Using My Head Instead of My Cash on Groceries!

Longtime readers may recall...ok, maybe not, that I won a local couponing contest sponsored by a local newspaper. This was 2 years or so ago. My prize was a $50 gift card to a local grocery store downtown in the Big City nearby.
Frankly, I despise that store! It's old, not quite clean, with narrow aisles. I get claustrophobic in there and then you add all the old people clogging up the aisles, keeping me from quickly shopping and getting OUT and I get the shakes just thinking about going there. It's also not in the best area of town to be out and about alone....not that anyone has messed with me yet. They also have a HORRIBLE coupon policy(no internet coupons at all!).
As a result, in 2 years I have only used $8 of this gift card.lol

But earlier this week, I realized that this grocery store is part of the affiliated stores in the ShurSave brand. And as such, this current Spend $XX, Get a Gift Certificate Promotion is being offered at ALL ShurSave grocers in the area. So I can go buy stuff there and have it count toward my Total I have running at the ShurSave store in my teeny tiny town.
Hmmmmmm.....

So I picked the coldest and wettest day of the Fall to go into town to use up my gift card and rack up some more cred toward my gift certificate.

The ShurSave stores are also running a deal this week that goes like this.....Spend $35 in one transaction and get a Turkey for .49¢ a lb. instead of the regular $1.19 a lb. they are charging this November.  And both the $35 and the Turkey purchase also count toward earning the gift certificate.

So I got.....

2 x 1lb. of butter on special $1.99=$3.98
1 x Mayo on sale=$3.50
2 x Diamond walnuts 1lb. on sale $7.49=$14.98
2 x Keelber cookies bogo=$3.68
2 x Pop Secret popcorn bogo=$3.08
2 x Green Giant veggies bogo=$1.98
2 x Sargento cheese bogo=$3.74
2 x red potatoes bogo=$4.98
2 x 2lb. onions bogo=$1.98
1 x 2lb. carrots on sale=$1.99
1 x 16.11 lb. turkey=19.17
SubTotal....$63.06 *This amount gets credited toward my total for the gift certificate promotion*

Coupons
1 x $1/2 Diamond walnuts ManuQ=$1.00
1 x $1/2 Keebler cookies ManuQ=$1.00
1 x $1/2 Sargento cheese ManuQ=$1.00
1 x turkey discount=$11.28
Coupon/Discount Total...$14.28

$63.06-$14.28=$48.78
I used my $42 left on the gift card for a grand total OOP of....$6.78 cash.

The BOGOs and other sales prices that weren't coupon or turkey discounts saved me $25.45, making the regular retail value of this order $88.51.  Using my gift card gave me a savings of 92.34%.
Not too shabby! 8-))

Though it is sad to see that this amount of food that barely covers my small kitchen table would cost $88.51 without any sales or coupons.

The BIG production was once I got home.....making room in the freezer for the turkey!lol


While I was out, I hit up the Bread Outlet too since I haven't been in almost a month and we were running low on bread products......

 Not to go into a long detailed analysis here, so let's just say it's 9 pastries/cookies, 2 bags of rolls, 3 bags of breakfast items and 2 loaves of bread, and it cost me $17.89 and if bought full retail at the grocery store would have run me $72.44.  That's a savings rate of 75.30%.

Generally, since this is 'day old' stuff I don't like to buy so much at one time.  But since my entire garage now qualifies as a freezer with the return of the cold weather, I have no hesitation that anything will spoil before it can be consumed.  I didn't want to have to hike back over to the Bread Outlet before Thanksgiving so I laid in enough of the breakfast items, the Entemmann's pastries and nom noms(that is a technical term, yes?)to get us through the November company. 

So today's food shopping cost me $24.67.
Regular retail was $160.95.

I need to spend about $35 more to get my gift certificate.
I also have to get to Weis in the next two days to roll my Catalina Q and pick up some PF cornbread stuffing for Turkey Day.

Sluggy