BisMan Savvy Savers

My Sunday Not-So-Extreme Coupon Blitz

2011-06-26T20:41:00.000-05:00

While I usually shop at more than one store throughout the course of a week, it is rare that I go to more than one in a day. Part of this is logistics. I have six kids, and most of the time the youngest two are with me. As cute as they are, they have a pretty limited shopping attention span. Another is time. I often don't have the full afternoon that a well planned out multi-store trip takes.

However, for the sake of my readers, today was the day I was going to tackle the "big coupon trip"! In the spirit of full disclosure, I had help. Before my trip my husband helped me clip new coupons (he even helped me locate the Smart Source insert that I was certain was missing!), he also paged through ads and flyers, pointing out good deals that he saw, and lastly, he offered to stay home with the babies, so I could shop solo (a fabulous gift!)

I set out with four envelopes full of coupons. I had one for Central Market, one for CVS, one for Cash Wise Foods and one with my other coupons that I planned on using if I spotted a deal.

My first stop was at Central Market. As I was going through the paper for sale ads and coupons I came upon four store coupons that are good for 3 days only. One coupon was for Our Family brand Parmesan Cheese for $1.99 a can, limit two cans. The second was for 30 count foam plates for 88 cents each(limit 2). One was for Lay's Stacks for 99 cents each (limit 4), and the last was for (6) 6 pack 20 oz bottles of 7-Up products for $10. I picked up all of these deals, plus a few pounds of grapes, as they were on sale for $1.48 a pound. Total before coupons: $49.61. Total after coupons: $23.53! 53% savings!

Next I tried something that I've never been brave enough for before; I shopped CVS, with a flyer and coupons in hand. CVS offers some fabulous savings, however, the small shopping carts and tight aisles have made me shy away from shopping there with children. Today I was brave. And alone! Some deals were: Cheerios, buy 1 get one free, plus I had 50 cent off a box of Cheerios coupon. Pantene Shampoos were 2/$6.97 Normally this is not a low enough price for me to purchase shampoo. However there were also $2 in Extra Care Bucks (ECB) with the purchase of 2 bottles, which brings the price down to 2/$4.97. Then I combined that with a coupon from last week's paper for $3/2 Pantene products. This brought my final cost down to 2/$1.97, or under $1/bottle!

All of CVS's sale prices and ECB deals require an Extra Care Card. The card is free, and easy to register for. As an added bonus, scan your card at the coupon kiosk as you enter the store. It will print additional coupons for you. Today I got 99cents off of a Pringles snack stack (free with coupon) and $1 off of Twizzlers (my kids are very happy). My total before coupons was $78.86. I used $11.85 in manufacturer coupons, bringing my total down to $67.01 which is a 15% savings. Not bad. However, I also got $5 back in Extra Care Bucks, and a $10 gift card back as well. . .which gives me a 45% savings! According to my receipt, by using my Extra Care card and coupons I saved $55.83, however this is a misleading total, as the prices before the card discount are much higher than I would ever consider paying. All in all I was rather pleased with my "haul" here.

My third, and last stop was at Cash Wise Foods. By far, this is my favorite place to find deals in the Bismarck Mandan area. Not only do they have low enough prices for me to shop without coupons if I am in a hurry, they also have a free item of the week, tons of store coupons and a very clear coupon policy. I used the four weekly coupons from the refrigerator magnet that I got in the mail about a month ago. With this I got some great deals on Lays Potato chips, Reser's potato salad (which i combined with a printable $1 off coupon), hamburger patties and hamburger buns (can you tell that I'm stocking up for a camping trip?) Coke products had an in store coupon for 3 12 packs/$8. This is by far the lowest price I've seen on Coke all season. You can bet I'll be going back and stocking up a bit! There is also a flyer available in-store with many high value coupons for Kraft Family foods. Several Kelloggs and General Mills cereals were on sale and I had some $1/2 printable coupons in hand. My total before coupons was $135.65, my total after coupons was $100.76. My savings was 26%. My cashier said that I had the biggest savings that she had seen all day! (I also had a coupon print out for $2 off of my next order from purchasing Oscar Meyer lunch meat. . .on sale).

So, at the end of the day, I saved $73.48 in coupons, and I have an additional $17 that I can take off of future purchases! All of this was achieved through only buying one Sunday paper a week, and only printing the appropriate limit of coupons with one computer. I did not purchase nor trade for any additional coupons. I followed all known coupon policies. My total shopping and driving time was just over 2 hours.

