Time to Shop

Okay, today is the big day, first big time coupon expenditure happening.

How does one go about planning a shopping trip utilizing coupons you ask? Good question… 

Here’s the play by play on my first attempt:

First, I made sure all my coupons were input and NOT expired. Got out my handy dandy spreadsheet, sorted my items alphabetically, made columns for the Albertson’s and Target prices, and printed out my spreadsheet.  Then I jumped in the car and hit up Albertson’s, my number 1 go to store since it’s about a ¼ mile from the house. 

As I entered the store with my pen and paper in hand, I grabbed a basket to tote along with me so the grocery store people didn’t think I was trying to pilfer soap and other items during my hour+ long trip. No doubt it was quite the sight, as I stared pensively at the items on the shelves and shuffled through sheets of paper trying to locate an item on that never-ending spreadsheet. I started from the right side of the store and slowly weaved my way up and down the aisles noting anything that was on sale at Albertson’s, a long and arduous process to say the least.

Once I was satisfied that I had hit as many items as possible, almost 50+ items, I returned to my vehicle to hit up Target. My plan at Target was to get prices for all items I had found at Albertson’s; plus anymore that I was able to easily locate or were not available at Albertson’s.  I did the same aforementioned method of carrying an empty basket… which I will say, is almost shocking that I managed to  walk out of either store without putting SOMETHING in that basket, so un-shop-aholic of me…  it must be something in the coupons.  

After a quick stop at the Starbuck’s in Target for a shaken iced tea lemonade and a rice-krispy treat (which are absolutely delicious by the way) I was on my way home to input my store prices.

I will include that Ralph’s was also on my list of stores to price shop… however, I wasn’t in the store for more than 5 minutes. I checked a few quick items against my Albertson’s store prices, and the prices were outrageous! The sale prices at Ralph’s were equal to the normal retail price at Albertson’s. Now, I realize that this may be a biased opinion, since I was under-feed from extensive shopping hours (ironic since I was in grocery stores) and my feet and brain hurt, but I wasn’t in the mood to do a super market sweep of Ralph’s and find those few hidden deals that I’m sure were lurking around somewhere. Also, the isles were really narrow… not really into that.

Anyways… Back to the task at hand… The spreadsheet, once saved for archiving coupons, has been transformed to include various store prices and formulas to calculate some serious savings. Now they say the devil is in the details… so I’m ALL over the details here.

First, I input store prices. Second, I filtered based on items I had been able to price, and then determined which store, Target or Albertson’s , had the better price. I also made a column for this so it would be easier to search and filter at shopping time, aptly titled ‘Purchase From’, which I then color coded… cause I’m OCD like that. Third, I made a column for what I would expect to pay, titled ‘Price Out the Door’,  this included the unit price less the coupon value, times the number of items I was going to purchase (based on how many coupons I had on hand and terms of the coupon). This was a good place to check the specific terms of the coupons, some of which require you buy a certain type of an item, or size, or qty, and some have limits, such as ‘only 4 of the same coupon’.  

Here’s what it all looks like, Purple = Albertson’s, Green = Target:

I have limited time tonight, so I have chosen to only hit up Target. Now comes the conundrum of ‘how do I get ALL these coupons into the store, in an organized fashion, and know what it is I am supposed to buy?’ Well… I know you’ve all seen my ziploc bag full of coupons, but that isn’t going to work for a large mission like this. So, I picked up a handy little binder and some baseball card holders, and went to work stacking, counting, and organizing my coupons into the binder.  On top of each stack of coupons I put a sticky note with the number of items to buy written on it; this way I wasn’t counting out coupons in the store trying to decipher how many I planned on buying. And I was in a serious race against time… it was 9 o’clock as I sat on the couch admiring my new binder full of savings!!, and Target closed at 10, time to get a move on.

My Coupon Binder

After an hour or so of meticulous number crunching and coupon pulling and organizing, here is my guestimate for the evening:

21 different types of items, 78 items, 73 coupons, $140 bucks

This seems a bit ambitious, and the ‘Price Out the Door’ is a little on the high side, not to mention the sheer number of items I’ll be taking home… so we’ll see how it goes.

Check back tomorrow for a recap of my first coupon-induced shopping spree… May the savings be with you friends.