Today I shopped at Rainbow Foods and got $108.10 worth of groceries for $54.80. That’s 50% off!
I’ve never shopped very much at Rainbow Foods – for years I’ve been faithful to ALDI, SuperTarget, Wal-mart and recently, Fare for All. The prices at Rainbow just always seemed – high. ALDI & Wal-mart have rock-bottom prices. SuperTarget’s prices are competitive, especially because they offer so many store coupons that can be paired with manufacturer’s coupons. Plus, SuperTarget is a pleasant place to shop that seems to have the biggest draw for young families. And Fare for All is a great place to stock up on specific items for low prices, particularly frozen meats and other kitchen staples.
Today, for the first time, I took advantage of Rainbow Foods’ coupon doubling. (For those of you who already do this…Yeah, I know, I’ve been missing out!) They only do it Wednesdays and Saturdays, and only up to 5 manufacturer’s coupons, but today was “double double coupon day,” meaning that you could get up to 10 manufacturer’s coupons doubled. I have been finding some good coupons in the Sunday paper lately – many for items that were on sale at Rainbow Foods this week. So I went to Carrie Rocha’s Pocket Your Dollars website, where great coupon+sale deals are listed for many stores and you can personalize your own shopping list to print and take with you. I printed my own list, got my coupons ready (many of which I got from printing via links on Carrie’s website), and was ready to go. (Note: All of this is FREE!)
I got up early and shopped (without the kids) at 8am, and the store was already filling up with shoppers like myself, loaded with their coupons and (hee hee) their own Pocket Your Dollars shopping lists. And they were all very determined and focused on their mission – to get maximum savings! (Hence the title of my post…
) I exchanged smiles with several – there were moms with their little kids, middle-aged women, a few men and families. I’m sure all of them knew a lot about saving money!
I wondered what the store employees thought of us. They were all busy, but the ones I encountered were nice and helpful (I would know – I kept asking for where things were!). I can’t imagine what it was like a few weeks ago when on two Wednesdays in October, Rainbow Foods doubled unlimited coupons for Roundy’s reward card members (I’m bummed I missed that!). I really appreciate all the Rainbow employees that help us coupon clippers get great savings!
It took me about 45 minutes to get through my list and make sure I used all the coupons I could. Everything was in stock, but I could see how many of the best coupon deal items could become sold out during the day.
In order to get my coupons doubled, I had to have a Roundy’s Rewards card, which I signed up for easily in-store (it’s free). After all my coupons were doubled (I had 10, plus some Rainbow store coupons), I bought 34 items, paid $54.80 (with tax) and saw that I SAVED $53.66!!!
The items I bought were great deals or even free. For example, 30-40 count bags of Halls Cough Drops were $1.00 on sale. I had a coupon (from the Sunday paper) for $1.00 off 2 bags. With that coupon doubled, the two bags totaling $2.00 were free! Chex cereals were also pretty cheap. They were $1.78 on sale, and I used a coupon for $1.10 off of two (coupons above $1.00 can’t be doubled). That brought the cost of each box down to $1.23. I did buy some other items that weren’t coupon items, like bananas and sweet potatoes (so yes, Rainbow Foods, your coupon clippers do make it worth it for you to offer these double coupon days – we buy other things, too!) I also bought a Jennie-O 11-pound turkey for $7.88 (after using a store coupon).
I definitely plan on shopping at Rainbow Foods on double coupon days again, and I highly recommend it!
Sounds like you got A great deal!