I did learn a few things:

It is easy to get sidetracked and tempted to buy things off the list even without kids around!
It made things much easier to have coupons separated by store. As I finished a store and had unused coupons, I moved them to the "general" coupon envelope.
Although CVS has great deals, and corporately encourages coupon use, the cashiers are a bit annoyed by them. . .and by full baskets of groceries, so be gentle. They do not have conveyer belts, or baggers. . .so not-so-extreme couponers like us may annoy them just a bit. Slap on your kindest smile and try not to be impatient!
Cash Wise Foods cashiers love to save you coupon money. . .you just may make their day!

So, chime in! What was your biggest savings so far? Have you been brave enough to try to save at CVS? Any tips to share? You know I'd love to hear from you!

How to Grow a Grocery Stash Without Making it Part of the Family

2011-06-10T16:15:00.001-05:00

Building up a grocery stash can be a great way to save money. Many Savvy Savers have impressive stashes. I was raised in a household with a fairly impressive built-in pantry under the stairs in our house. It was often my job to cook dinner for the family, and most of the time I could go into our pantry and find many of the staples needed to create a meal. My grandmother also had a well stocked pantry, and a full root cellar. When I would visit her house on college breaks, she would often encourage me to "shop" in her pantry and I would go back to school loaded up with macaroni and cheese, canned soups and her own canned tomatoes.

For the first few years of our marriage we lived in very tiny apartments, with a very tiny grocery budget, there was no money to buy anything extra to set it aside.

More recently I have had a rotating grocery stash. I've not needed to dust it, if something were to happen to it I would not cry, nor would our family starve, and I don't consider it a part of my family. It is, however, part of my overall money saving strategy.

Here is how to build a grocery stash that works for you!

Decide what items you plan on stocking up on. You know what items you use day after day and week after week. These items vary by family. Some people will go through a bottle of ketchup a week, while mine goes through maybe four a year. A box of cereal can last your family a week, or a day. We use almost no canned vegetables, as the children prefer frozen, so you won't see row after row of canned veggies on my shelves. However, you will see many canned beans.
Determine the quantities that you need in your stash. A good rule of thumb is to only stash enough of an item to get you to the next good deal. One of my goals here at BisMan Savvy Savers is to find out what the local sales cycles are, so that we can stock up wisely. Remember that no matter how cheap the items are in your grocery stash, they still represent money spent. Just like a wise business does not carry excess inventory, neither should your household grocery stash. For food items I tend to not store more than three months of an item. So, that would mean I keep no more than 12 jars of pasta sauce. We go through a lot of cereal, and it goes on sale fairly often, so at most I'll stash a month's worth of cereal, which would be 15-20 boxes. I'll store up to a year's worth of personal care items such as toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo and the like. But even a years worth does not look extreme when you break down how much you really use. We go through 2 bottles of baby wash a year, for instance. At max we use 24 tubes of toothpaste.
Once you start building your stash, don't be afraid to use it. Your grocery stash is not a museum, or emergency rations, or even a store for your college aged granddaughter. It should be a easily accessible collections of items used in your daily life. Don't be afraid to deplete your supply. When items go on sale again you will get more. If you ever get to the point where you are afraid to use the items that you stockpile, you may need to examine your motivations.
If you have a grocery stash, you shop differently. You will find that you only buy items when they are on sale (and hopefully combined with coupons). This means that one week you may buy 12 jars of pasta sauce, 4 chickens, and 8 cans of cream of mushroom soup; and next week you may buy 12 boxes of cereal, 10 pounds of rice, and 20 cans of kidney beans. I tend to spend the same amount on groceries each week (I budget $150 for our family of 8), but the items I buy vary greatly.
Your stash will vary by season. In the summer my stash tends to contain a lot of pasta for making cold salads, salad dressings (they go on great sales in the summer so I tend to stock up for the year) and potato chips. In the winter I stock up on cake mixes, flour and sugar, canned beans and canned soups.
Don't let your stash go to waste. Did you buy a lot of an item thinking that your family would love it? Did someone develop an allergy to a certain type of food or personal product? Donate things that just are not being used. I have a friend (hi Eileen!) who brought some baby shampoo and some body wash to my house one day. She had it in her stash and she got them for free or close to it, but knew she would not use it. What a blessing it was to me at the time!
I, personally, do not stock up on paper products. I can usually find a good deal or a coupon or both on things like toilet paper fairly often. I buy a large package of toilet paper for each bathroom, and replace it when needed. Paper products take up a ton of space, and in our house, real estate is at a premium. We rarely use paper towels, and we end up having to donate more Kleenex to the school than our family ever uses in a year. I buy a three pack of tissue at back to school time and it literally lasts us all year! Your mileage may vary.

