Way back in January I had $1.00 off 1 Rozoni pasta coupons and they went on sale at Nob Hill for $0.99 making them free. While I bought quite a few boxes of the pasta at that time, I didn’t want to run out their stores entirely, so I left plenty of extra boxes so others could take advantage of the sale.

I had plenty of extra coupons and there weren’t enough boxes even after visiting all the Nob Hill stores in my area to use all of them up. I decided to ask one of the managers at a local Nob Hill if he would be willing to order extra boxes so that I could use the extra coupons I had and get the pasta for free. The manager was more than willing to help out, but because the sale was only one week long, he didn’t think that the order would come in before the sale ended.

I explained what I tried to do to Karen who works at the Milpitas Food Pantry and apologized for not being able to get more boxes for her. She called up a Nob Hill manager she knew and explained the situation. Nob Hill was courteous enough to say they would extend the $.99 price for the pasta and sell it to us as long as the coupons didn’t expire. Since there were still a couple months left before the coupons expired, we didn’t think that there would be any issue at all. We asked Nob Hill to order us 1000 boxes of the pasta.

About a month later, we received a call saying that a manager from Rozoni wanted to talk to us. We called to find out that the manager wanted to see the coupons we were planning to use. We scanned the coupon and sent it to the manager and received a reply that she never had seen these coupons and implied that we were counterfeiting them. Since she didn’t believe the coupons were real, she refused to sell the pasta to us.

Although greatly disappointed (and a bit offended of being accused of something we were most definitely not doing), I know these things happen from time to time while couponing and I thought that was the end of it. Karen had other ideas. She wrote a letter to upper management at Rozoni basically saying that if they didn’t want to sell pasta to us, then simply say that, but don’t use as an excuse that coupons that their company clearly distributed were not real to get out of selling the pasta.

It took some time to work through the system, but eventually Karen received a phone call from a vice-president at Rozoni apologizing and saying that they were more than willing to accept the coupons. The only issue was that the coupons had already expired by that time. To their credit, Rozoni said they would honor the spirit of the coupons and send the Milpitas Food Bank 1000 boxes of pasta for free.

Although it took awhile, we were able to secure $2290.00 worth of food for free. Readers and I have now donated over $53,000 worth of food to local food banks. If you would like to participate, it would be great to have you join. Not only will you be able to help provide needed food to your local food pantry, you will learn to save quite a bit of money on your own grocery shopping.

I ended up getting 22 packs of gum worth $28.38 for free which will go to the food bank since I rarely chew gum. Readers and I have now donated over $42,000 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.

Readers and I have now donated over $42,000 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.

The purchase is pretty straight forward. The Betty Crocker fruit snacks are on sale for $0.99 each when you buy 4 or more. I bought five boxes for $4.95. I then used a $0.50 off 2 manufacturer coupon from the Sunday paper:

Which made the price $4.45. I then used a $1.50 manufacturer coupon that is currently printing out of the Catalina machine when you buy Betty Crocker snacks (I found my first one in a shopping cart)

This made the price $2.95. I then used a $3.00 off anything Catalina Coupon that is triggered when you buy 5 Betty Crocker fruit snacks:

Making the purchase free. The total value of the 60 boxes was $198.00 which I ended up getting for free. This can be through Tuesday (3/8) if you happen to stop by your local Safeway. Readers and I have now donated over $41,000 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.

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).

Readers and I are closing in on $35,000 worth of food donated 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.

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.

The 61 Ronzoni Garden Delight pasta packages had a retail value of $139.69 and were completely free after coupons. 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.

The 84 Jett Puffed marshmallow packages had a retail value of $183.96 and cost $0.00. Readers and I have now donated over $29,700 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.

It ended up that there was a mistake made when scanning the coupons and I initially had to pay $3.39 – I knew something was incorrect, but there was a long line, so I paid and went to the customer service where we figured out that one of the free Pepperidge Farms coupons was not scanned and I received a $3.39 refund:

While doing some other errands, I came across another Nob Hill grocery store and purchased another 20 boxes of pasta:

I took all of this, along with the hot chocolate I had to the local food bank:

I learned that there was another Nob Hill grocery store near the food bank, so I went in and was able to purchase another 10 boxes of pasta as well:

In the end, I was able to donate $146.92 worth of food that cost me nothing out of pocket. Readers and I have now donated over $29,300 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.

I came across a Target that had just gotten in a large shipment of the Swiss Miss boxes to fill up an entire end aisle. A quick count showed they had about 200 boxes. I had coupons for about 300 boxes, but not wanting to clear them out, I asked to talk to the section manager. I explained about penny experiment and that I wanted to buy 300 boxes of the Swiss Miss, but didn’t want to deplete their current stock. I asked if they would be willing to make a special order for me of 300 boxes.

They readily agreed and promised to have them in before the sale price went up. I asked if it was OK for me to buy some of the 200 they had in stock, but they said they would prefer I not since they were doing the special order. I said no problem.

The day before the sale was set to end, I received a phone call saying that it was a hectic time of the year and they had not placed my order and they were planning to get the Swiss Miss in a couple of weeks. To make a long story short, I ended up not getting any of the Swiss Miss even though they had promised — I was upset to say the least since I had told the food bank that I would be getting it for them and they had planned to make it part of their Christmas boxes for those in need.

Although greatly disappointed, I still think I did the right thing. If I hadn’t explained, I could have purchased 200 boxes for the food bank, but that would have left nothing for others who wanted to take advantage of the deal. It’s just sad that doing the right thing ended up meaning that the food bank lost 200 boxes of Swiss Miss.

I was able to get 40 boxes from other Target stores before the sale ended at a cost of $0.00 after coupon, but unfortunately that was all I could obtain:

The 40 boxes of Swiss Miss hot chocolate were worth $65.60 and cost for $0.00. Readers and I have now donated over $29,000 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.