Consumerist reader LadySiren, married with 5 kids, is a coupon ninja by necessity. “My kids go through a box and a half of Pop-Tarts each time they eat them for breakfast,” she writes by way of explanation. Here’s how, in exhaustive detail, she bought 51 items at the supermarket this week using coupons, super double coupons, and catalinas, for only $45.56, saving $99.48. Her haul is pictured.
She writes,
This week, one of our local grocery chains, Harris Teeter (HT), is running a “Super Doubles” (SDs) event – they are doubling the face value of coupons up to $1.99 instead of $.99, which is their normal doubling policy. HT allows you to double a max of 20 coupons per day, and this limit is tied into your store loyalty card, call the VIC card. They tie it into the card so as to prevent people from cheating the system and doubling more than 20 coupons per day. Some folks cheat by borrowing cards from friends or family members who won’t be shopping at HT during the event, but for the most part, couponers tend not to break these rules.Today was the first day of the sale. In addition to the SDs, there are a number of catalina deals running (a catalina is the coupon you get at the time of purchase from the catalina machine at the register), as well as a $6 instant savings when you buy 20 General Mills products. I pulled my coupons over the weekend after I found out SDs were this week, then spent last night doing matchups (matching coupons to catalinas and sale items to maximize savings). Here’s what I was able to get today:
6 boxes Pop-Tarts
2 canisters Quaker Oats
2 packages Keebler cookies
2 boxes Snickers ice cream bars
2 gallons Turkey Hill Iced Tea
3 boxes Dannon Coolision yogurt
6 cans Spaghettios
6 boxes Tuna Helper
4 cans Progresso soup
2 packages Pillsbury ready-to-bake cookie dough
2 bags Pillsbury frozen biscuits
6 boxes Green Giant frozen veggies
3 packages Old El Paso taco seasoning
1 package Old El Paso tortillas
1 Old El Paso taco kit
1 package Kool-Aid Fun Fizz
3 lbs. 93/7 ground beef
1 package Good Nites sleep pantsBased on my purchases, I received the following during my first transaction:
$6.00 immediately off my total
$3.00 off On Your Next Order (OYNO) for buying 6 boxes of Hamburger Helper
$2.00 off OYNO for buying 6 boxes of Green Giant veggies
$1.00 off the purchase of beef or chicken for buying 3 Old El Paso taco seasoning mixesMy total Out of Pocket (OOP): $45.46
Amount saved using my VIC card for sales, coupons, and catalinas: $99.48
Number of items purchased: 53
Average price per item: $1.17I achieved this by doing two transactions. In the first transaction, I purchased 20 General Mills items to get the instant $6 savings. I bought the Hamburger Helper and Green Giant veggies to get the two OYNO catalinas, and the Old El Paso seasoning to get the discount on meat. Note: I did make a mistake with my Old El Paso purchases and the catalina, which I’ll explain in a sec.
Once my first transaction was complete and I was sure all of my discounts had been applied and my catalinas were printed, I started my second transaction. I took my $6 in catalinas and applied that to the total for my second transaction. This is generally referred to as “rolling”, meaning you roll the savings or discounts from one transaction into a second transaction.
Now, that mistake I made…yep, it’s true – even coupon ninjas sometimes make mistakes. I can only plead that it was 7 AM and I hadn’t had my coffee yet after staying up until 1 AM the night before.
That being said, I made a noob mistake: I didn’t follow the rules of the Old El Paso deal the way I should have because I wasn’t paying close enough attention to what the deal was. I expected to get a $3 catalina for the ground beef I purchased but only received a $1 catalina because I didn’t buy the right Old El Paso items OR the right number of items (double noob mistake). I’d purchased three taco seasoning packets, one package tortillas, and one dinner kit. The rules of the catalina say:
Buy any Old El Paso Taco Shells, Dinner Kits, Seasoning, Refried Beans or Heat & Serve Side Dishes Between 9/6 – 10/2
Save $1 OYNO Beef or Chicken Purchase When You Buy (WYB) 3 packages
Save $3 OYN) Beef or Chicken Purchase WYB 6 packages
Unfortunately, I thought the tortillas were included in the products for this catalina deal, and that I had grabbed four – not three – packages of taco seasoning. So, I missed out on the $3 catalina and got the $1 catalina instead. It’s a rookie mistake, bleh. As a result, my OOP total was $6 than it should’ve been because of the ground beef. I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as she handed me my catalinas but I had to get home by 8:30 AM this morning and was too tired and lazy to fix the mistake (fixing it would’ve required returning all the items, getting all my coupons back, then getting the correct items and quantities). Also, HT tends to be very busy during SDs and it’s inconsiderate to hold up the lines.
