My Savings This Week - 12/09/09

Another great week of savings. Though the weather outside today was frightful, the deals were just too delightful to stay home. I braved the cold and blowing snow at 5:45am and again later in the afternoon to trek over to my favorite Rainbow and picked up the following:


8 boxes of cereal
6.5 lbs of bananas
6 bags of frozen veggies
1 box of brownie mix
2 gallon of milk
8 cans of soup
4 bottles of salad dressing
2 pints of ice cream
3 beef chuck roasts
2 bottles of mayo
15 lbs flour
2 bags of chocolate chips
2 boxes of pancake mix
1 box of bread mix
1 bag of coffee
1 bottle of extra virgin olive oil
2 bottles of canola oil
2 boxes of chicken stock
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
2 boxes of Dreamfields pasta
2 1/2 lbs apples
2 tubs of caramel apple dip
3 pints fresh half & half
3 cartons of fresh orange juice
1 bag mini marshmallows

I split all of this up between two different outings and seven separate transactions. Yes, that sounds like a lot. But the key to success was careful planning. I had each transaction on a separate shopping list with all of my coupons bundled and ready for each transaction. Doing this prep work at home made the actual shopping trip very quick and easy.

As the icing on the cake, after my first four transactions in my morning shopping trip, I had reached the purchase requirement for the "Free Food" promo that Rainbow has been running this fall, so I received a gift card that I was able to use for my subsequent three transactions. That sweetened the deal even further! Of course, I'm still earning FuelPerks!, last week I saved $9.80 on gas thanks to FuelPerks!

In the end, I spent a total out of pocket of $39.60 for everything. At full price, this would have been $217.17, with makes my savings today a whopping $177.57 or 82%. I stayed within my budget for groceries for this week and got a few treats for the family that makes all the shopping prep work worth the effort.