Printing Coupons & Publix Deals

In my very long list of links yesterday, I posted three websites that you can go to and find coupons that you print yourself. For me, these are hit-or-miss; since we are a South Beach Diet household, we buy more fresh food and a lot less prepackaged food, especially the convenience foods (like frozen meals, etc.). That is not to say that we don't buy those on occasion, but sites likes Coupons.com are great when you find something you can use. I recently found $1 off any Fiber One granola bars and, since those are presently my favorite snack, I printed as many as I could.

This brings me to my point. If you want to print coupons yourself, you need a laser printer. I haven't really had experience with inkjet printers and printing coupons personally, but I know that the consignment sales prefer that you print your tags with a laser printer rather than an inkjet printer because a laser printer is better at printing barcodes. Scanners read barcodes more easily if they have been printed with a laser printer. Our laser printer is about six years old, but it still works great. It cost us $150 in 2003 and maybe $60-$100 a year in toner catridges and paper, depending on how much we use it. You can get a relatively inexpensive laser printer for $100-$150 now. It is an investment I highly recommend.

Publix has some nice BOGO deals this week. Combine those with coupons and, voila, you have a very happy couponing mama!

BOGO A1 Steak Sauce
Minus $2 coupon here (remember to print two, one for each bottle!)
=$2 or less per bottle (depending on size)!

BOGO Kraft Salad Dressings
Minus $1.50 coupon from Sunday's paper (remember to use two, one for each bottle!)
=less than $2 a bottle!

Visit www.publix.com and click on Services to find a link to their weekly ad and see what deals are brewing in your neck of the woods!

One Example of How Coupons Rock!

If you are wondering how useful coupons really are, especially when you realize how much time it can take to clip and organize them, I hope this example will help convince you of their usefulness.

Publix is one of the best grocery stores in the area. Their everyday prices can be a little high, but their sales are excellent. They do Buy One Get One Free (BOGO) deals on many items every week. Combine a BOGO with coupons and, all of a sudden, you have saved yourself quite a bit of money. Here is my most recent BOGO deal that left me smiling from ear-to-ear.

I love Campbell's Select Harvest soups, but they are expensive -- $2.39 a can at Publix. This week, they have had the Select Harvest soups as a BOGO deal, meaning that each can is technically $1.19/$1.20 a can. A few Sundays ago, there were Buy 2, Get 50 cents off coupons in the Sunday inserts. I clipped a few plus traded for more. I went into Publix today with SIX 50 cents off 2 cans coupons plus a 75 cents off coupon from Target (Publix takes competitor coupons).

So...I bought 12 cans @ 1.20 a piece = $14.40 (before tax). Double the six 50 cents off 2 coupons, which Publix doubles everything up to 50 cents, and now I have 6 $1 off 2 coupons and that 75 cents off coupon from Target, making my coupon total $6.75.

$14.40 (12 cans of soup @ $1.20 a can)
- 6.75 (coupons)
= 7.65 (final cost for 12 cans)

That makes each can about 64 cents a piece. With the BOGO deal plus the coupons, I saved $1.75 a can or $21! Amazing!

Honestly, I still would have bought the soup even if I had not had the coupons, but saving myself almost $7 with the coupons means that I have $7 in my pocket to get toward other items and I have stocked up until the next sale on these soups.

I hope you can find a deal like this one that excites you as much as this one did me!