Ralphs Grocery Deals week of 4/29-5/6

I'm not sure if there are any other Southern California Ralphs postings out there but I thought I would add my own just in case. Again, I am new to the saving game so there may be some coupon deals I am not aware of. Please bear with me and feel free to let me know of any I may have missed.

Sargento Cheese is 2/$5
using the $1/2 coupon from the 4/20 newspaper insert you can also use the $1/1 printable here bringing the possible total cost to 2/$3

General Mills Cereal is still on sale, now for 2/$4
using the .50/1 printable coupon found here
you can knock the price down to 2/$3 or maybe only 2/$3.50 if they don't let you use more than one coupon at once.

Pedigree Dog food and Whiskas Cat food (DRY) is $9.99
using the $1/1 coupon in the 4/20 newspaper insert that brings you down to $8.99
(there is one for both the Dog and Cat food in the insert
There is also a $1/1 printable for the Dog Food here
Pedigree Cans Dog Food are 10/$10
use .75/10 printable here

There is a Cheez-it Crackers 2/$5 deal where you can get 4 12-pks of Coke products for $1.99 EACH! Being that they are normally about $4 or more (usually more) a pop this is a HUGE deal!

Because at least where I live Orange Juice is VERY expensive (especially my favorite Tropicana) I think the Buy 2 Sara Lee Bagels get 1 free 64 oz Tropicana is a very good deal but then I have seen Tropicana 64 oz go for almost $5!

Guerrero Flour Tortillas 12 ct are .99 that's a possible savings of $2.30 or more!

I'm sure there are more good deals out there, but with my limited stash of coupons this was all I could come up with. Stick with me and as my coupon collection grows so will my deal list! In the meantime, please post any coupons or deals I may have missed. Look forward to hearing from you.

Albertsons deals week of 4/29-5/6

I have noticed a possible under representation of Southern California grocery deals, so I have taken it upon myself to try to bridge some of the gaps. This is my first grocery post so please bear with me.

First and foremost, Tomorrow May 1st from 9am-1pm there is a special 8 hour sale.

Gatorade Sports drinks are .69/1 limit 4
Kellogs Cereal (Frosted Flakes, Raisin Bran, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Corn Flakes and possible others) are 2/$3 limit 4
Ultrabrite toothpaste or Colgate Plus toothbrush are 10/$10 (this is also found in the regular flyer)
Albertsons fresh baked Chocolate Chip cookies 18 ct are $1.99
Hormel Honey, Virgina or Cooked Ham and Jennie-O Oven roasted Turkey $2.99 lb
Fresh Extra Lean Ground Beef 85% lean are 1.49 lb
Crystal Geyser Spring Water 35-pk $2.99 limit 2
Albertsons Chunk Cheese 8 oz are 2/$3

Now for the rest of the week.

General Mills products are $1.50 ea when you buy 10 in a single transaction.



if you use the link here you can have access to coupons for:
.50/1 Cheerios
.60/1 Fiber one bars

You can also use:
.50/1 Nature Valley bars from 4/20 newspaper insert
.75/1 Chex Cereal also from 40/20 insert

with 6 printable from Cheerios and Fiber One and if you throw in the inserts the possibilities are endless!

I plan to try this deal tomorrow, it SAYS final price 1.50 each but it ALSO says buy any 10 (no price requirement) so you should come out with even less than 1.50 for each. I will report back what worked for me and please if anyone tries this deal post here and tell me how your experience was.

Some other deals:

Pringles are 10/$10
Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water 10/$10
Albertsons Pasta 10/$10
Ultrabrite toothpaste or Colgate Plus toothbrush 10/$10 (this deal may be linked to the 8 hour sale this Thursday 5/1 from 1-9pm I see it in both ads)


Hershey's X-Large Candy Bars are B1G1 free

Dove Chocolate Candy are 2/$7
use the B1G1 printable coupon here and you get two for $3.99 (as that is the most you can use the coupon for)

Tillamook 2lb Chunk Cheese are $5.99 Possible savings of $4!

