There seems to be a few myths about using coupons and the types of people that use coupons. I'm afraid that my husband and I don't fall under these judgments. We use coupons because we enjoy saving money and would rather spend it on other things that we find are more enjoyable in life or making a lump sum payment on our mortgage. We started using coupons as a way to cut down our grocery bill. Living on the beautiful west coast comes at a high cost. We decided to share the information we learned and the best grocery deals with fellow Canadians and thus GroceryAlerts.ca was created.
We treat coupons like we treat a dollar bill, if you found $5 on the ground wouldn't you pick it up? I know I would. Having these pieces of paper enables us to stretch our dollars further. We are able to enjoy a dinner out at half the cost. We are passionate about coupons because coupons offer us another form of income that we don't need to work hard for. It gives us more freedom to spend money on things we enjoy.
I must admit scoring these great deals becomes an addiction and like with all addictions you're always looking for an even better deal or bargain. One of my all time favorite extreme couponing shopping trips was at Safeway purchasing All Bran Buds cereal. A box usually retails for $6.99.
Safeway works with the Air Miles loyalty program. Air Miles are great for Canadians because of the number of merchants where you can earn miles and redeem your miles. An example of some redemption options includes: redeeming 200 Air Miles for a $25 Starbucks gift card or for 75 miles you can receive a 1-year subscription to Chatelaine magazine. I like this rewards program because of the many options for non-travellers compared to Aeroplan.
Here is a breakdown of the deal:
Safeway advertised an Air Miles bonus offer - when you bought 5 All-Bran cereals you received 100 bonus Air Miles. The All-Bran Buds cereal was on sale for $4.99 that week. This cereal does not go on sale that often so it was a good price. To apply extreme couponing, we used 11 – $2 off any All-Bran product coupons we received by trading our excess coupons using our Coupon Trader application.
Sales Price: $55 for 11 boxes - 11 $2 off coupons = $33 for 11 boxes.
However, cashing in the 200 bonus Air Miles earned a $25 Starbucks gift card. This brings the total down to $3 for 11 premium cereals when you consider the value of the gift card.
We didn't know exactly how much we were saving until last year. My husband solved this problem by developing a free application that allows you to track your coupon savings. Since we've started using this application in June 2010 we have saved over $2,600 dollars.
Okay let’s break down the money factor. Imagine this, if you spend $200.00 a week on groceries for your family that’s $9600.00 a year that you’d spend on groceries. Now, say that you received at least $50.00 worth of savings per week on groceries thanks to coupons. That would amount to be $2400.00 in savings per years which would bring your yearly grocery bill down to $7200.00. You could use that $2400.00 for a balloon payment on your mortgage that will save you thousands of dollars in interest payments in the long run.