michellephilippi.com

I’ve never been a huge fan of shopping at Walmart.  The experience, or the atmosphere rather, well, it’s not always great.  But let’s be honest, this whole recession business is getting old.  If you’re fortunate enough to still have your job, that’s great, but the price of gas and milk and everything else is going up.  And I don’t know about you but we’re not getting million-dollar raises over here.  So, I suck it up and go to Walmart a lot more than I ever have.  Especially when I can get free or really cheap stuff.  As big as Walmart is, even they are feeling the pinch.  I’ve read that they have been losing money to places like Family Dollar and Dollar General.  So Walmart’s response is to become very competitive – and they are doing just that in my market.  They will match anyone else’s price, just bring in the ad, and they will also do anything special that the other stores are doing. 
Ask about this next time you are at Walmart.  Or give a call down there if you don’t shop there. 
It’s definitely worth your time in the savings on your pocketbook.

Here’s a recent KMart ad.  They were doubling anything up to 99-cents.  So coupons 99-cents or less could be doubled.  I took this ad along with my coupons and headed down to the Walmart to see what I could score.

I won’t bore you with details of how much each coupon was for, but I got all this for $18.94.
If I did my math right, I saved 64% which is not a phenomenal savings.  However, Walmart already has the lowest prices of any other grocer in town so to save on top of the save is a good thing with me.

2 gallons of milk, (4) 4 lb. bags of sugar, a loaf of bread, a loaf of French bread, (4) Yoplait Greek yogurts, (6) boxes of Taster’s Choice individual stick packs, (1) Hormel Compleats, (4) packs of 12 Schick razors (don’t use or need these but they were $3.94 for 2 packs and the coupon was for $6-off-2 which was a $2.06 moneymaker twice = $4.12 going towards the rest of my order), (2) bottles of Welch’s squeezable jelly, another Cascade pack, some Solo plastic bowls, (2) packs of Vanity Fair napkins, and jumbo pumpkin marshmallows that I had no coupon for but my son begged me to get so I thought what the heck since I have some moneymakers on this order.  Oh and a root beer you don’t see which is what my son charges me for going couponing with me.  He really is a great little helper.

So the next day Albertsons was having double coupons.  And once again, Walmart honored what Albertsons was doing.  And Albertsons doubles up to a dollar.  So I went back with my dollar coupons for a few more things.  But first I capitalized on Walmart’s overage policy.  If you have a coupon that is over the amount of the item, you can use the overage to go towards the rest of the items in your order.  I had (10) coupons for $8-off-2 Cover Girl items.  These eye shadows and blushes were $3.14 and $3.74 each which netted me $11.80 in overage to go towards the other things I was getting.  Again – items I don’t personally use but great for all the teenage girls on my Christmas list…and it made me money 😉

Celestial Seasonings boxes of tea were $2.38, I doubled $1 coupons and got them for 38-cents each.  Crest for kids was $1.97, I doubled $1 and got them free plus 3-cents of overage going towards the rest of the order.

And (14) 2-liters of Sierra Mist. 
These were $1.28 each, I had coupons for $1-off-2 which I doubled making them 28-cents each.

And just for fun I thought I’d show you my receipts.  On 2 of the orders my subtotal was a negative amount after all my coupons and overages.  And this was after having my daughter grab a soda and 2 candy bars at the register to try and avoid this situation.  So the money went towards my tax and the 20 Cover Girl products, 14 bottles of Sierra Mist, 9 boxes of tea, 8 tubes of toothpaste, 2 candy bars and a 16 oz. of Sprite cost me $3.76.

And after I was done with all that, I went through my coupons again, begged & borrowed more double coupons from a friend, and made another trip to the Walmart.

8 cans of green beans, 6 tubs of butter, 3 boxes of tea, 2 Hormel Compleats for kids, 4 eye shadows, and 4 Crest for kids.  Regular price would have been $33.  I paid $2.11.  That’s another 94% savings.