Nov 24, 2008

How to use coupons to pay for your groceries

Maryjoe at A Full Cup posted pictures of her multiple Walgreens trips and explained how she used a razor sale and coupons to buy her groceries.

The basic transaction went like this:

8 Bic Soleil razors/refills, on sale for buy 1, get one free @ $6.99 = $27.96

For each razor/refill, she used a $3 manufacturer coupon. She also used the $3 EasySaver coupon from the November EasySaver book. That totals $48 in coupons, giving her $20.04 "overage" which she then used to purchase groceries and other items she needed.

She ended with a total of 106 razors/refills, which by my calculations yielded a total of $265.53 overage for groceries. She did her transactions at 12 different stores over the course of two days.

Some lessons from this example:

Getting your groceries/necessities for free using coupons is hard work. Maryjoe says this herself in her post.

But it can be done! Going back to the idea that most people have more time than money, this example shows how you can still buy what you need without spending a lot out of pocket.

You can still give to charity no matter how tight your budget. Maryjoe writes later in the thread that she donates much of what she gets for free. After all, who needs 106 packs of razors and refills?

And in case you were wondering, Maryjoe got her 106 manufacturer coupons by befriending a man who works at the local paper.

3 comments:

Milk Donor Mama said...

I'd like to know how she found a store with that much in stock, and if they had issues with her buying that many. I had MAJOR issues trying to buy more than 3 of the dimetap back when they had the RR deal and I certainly wasn't trying to get 106 of them!!

Anonymous said...

It's so confusing! I don't think I am smart enough to handle that!

Clean ClutterFree Simple said...

wow and wow!

I was happy to get $14 of stuff essentially free (after rebate) the other day.