Making Life a Little Less Expensive Every Week

Making Life a Little Less Expensive Every Week

Here in Orange County California we benefit from fierce competition in the grocery industry. Not only do they compete with each other (Albertsons, Ralphs, Stater Brothers, and Vons) they compete with various small market chains (Henry's, Sprouts, Trader Joe's, and a host of independent markets. In addition both Target and Walmart carry a limited, but well priced, selection of grocery staples. With so many choices it is easy to simply pick a store and hope you don't burn through your budget halfway through shopping. But, with a little effort and a little more driving, you can dramatically trim your grocery expenses. You can put the savings towards the ridiculous cost of housing.


Coupons

Making a Coupon Stockpile

The quickest source of coupons is the sunday paper. Each week there are anywhere from one to three coupon circulars (P&G Brandsaver, Red Plum, and Smart Source). The Sunday paper(Register or Times) costs $1.50.But they both also issue a weekend edition of their paper, which is remarkably similar, for 75 cents. I buy one of each (Register and Times) for a total cost of $1.50. This give two sets of coupons, which some weeks works out fantastically and some weeks not so good. But each paper has a diferent selection of ads (these vary from paper to paper and even from week to week).

Be sure to physically check the paper for coupon circulars since store-bought papers do not always get the same coupons as a home-delivered paper. The delivered paper may have three circulars this week but the one in the store could have one, two, three, or even zero coupons. So just be sure to check before you buy.

Alternately you can order subscriptions online. Though the Times wants $2.50 a week to deliver the Sunday paper. But a quick google search will often turn up deals or promo codes for a dollar a week. Recently in LA the Times was offering a year of Sundays for 19 cents a week.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Excellent Savings at Wags

If you got a newspaper yesterday you might have noticed the high value coupons for Nivea Body Washes. While everyone seems to have them on sale this week Walgreens has the best deal. They are charging $2.50 a bottle. Other places want four and five bucks a bottle.

But when you combine the Wags sale with the coupons from the paper you get a phenomenal deal. One coupon was for $3.00 off one mens body wash. Another was for $3.00 off of two body washes. That is six bucks off a purchase of three bottles of $1.50 plus tax.

I get two papers so yesterday I bought four bottle (two mens and two womens) for $1.00 plus tax (on ten bucks not one). I also got a bottle of Pert Plus shampoo on sale for two dollars ( $0.99 with a coupon from the same paper).

So for a total cost of $3.04 I got four bottles of body wash and a bottle of shampoo. That is $0.61 an item.
The sale at Wags by itself is already an excellent deal. But if you have a paper clip the coupons and run over. The sooner the better because the shelves will be empty soon.

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