Cashwise Foods Deals for week ending 6/11/11

2011-06-08T20:59:00.000-05:00

I tend to spread my grocery shopping across the entire city of Bismarck. Different stores seem to have better deals or higher quality of certain items. Some stores have great sales, others are just a pleasant place to shop.

If I was forced to choose one grocery store to shop at, I would have to choose Cash Wise foods. On the downside, it is pretty far from my house, I have to bag my own groceries, the produce section is more limited than I care for, and I think they sell the highest priced milk in town. However, the savings I get at Cash Wise outweigh the less than fun shopping experience.

Here are some of the benefits that Cash Wise offers:

Free item of the week. Every week Cash Wise offers a free item with a minimum $30 purchase. What is my favorite price point? Yes, free. This week's free item is a bag of Food Club Tortilla Chips. we go through a lot of tortilla chips in our house. They'll be gone before dark. Good thing they were free. Plus, if you have a good cashier, she'll remind you to grab your free item. Not a fan of the free item? Get it anyway and donate it to the food pantry cart on your way out the door.
Cash Wise Delivers. Grocery delivery sounds frivolous, until you are hugely pregnant, or everyone in the house is sick, or you don't feel like dragging a bunch of kids to the store. For a small fee, $6 in the city of Bismarck, you can order your groceries online and a nice person will show up at your house and bring the groceries into the house for you!!! Considering that generally you have to bag your own groceries at Cash Wise, this is a great deal. You are also able to use coupons on your online order, with the added benefit of not forgetting to use them. The downside is that it still takes a while to order, the system is not foolproof, and I prefer to select my own produce and meat. An added bonus is that once you order online, you will get a weekly email letting you know which of the items you buy is on sale!
Low Prices and Store Coupons Cash Wise consistently has the lowest prices in town on most items. As I mentioned earlier, it appears that milk products are priced higher than other stores (Dan's and Sam's Club seem to carry the cheapest dairy products). I do plan on keeping very close pricing records in the next few months so that I can report to you which stores really have the lowest prices. The other benefit that Cash Wise offers is a wide variety of store coupons. You can print them out at home or you can pick up an ad and a coupon sheet inside the front door. . .right next to the free coffee! Today I used a store coupon for $3 off of the purchase of 4 select Nabisco products. I chose the large (14 oz) boxes of Triscuits that were on sale for 4 for $12. The in store coupon brought my price down to $2 a box. I only wish I had a manufacturer coupon as well! (I eat a lot of Triscuits, so I rarely have manufacturer coupons saved. . .I buy them as I get them!)
Wide Variety: Cash Wise really is one of the biggest grocery stores in town. They carry a wide variety of foods and have the largest Natural Foods department of all of their competitors. They also staff the natural foods department with an employee to answer your questions.

Some of the great advertized specials this week:

Fresh Pineapple: $1.96 each
Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite 12 packs 3/$10 (with store coupon)
Hormel Little Sizzlers 10/$10
$1.98 Minute Maid Premium Orange Juice
Buy One Get One Free Kemp's Ice cream
10/$10 Yoplait Greek yogurt (there are lots of coupons available for Yoplait products)
4/$4.44 Betty Crocker Suddenly Salad(combine with coupon)
2/$4.88 selected General Mill Cereals (combine with coupon)
2/$7 "All" liquid Detergent (50 oz)
Buy One Get One Free Nature Made Vitamins (with in store coupon)
$1.86 2lb Bag Full Circle Organic Carrots
Buy One get One Free Kraft Salad Dressing (with in store coupon) --I buy most of my salad dressing for the year during the summer months, the sales and coupons are great. When I run out, I wait for a sale, or, better yet, make my own! I like that Kraft salad dressings are not laden with chemicals (especially the full fat versions).

Here is the Cash Wise Foods Coupon Policy. I'm glad that they make it readily available, so let's abide by it please!

Chime in! Have you gotten any good deals yet this week? Are you a Cash Wise shopper? Why or why not? You Know I'd love to hear from you!

Carmike Theaters Summer Kids Series!

2011-06-07T22:26:00.000-05:00

My kids love to go to the movies! However, we have a large family, so movies in the theater are a special treat.

It looks like we may be going to a few more this summer though. Carmike Theaters are featuring their Summer Kids Series on Thursday mornings at 10. $1 gets admission to the movie and $4 buys a kiddie tray with popcorn, drink and fruit snack.

