Grocery Spending for May 2015

Happy June all! Well, it's that time again. Time for a monthly report on grocery spending in our house. The grand tally came to $363.64. All those groceries are pictured above.(you can click on the pictures to make them larger) As you can see there are a lot of cleaning products and bbq sauce. Combining coupons and money saving apps these were all money makers. So, that means some of my grocery spending this month has been covered by this! In case you are interested here's a breakdown by store spending.

Walmart made $128.44 profit

Rona made $54.15 profit

Independent $26.40

Quality Greens $7.96

IGA $4.34

Cooper's $16.60

Costco $110.83

Save On $73.75

Safeway $36.60(got 162 AM which will equal $17.05 cash)

Superstore $114.16

Shoppers $155.59(cashed in $100 worth of points and made 97885 points this month, which will be worth $206.07 in groceries)

 June's spending will probably be higher as we have another adult, gluten free, dairy free eater living with us from now on. Being accountable by having to post this is quite motivating so I hope I can keep the costs down.As you can see I have some cashable points stocked up which I could use at Safeway or Shoppers to stretch my budget further. Want to see what's on sale and where daily? Follow me on Instagram where I post much more regularly. @savingyourhardearnedmoney

Mail In Rebates and Making Money

The insert that came in our free paper yesterday was filled with new mail in rebates(MIR). I love to use these to get free products and to make money. Here's some tips. Right now there are 7 free product MIRs and 2 B1G1 MIRs. How do you get these if you don't get the inserts? There are several ways. One is to buy your local paper with the inserts inside. The other is to see if there are online printable forms. Click on the name of the rebate to go to the form.

Lysol No Touch 

                                                                    Air Wick                                                                                                                      

Finish

 To start it's important to read all the fine print. 

1.Date of purchase: When does it start and end. Some MIR come out a few days before the purchase date. So double check. Sometimes I hang onto MIR for awhile waiting for a good deal to combine them with, 20X the points at Shoppers or an Airmiles deal so it's important to see when they are expiring too. The Lysol, Finish,Durex and Veet need to be purchased by May 10. 

2. How much is the maximum you can spend?

Veet $23.55 (covers product,taxes and postage)

Durex $27.29 and $18.09 (covers product,taxes and postage)

Lysol No Touch $17.90(covers product,taxes and postage)

Air Wick $12.50(covers product,taxes and postage)

Finish $8 (covers product,taxes and postage)

Resolve Gold Oxi-Action $7(covers product,taxes and postage)

3.Do you need to circle the purchase price? Do you need to write the UPC code on the receipt or cut it off and attach it?

4. Don't forget to fill in the MIR form.

5. Photocopy you receipt and filled in form for your records

6. Mark on your calendar the day you mail it and how much you should receive back. There are lots of apps to keep track of MIRs if you prefer this method.

Now a few extra notes. Most MIRs want your original receipt so you can only do one MIR per receipt. Also, some MIRs repeat many times a year. For example the Lysol No Touch, I do it every time it comes out and have not had any problem. It looks like the Finish rebate is 3 seperate offers for $8 back as you can see the mailing addresses are all different.(one is box 13444, 13437, 13450) so you should be able to do this three different times. I have often used coupons in combination with MIRs. Again be sure to read all the fine print.

Next to make the best use of your MIR why not combine them with a points event? This weekend Shoppers is having their spend $50 get 20X the points. The VEET MIR could possibly be almost half that! The way I figure out how much points are worth is: I use the maximum redemption which these days seems to have fallen to $200=95000 points $21.05 if I spend $50. So, if I were to spend $20 on the Veet I would get $8.42 back in points. Rexall has a spend $50 get 80 Airmiles this week. The coupon is here   I use Airmiles cash so this is worth. $8.42. There is a grand opening points event at our new Independent store, if you spend $60 you get 6000 in PC Points($6). So, as you can see there are many ways to make your MIR go further. Do you do MIR?

Trade in Your Air miles for Groceries!

Up till now it's been Shell and Rona for cashing in my air miles. Now, you can use your air miles for $10 off at Safeway! Just go to airmiles.ca/voucher and print your $10 off., when you redeem 95 air miles.
It says the offer of spend $60 and get 95 air miles is exclusive, but maybe you got it too???

125 Air Miles

Earn 125 Air Miles when you spend $50 on your American Express Air Miles Credit  Card between Sept 13-20th. You need to register your Air Miles Collector number here.

