Shopping Savings, Week of March 30

Here's a summary of my shopping savings for this week:

Stores shopped: 5 (3 for household shopping, 2 for miscellaneous shopping)
Savings: $41.50 (21%)

First, I started at Target, where they were offering a $5 Gift Card with purchase for the I-Pod shuffle, on sale for $45. I have been wanting a shuffle for exercising, as I don't want to carry my heavier unit. I used the gift card to buy a copy of the on sale Slumdog Millionaire DVD for 10.99 (-$9)

I then went to Walmart, where I bought several copies of All You magazine, costing $2.24 each and filled with $51 worth of coupons, and pecans, (typically $7-8 a pound, even at Costco) for less than $5 after using my $1 coupon. (-$1)

Off to Costco. The trick to Costco is if you are going there for a few items, head straight for those items. Today I needed dog food. Costco dog food is very highly rated by Consumer Reports. It is more highly rated than brands such as Science Diet and Iams. My dog is allergic to soy, and soy fillers are in almost every major brand of food. I walked out with my food, happy.

Next stop was CVS, where I scanned my card, got my $5 with $25 purchase coupon, my CVS Rewards bucks ($2), and a coupon for BOGO gum. Because we use Poise (r) pads to diaper our dog, I buy them whenever they are on sale, and sometimes when they are not, if I need to round out a purchase to reach a certain total ($5 off a $25 purchase amounts to a 20% discount, as long as I don't go too far over the $25). Poise pads were on sale this week, 2/9, but not in the size I regularly use. I chose to get one, to see if the smaller pads would be as effective, and save me some money. I bought a few more sale items, adding the stuff up with my calculator to make sure they'd add up to $25. When I reached the magic number, I checked out, handed the cashier my $5 off coupon, then handed her the other coupons I had, bringing my total to under $20. I love a great sale! ($-8.50)

Off to ShopRite, where I maximized my savings by buying only things that were on sale, and using my coupons, which they doubled. A $98 bill wound up being $75. I forgot my bags, or my bill would have been under $75, close to a 25% savings! (-$23)

Tomorrow night, I am leading a BeCentsable workshop at the Immaculate Conception School in Spotswood. It is a fundraiser for their 7th graders.