At the beginning of the year I made a goal to visit the food bank once per month with at least 10 items to donate per trip. I didn’t document my January shopping trip (oops), spent $1.31 out of pocket for 10 items in February, and just scored 19 items for free at Publix tonight. Actually, I made a little bit of profit on my transaction, which makes it even better!
Each Uncle Ben’s rice was on Buy One Get One Sale at Publix. The first rice rang up at $1.00 and the second rice rang up at $0.99. I used the $1.00/1 coupon from the February 20th Red Plum insert and got each package of rice for free! The mentos were on sale for $0.50 each and I used three $0.50/1 Mentos coupons. Those coupons doubled to $1.00 which means I received $1.50 in overage on my transaction. I was paid to take these 19 items out of Publix. :-) No, Publix did not open the cash register and give me money, that overage was applied to my total purchase.
At two stores I purchased everything above for a totaly of $8.13. I had 18 packages of rice, 8 cans of black beans, 12 cans of tomato sauce, 1 Classico sauce, 4 loaves of Pepperidge Farm bread, bananas, kiwis, pears, plum, 2 loaves of bakery bread, 1 Brummel and Brown butter, 1 Breakstones cottage cheese with fruit, some lunch meat, and a pack of gum (I was a little short of the $30 mark). I used two $5/30 coupons. The only items that I did not have a coupon for were the cottage cheese, butter, milk, lunch meat, and gum. My savings at Publix (according to the receipts) was $83.70, so I saved 90% on tonight’s trip!
Coupons ARE Great!!!
Leandrea is a married mom of two girls, ages 6 and 7, living in Atlanta, GA. She is passionate about helping people save money one coupon at a time. Read more 
I like this goal Theresa. It is fun to get out there and chase the freebies knowing that a lot of families will benefit from my hour max of time.
Nicole – that’s a great question! One of my friends mailed me 11 coupons and I had 7. I tend to get double papers on Sunday for $3. It kills me to pay so much for papers…..but I just got a lot of items for free too. In the end it all works out.
PS – Thanks Shani! You rock girlie!
This is really impressive. How are you getting your papers these days? aka how did you have 18 coupons for the rice?
What a great goal to have! Good for you! I’ll have to remember to put it on my goals for 2012.