So, I’ve always been fascinated with the coupon mavens, the people who allegedly save 80% at the grocery store by skillfully combining store coupons, manufacturers coupons, and sale prices.  But I was always either skeptical or lazy or figured it took too much effort, so I never tried out their strategies.

Until today. Here’s what I did:

(1) I started with some background research on KrazyCouponLady, just to get the lay of the land,  familiarize myself with the lingo, and learn the strategy.

(2) I made sure I had a Safeway card. Which I did. That’s a no-brainer, since if you aren’t paying the “card saving” price these days at a grocery store, you are getting supremely ripped off. I’m not sure the so-call “regular price” even exists anymore — it’s often 50% more than just having the card. Which everyone does. At least everyone who’s not insane.

(3) I linked my Safeway card to the eCoupon programs at cellfire and shortcuts. This allows me to upload online coupons from those sites directly to my safeway card, where they will be automatically executed when I buy the corresponding product. This means you don’t have to remember to bring those coupons, but, more importantly, eCoupons and manufacturers’ coupons can be used on the same item. This is a huge part of the maven strategy.

(3) I got on KrazyCouponLady and looked at the overview for Safeway for this week. It turns out the strategy at Safeway this week is to take advantage of their “Buy 8, Save $4” sale, which gives you a 50 cent discount on each item you buy that is part of the sale, so long as you buy 8 or more. This sale is then augmented with manufacturers’ coupons (both from Sunday circulars and off the Interent; I only used Internet) and eCoupons. The strategy is easy to implement — they give you a page that shows you the discounts and links to the coupons you need. It turns out the savings are absurd — the KrazyCouponLady bought $130 worth of groceries, and paid $23.

(4) I then collected the coupons I needed. Since I didn’t have any of the Sunday circulars, I missed out on a lot of potential deals. But I printed 8 internet coupons, and linked 6 eCoupons to my Safeway card. It took about 20 minutes.

(5) I then went to Safeway, and put the following items in my cart:

• 1 box of Cheerios (8.9 oz), discount price $1.99 (with Safeway card, otherwise $3.39)
• 1 box of Trix (10.7 oz), discount price $1.99 (with Safeway card, otherwise $3.39)
• 2 boxes of Barilla Whole Grain pasta, discount price $1.09 each (with Safeway card, otherwise $1.59)
• 3 boxes of Hamburger Helper, discount price $1.50 each (with Safeway card, otherwise $2.00)
• 1 bottle of Bullseye BBQ sauce, discount price $1.49 (with Safeway card, otherwise $2.59)
• 1 bottle of Girard’s salad dressing, discount price $2.99 (with Safeway card, otherwise $3.79)
• 1 bag of Sun-Rype 100% fruit snacks, discount price $2.99 (with Safeway card, otherwise $3.99)
• 1 box of chex mix, discount price $1.99 (with Safeway card, otherwise $2.50)
• 2 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese, discount price $0.99 each (with Safeway card, otherwise $1.49)

So the total “regular cost, post-Safeway card” of these 13 items is $22.10 (without the Safeway card, it would be $31.81, but, like I said, that barely has any meaning anymore, since everyone has the card). Now, on to the savings:

To start, I saved $6.50 (13 x .50) just based on the “buy 8, get $4” sale which knocked 50 cents off each item. I then scanned my Safeway card and my internet coupons, which consisted of the following:

eCoupons

• 55 cents off any box of Cheerios
• 55 cents off any box of Trix (cellfire)
• 55 cents off any box of Trix (shortcuts)
• 75 cents off any 3 boxes of hamburger helper (cellfire)
• 75 cents off any 3 boxes of hamburger helper (shortcuts)
• 50 cents off any box of Chex mix

Printed Internet Coupons

• $1 off any 2 General Mills cereals
• $1 off any 2 boxes of Barilla pasta
• 75 cents off any 3 boxes of hamburger helper
• $1.50 off Sun-Rype fruit snacks
• 50 cents off any chex mix
• 55 cents off any 2 Kraft mac and cheeses
• $1 off any Bullseye BBQ sauce
• $2 off any Girard’s salad dressing

This resulted in the following costs for my items:

• 1 box of Cheerios (8.9 oz),  44 cents
• 1 box of Trix (10.7 oz),  FREE
• 2 boxes of Barilla Whole Grain pasta, 59 cents each
• 3 boxes of Hamburger Helper, 25 cents each
• 1 bottle of Bullseye BBQ sauce, FREE
• 1 bottle of Girard’s salad dressing, 49 cents
• 1 bag of Sun-Rype 100% fruit snacks, 99 cents
• 1 box of chex mix, 49 cents
• 2 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese, 21.5 cents each

This resulted in at total cost of $4.77, plus 18 cents tax, for a total of $4.95. That’s  a savings of $17.15 off the after-card price, or just shy of 78% off (it’s $26.86, or 86%, off the pre-card “regular price.”). A few notes:

(A) Buying stuff that rings up “free” at the grocery store is surreal. Especially because I did the self-checkout (so I could watch things unfold) and it talks out loud about your discount. “Savings, $1.60; New Price: zero cents.” Actually, on the Trix they owed me 11 cents, but Safeway won’t discount beyond the purchase price (evidently, some places will!). That I could have just gone into the store and bought 8 Bullseye BBQ sauces and paid exactly $0 almost feels wrong. (I couldn’t have gotten more Trix for free because you can only hold one eCoupon per item at a time; however, if you have access to multiple computers, you can print off a theoretically endless number of Interent coupons, like the one for the BBQ sauce.)

(B) I didnt’ take advantage of either the scope or scalability of the strategy. For instance, I didn’t print off 80 BBQ sauce coupons from 80 different computers, clean the store out, setting myself up for life. But I could have — and there are definitely people doing this. I also did not do very much shopping — there are dozens upon dozens of items that qualify for these combined savings.

(C) The “stockpiling” strategy is at the heart of how the mavens live. They don’t sit around once a week and figure out what they want to eat for the rest of the week and then go buy it. Instead, they work backwards — finding the killer deals and then stocking up with a year’s supply. Evidently, there’s no reason to ever pay for toothpaste — it goes on a “free” sale roughly twice a year at Safeway. Yeah.

(D) I also did not get into the Catalina coupons game. Those are the coupons that come out automatically from that grey box at the checkout counter. Evidently, they work differently than most people realize. Usually, they just spit out coupons for stuff you might be interested in, based on what you just purchased. But they have a second feature, which is that they reward volume purchases. Evidently, if you buy 6 or 8 or 10 of  certain items at certain times, the Catalina spits out things like $5 store credits, which in some cases can be used to instantly purchase the same item again, and get another $5 credit. Repeat until stocked for life. Yes.

(E) I am now firmly convinced that, like the mavens say, grocery shopping is a game, and if you aren’t playing, you’re burning money. I don’t know how I’m going to proceed — I doubt I’ll be getting 6 subscriptions to a Sunday paper, as the mavens recommend — but I know I’m going to be looking at interet coupons and trying to match them up with store sales from now on.

Further bulletins on this front as events warrant. Here’s a picture of the haul: