Expanding my Savings Horizons - Thank You

[Poobah]

Good day everyone... I'm getting a bit braver, and am attempting to expand my horizons beyond that of the "Shopper's Drug Mart" Section.

if any one of you ever thought I was an idiot for one reason or another, assure you I was, am and will continue to be. But I'm finally beginning to see the light...

For so long now, I had absolutely no clue what a lot of you were talking about sometimes... At least every time I saw the mention of "CO51", and to be honest if you said Snap, or Save.ca or Zweep it probably would of went in one ear and directly out the other. I would just scratch my head for sec, and then think oh it must be some coupon, followed by where the heck do they get these coupons anyway.`

Well I'm proud to say, after stumbling around in other sections of the forum the other day, with the help of a few very insightful posts and some amazing help from amira84 I'm ready to grow frugally.

So I downloaded the apps below...

Snap
CO51
Cartsmart
Zweet
Save.ca
Flypp

(Yesterday) I got my feet wet with Snap/Shoppers for which I spent 20 bucks at shoppers on 6 pizzas, earned about 6450 points on the 20 bucks and got 6 bucks back on casa di mama Inferno pizza's.. which means all six essentially cost me 85 cents in total. (how can I not like that... doh! )

Then today my wife asked me to pickup a few items on the way home.

I opened my self to the whole slew of apps and accepted the fact that I need to step into Walmart... *it burned like hell by the way, but worth it*

I honestly Can't believe i never price matched before at Walmart.. Again what a dummy i was.

I configured Flypp as if I lived downtown Toronto...

Then I looked through the cash back items on all the Apps, for stuff I actually like or would consider buying...

I then cross referenced all those items `with Flypp, to see if there were any good sale prices.... (so easy to use.. mind blowing)

Then I searched for things I could use, that I can't generally buy at Shoppers for a good price.

The list was quite small.. But man, what a difference it can make.

3 Delissio Rustico pizza's Regulary almost 6 bucks... Just 2.99 with C051 price match and 1.00 dollar back per pizze (1.99 pizza's)
1 Lean Cuisine @ 1.97... Normal walmart price with 75 cents cash back from Zweet

As for just price matching...

Mushrooms @ 0.99 Cents down from 2.47
Asparugus @ 1.97/lb down from 4.47 (something like that)
Green Peppers @ 1.49/lb Down from 2ish (I think)

And a little treat I shouldn't of got...

Monster Drink @ 1.88 down from 2.47 or so.

I also got a few other items, but walmart already seemed to have the best price...

All together it's hard to deny how much you can save over time... What An idiot I have been all this time.

Whew... Okay so now... I`m all ears if anyone has any more tricks to share or good looks, and I`m getting more interested in the whole coupon angle...

Where the heck does everyone get there coupons? Is there a trick?

Should I visit post offices on particular days?
Subscribe to the local newspaper?
Any other magazines or memberships I should join that mail coupons to my house?
Send letters to certain manufacturer's?
Any great coupon locations, I have absolutely no idea about? lol

As for other considerations moving forward...

I just got my platinum American express specifically for sniping Airmiles promotions at foodland or metro (2500 air miles in such a short time.. whoo) But now, I need to find a balance between Airmiles groceries, walmart price matching and Shoppers with Cash back in mind... I suppose it goes like this.

1. Shoppers first and foremost baring my regular great sale price items, and points promotions.
2. Metro/Foodland on most of my meaty requirements and other odd assorted items, providing it's a first page sale item and I can fetch about 1 air mile per dollar spent. While only spending the minimum requirement for said Point bonuses.
3. Walmart for everything else if option 1 and 2 are not in the cards. (and at least I can still earn 1 Airmile per 10 dollars spent using the Amex).

Whew, life is going to get complicated isn't it? lol

Anyway, I really do want to offer my appreciation to everyone here.

Thank you very much for all your help along the way and to come.

[coupon girl]

you are on the right track
-i dont own a cell phone -but i do checkout51 and snapsaves-this month got 50.00 fro checkout51 and 20.50 from snapsaves( now there is only 2 of us in my household)so this money will be for a weddingshower i am going to In june
-I dont own a printer -but I order coupons from save.ca and walmart has coupons on their site too (plus I trade one on one with people on here-awesome traders)
-I have couponed for 30 years and still love it
-we gotta love all these programs I just got 50.00 off of 90.00 worth of groceries at fortinos yesterday
-today I got 2 bottles of olay and ivory for .49 cents each after coupon buy 2 save 2.50-mind you they were on sale at shoppers for 2.99 then checkout51 paid me a 1.00 for each bottle
-see every little bit helps -love reading other's brags too (that helps too)

[Shwa Girl]

nicely played OP
you mentioned our wife
does she have the apps too and her own account?
does she have SDM points too?
twice the savings

[venkatkolla]

what is flypp app?

[amira84]

WTH? You are copy/pasting your posts in pm and asking me details on a pm. Lol

I think it's a better idea to teach you these things here because then a lot of people will be able to share their wisdom with you and others and we'll all learn from one another.

I still haven't used this app. I am in BC so i don't know if it works in BC or not.

And i agree with coupongirl about coupon trades on SC. You should join SC coupon trading thread too and see which type of coupons are rolling in Canada right now.

