As Seen on TV: A Bunch of Crap for Free

I swear this week stores are throwing stuff at me. CVS sold me a bunch of stuff for over 80% off list price yesterday. Then I go into Ralphs and it was like the cashier said, “Help yourself Lindlo.” This was on top of the retarded deals I got later at Vons.

Essentially it is one of those, “as seen on TV” kind of days. I bought at retail about $115 in merchandise. With club card, buy 8 discounts, and coupons the bill shrunk to about $23 . That is about 80% off of the list price of the stuff. But because we take full advantage of the Ralphs reward program I used my reward dollars, earned from last quarter, that came in the mail last week to pay the bill and ended up with a gift card
with a balance of almost $12.



We’ve all seen the clips on the news where a savvy woman shopper turns her grocery bill of $150 into less than $10 with supper shopping skills. Yet, naturally, you and I are skeptical when we see such ridiculous claims. I mean who gets 90% off of the total bills. More realistically you can get 50% off of your grocery bills, and you can can do this week in and week out all year. But every so often the club card lines up with your coupon stockpile and and it seems like the store is just throwing stuff at you. This week at Ralphs (8/17/10) was one of those weeks where everything just lined up.

I purchased 26 items at a total listed retail cost of $115.26. Ralphs Card discounts and coupons turned that into $23.67. I used my Ralphs Rewards voucher which came in the mail around the tenth of the month. The voucher was for $35 which after paying the bill the balance was transferred to a gift card in the amount of $11.33 for future purchases. In addition General Mills was running a Catalina deal this week which got me $3.50 towards a future purchase. So I have $14.88 towards next week’s bill plus all this crap. Lastly I used my double points coupon which was included in with my rewards vouchers to earn 270 bonus points which translates to $2 towards my next voucher due out in October. This almost seems retarded since I didn’t spend a single penny of actual money.

Anyway the deal breaks down like this:

5 Nature Valley Granola Bars. They were $1.99 with the buy 8 deal. I had various coupons ( .50 and .75) that allowed me use five total each doubled to $1.00 off. End cost $4.95. Three were normally $3.49 each and two were $3.99 each. These earned a General Mills voucher for $3.50 off of my next purchase at Ralphs. So essentially these cost $1.45.

2 Capri Sun 10 pack drinks. They were $1.49 with the buy 8 deal each and I had a coupon for $1.00 off of two that came with my reward voucher. So these were $1.98 for two or two for the price of one at Walmart’s price (which is always under $2.00)

2 Kotex Pads. They were $3.49 each with the buy 8 deal. I had a coupon for $2.00 off of two pads. So they were $4.98 total. This is an ok price.

7 PowerAde 32 oz drinks. These were $.39 with the buy 8 deal. I bought seven to get to sixteen total items on the buy 8 deal (this deal works in increments of eight any other number, even seven, does not get the discount. Thus the nine others equals eight at the deal and one at the club price. But that is ok since my boys like this stuff. They prefer Gatorade but they will drink PowerAde. These were added to the stockpile and with the Gatorades already there we should be able to make it to the next $.49 Gatorade deal without having paid regular price in between.

2 Juicy Juice 8 pack juice boxes. They were $1.97 each. I had a coupon for $1.00 off of two so they came out to $2.96. These are normally $2.87 each.

2 Dial 2 pack bar soaps. These were $1.00 with club and I had two coupons for $.35 off. These doubled to $.70 each so it was $.60 for four bars of soap.

2 Speed stick deodorants. These were on sale for $.88 each and I had two coupons for $1.00 off. These were free. However, Ralphs limits the value of a coupon to the price of the item. So I only got $.88 off per coupon. At CVS the remaining $.12 per coupon would have been applied towards the total bill. But they were free so hey.

2 Crest Toothpastes. I had a raincheck for these from when they were $.99 on club but the shelves were empty. By the time I used the raincheck I had two coupons for $.50 off of a tub. These were doubled to $.99 off so these were also free.

2 Purex laundry detergents 50 fl oz. These bad boys were $1.99 each on club and I had two coupons for $.35 off which doubled to $.70 off. They cost $2.60 for both. This is a comparable deal to the Walmart price on the jumbo jug of Xtra and it saved a trip to walmart to buy detergent.

So there you have it. All of this stuff cost around $22. But mostly these items go into the stockpile. The detergent will sit there till it is needed. The toothpaste, soap, deodorant, and pads all go into the pile which is big enough for now that I can hunt for super deals for a couple months. The drink boxes and granola make excellent snacks and lunch box stuffers for the boys and I would prefer they eat granola bars than candy.