A Couple of Frugal Shopping Trips

I wanted to post about a couple of bargains I got recently. The first was last night's shopping trip to Target thanks to Money Saving Mom. I didn't do quite as well as she did (I had run out of allowable coupons to print) but I was still really pleased! After dinner with the family last night I stopped over to Target with coupons in hand. I bought 2 boxes of Kashi cereal, 2 boxes of Kashi granola bars and 2 boxes of their dark chocolate oatmeal cookies... all for $8.16. Considering the retail price on the cereal alone was $3.86, that's quite a bargain! I love Kashi products. I like the flavor and the quality, so I was pleased as punch with this deal.

Here's how it worked - the Kashi products were already on sale for $2.50. Then I used the Target web coupons combined with a manufacturer's coupon. Money Saving Mom had said in the comments of her post that Target's corporate policy is that you can use one Target coupon and one manufacturer's coupon together on a single item. (Though it may vary store to store.) Sure enough, when I got to the counter, the salesperson sorted my coupons by Target web vs. manufacturer's coupons and made sure I only had one of each for each item. Then she rang them all through and complimented me on my purchase... and even asked where she could get some of those coupons! Click over to MSM's post and she'll tell you where to print them.

The second deal was earlier this week when I had lunch with my mom...

ebates offers a 15% rebate on purchases through Restaurant.com. So, knowing mom and I were planning on going to a restaurant that has gift certificates on Restaurant.com, I first clicked to ebates and then selected Restaurant.com. On Restaurant.com I can get a $10 gift certificate for $4. However, they are also running a special right now where you can use adcode SEVENTY and get 70% off that. So, for $1.20 I got a $10 gift certificate, and ebates gave me a 15% refund, which admittedly is only $.18, but all it took was one click, and it dropped the price of the gift certificate down to $1.02. Not bad!

I especially liked this offer because my mom refuses to let me pay even a portion of the bill when we go out. She knows about my financial situation so it is kind of her way of helping out. However, she (like me) won't ever turn down a coupon. I showed up with the printed gift certificate in hand and was able to take care of over half the bill!

What about you? Found any great bargains lately?


Photo by: M J M