Yoplait yogurt multi-packs are 2/$5
use $1/2 coupon from 4/20 insert and the total is 2/$4

Nexcare Bandages are 2/$5
use the $1/2 coupon found here and your total becomes 2/$4 thanks to Money Saving Mom for the link


I'm sure some of you who have been getting the newspaper coupons for a long time can probably do better, but as I have only had it for a few weeks, I am a bit lacking for coupon information. Stick with me and I'll have more to add as time goes on!

Target and customer service Part 3

Well I just got off the phone with their corporate office and they will be making sure that the stores will be better informed on how to handle their printable coupons as well as to clarify which are and are NOT valid. Side note- I brought up the death of the printables to her and she was not aware of any plan to remove them. She considers them a valuable tool for us to be able to print them. If there is an issue with the fine print stating that they are void if copied, perhaps they need to further work with the stores to ensure that we are able to use them in a reasonable manner. Stores have discretion to limit the # of coupons used at once, which had that been the issue I would have accepted. However they should, upon determining the amount they will allow, ALWAYS scan the coupon to confirm if it does work or not. Had the 1st store bothered to try that, they would have seen that my order was valid and then we could have gone about squabbling about how many of the "morally inappropriate" savings with no cost to me, they would have allowed ;)

Corporate is sending me a gift card for my troubles...my faith in the above and beyond Target customer service has been restored.

Target and customer service Part 2

Well I called another Target store and discovered the following:

* The printables are at each stores discretion. Stemming from the unfortunate hacking into their system and printing out coupons years expired acceptance of THEIR coupons are based entirely on the individual store's discretion whether or not to take them.

* The Lipton Tea coupons ARE in fact good on ANY Lipton Tea product, however had it stated something specific such as "Diet" for instance then (of course) they would not accept a standard item.

* Since the coupons have written on them "void if copied" but yet will still print they are reworking the system for how they will be accepted, f at all. No word yet when that will take place, I got the impression they will be accepted as they try to fix the issue and once they have a solution you can bet they will be vanishing lightening quick!

In the end the store that I spoke to (the one that explained the above to me) did honor the coupons even though the three associates watching the 19 tea packs scan down to nothing looked like they were in physical pain allowing it to happen. Granted it took 2 stores and a few phone calls, but my husband loves tea and the to go packs will help him to limit soda consumption. 20 items, I also bought a bag of the Lays crisps (no .50 for me as I came into the game too late for the additional coupon) $1.50 spent, WELL worth it!

Now if I can just get the rest of this stuff down. Hoping to hit CVS soon. I need to roll those ECBs over before they expire!

Want to hear how this story ends? Click here

The end of Target's customer service?

Buyer beware! So as I have previously mentioned I am new to this whole clipping/printing coupons game and saving money as a job not a fluke ;) I printed out 20 Lipton tea $1/1 coupons I have heard so much about bethriftylikeus , money saving mom
, to say the least, and set out for he nearest Target. Coming from CO I have been spoiled with the abundance of Super Targets where I usually got everything from groceries to everything else you can think of all at once. Here in CA they seem to be all but illegal for how rare they are and how difficult it seems to get them built. After I came across all the great savings, however I decided to check them out and see what I could find. I have 2 remaining targets to try, but the first one was VERY uncooperative.


I went in the store with Lipton tea and lays crisps coupons, along with a free bread sticks with purchase of any cafe item of $1 or more. I gathered up 20 Lipton to go packs (4 in a pack) a set of baby socks (in case I had to buy something to get them to give me the time of day) and went to the counter. No dice! The cashier informed me that they were not the same item and thus could not be used. Regardless of the fact that the item does not indicate any restrictions to the "$1 off Lipton tea" coupon she maintained that since the image used was that of a box of tea bags, that that was what it was referring to. She also tried to convince me that the coupons were designed so that an item worth more than the discount would be cheaper. She was patronizing towards my desire t get the entire item for free. 20 minutes and 2 supervisors later they were STILL arguing with me that despite the fact that the coupon shows no restrictions, that the image was what was being discounted. He even asked me, somewhat in a somewhat belittling manner, "Based on your argument then, you could also use this coupon for BOTTLES of Lipton tea" (which I discovered coming back and reading these blogs that indeed you CAN use it for bottles) and shook his head. Reminds me of the customer service I used to get in Walmart, a place I only ever went for the things that their prices beat everyone else's. Virtually every time I went in there I would have to argue to get them to honor a sign or mislabeled item, usually I would lose the battle and I would be berated during the incident while one of the members went to confirm that I was in fact wrong (of course they wouldn't believe me). Not so with my old Target, I have on occasion found something that was labeled differently than their computer came up with and while they did still go to check the location it was found in, they STILL cleared my purchase for my stated price. In the end I was forced to leave empty handed, except for my socks as the manager refused to honor the coupon.

