Just a note that I had, in fact, already posted a blog similar to this one on Friday, but somehow in my effort to edit in a picture of what I purchased at Shaw's, the post was deleted. Replicating my writing is not my favorite thing to do, but there are some pretty good deals at Shaw's this week. So, here it is again... sort of. ♥

Buy 10 Knorr Sides on sale at 10 for $10. Use (3) $1/3 coupons from last week's newspaper to pay only $7.00 and receive a free 4 lb Rotiserrie chicken AND a 1.5 ltr of any Pepsi product. Pretty good offer, I thought!

Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls are on sale for 2/$3 this week. Buy 6 and use (3) $1/3 coupons from 2/5 GM insert and pay only $1.16 each. Or, if you have the peelie from a can for .55/2 you can use (2) of these to make them only .95¢/can when you buy 2.

Super Chill soft drinks are also on sale this week for .88¢. The ginger ale and fruit punch flavors are great to make punch with for gatherings or to drink alone. I also like to have the flavored seltzer waters on hand for easy cocktails and mixed adult beverages. I got (3) .25¢/1 coupons from the Wish Big, Win Big (WBWB) promotion, which ended on the 9th- the coupons are valid until 2/22. Using them this week brings each of these 2 ltr bottles to only .63¢ each. While I was shopping, I also found the Bangor store had the 1 ltr seltzer waters on sale for .64¢. You can use the $1/2 coupon from the Shaw's coupon book (check customer service or by the entrance door) and pay only .28¢ for both when you buy two of them!

Progresso Soup is on sale this week as part of the 10 for $10 sale. Use the $1/4 coupon from the 2/5 GM insert to make these .75¢/can. My husband and younger daughters love these because they are warm and filling as soup should be, but they are also more like home made. I like them because they are delicious and quick out of the can, or you can use them as a stock base and add more things to make them even better! For example, yesterday while Sean and Caleb were working on our van, I grabbed 1/2 yellow onion, some mushrooms, and the rest of a package of celery and sauted them until translucent for about 5-7 minutes in some butter. I added 2 cloves of garlic, slivered and cooked that a minute or two more. In went a dollop of cream cheese and a hand full of grated parmesan cheese to melt. I opened a can of Progresso Creamy Mushroom soup and stirred it in, letting it simmer until it was all combined, hot and ready to serve. Sean LOVED it- raved about it all day. So easy!!! All told, for the cost of some left over veggies and a .75¢ can of soup, it took me about 15 minutes of my time to create this yummy soup; well worth my effort for his praise.

The cost before sales/coupons came to over $85.00. I paid $33.51 for everything, a savings of 61%!

20 Progresso Soups @ .75¢= $15.00

4 Big Chill Selters @ .14¢= .56¢

1 ltr Mt Dew= FREE with promotion

12 Knorr sides @ .70¢= $8.40

4 UP2U gum @ .49¢= $1.96

3 Ginger Ale @ .63¢= $1.89

1 Orange Big Chill soda= FREE with WBWB promotion coupon

(1) 4 lb Rotiserrie Chicken = FREE with promotion

1 My Essentials Pasta Sauce= FREE with WBWB promotion coupon

6 Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls @ .95= $5.70

Hope you have a great week!

Sonja ♥



Shaw's has some GREAT sales this week. Good enough that I am planning on ordering some coupons from Dede to take full advantage of this sale and stock up on some yummies!

My favorite match ups are all part of the "Buy 10 participating items and Save $5 Instantly" promotion:

Prince Pasta on sale for $1.29/box comes down to .79¢/box when you buy 10. Or mix and match, which is what I did to fill in on some of the other sale items.

Ragu Pasta Sauce is on sale for $1.79/jar becomes .88¢/jar when you use the $1.25/3 coupon and combine with the in store promotion. I only had one of these coupons, for some reason, but I definitely plan on getting more of them before this sale ends on Thursday.

Wish-bone Dressing on sale for $2.49 becomes .99¢/bottle when you use the .50/1 coupon from the 1/29 RP insert and you combine with the "Buy 10" promotion.

Pace Picante or Salsa is on sale for $1.49/jar. Use .75/1 coupon with this sale. The coupon doubles and the final price in combination with the promotion is only .24¢/jar. I plan on stocking up on this, too!

