Learn to fish and not be given fish : Get paid $8
Date : 9/3/9
My passion is to teach people to fish than given them fish.
One of my readers is doing so well that I told her she is nut with coupon. She send me photos on all these deals she has gotten and I told her to do me a favor, write down the price and the coupons she used. And she did exactly what I have requested.
Here is her shopping trip @ 8/30/09 :
cvs:
Glade reed diffuser $6.99 – $2 mq – $6.99 ebs = $2 profit
Sensoydne toothpaste $4.99 -$1 mq – $3.00 ecb = $1
Aquafresh toothpaste $4.99 -$1 mq – $3.00 ecb = $1
Dental picks $2.99 not on sale, no coupons, husband won’t take
substitute
Fragrance candle $3.29 should have been FREE with mq, but did not
realize cashier forgot to scan until next day
Used $4 cvs oral care q
Rolled $10 ecb
OOP $8.69, $13 ecb back
Wags:
Colgate toothbrush $2.99 – $3 rr = FREE
Rembrant toothpaste $5.00 – $5 rr = FREE
Carefree pantiliners $1.99 – $2 rr = FREE
6-blade razor (I will probably need a transfusion after trying this one)
$3.99 – $4 rr = FREE
Rolled $4 rr
OOP $10, $14 rr
OOP $18.69
ECB/RR back $27.00
The smart woman not only gotten all these things free from CVS and Walgreens, she made $8.21
________________________
Side Note :
OOP = Out of pocket
I have created a category titled : “Readers Area” (you can see them on the top column of my web site)
Beside Rachel, I have many of you writing me back about deals. Julie just email me about the Kingsford charcoal deal, she is going to get 2 of those today and will report to me later on.
I was toying the ideas of getting you guys , gals to write in on how much we saved and what free deals we get and might be we should make it into a competition and might be I should give away prizes every week on the greatest % saved weekly.
What do you think ?
Sounds fun! I sent you an email about my trip to publix this morning, now if I can stop thinking about coupons, I need to go to sleep!
Julie,
I got it.
You are another coupon nuts.
We should have a coupon nut club
Jamy,
I just wanted to remind you that this is the last week that Kmart is doing their coupon doubles for the year. You can double your coupons up to $2.00. A great chance to get lots of freebies. (Check out http://www.frugalcouponliving.com/ and click on her link for Kmart and then she will link you with a lady who has a TON of free items. These two ladies are great with coupon matching for pretty much every store you could ever think of including our beloved publix) Just wanted to share with you.
Thank you so much for your head up Holly. You are so kind to share your knowledge.
I hope other readers will take advantage of the info you have shared.
I have a bad experience with Kmart the last double they had.
I have written a post about my experience about it : http://www.seaykopitiam.com/2009/06/09/my-experience-with-kmart-double-coupon-689/?preview=true&preview_id=2935&preview_nonce=8940452d68
The reasons are :
a. the staffs are not too skill about handling the double
b. most of the shelves are empty for free items.
There are a lot of blogs, websites that write about free stuffs. I used to be very excited about free stuffs. However, after doing extreme couponing for the last year. I have embraced this strategy :
1. Stay focus
- I work outside of home 3days a week (12hours a day and I need another extra 4 hours beside the normal 8hours sleep to recuperate) and I home school my child 2 days. He goes to a private Christian school 3 days and I home school him 2 days.
- I cook a lot with the free food I gotten. I cook 20meals a week. My husband and I do not buy lunch for work and he also have cook breakfast from home.
2. Buy bulks
- I used to cut coupons from newspaper. I no longer do that cos I felt that it is time consuming.
- When I found out that something is free or close free, I will go to ebay to buy up at least 20 coupon so I can get those items in bulk and stock pile.
