After four hours of getting coupons together, I spent three hours at the store.  I shouldn’t have taken so long for the coupons, but I was behind on organization and it was a mess.  Normally five minutes a day is all it takes for me to keep them straightened up, but I wasn’t feeling well this week.  It was all worth it; this was all food that we use, and not a bunch of free toothbrushes or other toiletries that I’ve already got more than enough of.   I compiled a list of Triple Coupon Tips for The Better Homemaking Network which details how I organized the trip, but I wanted to share some of the deal highlights here:

I got six cans each of pineapple and mandarin oranges for less than $1 each; we use these often and were running low.

I had a rain check for Mt. Olive Pickle Packs for $1.50 each.  We LOVE these.  I had 8 coupons for 50c and 3 for 55c, which made for an awesome freebie/overage deal.  And each pack had another 75c coupon in it – too bad that I didn’t have two rain checks!

Dentek floss pics at 99c with a 55c coupon – much better than free

12 free Mentos gum with about 10c overage on each.

Heinz Ketchup – they were sold out of small bottles but we use this a lot, so I got medium sized bottles for less than 20c each.

We were out of string cheese so I used some 40c coupons for these, and used a $3 off $10 deli coupon.

Duncan Hines Cake Mixes – these were really cheap or free, but in hindsight I see that there was a limit of 4 per transaction.  I’m not sure what that reflects on my receipt, though, since I got 8.

McCormick spices – I had 8 coupons, but remembered the catalina, so I got 4 cinnamon first for the $3.00 onyo, and then bought four other spices that I needed, which ALSO printed a $3.00 onyo.

Yeast strips – had 7 coupons, but wish I had more, or a larger coupon that I could have used for the jars.  Oh well – what ended up happening is that I got an unexpected 50c ONYO for each strip that I bought.  I was waiting for the $3.00 from the spices to come out and it kept spitting out 50c ones, lol.  The cashier had never seen that before.  The beauty of this was I used a few on the following transactions, so got a bonus $1.50 off for each coupon, since they tripled, too.

I got 12 cans of green chiles with a 75c off 2 Ortega items.  We were out and these are hard to find on sale.  Suprisingly, with 6 transactions of triple coupons, this was the only one I had trouble with.   The manager pushed them through, and made it seem like “one coupon per purchase” was the problem.  I tried to explain that phrase to her but not sure she believed me.  She didn’t care much since I am a regular and she always takes care of me.  I just didn’t want her to think she was going to get into trouble!

I picked up some Hot Pocket stuffed pizza things for less than $1 each after coupons.  I normally like Hot Pockets, but these were kinda yucky.  The cheese in the crust part tasted more like cheese sauce made with too much oil.  I am definitely not purchasing these again.  If it wasn’t a frozen item I’d be returning them in a heartbeat.

I can’t wait to clip more coupons out of today’s paper and revisit Food Lion tomorrow, for a couple of items that I missed, and some coupons that I forgot!

In the future, I’m going to be sure to get rain checks on every item I can that I consider a staple in my household, even if I used my coupons, or didn’t have any.  These are pretty darn useful when the triple events come up!

I am also making a resolution to get my coupons together immediately after finding out about the triple coupon sale.  Waiting until the last minute was definitely NOT the right move to make!