Chex Mix is a favorite with my 11 year old. This week it is on sale for $2.49. I used (2) printable coupons for .60¢/1 to bring the cost to .79¢/bag. Chex Mix is on sale at Rite Aid until tomorrow for $1.49/bag. I could have used the coupon there to make them .89¢/bag, but it made more sense to use Shaw's policy for doubling coupons instead. I bought 2 bags, though I had other coupons for $1/2.

Kraft Cheese- blocks, shredded, and American cheese slices are all on sale for $2.99/package. Use the $1/3 coupon from Sunday's insert with the promotion to make any variety $2.16/package.

Planters Peanuts are on sale for $3.49/jar. Use the $1.50/2 coupon from Sunday's inserts and combine with the promotion to make them $2.24/jar when you buy at least 2 of them and of course, a total of 10 items qualifying for the promotion.

I really LOVE these types of promotions. It fits the way I shop, stocking up, in advance and it saves me an appreciable amount of money along the way. Today, I purchased:

(2) jars Pace Salsa, (3) jars Ragu Pasta Sauce, (5) boxes Prince Bow Tie Pasta, (1) Boursin Cheese, (3) Kraft Cracker Barrel Block Cheese, (3) Kraft Shredded Cheese, (2) American Cheese, (2) Chex Mix, (4) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, (2) Baby Carrots, (2) Fresh Express Salad Mix, (4) 2 lb bags Onions, (2) bunches Celery, & (2) boxes Prince Linguine. The only item not on sale was the Boursin cheese, but I bought some as a splurge to enjoy in tomato halves with my husband tonight. The produce was all on sale for only $1/bag, so though I did not have a coupon for them, they were still at a really great price! And, the cream cheese was on sale for Buy One/Get One at $2.79 for 2 of them. ($1.40 is not a great price for these, but I am making a cheese ball tomorrow for a party this weekend and it was worth my time to pay the pennies more than search another store and spend the extra gas.) All in all my purchases rang up to over $93.00 and my final cost was less than $43.00 for a saving of around $50 and 54% savings today. Had I not splurged on the cheese, my total would have come to only $37.00. I can live with that.

Happy Saving,
Sonja ♥

Shaw's at 9:00 PM

I am not one to venture to the stores late in the evening, even with the stores remaining open well into the night as people prepare to celebrate holidays. It is not that I do not appreciate the savvy business sense of proprietors to take full advantage of people's desire to "shop 'til they drop." I simply prefer to be at home snuggled up with my family after a long day of doing just about anything else.

Tonight, I had a tough choice to make. You see, I had spent some time the past few days reassembling a coupon binder. I sorted through the coupons, organized smartly into their respective categories, to pull the ones I would need. I scanned the weekly sales flyers, and printed my shopping lists. I thought I was all ready for my husband to chauffeur me to the stores I would visit for this week's shopping trip. As silly as it seems, I will admit to being just a little giddy at the thought of actually getting out of this house for a while and was happily anticipating the sales I was going to utilize to start refilling my newly depleted stores. And, then, I realized that my shopping plan for Shaw's was going to be for naught. I had forgotten that unlike the other stores, Shaw's changes their sales on FRIDAY. As in, tomorrow. As in, if I did not venture out immediately into the cold night air, I would miss out on some sales, I was looking forward to using. After discussing the situation with my partner in crime, aka my husband, Sean, we decided to drive the 30 minutes to Bangor and shop.

Was it worth it? We thought so.

One of the sales, we wanted to use was the GM Cereal/Free Milk Deal:

It worked like this: You earn a catalina for free milk (up to a $4.50 value) when you buy 4 participating GM cereals or Nature Valley granola bars at 2/$6.

We had an internet coupon from: www.coupons.com for $1/2 Cookie Crisp to use and another one for $1/3 Cookie Crisp cereals. We used them in two separate transactions.

The math looks like this: 4 boxes of cereal for $11.00+ $3.94 for milk= $14.94, less $1 coupon, less $4.50 coupon= $10.44 out of pocket for 4 boxes of cereal and the milk. I did this one twice, so I still have one $4.50 voucher for milk.