The followings are what I did which have last me a long time
a. Pert shampoo for my husband
I bought up to 120 of those shampoo as I made 75cent each of the shampoo ( there is a manufacturer Q and a competitor coupon)
I sold 100 on yard sales , made $100 (I sold them at $1 each and they went fast) and use that $ to put it back to my budget.
b. Morning star meat
I bought 60packs and I think I made 50cents per 2 packs
c. Starkist seasation fish
I bought 60 coupons from ebay and each 20coupons cost me $1.25, so all in all, 60packs of fish cost me $3.75cents
I used that for sandwiches, for cooking pasta and they make very whole some meals.
d. The cheap pork deal
and so forth and forth.
I believe in buying bulks as I do not have the much time to cut, store coupons.
To me, it is time consuming and take up too much time.
3. Limit store
I learned from my coupon buddy about great deals in Target a lot. However, I have not done the deals a lot because it is a bit out of the way from me and I do not like big store as it is time consuming to find things.
I like to focus on a few stores.
I do not like to overstretch myself or spread myself too thin.
4. Limit my time on browsing a few sites (I know this is bad as I might miss out some of the great deals
) but with the limit time I got, I want to optimise my time
I go to hotcouponworld every Sunday or Monday night to check out their coupon matching on Publix. Most of the times the BOGO and coupon matchings are up by Monday night.
When I see something that is free or near free or cheap and the products are what I need,and there is coupons related to that products, I will go ahead and buy up to 60 coupons. ( I give some to friends)
And I will source out if there is any stores $5 off $25 coupons
I will plan up scenario that is near free and I will post it on my web site
And that is basically what I do.
I limit my time to chasing coupons or browsing too many web sites
I limit myself to only
hotcouponworld
southernsavers
iheartpublix
iheartcvs
iheartwags
ocassionally
whosaynothingisfree
5. I keep a close inventory of the free stuffs I got and I sell them every other 2 weeks. And that help to keep me on budget. I wanted to have a $1000 budget as long as I can do it.
That take up some of my time on budgeting and organising things for the yard sales.
I know everyone has their own strategies and if it works for others, why not ?, right ? But I like to keep thing simple and organized and seems like Publix is the only one I shop
I too am a Publix shopper. I just happened to pop into Kmart yesterday and saw their sign and then I checked it with another site I reguarly visit. I haven’t tried ANY coupons at Kmart before as I don’t ususally shop there. (I hate that they only have one register open and like you said they are unsure of their own policies.) I stick to the publix on Tower road because I know the store inside and out and they are coupon friendly. Since I have time today, I think I am going to stop by kmart and see if anything is worth it. I will report back to you if I have found anything good.
If we all share the little bit of knowledge we have together we can all save ALOT. I have a five month old so I need all the saving I can get.
I can not seem to find the free items when I go to cvs or walgreens. Is there a trick to this? I have been 2 both on tower the last 2 days and they are noth out of everything. Thanks
Jamy,
Hitchcocks has store coupons in their store circular this week. There are some really good ones (ex: 2.00 off of 2 oscar meyer franks). They are only good for a couple of weeks but I picked up extra if you would like me to send you some. I have used them as a competitor coupon at Publix. You can see the coupons at http://www.myhitchcocks.com. If anyone wants more info they can email me at zebsmom@hotmail.com.
Happy Shopping,
Ronda
Amanda,
Most free things sold out by Monday.
Best to go is Sunday early morning. Some CVS couponers get there before they opened.
I used to do CVS and Walgreens a lot but very little now.
These are reasons :
a. I tried not to shop on Sunday for personal reasons but does not condemn others who wanted to.
b. A lot of times when I get there later, I found things are gone. Very disappointed with all my coupons and then I went around town to all the CVS/Walgreens
and they too are gone.
c. Limit – that is what I do not like. For CVS, the ECB only allow 1 and RR, you cannot use the same RR for the same product, so need to get $ out.
d. Bulk buy – Now since I discovered Publix, I buy bulk coupons from ebays when I see something is free or near free
However, having said that CVS and Walgreens is a good place to start to get your free shampoo, colgate and staffs.
Rhonda,
Thank you so much.
I live along 441, so I can go and pick up myself but thank you so much, might be others who live across town, we can pick it up for them. I will pick some for JB as we work in the same hospital and see one another some.