There is no doubt that prices are getting higher and product packaging are getting smaller but if we pay close attention to all these sales+coupons+loyalty programs+rebates we can still buy a lot of stuff, make money on it and use that extra money on our fruits and veggies. (And BTW those toppings on your frozen pizzas are not considered veggies. Stop dreaming poobah! )

[Arvilish]

I cannot remember the last time I used Checkout 51 or snapsave. I think you can still save money if you just use coupon but then I am super busy nowadays so limiting myself.

[jasper23]

I love checkout51, snap & zweet... but how did you get those pizzas so cheap at shoppers? How do their points work.. feel like I should start shopping there...

[wendymac]

Poobah...thank you!!! I read your post about frugal revelation and it prompted me to explore checkout51. I was under the mistaken impression that you needed to have a cell phone with which to take a photo of the receipt. But I can use my computer to download the photo to checkout51. I'm going to get my feet wet next week...then watch out world! Thanks again.

[Ivanasavalot]

what is flypp app?

It's called "fl ipp" (no space)and it's an app that will show you all the local flyers, you can just type in what you are looking for a sale on, and it will show you all available flyers with that item listed....as long as it is on sale somewhere

[toronto166]

Well done Poobah!!! Welcome to the app club! Honestly, those apps are amazing. It's shocking how much money you can actually get back. As much as many of you may disagree with the following statement: Walmart isn't really that bad. With every store there are good cashiers and not good cashiers. I've been blessed with Walmart. I have been going to the same one since they opened in my neighbourhood and all the cashiers know that I pm everything. The savings are incredible i.e. I too did the pm on the asparagus $1.97 and WM's price 4.97....huge difference!!! I just think we're lucky that stores allow us to PM. I too print my coupons from save.ca, websaver.ca smartsource.ca. I also go to Loblaws to pick up coupons. Good luck with your amazing savings and in getting money back!

[scouponer]

Don't forget pc plus. Especially if you can shop at RCSS or no frills as you can price match. Offers aren't as good as in the beginning, but I still make a few bucks every week on stuff I would buy anyways.

[SavvyLady]

Don't forget pc plus. Especially if you can shop at RCSS or no frills as you can price match. Offers aren't as good as in the beginning, but I still make a few bucks every week on stuff I would buy anyways.

i agree with you, if you have a real Canadian Superstore, you can price match there and get PC points too. I find the meat, fruits and vegetables better here than no frills, food basics and Walmart. What I don't like about Walmart is they say they will price match but they never carry the items or they have the manufacturers change the size of their packaging. Ex, I wanted to price match 4 peppers for $1.97 from giant tiger..well guess what Walmart only has 3 in a pack, I wanted to price match toilet paper I forget how much it was for 24 double rolls Walmart only carried 16 or 32, I wanted to pm crab usually 220 grams, they had 210 or 200, avocados usually 5 in a pack they had 6 .. I can't remember all the products but there are quite a few..so, now I pm at superstore and they always have what I'm pm'ing plus I get PC poonts..

[Langfordlee]

I also use app "reebee" .

[ticul]

Love your brag. Good info, everyone and thank you for sharing....................

[Poobah]

nicely played OP
you mentioned our wife
does she have the apps too and her own account?
does she have SDM points too?
twice the savings

Good morning!

Been wanting to get back to this post, but life just wouldn't give me a second the last few days. (I was able to eat supper by 10:30pm last night.. erg).

But thank you... My wife loves at least one APP.. and it's called Facebook. God i love her, but she's so wrapped up in Facebook now, I hardly am allowed to talk to her without getting the evil eye for the "disturbance".

She Actually had a Shoppers card long ago, but has since lost it, and while she doesn't understand how I do what I do there, she certainly appreciates its... But at the same time, she just doesn't have it in her to figure it out... *probably because Facebook won't allow it.*

I did just recently explain this new set of apps to her though, and gave a few examples of what some illustrious members of this forum managed to accomplish using them... And well frankly, My wife thinks this is probably ilegal and she's not comfortable with it.

My house hold works sort of like this... I buy frozen crap and snacks, milk, eggs, bread, butter, cereal, paper towels, toilet paper, tooth paste, misc OTC drugs and basically all the sort of stuff one can expect to do really well with at Shoppers. this pretty much keeps my kids in cookies, snacks, stouffers, pizza's, drink boxes, etc. i also buy my own dietary needs for my Low Carb life style. (meat, cheese, and some low carb wraps etc, and my perfered vegitables). Jessica on the other hand, buys all the meat, pasta, rice, ladies products, Tomato sauce, pasta sauce, spices, and every other sort of other stuff for her, the kids and occasionally me. I should also mention Jessica only shops at Walmart or Food Basics *oh how i hate them both.. lol (Walmart conversion in process)*

So I explained the price matching thing to her... And I did my best to convince her it's really easy... So before the next time she/we goes shopping she's going to make a list and I'm going to line it all up and organize it all, and do all the hard work and match ups with the clerk etc. So at least she will save some money that way.

That saids.. the whole deal between Jessica and I at one time was... I make all the house payments, car payments, insurance payments, half the cell phone, gas etc.. and all she needs to do is the groceries and cable/internet/homephone and half the cellphone. Idiot me, though since finding shoppers has been taking over more and more of the shopping as I just can't resist buying laundry soap for occasionally almost free and many times after points considerations just less then 2 bucks etc. If only I could get her to keep buying the stuff, yet reap all the points.

Anyway, its fair to say I'm not going to get any cooperation in the way of second Shoppers Optimum card in this house.