This sale goes on until next Wednesday and I’ll likely be there each day this week to stockpile items that we use frequently.
While not bad, my trip today could’ve been better if I hadn’t made that stupid $6 goof and there are other couponers out there who are doing better than I am, based on what they’re buying. I made a point of buying my most critical items today (i.e. – stuff we really, REALLY needed – those stinkin’ Good Nites pants were $6.99 even with a $1.50/1 coupon doubled – and only a few stockpile items) instead of stuff that would’ve gotten me a lower OOP. If you really want an eye-opener, go check out this thread over at Hot Coupon World.
You’ll see that at least one shopper MADE money today. I’ll be going back tomorrow in the hopes of scoring some better deals than I did today. I also picked up a new coupon booklet at the store put out by General Mills – with SDs running, the new coupons will be getting me a number of free or nearly-free items.
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I’m all for saving money, but looking at the picture, these things really aren’t food. They’re food-like products. Here’s a rule of thumb. If bacteria or bugs won’t bother it two months after purchase, then it has no nutritional value and thus, not food.
Ground meat not a food…well I’ll be sure to take note of that in the future…
What about the fact that she disregarded HT’s rules by doing two transactions?
Show me where their rules were violated? I only used 20 coupons and didn’t exceed that number. http://www.harristeeter.com/promotions/online_coupons/coupon_policy.aspx
These posts pop up every now and then, and I notice that in most cases the haul is exclusively name-brand products. I wonder (and would like to see if anyone doesn’t value their free time) how the cost/savings stack up against just buying store brand stuff.
I can tell you that with a coupon promo like this, you’re almost always better off buying the name brand. With coupons today, I paid a total of one dollar for two name-brand 18 oz. containers of oatmeal and a total of $2.29 for two cans of name-brand coconut milk. Store brand prices were $1.97 per 18 oz container and $1.69 per can respectively.
For me, this would have been a net loss of $45.46 because there is nothing on that list I would eat. Well, except for the Oats, I go through at least 3 of those canisters a month. And maybe the vegetables if I’m in a pinch. I usually buy all my vegetables at the local Farmers Market and my meats at a local Butcher.
Harris Teeter grocery is running a promo this week where they’ll double any coupon with a face value up to $1.98. I bought almost $50 worth of groceries; after coupons, I paid $17 and change. Before the ‘OMG COUPONS ARE ONLY FOR PROCESSED CRAP’ brigade scoffs at this, I’ll say that I bought two bags of unbleached flour, one bag of brown sugar, two containers of oatmeal, a big jar of Nutella, three packages of frozen vegetables, two boxes of ‘feminine hygiene products’, three bags of cat treats, and canned tomatoes for making pasta sauce.
If you refine sugar, mill flour, grow oatmeal, make cat treats and pads, and blend chocolate-hazelnut spread at home, I’m extremely impressed with the amount of free time and house/yard space you have at your disposal. Me, I’ll stick to coupons and my ‘processed crap’.
Okay, I think I’m losing faith in consumerist commenters. Why do people who are supposedly consumer savvy constantly bash coupon users. Where are all the smart advise and good tips, it’s just a bunch of people that get a stiffy from being condescending judgmental jerks. Every freakin time someone states they save a lot of money with coupons you get the amount of vitriol usually reserved for those who beat puppies.
So here is my example of coupon use for the 5 statements/questions that pop up every freakin time there is a post about coupons.
You can get many coupons for produce, bread and cheese as well as the processed stuff. If you only rely on coupon sources from the newspaper yes you will only get mostly processed stuff but there are coupon places like mambo sprouts and it’s all whole or organic stuff. Coupon packets for stores, signing up for store newsletters and myriad of other online coupon sources.