The other sales (taking into account our coupons) I used were; (2) Sargento shredded cheese $1.50/bag, (4) Philadelphia cream cheese $1.00/box, (8) Campbell's "cooking" condensed soups* $ .61¢/ea., (4) Nestle Carnation condensed milk .89¢/can, (6) Pillsbury cinnamon rolls $1.52/ea., (1) Cain's pickles $1.25, (8) GM Cookie Crisp cereal $1.63/box, and (1) FREE gallon milk. Out of pocket, we spent a total of $47.88 and we earned a catalina coupon for $4.50 for milk on our next visit. This certainly was not the best shopping trip I have ever had, but spending less than $50.00 for over $96.00 in groceries makes me very satisfied with our savings of 49.5%.

(I didn't post which coupons I used because this sale was over tonight, so it didn't really matter.)

Tomorrow, it is Walmart, Walgreen's, Rite Aid and Target. Sean will be back on chauffeur duty and cart pusher extraordinaire. I will take photos and post my results. I am attempting to post regularly once again and as I do, I will post the sales and matching coupons.

The last thing I wanted to write about this evening, was about ecoupons from SavingStar. I registered my store loyalty cards earlier this week. You can register for yours HERE. I was able to register my Shaw's, Rite Aid, and Hannaford cards. Once, I registered for free, I looked through the ecoupons listed and "clipped" the ones I wanted to load to my store loyalty cards. (These coupons can only be used once and must be used before their expiration dates.) I shopped as I normally would. I scanned my Shaw's card and paid for my groceries at the register. The ecoupon does not come off the total bill at the register, but rather, once the ecoupon is redeemed by buying the qualifying item, the ecoupon amount accumulates. When the total amount reaches at least $5, I can request it to be paid to my paypal account or I can choose to have it sent to me in the form one of several gift cards. Today, the purchase for Campbell's "cooking" condensed soups qualified for an additional savings of .40¢/3 cans. It is an intriguing program. I am interested to see how this actually works. I'll be sure to let you know!

Goodnight, Friends.

Sonja ♥

Shaws Addional $1/1 DOUBLE coupons= Woo Hoo!!!



$68.11 in Groceries for Only $26.11 +  $5.92 in Bread from Nissen Outlet Store

Shaws:                                                                   

2 Boxes Cheerios $1.08 each                                     

2 Boxes Trix .68¢ each                                             

1 Box Corn Chex $1.08 each                                    

2 Cans Progresso Bread Crumbs $1.00 each           

2 Welch's Grape Juice 1.99 each

4 Boxes Nature Valley Granola Bars $1.08 each

2 Boxes Nature Valley Trail Mix $1.13 each

4oz Tilapia $1.00

4 oz Salmon $1.00

2 Bags Sargento Parmesan Cheese $5.00

3 Asian Pears $1.50

10 8oz Shaw's Tomato Sauce $1.95

Nissen Outlet Store:
2 Country Wheat Bread .99¢ each
2 Country White Bread .99¢ each
4 Single Serve Popcorns .49¢ each

I had a wonderful adventure with my friend, Cheri in Waterville.

First, we stopped by the Rite Aid in Fairfield. This store ROCKS!!! Store Manager, Michelle was wonderful. I had a problem getting all the RRs I anticipated, but she knew just what to do to fix the problem AND she was friendly all the while she helped me. I was hoping to find a couple of the Irish Spring Body Washes that have been unavailable on my local store shelves this whole week. So, I was not a bit surprised to see empty spaces where I hoped the Irish Spring Body Wash would live. Slightly disappointed, I decided to go ahead and buy a couple packages of Irish Spring Bar Soaps and Deodorants instead. While these would not be FREE, I can live with 17¢ per bar of soap. I borrowed my Nana's Rite Aid Wellness Card because there is a limit of four per on this deal. When buying Soft Soap Bodywash this week at the Belfast Rite Aid on my card, only two of the four $2 RRs printed on my receipt. Patricia, who is AMAZING at her job and by far my favorite employee, helped me to remedy the situation. Michelle was quick to return the items, rescan them and make sure I got the right credit for the sale. Interestingly, when my friend, Cheri duplicated the exact same two transactions, all of her RRs printed without any hitches.