If you happen to be in the Laguna Niguel area, don't go to the Target there as they will NOT honor the Lipton Tea coupon! I plan to call other Target's in the area as well as their main operations to clarify this situation and find out if I was just the first one caught and we have all been benefiting from a loophole that doesn't really exist or if the store in question is in the wrong. I will report back when I find out.

story continued here

What I have learned...

I'm new to this whole saving money as a rule thing, and having read a TON of saving blogs, I have come to a few conclusions. You have to spend money to FULLY benefit from the various sales and ESPECIALLY the CVS game...which I am very interested in becoming proficient at. I am new to an area that actually has CVS and I have been watching all the CVS related blogs.

So it turns out that the "beginner's suggestions, while VERY beneficial ALSO required you to have been receiving the Sunday paper, presumably to get the coupons to save money, months prior to the time the CVS deal came into place. Which brings me to the first thing i have learned:

1. Online coupons alone just don't cut it.

You definitely need to get the Sunday paper to get those coupons that will be important weeks or months down the road. It doesn't work to just start up and expect to get the same deals all the others are getting, because you need to have been getting the coupons (and saving them) for months, in some cases. For instance; The CVS deal that is all the rage right now involves the Contour Meter @ $14.99 which has the ability to earn you 14.99 in ECB (easy care bucks). So you have the opportunity to get the Contour Meter for free! Great right? Well even better would be not having to spend the 14.99 in the first place OOP (out of pocket) and STILL get the ECBs. Well guess what, if you had been doing this before just now and had been getting the Sunday paper way back in 3-16 you MIGHT have had the coupon for the Contour Meter for $30/1 and since CVS apparently brings that coupon down to 14.99/1 you would only spend 1 dollar and you'd get 14.99 back in ECBs. Notice I said, MIGHT have this coupon...which brings me to the next thing I learned:

2. NOTHING is useless.

Let's say I HAD been doing the savings stuff earlier on and gotten the paper on that fateful Sunday in March. Now I did the coupon clipping not once but twice previously. I cut out the coupons and place them into two categories: Stuff I need (cereal, bread, cheese, the things that are devoured in my house) and Stuff I may decide to get but don't necessarily NEED (extra toothpaste, toothbrushes, paper towels, diapers, chocolate, stockup stuff. Ok so I NEED chocolate, but this is the extra stuff I don't normally buy). The rest go straight into the trash. I am a horrible pack rat. So now that I have laid down the law with coupons, if it doesn't fit in those two categories it gets thrown away, no ifs ands or buts (cuz believe me I'd find some), why on EARTH would I have hung onto a Glucose checker when I am not diabetic? I need to take EVERY opportunity that I have to throw things away and not ask myself, "Do I REALLY have no chance of ever wanting this? I don't want it to come back and be needed later." I stopped asking that question because it took far too much time out of WAY too much time already spent figuring out the first two categories, and of course I also need to go back over each and every single one and write the date of the paper it was found in on it. I found out that one the hard way. Which brings me to the next thing I learned:

3. Organization is NOT an option!

In each of the MANY sites of far more experienced savers than myself there is a method of determining which sales are at which stores and which coupon from which date will allow you to best benefit from that particular sale. I started with http://www.grocerygame.com. I started out just picking up the Sunday paper from vendors but that turned out to be a waste of time as oftentimes the paper would be LONG gone by the time I went out to get it, and no WAY was I getting up and out the door before 9am on a Sunday! So I opted to get it delivered. Would you believe that you STILL have to get up fairly early or Sunday papers will "walk" away from your driveway??? That's another something I learned, but it could just be my bad luck so not worth it's own number. Once I got the paper acquiring factor taken care of and clipped my coupons I discovered the hard way that once you remove the coupons from it's paper, you no longer have any indication which date it came on. So always make sure you date each and every one.

Now let's go back to the CVS coupon for the Contour Meter. So we've established that I can't throw ANYTHING away after all because you never know when that useless coupon might come in handy. So what do you do now? Well I decided to go all out in the hopes that my efforts to save money won't COST me more in money and time then I could ever possibly save. I wanted something that could hold the coupons in a clear pocket or sleeve so that the coupons that didn't fall into the previous two categories could be set aside one in each pocket (unless of course there are duplicate coupons for the same item). I started out looking for photo album pages but that proved costly and ineffective for what I wanted to accomplish. Finally I typed in "coupon organizers" into Google and I learned something else.

4. If you thought of it, chances are someone else has as well, and marketed it.

For the obsessive, neurotic person like me who needs the PERFECT coupon organizing system, it's out there, in many many different forms. If you don't know which one is best for you go here first http://tipnut.com/coupon-organizer-system/ I had previously done the coupon organizer in it's basic form, an accordion style little pouch. http://www.crgibson.com/default.aspx?page=2&categoryid=9&subcategoryid=54&subsubcategoryid=54&productid=qco-3714
there is also a slightly different style available here http://www.organize-it-online.com/itm_couponorg.html?cmpid=froogle It does the job if you are just bringing a few coupons to the store and don't have a bunch of categories or stores you are using them for. For me, I had my two categories and then my 3 grocery stores and if I was going shopping I moved the appropriate coupon to the store I was going to visit that day. At any rate, the coupon organizer worked OK for what I was doing at the time, but now I strive to be one of those 40 or less a week grocery shoppers and coming down from what I used to spend a week this is going to take some REAL work! So I kept looking and came across the following sites. http://www.momsaves.com/buildityourself.html has a wonderful site that shows you step by step how to do EXACTLY what it was I am planning to do. On the other hand if you can't get beyond your perfectionism and need a tried and true guaranteed organizing system you can go here http://mrsascouponorganizer.com/. As for me I ordered the clear vinyl pockets mentioned in the do it yourself site and I am hoping that I can do this myself. If not there is always Mrs. A's to fall back on. Whatever your system, I suggest that you have a section for individual stores as one thing the grocery game DID teach me was to get rain checks every chance you can. Which brings me to another thing I have learned and the last in this post:

5. If you never ask, you'll never know.

Always get rain checks. When dealing with an unbelievable deal, the items have often been picked clean from all the other savers getting there before you. Most stores will give you rain checks and the best part is, they will usually let YOU decide how many of the item you had wanted to get and thus you can get more at the discounted price than maybe you would have gotten the first time around. If you can't find an item ask someone to find it for you. This proved incredibly beneficial today as I faced a too good to be true ad that was so confusing it took two store associates to clarify and confirm that it was in fact just that good a deal. Of course in the end it WAS too good to be true, because the particular item that was an option in the ad wasn't actually IN the store. I confirmed this with the store manager who informed me that his store didn't actually carry the item. He did, however offer to call the distribution center and find out if they ever would carry it. He came back and informed me that it was a brand new product and that the distribution center would be shipping all possible variations of the item and they would be in his store available for the previously mentioned deal by Saturday!

For those of you who are curious, the store in question is my local Albertsons and the deal I am referring to was 10/10 powerade 32 oz or their new flavored water powerade zero (a revamp of the powerade options I am told) followed by an additional 5 free if you buy all 10 of them! After my adventures there this morning you can bet I will be back for that deal, and probably many times after that, their customer service is far better than I have ever seen anywhere else!