Ok people keep ignoring those that tell you that you don’t have to spend 80 hours clipping coupons or buy only crap. These are some of the deals I got recently.
Roman meal bread, Ralphs Sale and coupon = $1.00
Almond milk, Ralphs sale, manu coupon and catalina coupon = 0.40
Total cereal. Manu coupon and store sale $0.80
Canned Tuna. Albertsons sale 0.44
Huge packets of flax seed from Whole foods normally $4.00 bucks I printed out a whole foods coupon from the newsletter and got two packages for 0.99 each.
Items for grooming and for gift baskets
CVS 0.40 for Milanos cookies (again for a gift baskets you judgmental health Natzis)
2 Garnier Herba shine, 2 secret gel deodorant (powder fresh) Free with ECBS
Drugstore.com aniversary sale: 2 17 oz Bain de-luxe hand soap, foaming exfoliator, shea butter hand cream and rosemary conditioner $6.00. They were all $0.5 but $6.00 is including shipping and tax. All are really pretty and will make lovely additions to someones b-day or Christmas gift basket.
Actually most of the time I don’t even pay for lotion, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, tooth brushes, OTC items and gift basket items.
I came to consumerist a couple years ago hoping I would learn to be more savvy and although it is quite entertaining at times eventually learned how to work a deal from coupon blogs. I’ve learned about sales cycles and the value of using my google reader to find the best freebies and deals quickly and from super nice people always willing to give you tips.
Those Grands biscuits have trans fat in them. Other then the meat and oatmeal, everything there is loaded with salt and artificial everything. Good job using the coupons, but more real food and less packaged will be better in the long run.
I think it’s a little sad that it’s some kind of consumer triumph to bring home frankenfood that has, probably, $15 worth of nutrition for $45.
My boyfriend & I save roughly $50 – $75 every time we go food shopping, because we go to a discount grocery store, rather than the overpriced local grocery stores (Giant, Weis, Stauffers). They have a good number of fruits and veggies, even. We can easily get a cart-full of groceries for $50 – $60.
The only thing they don’t have there that we eat on a regular basis is tofu, and so we go to Weis for that…however it’s not expensive in the first place, so that doesn’t really matter.
If she bought Great Value brand, it would have only been $9.88!
Congrats.. you bought a ton of sugar, processed foods, and crap for your kids. Thanks mom for the obesity!
Congrats…you’re an ignorant fool that apparently missed the memo that this is not ALL this woman is feeding her children.
I bet that grocery store hates you.
People really need to get off of their high horses.
Although I don’t eat most of the stuff found in that picture, I don’t really see an occasional poptart or ice cream is going to kill you. Chillax, stop acting like you don’t do a single bad thing that could potentially be bad for your health.
Yah except she said that they have a pop tart every day for breakfast. I bet you they blow through all this food in a month and a half…tops….So your comment is invalid
Uh, I most certainly did not. Learn to read, maybe? I said that when they DO eat Pop-Tarts, they go through a box and a half. I have five kids, two of whom are teen boys with huge appetites (and no, they’re not fat in any way). Nice try at spreading disinformation.
Take her savings, divide that by hours spent running around to different stores, sifting through various newspapers etc. A buck an hour?
Wow!
This stuff is just SO nutritious………
Most coupons are only for processed foods, so she may be saving money…at the cost of health.
I’m sorry about the posters here. Sometimes they’re just really stuck up and mean and ignorant. READ THE COMMENTS AND THE WHOLE POST PEOPLE. Seriously. D:
If it helps, I understand what you’re doing. Processed food lasts longer, but sells quicker. Buy it first, and it keeps for ages. Obviously you don’t have to feed them this stuff every day, or every week. Just once a month and you’ll STILL burn through most of it before a year is over.
(Seriously people, even eating something processed once a week won’t kill a person. *rolls eyes* )
And of course, the fresh stuff you buy on the second trip, as it’s usual on the racks longer. And often the fresh stuff doesn’t have a coupon or is full priced. So obviously that’s not as exciting to talk about.
So, good job OP! Just ignore all the haters.
