Watch those Catalina Deals.......

Every store has a different Catalina series of deals going on. Here is one that I think is pretty exceptional since it starts tomorrow and runs an entire month...All Post cereals 10oz or larger are generating Catalina coupons for $3-4 OYNO. Buy 4 and get $3 off; buy 5 and get $4. That does NOT include adding a manufacturers' coupon or if the actual cereal goes on sale.

I know in Spokane, there are chains that run ads for their huge 13 hour cereal sales. It gets the entire city in a panic and they jam the stores full. Parking is a nightmare...and this is all for $1.78 a box. I laugh because people really have no clue that they can get so much BETTER deals by just watching the trends and buying when there is a deal like this Post sale. And the beauty of the whole story--it's a sale that lasts SEVEN days--all day long. No more haggling for shopping carts, dealing with scary looking crowds, product outages, and binge buying for the sake of buying rather than stocking up gradually. And if you shopped like I do---WHO would really pay $1.78 a box for cereal??? 50cents is my personal max on cereal--and that's HIGH to me. I feel great when I can get a box of cereal for 25 cents. The serotonin starts flowing and I'm ordering cases.

**So when you come across this kind of deal, take an inventory of what you have. Then project what you're family would use in the next 3-6 months. And things that are staples (like cereal, canned goods, soups, etc)--make sure that you are never at the mercy of the store to pay full price. You know that you are constantly buying and re buying those items. So when they go Cheap, closer to free that full price--buy your 6 months stash. It is MONEY in the bank. You will be able to get at least 5-6 times the amount of product in one sale than you would on any random shopping trip. Add it up, and you're money ahead. Take that item off the shopping list until it dips back into tantalizing depths of cheapness!

Do this a few times and you'll be hooked. You'll get an acquired taste for free. It will make buying things are regular price absolutely PAINFUL. Start watching and see what you can do to start spending smarter and stocking up for nothing.

Steal of a Deal....

Albertsons' has this great dealing on Post cereal right now. The family-size boxes are $1.49 a box. Ironically, for every 4 boxes that you buy, the register prints a Catalina coupon for $3 off your next purchase. You can only buy the cereal at the $1.49 price in increments of 4. And the icing on the cake, in the Sunday paper there was supplemental ad that included 3 bonus coupons (Albertsons' will double 3 coupons up to $1 each). So with this in mind, four boxes of cereal=$5.96. I have coupons for save $1 on 2, so I give them 2 + the coupon doubler coupons from the ad for a grand total of $1.96. At the completion of the transaction I get the $3 off coupon/voucher towards the next purchase. If I did another transaction back to back with the say method as outlined PLUS the $3 off, each transaction would be -$1.04....way to GO!! Now, of course, the stores will not return you cash for taking the product away without paying, so you'd throw an item on to each order that absorbs the cost and you basically get that item for FREE as well. (I usually add a canned fruit or veg and pay the pennies difference). Every one is happy and I'm having a mini-seratonin buzz as the cashier is clicking the register buttons. (Ohhhhhhhh....the things we do for a "fix"!!)