Big scary first shopping trip

Well we did it.

We went on our first shopping trip with coupons. We've bought individual items with coupons before, but before tonight, we'd never gone out on our regular shopping trip with the intention of using coupons for most everything. 

Since it's pretty terrifying, we decided to keep it small and only buy the few items that we had coupons for, that were on sale, or both.

Publix was having some great BOGO deals and combined with a few manufacturer's coupons, we managed some pretty nice savings.

Grand total: $15.44; Total savings: $22.05

We saved $8.80 with coupons and $13.25 with in-store savings. Since the Publix BOGO policy allows you to just buy one at half off, the Shout spray, priced at $1.50 with BOGO, became $.70 when we put a $.40 coupon (doubled) with it. We thought that was pretty cool. 

And the dog treats (way in the back behind everything--sorry for the crummy picture) were on sale for $3 per  bag and with 2 $2 off coupons, we snagged them for $1 each. Unfortunately Logan is a giant dog and can eat 6 of the little treats at a time, but since they were only a dollar, I guess it's okay. 

The only items we didn't have coupons for were the hotdogs (half off with BOGO) and the Knorr sides ($.74). Not too shabby. 

Then we ventured over to Kroger to get our own Kroger cards (we'd both been using our parents') and picked up some items from their Mega Event (Get $5 off when you buy 10 participating items).

Deer Park 3 liter waters, regularly $1.19, became $.99 cents with the Kroger card and $.49 with the Mega Event. Needless to say, we bought 10. 

Rabbit hole: We buy water because Auburn City water tastes like sewage. We've debated a filter, but buying the gallons and having them cold in the fridge is just too convenient. Finding nice deals like this Mega Event allows us to stock up and donate the rest. 

I also picked up 10 Campbell's Soups, averaging out to $.89 a piece, thanks to the Mega Event. 

And in one of the more exciting parts of the night, I got another freebie! Mahatma 1 lb bags of rice were 10 for 10 with the Kroger card. I had a coupon for $.50 off and since Kroger doubles $.50 and under, the rice was free! 

This may all be extremely boring to you, but we had so much fun tonight. The Publix trip was awesome super easy because we were well prepared. I printed off a detailed list from Southern Savers, gathered our coupons and organized them before we left, and only bought what was on the list. 

We are definitely looking forward to gathering more coupon inserts (the size of our advertising market makes it difficult to get all of the coupons. See Phillip's awesome breakdown here), getting better organized, building a little bit of a stockpile, and becoming more comfortable with store policies and coupons in general.

We are need to get comfortable with printables. The first step in that process, though, is getting my printer from my parents' house. Since I can't print coupons at work (can't download the applications onto work computers), I'm stuck until I can get my own. It'll just take a little time.

But for now, we're pretty happy.

Scary first shopping trip: Check.