Next, we shopped Shaw's. I was excited to see what could be matched with the four $1.00/1 coupons I printed from Shaw's on Facebook Here. My favorite deal was on GM products.

I bought 2 boxes of Cheerios, 2 boxes of Trix, and 1 box of Corn Chex. I used a $1/3 boxes of GM cereals and (2) .50¢/1 box of Trix which I printed online last week from the www.Shaws.com site. When you add the additional $1/1 Shaws Facebook coupon, it looks like this:
GM Product Sale 4/$10.00,
get an additional .62¢ off on each when you buy 5= $1.88 each box which totals $9.40
less $1/3 GM, less $1/1 Shaws, less (2) .50¢/1 (each doubles)= $5.40 for 5 boxes
$1.08 each box.

I bought 6 boxes of Nature Valley Granola Bars. I used (3) $1/2 coupons from the Sunday paper insert. These were also on sale for 4/$10.00 with an additional .62¢ off each when you buy 5. This brings the total down to $1.88/box. The  insert coupons make them $1.38/box. I used my other three Shaw's Facebook $1/1 coupons to them .88¢ each box.

Lastly, Cheri took me to the Nissen Discount Store. I found Country White and Wheat breads, which normally retail for $2.99 at my local Walmart for only .99¢. I bought 4 loaves; one loaf of each in the bread box of a quick french toast breakfast tomorrow and I froze the other two loaves to use whenever suits my needs in the future. Thanks, Cheri!!!!

I was able to print another block of four $1/1 coupons today and might repeat the Granola Bar purchases before the sale ends October 6th. I am not sure if they are somehow linked to my Shaw's card and will be disallowed on another visit or if I can do this another time. I will keep you posted when I find out.

Do you plan to use Shaw's additional coupon savings this week?

Sonja ♥

Shaw's Today

$57.44 Retail Cost. Out of Pocket Expense $23.26

Today's Purchases:
3 bags Shaw's Brand Croutons
10 boxes Totino's Pizza Rolls
1 Single Serving of Tilapia
1 Single Serving of Salmon
(2) 3 lb packs of Chicken Breast
(1) 4 pack Bathroom tissue
6 Oscar Meyer Lunchables

My eldest daughter would live on Totino's Pizza Rolls if I allowed it. My younger two daughters favor Oscar Meyer's lunchables. I think that, as with everything else, balance in all things is recommended. They make a very handy afterschool treat, so I stick some in the freezer when I find them at a good price.

When I saw Totino's Pizza Rolls and Oscar Meyer Lunchables on sale as part of the 10/$10 sale, I had to stop in to stock up on some.

I used (2) $1/2 online coupons printed here and (3) $1/2 coupons from the Sunday paper insert. 10/10 is a good price. 10/$5 is even better AND, I earned an additional 10 box tops for education catalina to donate to the girl's Middle School PTG. Combined with the 10 box tops printed on the boxes, that is an additional $2 donation.

I also purchased (2) 3lb packages of Split Chicken Breast. At $6 for 3 lbs, this would not be a great bargain. But, Shaw's had a Buy One, Get One Sale on these, which made them 6 lbs for $6.

I bought 2 different single serving sizes of fish; one Tilapia and one Salmon. The girls and I do not care for fish, but my husband does. So, sometimes, I make a dinner and substitute fish for him when the rest of us eat pork chops, steak, or chicken. These single servings were perfect with that intention in mind. The best part? They were only $1 each. I would have purchased more of them, but it goes against my policy of buying unnecessary things without coupons to match with the sales. The sale price was good, but this was not something I needed to have, therefore, I chose to limit how many I bought.

Lastly, you may have noticed the lonely single package of toilet tissue. After nearly 9 months, I am sad to say that my back stock of FREE toilet tissue is gone. Read about that shopping trip HERE. But, it was good while it lasted. I will continue watching for another FREE deal on this. So far, none have been found. *Sigh*

Remember to check in to the Shaw's page on Facebook HERE for exclusive coupons to match with tomorrow's sale. Our local Shaw's will double up to (4) $1.00 off coupons tomorrow, in addition to their regular doubling policy.
Sonja ♥