This is a fairly long story of how I and a local food pantry finally managed to secure 1000 boxes of pasta for a local food bank for free.
While I was buying 225 boxes of fruit snacks, I noticed a display near one of the cash registers for three new types of Trident Vitality gum: Vigorate, Rejuvenate and Awaken. On this display was a tearpad with buy one get one free coupons (up to $1.69 value) on it (I only found this display at one of the Safeway stores I visited, but it is worth keeping your eyes open for) and Safeway is currently having a sale of this gum through 3/15 of buy one get one free. Using the coupon with the current sale means free gum:
Yesterday I was was able to get 60 boxes of Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks for free at Safeway and I decided to make another run since this deal was ending. I ended up getting another 225 boxes of Betty Crocker fruit snacks worth $742.50 for free:
I was able to get 60 boxes of Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks for free tonight at Safeway and I will try to stop by some more stores tomorrow in between the errands that I need to run.
Laura, who writes The Couponing Experiment and has been making large contributions to Rosie’s Place as part of the Penny Experiment team received a nice write up on what she is doing in the Rosie’s Place newsletter:
While Laura has been making large contributions, even the small ones that anyone can pick up while doing their regular shopping are greatly appreciated.
This was a last minute deal — I had some $1.00 off 1 Skippy peanut butter coupons expiring at the end of the month and there was a sale at Safeway that allowed me to get each jar for $0.49 — unfortunately, I only had 16 coupons to take advantage of this. I purchased $59.04 worth of food for $7.84 for an 87% savings off regular retail price:
Between traveling and the lack of deals at grocery stores lately, I haven’t been able to add much over the last couple of months. I am hoping that March being Frozen Food Month that there will be some good deals. Fortunately, my lack in finding deals has not been the case with others that have been helping out Penny Experiment and totally rocking in the deals they have been able to find. The combined totals from others should surpass what I have purchased which is absolutely fantastic.
I did have four coupons for Nature’s Path products that were about to expire which I used to get $17.96 worth of food for free. I received these in the mail when a box of cereal I had ended up having a problem that I informed the company about (it wasn’t even a complaint letter — it was simply letting them know they might have an issue because I do enjoy their product).
I took advantage of the Maalox moneymaker scenario available at CVS this week to get 6 free bottles of Maalox (I have 2 different CVS cards — it is theoretically possible to have as many cards as you want, but I find that if I have more than two, I lose a lot of money when Extra Bucks expire before I can use them)
My local CVS didn’t have the Maalox bottles for $5.49, so I ended up purchasing more expensive bottles that allowed me to hit the $20 mark with only three. It was still a moneymaker, just not quite as much and I ended up using the small overage for some stuff I needed for myself. The total value of the 6 Maalox bottles was $44.94 with no cost out of pocket.
Readers and I have now donated over $30,000 worth of food to local food banks. If you would like to participate, I’d love to have you join. Not only will you be able to help your local food bank, you will learn to save quite a bit of money on your own grocery shopping.
Yesterday was the last day that Ronzoni Garden Delight pasta was on sale for $0.99 at Nob Hill, so I made a special effort to stop by three stores in my area to purchase a few more boxes with my $1.00 off 1 coupons for the food bank. I ended up getting 61 more boxes:
I found a nice surprise of 42 $1.00 off 2 Jett Puffed marshmallow coupons in my mailbox from one of the blog readers. This made marshmallows free at Safeway. Through today, Kraft Jett Puffed marshmallows are $1.49 each with a $1.00 instant rebate per package if you buy 5 or more making them $0.49 each. Add in the coupon and they were free, so while I was doing my errands I stopped by several Safeway stores and bought 84 packages:
The following websites are helping to fund the Penny Experiment
