Lesson from the boy scouts...

So my sister and I learned something while at Safeway last Friday- be prepared! 

My favorite part is checking out and seeing all the eCoupons uploading and being taken off the total.  It doesn't start until they finish scanning all your products.  If there's someone behind me in line, they are amazed at the show as well and usually ask how I do it- alohadeals.net!  With the products I buy, there are usually between 20-30 eCoupons on my card that get used.

Well, this week their network must have been down or having issues, because nothing showed up on either of our transactions.  Once we explained that this is BEYOND the club card savings, they were nice enough to take us aside to work something out.  Luckily I had my ipod with me which has the Cellfire and Coupons.com apps on it (free).  Each of the sites also allow you to print off your list, so I suggest that before you leave to go shop if you don't have a way to do it electronically.  It was such a huge bummer even though they did help us out.

It also helps to have all your possible coupons there with you.  Sometimes you may have missed something in the ad and see it at a great price at the store.  This is why you take all your coupons with you.  I have been trying all different methods of filing coupons, so when I find something that I think works, I'll share it with you.

Last way to be prepared is to have the coupons you are planning to use at each store out from the rest of the stash.  My sister had an envelope for each store and wrote out what she was getting and how many of each item.  Coupons can be pretty specific on what sizes are accepted, so I usually put that down too.

We're going to work on getting out the lists for each store.  The Sunday ad for Safeway is usually only good Sun/Mon/Tues, so those are the best days to shop so it overlaps with the Wednesday ad from the previous week.  They are also good about rain checks on items that they have run out of if I mention it, especially special promotions.

We also are going to be better about sharing other stores' deals.  It's just hard not to love all the Safeway savings!