Free is good! - latest shopping trip

New year, trying to get back into the swing of couponing every shopping trip. 

What motivates me most to get back on the bandwagon?.. Free stuff! (That and watching a whole bunch of extreme couponing shows)

So today.. I put together a good little bundle of stuff that was totally free and actually "paid" me to leave the store with it!

I utilized three different coupons, one price matching deal, and some novice cashiers to get all this for free. I printed as many of the coupons as I could, which ended up being 4 toothpaste ones, 2 cat food ones and 5 VH ones. Luckily two were through SmartSource, which is a coupon printing portal that also shows up on other couponing blogs as a sorta sub-portal (allowing you to print the same coupons again). I made sure all of my coupons had different "PIN numbers" and codes and then scoped out where the deals were on my Flipp app. 

VH coupons were any one packet for $1 and Real Canadian Superatore had them on for $1. I went to Freshco where they priced matched for a penny lower, and then confused the heck out of the cashier as I was holding $5 for a purchase of $4.95. We added a plastic bag and she rang it all through with a penny owing. 

I checked here for the other two deals but they didn't have the same items for the other deals. 

Perfect portions cat food were a totally free. I ended up going to Zehrs for the toothpaste deal and they had the cat food too. Totally free + a novice cashier meant she rang in the deals and removed the tax too. 

The toothpaste is a deal we can usually always get - it's one of those never pay for items! The coupon is buy 2 Crest products and save $2, and Zehrs had them on for $1 a piece. Again, the newbie cashier rang through the items and removed the tax too. I had to split this deal into 2 so that I could get around the "max 6" rule they had. This coupon usually comes with an exclusion line of "cavity protection" ones, but these coupons didn't.. Yay! 

Proud of my accomplishment, I brought everything home and took the top most picture. Then on top of everything, I always check the cash-back apps. Another Yay! The perfect portions cat food was on TWO of the apps! I ended up making $3.19 back through these apps. Checkout 51 for $2 and Save.ca for $1.19. 

It's no extreme couponing but it's a start to get me back in the game!

My last shopping trip - free is good!

My last shopping trip was pretty fun so just wanted to share it here. I went with my roommate and we both spent $50 each. It was kinda fun to see the differences!

Him:

Meat meat and meat

Pizza

Lettuce

Rice

.28 cent noodles

Canned Beans for a chili

Orange juice

Chips

And Shreddies which we price matched for $1.88

So, he got food. $50 doesn't go very far for food anymore it seems, so this was actually really good as it was a week if lunches basically. 

Mine:

3 bags of price matched smartfood ($2 each!)

2 bags price matched Tostitos 

Milk (we go through one of these bags a week)

Pop pop and cans of pop (altogether like $5)

New Nestea blackcurrent pop and coupon

Chocolate milk

.28 noodles and 2 cans of Italian wedding soup

Lemon liquid

2 bottles of laundry detergent which was price matched, couponed AND rebate app'd

2 bottles Vim which were price matched and couponed

1 bottle Palmolive which was price matched and couponed

2 vileda scrunge boxes plus a coupon

Restoralax bottle and coupon

Frank's Red Hot sauce and a full value rebate form filled out

2 Crunch bar sets and a coupon

2 bundles of organic bananas for $1 (clearance rack but they are perfectly fine!)

So from all this, I got free stuff!:

The Tide deal was probably the best as it was a money-maker. I price matched it for 3.99 each, then used a coupon that was $5 off when you buy 2. On top of this, Tide was also on one of the rebate phone apps for buy 2 and get $5. I have requested that cheque in the mail now!

The vileda scrunge and the Vim were coupons for buy one get one free. Great deals when the items go on sale. 

Restoralax coupon was for the full value of the item, after I wrote in to the company saying I liked their product  

The two Crunch bars were a coupon from Nestle when I wrote in complaining about some really funky Smarties I bought (and didn't eat). They sent me a $2 off coupon, which I used on 2 $1 Crunch bar packages. You can see below the coupons, plus a free sample and coupon I received in the mail the same day. 

The Frank's is a current promotion for a full value rebate of any of their bottles. We were out so it was great timing!

Then yesterday I dragged my roommate out after work to grab something else we are out of: bottled water. 

The store had a one day only deal coupon which I pulled from the web and printed. They have their case of 24 waters on sale for $1.97 (which in itself is a good deal), but the coupon gave a buy one get one free. We walked out of there with 4 cases of water for under $4. 

Something to note for the word "free" though..  Usually you still need to pay the tax. Unless the coupon states otherwise, tax is not included. For the restoralax and the 2 crunch bars which I did in one transaction, I still had to pay $1.53 I think it was. All for the tax man. 

Happy shopping!