Saturday, April 16, 2011

Target Triumph!

Oh Target...how I love the!  I make no secret of the fact that the big red bulls eye is my happy place.  I love your giant Diet Cokes.  I love that you have store coupons online that I can combine with manufacturer coupons.  I love their sales.  I love your clothes.  I love that I can spend days walking around with my re-fillable Diet Coke.  I love your fresh cafe salads for only $4.  I love that the Latham Target will have a produce and meat department very soon!

Now let me explain the People Magazine and Diet Pepsi purchase.  I am a Coke fan.  But I also live in NY where Pepsi is king.  I have learned to live with it.  There is (was?) a deal that if you buy one pack of the skinny Pepsi AND a People Magazine, you get an automatic $3 discount.  There was a big sign in the store stating as much too.  But for me, it did not ring up that way.  I had to have them do a price check and eventually they just gave me a made up manager coupon for $3.  So I am not sure if the deal is over or not.  I don't normally spend $$ on magazines.  I get about a dozen subscriptions for FREE each month.  But I thought this splurge would be a fun treat and I knew I had a lot of overage so I justified it.  Plus those skinny cans just look so fun.  I'm a sucker for packaging!

I used a Rain Check from a few weeks ago for the Zyrtec.  They ran out, I got myself an easy Rain Check, and used it today when they were back in stock.  I have the world's worst allergies so I am actually very excited (how sad is that?) to try this rather expensive medicine.  But if you notice below, it was a pretty big money maker for me.  And the ELF was just a fun find because that is my favorite brand and I was planning to order more this weekend.  It came with a bonus brush too.  Which is sort of funny because just 60 seconds before I found the ELF set, I found an also much needed make-up brush on clearance and tossed that in my cart.  So finding the mineral foundation + brush was like a Hallelujah moment for me.  I know...I need to get out more if this is my Friday Fun Day.  Ha!

So let's talk about end-caps.  The back end of the aisles that house the random clearance items.  You need to make sure you look there every time you are in the stores.  That's where surprise deals can be found.  Thankfully, I had my big coupon binder with me so I was able to take advantage of two unexpected but great deals.  The Oatmeal normally sells for $3.12, but after the mark downs and my coupon, came to just $0.44/box.  It's a random flavor but I am eating a bowl (I'm single...don't judge) as I type this up and it's rather delish.  And the Dove Men's travel size deodorant was marked down to $0.50.  I had 11 newspaper manufacturer coupons for $1/any size.  The deodorant went straight into the donation box but hello...it was a $5.50 money maker for me!  Win win!!  Both were surprise finds from the endcaps.




Also note that the word "ANY" is a couponer's best friend.  If a coupon doesn't restrict sizes, head your booty over to the travel size aisle.  With coupons, you want to do something that the Costo and Sam's club mentality just isn't used to.  You want to look for the smallest size possible to use with your coupon.  Your goal is to have the lowest possible price/serving.  If a travel size item is $1 and the regular size item is $10 and you have a $1 coupon...  You get the picture.

Of course, this new price/serving train of thought goes against my greener tendencies.  It's a lot more packaging waste.  But right now, it makes more sense for me to pay the smallest amount out of pocket.  Sorry Mother Earth!

Good golly I am wordy lately.  Sorry.  Y'all can always skip my blabber and just scroll down to see what I bought. 

Without further ado...




Purchased...
(1) People Magazine  reg. $4.99
(2) skinny Diet Pepsi  reg. $1.99
(2) Girards salad dressing  reg. $3.14, on sale $2.76
(2) Mio beverage enhancer  reg. $3.50
(4) Quaker oatmeal  reg. $3.12, clearance $1.44
(1) Secret Clinical deodorant trial size  reg. $2.49
(11) Dove Men's deodorant trial size  reg. $1, clearance $0.50
(1) ELF Foundation  reg. $4.99, clearance $3.48
(2) Zyrtec 5 count  reg. $5.29, rain check price $4.76
(1) Visine trial size  reg. $1.97

Minus...
-(1) $1/1 People Magazine manufacturer coupon
-(1) $3 off purchase of both People and Diet Pepsi
-(1) Buy one get one FREE Pepsi manufacturer coupon
-(2) $2/1 Girards manu coupon
-(2) $1/1 Mio many coupon
-(2) $1/1 Mio Target print coupon
-(4) $1/1 Quaker Oatmeal coupon
-(1) $3/1 Secret Clinical ANY size coupon
-(11) $1/1 Dove Men's deodorant coupon
-(2) $4/1 Zyrtec Target print coupon
-(2) $2/1 Zyrtec manu print coupon from their website
-(1) $2/1 Visine manu print coupon


Total product purchased before taxes ...
$66.16
Total paid out of pocket including taxes ...
$5.05
Percentage saved ...
92%


I basically paid for the People Magazine and got the rest of it for FREE!

2 comments:

JulesTX said...

Target os definitely my "happy" place too. Like you, I could wander around for hours. Very impressed with your purchases and really impressed you've got a donation box going on the side.

Jayna Rae said...

Oh Target end cap you are my best friend. You furnish me with endless rolls of wrapping paper for $1. This is not to mention most of everything else that I purchase from there. When your Target gets the food, it's all over. I live by two full on Super Targets. I spend hours there, especially since I tote around two boys. I need a one-stop-place-to-shop. We get some Starbucks (often with register coupons) and we get some popcorn and we are ready to rock.