Coupon Tip Tuesday

You always have to pay at least the tax on non-food items.


This is important to remember when you are figuring out scenarios for deals.

For instance: Yesterday I went to Kroger's to get some deals for their Mega Event - which has some pretty awesome coupon matchups. A couple of my items were going to give me overage, and I was going to buy 5 bottles of Snuggle. Because the Snuggle is non-food, I knew I would have to at least pay out of pocket .90 because of the tax. Because I had some food items that were going to give me overage, I had to figure in at least .90 worth of food items to cover payment of the tax. Overage doesn't apply to tax, only the cost of the item.



And don't forget - stores tax on the price/sale price BEFORE coupons.




Here's what I had planned for yesterday's Kroger Trip:



5 bottles of Snuggle - 3.49 (2.99 after Mega Event)

3 Keebler Fudge Shoppe Cookies - 1.49 (.99 after Mega Event)

2 Dole Mandarin Oranges - 1.00 (.50 after Mega Event)

5 Rotel Tomatoes - 1.05 each

1 Frank's Red Hot Sauce - 1.25

The Mega Event at Kroger is if you buy 10 of the participating items, it will automatically deduct 5.00 from your total (or .50 off each item)

I used

5 - 3.00/1 Snuggle Coupons (+.01 each!)

3 - 1.00/1 Keebler IP coupons (not available anymore) (+.01 each!)

2 - .50/1 Dole Mandarin Orange coupons - doubled to 1.00 (+.50 each)

2 .50/1 Rotel Coupons - doubled to 1.00 (.05 each)

1 Buy 2 get 1 FREE Rotel Coupon - (2.10)

1 .501/1 Frank's Red Hot Sauce Coupon -doubled to 1.00 (.25)

I knew that I would have 1.08 in overage after buying these 10 items, because my coupons covered more than their prices. That's where the Rotel Tomatoes come in. I bought 2 extra cans so that I would have enough overage to cover my tax. I paid 2.12 for all of the above. (Savings of 41.55!)

Tax can get tricky, be careful!

Oh, and this puts me at 3.87 for the month of November: 96.13 left in the budget!