While I’m impressed by these coupon ninjas and their savings, being caught behind them in line is not a pleasant experience. Last one was a lady who knocked a $100 tab down to $27. All the coupon scanning and validation made her transaction take three times as long as it did to ring up the original purchase.
Why not feed your children a proper breakfast and see how much you save? Would a sane person consider Pop Tarts to be food?
Pop-Tarts? Spaghettios? Tuna Helper?
Yet no one has called Child Protective Services?
BTW – Taco Seasoning – cheaper, over the long term, than the packets, plus you can use the spices in lots of other recipes:
From All Recipes
Ingredients
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
Directions
In a small bowl, mix together chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper flakes, oregano, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper. Store in an airtight container.
Buy food that you can use to make healthy food.
Instead of hamburger helper buy some wide egg noodles, a tub of sour cream, 80/20 ground beef (seriously folks, fat content in your hamburger is good for you and good for cooking; this ultra-lean beef is so processed you are losing nutrients), and some fresh mushrooms. You now have the ingredients for cheap, healthy, and good tasting beef stroganoff.
Buy pasta: you can usually find good store brand pasta for 99¢-$1.50 (most of the time the former instead of the latter), get some chicken breasts, garlic, bacon and eggs. You now have the ingredients for a wonderful carbonara.
You will save more money if you buy the ingredients for a good meal instead of the quick fix. Plus, your kids won’t be the fatties they obviously are if they are eating a pack of pop-tarts for breakfast each morning.
Nice job, but 6 boxes of Tuna Helper is more than 1 family should consume in a generation.
Well, I applaud your money-saving skills and I, for one, could care less about what you feed your kids. My parents were busy people, and my brother and I got 50/50 of home-cooked meals and processed crap. Granted, we are now overweight (like everyone else in my family) but my food choices nowadays are a lot healthier. When I was a kid, I didn’t WANT to eat healthy. I wanted the crap! It doesn’t matter. Your kids, when they are old enough, can make different food choices for themselves if they want to.
Personally, I think that spending time with them is more important than what you feed them. I have nothing but good memories of my childhood, regardless of the crap that my brother and I ate.
Well, glad you’re happy, to each his own, but every study in the known universe acknowledges that habits formed in childhood extend through adolescence into adulthood. It’s excruciatingly hard to “make different food choices” when you’re “old enough” when you have to undo fifteen or twenty years of being trained that there isn’t a difference between real actual food, and chemistry experiments. Besides the missed opportunity cost of all those years when kids COULD be learning what real food tastes like, how to find it, how to prepare it, how to appreciate it, but instead are inhaling manufactured crap.
And does the child’s health in actual childhood not matter? It’s not like a kid can’t become dangerously overweight and start to have metabolic problems at age 5, or 10, or before “when he’s old enough to make different food choices” happens.
I also don’t buy the “it’s more important to spend time together than make an effort to eat decently” argument. What about those two things is mutually exclusive? A substantial portion of the quality time I spend with my kids involves planning meals, grocery shopping, cooking, baking and eating together. During this time we’re talking, laughing and generally positively relating, WHILE living a wholesome and reasonable relationship to food. It’s hardly an either-or.
I, and my kids, have our fair share of junk food from time to time–but treating junk food as a viable default mode, instead of occasional treats, is irresponsible parenting that unacceptably puts kids at risk.
Side note, related to the above observation: It absolutely burns me up that so many people with no ability to evaluate risk will freak out if I let my kid walk down the block alone to get the mail (stranger danger!) or own and use a pocketknife (she could cut herself and bleed to death!) or hold my baby on my lap for a plane flight (in extreme turbulence she could become a projectile!) but yet they’re perfectly happy with letting their kids sit in front of screens for hours, inhaling sugar/salt/fat, getting on a guaranteed conveyor belt to overweight and related poor health.
The gist of my comment was, while I was fed a lot of crap when i was a kid, I make healthy choices now that I am an adult. This includes not eating fast food, making home-cooked meals with low fat ingredients for my fiancee and I, and enjoying a vast variety of fresh produce and alternate sources of protein (such as tofu and the like).
While I am overweight, my bloodwork is always positive, my blood pressure is always 110/80, and my immune system is high. I must be a superhero though, because most of the people in my weight category are riddled with all sorts of health problems. Believe it or not, there are obese people out there that are healthy.