Chatelaine Subscription for 55 Air Miles

Right now until September 15th you can get a year's subscription for just 55 air miles(usually 75). Just go to airmiles.ca and go to Dream rewards and then click on subscriptions and gift cards. Makes a great gift too!
Enjoy!

Earn 50 Air Miles for Using Your Cash Rewards Miles at Rona and More

There are several Air Miles promotions out right now. I have attached photos of the Shell deal as well as the Rona deal  below. As you can see the Rona is the better bang for your buck if you are going to cash in cash rewards. I called about the Rona deal as it seemed to vague and to good to be true. They assured me it was correct but couldn't give me any details. They said I had been targeted by Rona to get this deal. I wondered if I could do it more than once. They said if there was nothing in the fine print saying one time only, go ahead. So, I went to Rona and picked up some shock for my pool and found bird seed(I am almost out!)in the clearance aisle! I asked the cashier if she knew of this deal and she said she did.(I am under the understanding anyone can do it).
 I did 2 separate transactions. The first transaction was $3.41 and the second was $2.31. I will get 50 Air Miles per transaction so in cash rewards 100 Air miles is worth $10.52. In the end I am up $4.81!
Just be sure to seperate your transactions into $10 redemptions to maximize your return!
Fine print says it can take up to 60 days to get the rewards. I have marked my calendar and will update this post when I get them.

Redeem Air Miles Cash Rewards get Air Miles in return, until July 14, 2013.

Until July 7, 2013, spend your Air Miles cash, get Air Miles in return.
Need to earn some air miles? This weekend at Shell spend $20 on gas and $10 in store and get 25 Air Miles.

 

Needs Some Air Miles

Do you need some air miles? There are two short surveys one here and one here. One is worth 20 air miles and the other 15. This weekend get 50 Air miles at Shell. Details are here.

This Week's Sales

Superstore April 5-11
 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts $2.98/lb 4Kg box $26.28 limit 2 Package of 3 English cucumbers $2.28(works out to .76ea)
 Basa, Cod, Sole Frozen 1.36Kg $10 
Ginger .76/lb 
Harvest Crunch Granola Bars $2-.50 coupon(was in Superstore in the past few weeks) 
Buy 3 Participating Quaker or Aunt Jemima products and get a free Tropicana Orange Juice. (If you were to buy 3 of the granola bars and use the coupons it would cost you $4.50 for 3 boxes of granola bars and one orange juice!)
10lbs navel oranges $3.98
Mushrooms 454g $1.98(this is a better deal than the ones at Walmart)

Walmart 5-11
Mushrooms 8oz $1.27
Kraft BBQ sauce 455ml $1
Special K Crisps $2.50-$1 coupons from Websaver
Special K Granola 553g $3-$1 coupons from Websaver

Rexall has stamps 10% off limit 3.

This weekend at Shell is Bonus Air miles
Spend minimum $20 on gas and $50 total.
Buy bronze gas get 25 bonus air miles
Buy VPower gas get 50 bonus airmiles
25 Airmiles are worth $2.63 in Air Miles Cash
50 Airmiles are worth $5.26 in Air Miles Cash
My plan is to spend $25 on the VPower gas and buy a $25 Gift card, probably for Shoppers.

Bonus Air Miles at Shell this Weekend

There is an air miles deal this weekend at Shell.


 This Weekend Only!


 On Saturday February 9th and Sunday February 10th, Shell sites Nationwide will enjoy special bonus reward miles offers: This Weekend Only! On Saturday February 9th and Sunday February 10th, Shell sites Nationwide will enjoy special bonus reward miles offers: Spend $50 on any purchase, including a minimum $20 V-Power Fuel purchase and earn 50 AIR MILES reward miles Spend $50 on any purchase, including a minimum $20 Shell Bronze, Silver or Diesel fuel purchase and earn 25 AIR MILES reward miles Note: No Coupon required All Convenience Store Food Store Items and Car Wash are eligible Tobacco Products and Service Bay repairs are excluded


So, I decided to look into the air miles cash and see about changing over to it. We have been using our air miles to get the night out coupons but there are a few problems with that. One, it seems there are only a few movies a year that we want to see in the theatre. We are much more comfy at home with popcorn and jammies! And secondly, I am a Secret Shopper for Cineplex so we already have to go see movies!

 The nice thing about deciding whether to use air miles rewards(the original method) or air miles cash is that you can go into your on-line air miles account and change it any time. So, say I am not happy using the cash method I can go back and change to 100% rewards or a combination of cash and reward miles.

