reality, if the sales are lousy on a certain week, or I don't feel up to dragging us shopping, usually all I have to do is pop in to get some fresh fruits and veggies. I rely on my stockpile to keep our grocery bill down.

Here's a coupon of my older coupon posts from last summer:

Your Sunday Paper: Is It Worth It?

Buying Organic And Natural Goods On An Nearly Empty Wallet

Dealing With Multiple Coupons

So here's the breakdown of the original deal I did (this is still good through Tuesday if you have the same coupons. All are either from the Sunday paper, printed online, or Sunset magazine)

Right now Albertsons has a deal where if you spend $10 on certain items, you'll automatically get $3 off your order at the end. They also had three double coupon coupons in their ad, as well as this week's Sunday paper. You can use 3 of the double coupon doublers per transaction. Since we don't have double coupons out here, this is the best we get! (The price in parenthesis is the sale price) The free Nature's Source coupon came from a Bzz Agent.

DiGiornio Flatbread ($2.50) minus $1.00 off MC, minus $1.00 doubler
California Pizza Kitchen Flatbread ($2.50) minus $1.00 off MC minus $1.00 doubler
Oscar Meyer Weiners ($2.00) minus $1.00 off MC minus $1.00 doubler
Kraft Cheese ($2.00) minus $1.00 off MC
Kraft BBQ ($1.00) minus $1.00 off printable MC (free!)
Kraft BBQ ($1.00) minus $0.75 off MC
tray of chicken $2.51
Nature's Source cleaning ($2.99) had a free coupon - checkout took the whole coupon limit amount off ($4.19 off)
Total $16.50 (plus tax on the Nature's Source) minus $3 off Kraft promo minus $12.94 in coupons = my $0.11 tab.