Money Monday!

As some of you may or may not know, I am a huge bargain shopper.  I have been looking out for good deals since I was 5 and knew what money was, and that I didn't have a lot of it.  This mentality is mostly thanks to my mother, who is also an avid bargain shopper.  We love anything cheap, be it from a garage sale, someone else's garbage, Salvation Army... etc., etc.

Luckily, this bargain hunting mindset carries over into grocery shopping.  Grocery shopping is like a game... how much can you save this week?  I love looking at the bottom of my receipt and seeing how much I saved.  Is it going to be a measly $5 this week, or is this going to be a $30 week!?

Let me tell you, this week, it was a $56 week.  That's right.  $56.

MoneySavingMom  has been a large part of my inspiration, and my own mother and I will often call or email each other with the latest great deal that was posted by MoneySavingMom.  But I do not always just blindly follow her advice, usually I do my own coupon game, armed with ideas and inspiration from her site.

Normally I do my grocery shopping at Giant Eagle, but this week, I decided to do the majority of it at Target, and boy was I glad I did!  If you weren't aware already, Target will allow you to use one Target coupon PLUS one manufacturer's coupon on any item.  Stacking coupons like this gets you some REALLY great deals.

Shown below is everything that I got yesterday in my trip.  I spent a total of $56 out of pocket, and got $10 back in gift cards, making everything below a final total of $46.

Shown above is the following:

4 boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats

4 boxes of Raisin Bran Crunch

2 boxes of Corn Chex

1 gallon of milk

24 rolls of toilet paper

2 jars of Emerald nuts

2 bags of nut clusters

4 boxes of Green Giant veggies

3 bags of Steamfresh veggies

1 package of Always pads

1 box of Playtex

1 package of bacon

1 container of Airborne

1 loaf of bread

I used a total of 27 coupons.  Yup.  27.  It took me an hour and a half to find, clip, and sort all of my coupons but it was completely worth it to see the huge whopping $56 saved at the bottom of my receipt, PLUS come home with $10 in Target gift cards.

So how did I do it?  Well, I went through the coupons here (coupons.com), here (target.com), and here (redplum.com), and simply clipped what I wanted.  Most of the coupons I used were printed, and some were previous coupons that I clipped from the Sunday paper and weekly redplum.

By far the best deal that I got out of the above was the 4 boxes of Mini Wheats for a total of 50 cents.  That's 13 cents per box.  Granted, they are small boxes, but what a deal!  You'll end up paying $5.50 out of pocket, but receive a $5 gift card in return.

To do this, you need to buy 4 boxes, and print out one $1.50/2 coupon from here, one $1.50/2 coupon here, and one $1.50/3 Kellog's cereals Target coupon here.  They are on sale through the 20th for 4 for $10, plus a $5 gift card if you buy 4.  Make sure you also print the Target coupon policy to take with you to the store - sometimes clerks have given people trouble about using a Target coupon stacked with a regular manufacturers coupon, but I had no trouble doing this last night, and according to their policy it is completely  ok.

You can also do a similar deal with the Raisin Bran Crunch, although it does not work out to be quite as cheap as the Mini Wheats.  I was able to get the Chex for $1.50/box, which isn't stellar, but considering our Giant Eagle has been out of Corn Chex for months, and Target had it all along, I am quite quite happy to have Corn Chex back in stock at our house!  You can stack one $0.75/1 manufacturer coupon with one $0.75/1 Target coupon to get these for $1.50 each.

Another great deal is to print off the coupons for Nut Clusters - there is a $1/1 coupon on coupons.com as  well as a Target coupon for $1/1.  At our Target these were $2.99, making them 99 cents each after coupons.

Nuts were the theme of the night - I also got 2 Emerald jars for $3.  These are on sale at Target for 2 for $6, plus if you look, some of the jars have a Target coupon on the front for $1 off, making them $2/jar.  I also had another $1/2 coupon to use, but unfortunately I do not remember where I got it, perhaps off of a previously bought jar?  This allowed me to get a great deal on the nuts!

Does anyone else have any great Target deals to share this week?  I am definitely going to keep my eye out for more in the future!