Leahs Cafe

Some people believe nothing is FREE in this world. I used to think the same, not until I learn to play the grocery game!!

Marketing and advertising are BIG in America. Businesses are constantly trying to sell you stuffs that you don’t need and commercially prepared  junk food are disguised as “good and wholesome” ! The stores especially the grocery business is very competitive, they spent a lot of money advertising and playing psychological game with the consumers. The same item can be $1 this week, $2 next week and $1.50 another week! In order to win the game, I don’t shop like a typical consumer – buy what you need when you need them, I buy them when they are FREE or almost Free!

How do I do that? The grocery stores have a 12-week cycle in which everything in the store is at its lowest price point.  The manufacturers  also  often run marketing promotions coincides with the cycle. When that happens, that’s the best time to buy that item for an even bigger discount using the manufacturer coupons, store discounts and manufacturers’ promotion that are available.

Let me give you an example:

Marie Callender’s frozen Pasta

Normal Price: $4.00

Store promotion: On sale for $2.50

Coupons available: $0.75 or $1.00

Manufacturer’s promotion : Buy $20 of participating products, get back $10 on your next shopping trip.

Scenario:

Buy 5 packs of frozen Pasta = 5 x $4 =$20 (hit the threshold for manufacturer’s promotion)

Sale price = 5 x $2.50 = $12.50

Minus coupons available, let say you have 2 $0.75 coupons and 3 $1.00 coupons.

$12.50 – 2 x $0.75 – 3 x $1.00 = $8.00

You pay $8.00 + $0.13 sale tax (of course you can pay with coupons you get from buying other products) and get back $10!

They pay you $2.00 to take home five packs of frozen pasta!!

Isn’t it a fun game? I enjoy being paid to take things from the store!

Well, it may not be healthy to eat frozen pasta all the time and no one has a BIG freezer to stock up a year worth of pasta!

But, I have gotten almost “everything” free or close to free by being a strategic shopper, including fresh vegetables, shrimps, Salmom, cough medicine and diet pill that works!! In the process, also gotten gift cards for Starbucks and different clothing stores that got me new summer clothes and T’s work clothes.

I am having too much fun with catalina deals and playing the grocery game right now, have not have much time to blog.:-)

Discovered something new (to me) few weeks ago- the wine tags put out by wine manufacturers. They are tearpads found at the wine department or tags hang on the wine bottles, which give you $ off produce, meat, fruit, cheese, seafood, juices, etc.

The tags for instant may say “Save $6 on groceries when you buy 2 bottles of xxx brand of Wine 750 ml or larger”. But the wonderful thing about this tags is: the liquor law in IL prohibited coupon redemption for the purchase of hard liquor, so there will be a “No alcohol/wine purchase is required” in the fine print.

Some of the “NO ALCOHOL PURCHASE REQUIRED” tags that I have found and used in the last few months!

Most of this tags are specific about what products you can use them on, but some are open to interpretation!

What is a mixer? The cashiers or store managers may not always agree with me, my interpretation: mixer is anything that you can mix with liquor! So, Coke, milk, orange juice, coffee drink, are all mixers!

What is a produce? Are eggs and frozen vegetables included? :-)

I was able to find tons of the tear pads and hang tags (most people don’t pay attention to them, unless they do coupons) and used them to get seafood, produce, meat, cheese for FREE. Our fridge is now well stocked with fruits like Kiwi, strawberries and mangoes we otherwise won’t buy as they are expensive. We have frozen shrimps, chicken, pork, ham and sausages to last us for at least 3 months!

Our refrigerator has limited freezer space, so when the store has a FREE freezer deal in the winter, we got one with coupons!

We bought the chest freezer  when the store ran a freezer deal. We paid with catalina coupons accumulated and received $150 worth of coupons for FREE food

In the month of January, we hardly spent any money on groceries, we probably forked out about $20 for sale taxes as coupons cannot be used for taxes, that’s it.

The deal started last week and ends today, but we were busy with MIL in the hospital, so hadn’t have time to go to the store much. I was there on the first day of the sale and spent about $5 out of pocket and collected $50 worth of cash vouchers.

This kind of deal doesn’t happen too often, the last one they have was in Nov 2008. It’s a “Buy $30 and get back $15 in Catalina coupons”, then you can use the coupons to buy more stuffs and roll into more coupons.

A typical scenario: a box of Fiber One Honey Cluster cereal is normally $4.65 at Jewel Osco, it’s on sale for $2 a box.

When you buy 7 boxes of cereals 7x $4.65 = $32.55 (over the $30 threshold for getting back $15)

Sale price is 7 x $2 =$14

minus 7 x $1 manufacturer’s coupons

Total paid = $14- $7 (manufacturer’s coupons) = $7.

You pay $7.00 ( and $0.14 in tax) and get back $15, a net profit of $7.86.

Needless to say, I have been buying cereals to make money. :-)

We obviously won’t need so many boxes of cereals for two person, so we gave them away, donated them to the food pantry and women shelter. We even get tax relief for doing that!

The 8-roll bounty paper towels and Tide detergent are normally $14.99, they are on sale for $10 and $11.47 each. But I am able to get them for $1.50 and $3+ each with the coupons and Catalina deal. I offered them for $6 each to DH’s relatives and friends who know nuts about coupons, they sold like hot cakes!

Throughout the whole week, I spent about $50 out of pocket over 40 transactions for goods worth about $2000+. Kept some of them for own use and resold some of them to T’s relatives and friends, made a net profit of $200 in cash and still have $50 worth of Catalina coupons!

I could have done much better if I could drive to the store in the morning as the store often ran out of the money making items when T got off work. I still have tons of unused manufacturer’s coupons for cereal and P&G products. I need to get going with the driving license and get all geared up for the next Catalina deal coming up in about 2-3 months. :-)