Extreme Couponing at SuperFresh

(This is a post from my Suddenly Frugal blog, but since the savings I got were at SuperFresh–a supermarket that you all know from the Philadelphia area–I thought the Philly on the Cheap audience would benefit from this post as well.)

I just got back from doing a minor food shopping at SuperFresh (part of the A&P family). As I mentioned in my Suddenly Frugal post about what I’d learned from watching the newest season of TLC’s “Extreme Couponing,” I’ve gotten into the habit of looking at the supermarket circulars for my two nearest grocery stores as I plan my week’s list.

Normally, I would compare the circulars and then shop at each store on the same day. But two things prevented me from doing that this time around:

1. I discovered that while the SuperFresh circular was active on this Saturday, the Giant circular and its prices didn’t become active until Sunday.
2. I had coupons that were expiring on 11/5/11 (today!) and I wanted to be sure to use them up, if I could match them to a sale at SuperFresh.

So what I did was this: made my shopping list based on what was or would be on sale in both stores, then noted the prices at SuperFresh only and the coupons that matched the sales, and headed out to that store today.

Yeah, it stinks to have to go food shopping twice, but get this: between stores specials and my coupons, I save $77.95 at SuperFresh.

One of the ways that I could save so much at SuperFresh is because of the store’s generous coupon policy. Unlike Giant, which will only double the first of any multiple coupons for the same product, SuperFresh doubled all of my coupons.

Also, SuperFresh truly doubled all of my coupons–whereas Giant will double a coupon up to $1.00 only. Watching my grocery bill total shrinking with each coupon scan and doubling kind of felt like those scenes from “Extreme Couponing” when you see the total at the register going down in fast motion.

Let me break down how all of this helped me to save big bucks on certain items:

Viva Paper Towels

• Viva  paper towels were on sale for $1.90. That’s $1.90 for a single “big” roll.
• I had a coupon for $.85 off a single roll.
• SuperFresh doubled that coupon to $1.70
• I paid $.20 for a roll of paper towels.
• At Giant, I would have paid $.90 for a roll of paper towels–because the store would have doubled my $.85 coupon to $1 only. That’s still a good deal but not nearly as good of a deal as $.20 per roll.
• I had only two coupons so I bought two big rolls of paper towels for $.40.

Green Giant Frozen Corn

• A box of Green Giant frozen vegetables was on sale for $.99 a box. (At Giant it was on sale 3/$5 so SuperFresh already had the better deal.)
• I had a coupon for $.60 off 3 boxes.
• That coupon doubled to $1.20.
• So instead of paying $2.97 (before coupons) for 3 boxes of frozen vegetables, I paid $1.77 or about $.58 per box of frozen vegetables.
• I had four of these $.60 off 3 boxes coupons (expiring on 11/5/11) so I bought 12 boxes of frozen vegetables, saving $4.80 in the process.

Some other savings I enjoyed at SuperFresh? I had a $1 off Catalina coupon that I used, which I’d earned on a previous purchase. And with today’s purchases, I got a $3 off my next shopping trip.

I’ll post in the next day or so about any extreme couponing that I’m able to do at Giant.