Journal Timex's Wife's Journal: My latest supermarket triumph... 5

A passing grade in math strikes again! I was perusing the local store circulars recently, in preparation for my weekly grocery shopping and noticed something rather to my advantage (and to the advantage to the friends and family in my coupon circle). Shaw's (one of a half dozen different grocery stores in my area) was having a special on "Jello" brand puddings and gelatins- 4 for $2, or 50 cents per box. Not a bad deal, but it gets better-- in every single circular was a coupon for $3 off 5 participating "Kraft" items, including "Jello" products.

5 boxes of "Jello" x $0.50 = $2.50; $2.50 - $3.00 = - $0.50

In other words, 50 cents off my grocery order for every 5 boxes of "Jello" product the store gave me! One hundred and sixty boxes later (I am not kidding!), the store took $16 off my grocery bill. And my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, local Council on Aging, and Battered Women's Shelter were up a whole lot of Bill Cosby's favorite dessert. To quote one of my favorite tv shows from years ago, "I love it when a plan comes together!"

This of course does not even take into account the coupons for buy one bag of "Lay's" brand potato chips get two free, and the inch deep stack of other coupons I used, nor the fact that my mother, sister, and grandmother all did the same thing. As for how we each laid our hands on 32 "Kraft" coupons each, that was simple-- walk into Shaw's with coupon scissors (kid's old safety scissors re purposed for me), grab stack of circulars, spend 5 minutes cutting and ta- da... you get the idea. For me, taking the time to plan is both fun and necessary.

For those of you who like the idea of saving money, but time constraints make it hard to plan out your grocery saving campaign try this:
  http://www.thegrocerygame.com/

This site will look up all the sale prices at the local store/ stores of your choice, match them up with coupons (most of which you just click and print from one site) and presto, you have a shopping list based on sale prices minus coupons. One dollar buys you an eight week trial membership for one store; after that, if you like it, it's $10 every 8 weeks for one store and an additional $5 for each additional store. I like this site, but since I have the time and my youngest son has multiple food allergies, I am mostly a "do- it- yourself" fan.