More frugality

I used to marvel at my mother for the effort she expended to save coupons and buy Raisin Nut Bran cereal for 25 or 50 cents per box. She had so many boxes stored in her closet, and I recall eating a bowl while visiting once and sensing they might be a little stale. Indeed, the expiration date on the box was just about due. Still, that was my favorite cereal at the time, but was a rare treat since I had to pay upwards of $4 for a box in my store.

I evolved to liking Wheat Chex cereal the best, and was really proud of myself once when finding the Safeway brand clone of Wheat Chex on sale for $1 per box (I think Wheat Chex was about $4). We stocked up and bought 20 boxes, as I recall, and thought that was a huge haul.

But they were consumed quickly enough, then earlier this year we stumbled upon Wheat Chex on sale for about $1.80 at Winco. Then we discovered that some boxes included a coupon for $3 off when buying 3 boxes. Needless to say, I made two or three trips to Winco and sorted through the boxes to make sure I bought ones with the coupon attached. The net result was over 50 boxes purchased at 80 cents each, and 20 or so extra coupons for future use.

I thought this supply would last a year. But when you eat a bowl and a half each morning it is surprising how quickly you go through a box. A month ago we were running out, and our coupons were about to expire. Each trip to Winco we would check the Chex for sales, but no luck. Finally, we just used most of our coupons and bought a bunch more at $3.42 (net $2.42).

Then last week we saw them on sale for $2.38 so I rounded up about 10 coupons we hadn't used and hoped Winco wouldn't mind if they were a couple of weeks beyond expiration. And they accepted them!

But here is the real bonus--I hadn't noticed that a few of the new boxes had a new $3 coupon that expires a year from now! So, another trip back to Winco to buy more boxes with more coupons. What fun!! So now we have a stash of a dozen coupons for the next sale after we use up this supply.

Okay, so am I pathetic or what?