More details are available at the Carmike website.

Who will join us for Hotel for Dogs on Thursday?

Have You Joined Swagbucks Yet?

2011-06-07T18:50:00.002-05:00

I just cashed in 450 Swagbucksfor a $5 amazon.com gift card. This is the eighth card I've redeemed this year. That equals $40 of free money. Anyone who has known me for a while knows that my favorite price point is free!

Swagbucks is a unique point earning search engine. I've participated in other such websites in the past, most notably MyPoints, but I hated the endless emails and the hassle I went through to search through their websites.

With Swagbucks I simply installed a toolbar (you can search for points without the toolbar as well) and use Swagbucks when I need to search the web. I actually could earn a lot more through Swagbucks if I tried. My $40 earnings for 2011 is what I've earned by remembering to search once or twice a day. To be honest, I don't do a lot of websearching. . .I have blogs that I follow, and I am active on Twitter and Facebook, and I get many links to check on through those venues. If I searched the web more. . .and I should. . .I could cash in a lot more Amazon gift cards!

Not a fan of Amazon? (why?) Never fear! The Swag store has many other opportunities to spend your swag bucks. I personally choose Amazon because it gives me more bang for my buck. I just enter my gift code into my Amazon account and it keeps track of them and applies them as discounts towards my next order.

There are other ways to earn Swagbucks as well. There are daily polls, surveys to complete, games to play, and videos to watch. Swagbucks also makes things fun with hidden codes and other surprises. If you join make sure to follow them on Facebook and Twitter so that you can be the first to know about promotions.

Did you know that you can earn Swagbucks for using coupons? Yes you can! If you click on the coupon tab on the Swagbucks home page. It will lead you to a coupons.com website, where I print many online coupons a month. On top of getting some great coupons, you earn 10 swagbucks for each one that you redeem! That adds up to a little more than 10 cents of free money per coupon redeemed. How cool is that?

I've embedded a Swagbucks widget in the footer, so you can use it to search, and even read the swagblog to learn more about swagbucks!

Chime in! Do you use Swagbucks? How often? What do you cash in your points for? What holds you back from using it more? You know I'd love to hear from you!

Bismarck Flooding, and a Delay

2011-05-28T12:05:00.001-05:00

When I first set up this new blog, I was blissfully unaware that our community would be in such turmoil just a week later.

I have watched our community of Bismarck and Mandan come together in wonderful ways this past week, and I have faith that we will continue to pull together.

I know that my potential readers are most likely women, and many with small children at home, like myself. I feel at a loss for helping, as I must first care for my family. So, I have done what I can, watching additional children, cooking, listening, and being a shoulder to cry on.

And, though we are in crisis mode, life still continues. High School students graduate tomorrow. The state Track and Field tournament is going on. People will have birthday parties. People will host graduation parties. People will go to work. Women will give birth. Some people will die. In the midst of crisis, life goes on.

Be gentle with your neighbors. Try not to judge too harshly. Assume that everyone is helping in the best way that they can.

When things start to feel more normal, I'm going to come back, and we'll have some great talks about saving money in Bismarck and Mandan and beyond.

Saturday Savings and an Intro

2011-05-21T21:13:00.001-05:00

I was inspired to start this new website with the recent popularity and controversy surrounding TLC's series, Extreme Couponing. I use coupons, but I'm not extreme. However, I am always on the lookout for ways to save more money.

I wrote several articles for my personal blog that explored sensible coupon use and shopping. These posts were met with great interest. While researching for those posts I realized that there was a void in the Bismarck/ Mandan area. There is not one comprehensive place to go to find all of your savings information.

I cannot guarantee that this site will have all that you need right away, but with some teamwork and feedback, I know that we can make this a go-to resource for the Bismarck/Mandan area, and other places as well.

One feature that I want to start with will be called "Saturday Savings". I plan on reporting my coupon savings for each week, and I will keep a running tally on the sidebar as well. I encourage you to keep track of your own savings as well, it will be fun to see all of our savings add up!

For today I did my regular weekly shopping trip. The day that I shop varies, but lately, Saturdays have seemed to be a good day. This week Cashwise Foods had a coupon book in Sunday's paper and the coupons were expiring today. So I chose to shop at Cashwise today. My coupon savings were $32.49 or 18% of my total. Not extreme, but ethical, reasonable, and it only took me about five minutes to go through the book to clip the coupons.

Monday I'll share some upcoming sales and bargains for the next week. So come on back!

Chime in! How much money did you save this week?