Thought I'd post about saving money when shopping......

You know when Christmas is coming when you try to cut back on your grocery bill so you have money to spend on gifts.......

This is mainly for the Canadians out there as they all pertain to Canadian companies, though I am sure some things will apply to other parts of the world.  I can't say I was the one to think of this, but have been doing it for years, contacting companies either by telephone or email to tell them how much you like their products or to see if they can send you any coupons.

Mrs. January has a great list here, along with links to emails of companies that do send coupons out when you request them.  I recently contacted Chapman's ice cream and requested a coupon, they sent me out a $5 off coupon and will do that once per year.  I also contacted Colgate and they sent me 5 x $1 coupons.  I also contacted Tetley, but they don't send out coupons but asked me to join their mailing list, which I did.

Just with those coupons I got a tub of Chapman's Cheeky Monkey frozen yogurt for 49 cents and 5 small bottles of Palmolive Washing Up Liquid for 65 cents (the taxes) and all it took was a few minutes of my time.

I also "order" coupons online from the following companies:

Go Coupons.ca

Save.ca

Websaver

Brandsaver

It doesn't cost anything to order off of those sites.

I am a big fan of coupons for certain things and this week alone I used $45.49 in coupons.  I think my best deal was at Zehrs where I always go to the half price rack in the bakery, where they had Wonder bread with 50% off.  I bought two loaves @ $1.79 each - the 50% = $1.78 - $2 coupon, gives me an overage of 22 cents which went towards the rest of my shopping.

I picked up the frozen yogurt, tub of regular yogurt, two loaves of bread, 2 tomatoes, 4 litre bag of milk, package choc chip cookies and ended up paying $8.55 for it all after coupons.

Shopper's Drug Mart had their 20 x the points day on Saturday and went twice to use some high value coupons I had.  I ended up spending $88.70, used $34 in coupons and got 26,100 points.  Add that to what points I had and now I have enough for $200 worth of free product at the next bonus redemption day (December 3rd I think).

I will say I shop what's on sale in the flyers, so it sucked this week when we didn't get any flyers..........not a happy camper.  Thank goodness for the internet!!

Will mention that Shopper's Drug Mart has 10% off their ten pack of Canada Post Stamps, picked up a couple of those for sending Christmas Cards, that deal is on all week.  I also picked up windscreen washer for the car @ $1.49 each; however that was a Saturday special.