 We have about $30 worth of cash rewards. 95 air miles =$10 cash rewards. I have been reading in a forum on Smart Canucks, about air miles,  and it had been mentioned that they use their  air miles cash to buy gift cards at Shell! So, I decided to figure out how to combine that with this deal. Here's my figuring. Let me know if you figure it different. I have 2 choices.

25 Air Miles                                                                     50 Air Miles

$20 Bronze Gas($1.20/L)=16.6 Litres                   $20 V-Power Gas($1.35/L)=14.8 Litres
$30 Gift Cards                                                          $30 Gift Cards
  $50                                                                           $50
-$30 Air miles cash                                                 -$30 Air miles cash
 $20 out of pocket                                                   $20 out of pocket
-$2.63 air miles value                                                -$5.26 air miles value                                         
  $17.37                                                                        $14.74   
                                                                                     $2.16(to make up for the difference in litres)
                                                                                     $16.90
The difference in litres is due to the difference in price between the bronze and the V-Power, $1.20/L and $1.35L. You could also get silver of diesel. The extra $2.16 was calculated for the difference in litres 16.6-14.8. I took the 1.8 litre difference and multiplied it by $1.20/L to get the $2.16. So, all of this to figure out which is the best use of our money. The second option seems to be the best deal, not by much, .47!  I probably need to buy $50 worth of gift cards as they probably won't have $10 cards.  I don't know how this will go. I plan to do it Friday, so I will try and update this then. Leave a comment if you have an idea for me! Thanks!

Just a side note for those of you who read my earlier post about gas purchases . If I was to buy this same $20 worth of gas at  Superstore I would get $1.16(16.6L X 7cents/L) in gas bucks and .20(worth of PC points) so a grand total of $1.26.

 

Airmiles Coupons in the Mail Today Equals Cheap TP!!!



Did you get your Airmiles coupons today? Here's what they look like.



Here's the Safeway flyer, which starts April 20th. Combine the 50% off coupon with the Purex $5 toilet paper and you have a screaming deal on tp!!! There are 12 rolls of 270 sheets, so 3240 sheets. At 50% off it's $2.50/package. That makes it .0007716/roll!!!! Best price ever! Of course you can only get one package, but at least some of your tp is cheap!!!

My flyers always look like a math lesson by the time I am done with them!

There are also a few coupons for Purex out there. The 50% off coupon doesn't say anything about not using coupons so I will try and use one.(They are both from Websaver)

This is a super fun MIR. You need to buy 5 Dare products(one MUST be Bretons). Then send in the rebate form(in stores),your original receipt with the items circled and the UPC codes written on the back and they will send you a $15 gift card! This is available at Safeway, Save On, IGA,Metro, Coop Atlantic,Coleman's. (The rebate form says London Drugs, but when I called Dare they said that London Drugs wouldn't be participating).You don't NEED to spend $15...only buy 5 Dare products. I combined this with 10% off day and I bought 4 of the Real Fruit Gummies and one Breton's. My grand total was $11.19 so I will make $3.81(less a stamp). If you have any coupons for Dare products you could do even better!

Lakeview Market has Ragu for $1.28 and Grape Tomatoes 2/$3. Remember Walmart will match these prices.

10% off Day and TOO MANY FLYERS!

So, obviously I have TOO many flyers at my house! Somehow last week's didn't get thrown out, recycled, so my list for what to get at Extra Foods was a week late! Yikes! I still didn't clue in until I got to the store where the very kind dairy man was stocking the cheese. I asked him how come I had a different price in my flyer, from what was on the shelf. He was puzzled too, until we discovered it was last week's flyer! I guess I was thrown off by the 10-25% off coupons being on last week also! Anyways, I ended up getting some nice big mandarin oranges and a few other things... :)



This is what I got at 10% off day at Safeway. The pile on the floor to the far left, those products were all free.




You can click on this picture and make it larger so you can read the numbers. I was off on my idea of what those Kraft product prices would be! My grand total before coupons and 10% off was $75.74. I got $5.89 off for the 10%. My coupons were $28.33. The eggnog was on sale and discounted due to expiry date, so that was $1 off. My total was $40.52. I received 91 airmiles(or half a full movie package :)
I don't think you can bring your total below $35 before tax, that's what they always tell me...I need to check into that. Anyone ever done it???



25 Air Miles

 Just got this email. Sign the Healthy Lifestyles pledge and get 25 Air Miles!

Takes all of 2 minutes.
What are you saving up for?