Based on that list, the only items that I would buy are the frozen veggies and the beef. Everything else is highly processed. Generally the only coupons I find usable are ones for non-edible items like beauty products.
Jeez. Why the hell are there so many people being so incredibly judgmental about the food this woman purchased? I grew up with eating spaghettios, poptarts for breakfast, Dannon, hamburger helper, those lunchable things, fruit rollups, McDonald’s happy meals, etc (all which are very COMMON kid foods). I also had healthier meals that my mom would make for dinner with vegetables and other healthy items. Its quite obvious (considering there are barely any dinner meals in this list) that this is not the entirety of what she purchases for her family…not that it should be anyone’s concern anyhow. Just because nowadays everyone is on this hip, organic, naturally-grown and farm-raised food kick doesn’t mean that everyday people with large families are as well. Really…stop judging this poor woman and go eat your soy milk, flaxseed and free range chickens.
Good, she can use that money when everyone in her family develops diabetes.
I know eating healthy isn’t always cheap, but there have to be far healthier options than these at a low cost.
Seriously, pop-tarts should be an occasional treat, not a regular breakfast. Ugh.
Even without double coupons, I’ve been able to work similar or even better deals at Jewel, and for the most part of actual food, including flour, soup, and cereal. Last week I got 5 bricks of cheese, a box of 100% juice Capri Sun, and a bag of tortilla chips for $1.47, plus I got a $5 ONYO Catalina. (The Capri Sun and chips were snacks requested by my son’s preschool.)
Paying attention to spending and sales and reading a few deal-seeking blogs has reduced my family’s grocery spending by about $150 a month, down to about $275 including toiletries and diapers.
WOW! That’s not food, it’s FOOD Inc! Hope she can get discount coupons for the artery plumber. Her family’s eating habits are the poster child for what’s wrong with our low cost, high salt – calorie – fructose food supply.
All you bashing her are growing all your own food, right? From seeds, since that saves the most money and allows you to avoid the pesticides and other chemicals, right? You’re all hand-crank grinding your own wheat to make your pasta and bread with, right? I mean, it gives you exercise and tastes fantastic, too! There is always somebody bigger than you, smarter than you, and even more holier than thou.
Jealous! In my area, we only have 5 major grocery stores and not one of them EVER does double-coupon days. Eff you safeway, albertsons, top foods, food pavilion and fred meyer!
Man, I look at that haul and see almost nothing real there. Where’s the food??
Buying taco seasoning by the packet is a HUGE rip off. Buy it in bulk at Sam’s or your wholesale club.
Yesterday I bought a 9 lb box (two 4.5 lb bags) of Quaker Oats for under $7. I’m betting you paid almost $5 (full retail without coupons) for your two containers that weigh 2.25 lbs combined.
6 boxes Pop-Tarts – 7g of fat/200 cal./16g of sugar per pastry! – POISON: CORN SYRUP, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP
2 canisters Quaker Oats – These are ok
2 packages Keebler cookies – serving size 2 cookies – 160 cal./9g fat/sodium 105g/sugar 9g First ingredient?? SUGAR Oh and a bunch of chemicals and other ingredients that were made in a lab that aren’t good for your body.
2 boxes Snickers ice cream bars – serving size 1 bar – 180 cal/11g fat/15g sugars POISON: CORN SYRUP AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS
2 gallons Turkey Hill Iced Tea – serving 1 cup – 90 cal./20g of sugar! POISON: HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP
3 boxes Dannon Coolision yogurt – 60cal/9g of sugar — Not real yogurt and has barely any nutrional value: (Modified Food Starch, Fructose, Contains Less than 1% of Kosher Gelatin, Modified Corn Starch….and more artificial ingredients)
6 cans Spaghettios – serving 1 cup (not one can) – 180cal./880mg sodium/15g sugar!–No wonder those A to Z were on sale. They were part of a recall: http://www.campbellsoup.com/consumeralert_spaghettios.aspx You might want to check on that. POISON: Corn Syrup High Fructose
6 boxes Tuna Helper – serving 3/4 cup – 150 cal./750mg of sodium! – POISON: Corn Syrup & Artificial Flavor
4 cans Progresso soup – Can’t tell what soup it is from the picture….
