Milk and Cereal. Cereal and Milk. Cereal and Milk.

I've been trying out new grocery stores to get out of my couponing comfort zone.  Martin's has a great milk and cereal deal this week that I had to jump on (twice!).  I saw a similar deal two months ago and Weis had it shortly thereafter, but we're hurting for cereal right now (I splurged and paid $2.50 a box at K-Mart!), so I didn't want to wait for it.  I hope to "get up the guts" to try Rite-Aid again, but not this week--I'm out of cash.  Since I did the milk and cereal deal twice, I did 2 transactions.  I'll walk you through the first transaction:

Transaction #1:

(1) Reese's Puffs (my favorite and doesn't seem to cause migraines--yet) $3.35
(1) Lucky charms $2.50
(1) Kix $2.79
(1) Cocoa Puffs $2.79

-$4 off instantly wyb 4
-$1/2 GM cereal
-$0.85/1 Kix cereal (doubled to $1.70)
-$0.50/1 Lucky Charms cereal (doubled to $1)

Total: $3.73
Received: $4.50 off next purchase with milk (says "no cash back" but took $4.50 off the next transaction when I bought milk for $2.99)

It's like I got a gallon of milk and 4 boxes of cereal for $2.22!!  Since that's about what I'd have paid for a 1/2 gallon of milk alone, I'd say I did pretty well!  Unless I had a specific coupon, I bought the cereals I WANTED, not the ones that were cheapest (a few were on sale for $2.50 ea.).  Even if you didn't have coupons and bought 4 boxes of cereal at $2.50 each you could get a gallon of milk and 4 boxes of cereal for $4.50 ($6 up front with $4.50 off a $3 gallon of milk)!  That's a great deal and you didn't even need to clip coupons!! 

I did this transaction again and bought the rest of my groceries (including $1.99/lb. boneless/skinless chicken breast and Lysol wipes $0.15 after rebate) and here's my total for the second transaction:

Total: $56.80
Total value purchased: $99.10
Rebates: $4.50 (milk Catalina coupon--I'll redeem it later), $5 (for Lysol wipes)

Between both transactions and the rebates, it's like I spent $54.72 for $115.88 worth of groceries!  That's a 53% savings!! 

Since Wednesday, I've spent $84.50 (minus $14.50 in rebates) on $221.74 of groceries (and baby food and make-up)!!!  That's a 68% savings!!!  Go me!!!   Alas, I did go $10 over budget out of pocket, so it looks like I'll be buying groceries with extrabucks next week!  =D