Now that I have your attention..... I'll tell you how I accomplished that!
A grocery store in my area doubles the face value of coupons up to 99¢. During January 2008, one of their weekly ads contained an offer to "GET $10 OFF YOUR NEXT SHOPPING TRIP!" when you purchased $20 worth of participating General Mills products in a single transaction.
One of the General Mills products included in the promotion was Cheerios Oat Cluster Crunch cereal, which was on sale for $2 a box when purchased with the store's loyalty card. As an avid couponer and member of Northeast Ohio Couponers, I knew there were currently coupons available for 75¢ off the price of the Cheerios Crunch, making each box only 50¢ after doubling the coupon. I was also aware that my local food pantry was in desperate need of food. I donate a lot of food to this organization and do it just for the sake of helping others. It would take some work, but I knew I could help stock the food pantry and get the added reward of making money for myself at the same time!! (You'll notice in the picture, I also donated 70 boxes of Quaker Oatmeal and 86 cans of Progresso soup, but that's a story for another time!)
Focusing on the goal, I knew I would need lots of those 75¢ coupons to pull it off. There's no way I could buy that many Sunday newspapers and round up all those coupons. I couldn't even trade with my fellow NEOC members for as many needed. That's when I turned to my two favorite sources for extra coupons:
eBay.com
The Coupon Clippers
This is how I did the deal:
I bought 10 boxes of Cheerios Crunch to earn each $10 catalina. (10 x $2 = $20 required amount).
I had a 75¢ coupon for EACH box of Cheerios which was doubled at the register.
75¢ x 2 (doubled) = $1.50 x 10 boxes ($15).
$20 cost - $15 coupons = $5 net cost at the register.
Then after paying my $5 balance, a catalina coupon printed for $10 off my next shopping trip!!
Now I know what you're thinking - "she wiped out all the Cheerios in the store and no one else got a chance to buy any!". That couldn't be further from the truth!!!
I receive my store's weekly sales ad several days before the sale starts. I knew this would be a "killer deal", so I talked to the grocery manager and asked if he would consider ordering extra cases of Cheerios for me. He agreed to do this because I planned to donate all the boxes of cereal. He even offered to have my purchases rung up at the Customer Service counter to keep from tying up one of the registers and upsetting any customers who had the misfortune of getting behind me in line.
It turned out to be a win-win situation. The store got credit for a huge sale, the food pantry got 540 boxes of cereal and I made a net profit of $270.00 in catalinas!! (54 orders x $10 catalina = $540 - $270 cost at register = $270 profit). I was able to use the $270 profit to buy all our groceries totally FREE over the next two weeks.
© Debbie Taylor NEOCouponers.com 2008 All rights reserved.
Not to be copied without written consent.
A grocery store in my area doubles the face value of coupons up to 99¢. During January 2008, one of their weekly ads contained an offer to "GET $10 OFF YOUR NEXT SHOPPING TRIP!" when you purchased $20 worth of participating General Mills products in a single transaction.
One of the General Mills products included in the promotion was Cheerios Oat Cluster Crunch cereal, which was on sale for $2 a box when purchased with the store's loyalty card. As an avid couponer and member of Northeast Ohio Couponers, I knew there were currently coupons available for 75¢ off the price of the Cheerios Crunch, making each box only 50¢ after doubling the coupon. I was also aware that my local food pantry was in desperate need of food. I donate a lot of food to this organization and do it just for the sake of helping others. It would take some work, but I knew I could help stock the food pantry and get the added reward of making money for myself at the same time!! (You'll notice in the picture, I also donated 70 boxes of Quaker Oatmeal and 86 cans of Progresso soup, but that's a story for another time!)
Focusing on the goal, I knew I would need lots of those 75¢ coupons to pull it off. There's no way I could buy that many Sunday newspapers and round up all those coupons. I couldn't even trade with my fellow NEOC members for as many needed. That's when I turned to my two favorite sources for extra coupons:
eBay.com
The Coupon Clippers
This is how I did the deal:
I bought 10 boxes of Cheerios Crunch to earn each $10 catalina. (10 x $2 = $20 required amount).
I had a 75¢ coupon for EACH box of Cheerios which was doubled at the register.
75¢ x 2 (doubled) = $1.50 x 10 boxes ($15).
$20 cost - $15 coupons = $5 net cost at the register.
Then after paying my $5 balance, a catalina coupon printed for $10 off my next shopping trip!!
Now I know what you're thinking - "she wiped out all the Cheerios in the store and no one else got a chance to buy any!". That couldn't be further from the truth!!!
I receive my store's weekly sales ad several days before the sale starts. I knew this would be a "killer deal", so I talked to the grocery manager and asked if he would consider ordering extra cases of Cheerios for me. He agreed to do this because I planned to donate all the boxes of cereal. He even offered to have my purchases rung up at the Customer Service counter to keep from tying up one of the registers and upsetting any customers who had the misfortune of getting behind me in line.
It turned out to be a win-win situation. The store got credit for a huge sale, the food pantry got 540 boxes of cereal and I made a net profit of $270.00 in catalinas!! (54 orders x $10 catalina = $540 - $270 cost at register = $270 profit). I was able to use the $270 profit to buy all our groceries totally FREE over the next two weeks.
© Debbie Taylor NEOCouponers.com 2008 All rights reserved.
Not to be copied without written consent.
No comments:
Post a Comment