2 packages Pillsbury ready-to-bake cookie dough – serving size 1 COOKIE – 5g fat/70mg sodium/8g sugar – Can’t find ingredients online
2 bags Pillsbury frozen biscuits – serving 1 biscuit – 9g fat/550mg sodium – Can’t find ingredients online
6 boxes Green Giant frozen veggies – Ok….Better if they were organic
3 packages Old El Paso taco seasoning – serving size 1/6th of a packet! – 560mg sodium and hardly any natural ingredients
1 package Old El Paso tortillas – serving 2 tortillas – 340mg sodium and tons of horrible crap and preservatives
1 Old El Paso taco kit –
1 package Kool-Aid Fun Fizz – This is about the equivalent of stuffing chemistry lab in your child’s mouth. Artificial flavors and coloring. Nothing of any nutritional value whatsoever.
3 lbs. 93/7 ground beef – Ok
1 package Good Nites sleep pants – Ok I guess
I hardly call this a “victory in saving money”…
The diapers were probably the most expensive item.
I think she coulddo better. And I think the kids could stop eating novelties everyday and have them as a special treat only.
As a responsible parent who has the intelligence to save money, you should also look at serving your kids decent food. HFSC, or “Corn Syrup” is in most of those goods and you’re setting them up for Type-2 Diabetes. Worse, as they get older it will be more difficult for them to break the routine taught to them as kids and make healthier eating choices as an adult.
You may be busy, but that’s no excuse for the terrible crap you’re throwing on the table. You wanted to have that many kids, then you needed to take the responsability to feed them healthy fare. You’d be better off feeding them less than the load of junk. They’ll live longer.
All I see is crap crap crap!
Where are the greens? Do you know how much sodium is in all that?
I might spend twice as much on food as that lady, but at least I don’t feel like dying after.
You can get good deals AND eat healthy. My wife took advantage of the Harris Teeter Deals this week and spent $1, saved $71, got back $6 in coupons. She used it to stock up on items such as yogurt, oats, pasta, etc. which we store in our pantry and use with fresh fruit, veggies, meat, etc. to make relatively healthy meals.
We don’t get great deals like this every week, but her meal planning and coupon clipping is an important part of our money management. She does a great job with it.
Go to any Harris Teeter message board with pictures and you will see this exact same picture. The ninjas ONLY buy what’s ULTRA cheap to get a huge savings like this. To boot, they ALL follow the same lists on hotcouponworld.com, afc.com, southersavers.com, etc so everyone’s “LOOK WHAT I BOUGHT!” is all the same. So cute, SAHMs are.
It’s great to see someone work the system like that and I did check the site she linked to and people actually DID “make” money in special offers that came back. But, yuck, I can’t feed my kids that crap. I would buy the frozen veggies, the ground beef and the frozen biscuits but all the rest, most likely not. That’s the problem I have always had with coupons, they just aren’t for things I want to buy. Plus, I am so lazy and hate cutting them or finding the right store and the right time to use them, Then it’s like a job and I don’t need another one of those. But, like I said, lazy me. Good for her for saving so much, more power to her.
Stop feeding your kids pop tarts for breakfast. Yuck.
Boy do some slam on people here…
Just a few things
1) This isn’t exactly what she is feeding her family 24/7
2) I heard a conversation the other day about a town that has a strip of nothing but drug stores down one street…reason being is that it’s a poorer area and fewer people have cars (thus they can’t take as much home) so yes this might not be “food” but it isn’t being used as such
3) There’s nothing wrong with buying things in bulk or at least just in case. People buy low and sell high with stocks so it makes sense sometimes to stock up when prices dip for things. For example how many people have a fully stocked medicine cabinet these days? So they wait until they are fully sick before using medicine..not a good idea
4) One does not have to be a nutritionist to see that good food is not often cheap food. Who’s to say that she simply saves money on this to buy say organic lean beef and eggs? There’s plenty of sites that have coupons but meats and milk are hardly discounted. As people save more they often consume more..just like cheaper gas just means driving more. So if anyone implies that the person is living on this alone would be shortsighted.
It would be interesting if this were picked up in another freakonomics sequel