Creative Grocery Savings

So I mentioned in my last post that I purchased 9 various Pillsbury items and got a free gallon of milk on an in store promotion.  Those items were on sale and I used coupons as well (some of which doubled!), bringing the total down considerably.  I think using coupons on top of store sales is an easy way to save but is there another way to maximize those savings?  YES!

Since our grocery ads come out on Wednesday and we only purchase a Sunday paper, I do my ad browsing online.  When I went to my store’s website, I discovered that they offer a section that has printable coupons and then had something called SavingStar.   Basically it’s a way to link your store card to earn cash back on items you purchase.  You just choose which offers to load to your card and then swipe your store card at checkout and you are done – no reciepts to upload!  I noticed that several of the offers were similar or the same as the coupons I had BUT they could be used in addition to the coupons and store sales giving me triple savings on certain items!

So let’s look at those Pillsbury items again…

Regular Retail Price of 9 items: $17.60
Ad Price for 9 items:                       $15.00
Instant Brand Svgs at Register:   -$2.00
Value of Free Gallon of Milk:       -$3.79
Coupons w/ doubling:                   -$4.40
Total Paid for 9 items:                $4.81

Today I received notification that my SavingStar savings had been added to my account.  I received $2.20 cash back related to the same Pillsbury items above. 

That makes my total cost for those items: $2.61 or about $0.29 per item!  Well really 10 items for about $0.26 each if you count the gallon of milk we also received!  That is an 85% savings!

SavingStar also loads one item every Friday that will be FREE if purchased by a certain date.  Last week that item was Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cups – oh the deliciousness!  And yes, the full cost was uploaded to my account so it was FREE!  That just made them all the more delicious!

To see if your store participates with SavingStar just go to http://savingstar.com to check!