5 Reasons to Visit Giant This Week, 12/17 - 12/23 - DOLLAR DOUBLERS!

There are many, many reasons to visit Giant this week, since grocers are always trying to get you in the door the week before a big holiday in order for you to buy everything you need (not just their loss leaders). In fact, there are dollar doublers, too! A great chance to score some savings.

Here's a highlight reel of just some of the loss leaders available this week at Giant:

1. 5 lb. box Clementines, $3.99 - as cheap as Clementines get!
2. Coke 12-packs, 4/$10
3. Spiral Sliced Ham, $1.49/lb. (Save $1.70/lb, nice!)
4. Semi-Boneless Beef Rib Roast, $5.99/lb.
5. Sweet Potatoes and Yams, 3 lb. for $1 - as cheap as these get, too!

Other reasons to visit Giant this week:

Shady Brook Farms Frozen Turkeys, $0.79/lb. Fresh turkeys, $0.99/lb.
Save $1 printable coupon for Shady Brook Farms Fresh or Frozen Turkeys
For best savings: Buy the smallest frozen turkey that you can find, and dollar double your printable (if it permits doubling).

Top Round, Bottom Round, or Beef Chuck Roast, 50% off (Save at least $1.75/lb.)

Giant Butter, 2/$5

Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice Drinks, 2/$4

Sorrento Ricotta Cheese or Mozzarella Cheese, 2/$5

Purex 2X Liquid Laundry Detergent, $1.99
$0.35/1 printable
Final price: $1.30/ea.

Oscar Mayer Sliced Bacon, all varieties, Buy 1, Get 1 FREE (Save at least $6.69)

Lay's Potato Chips, 3/$6 (Must buy 3)

General Mills Cereals, 2/$4
$1/2, 11/14 GM
Price if dollar doubled: $1/box

Folgers Coffee, $6.99/lb.
$1/2, 09/19 RP or 12/05 RP
Price if dollar doubled: $5.99/lb.

Dunkin Donuts Coffee, $6.99/lb.
$2/2, 12/12/RP (this one expires 01/30/2011) or 10/31 RP (this one expires 12/31)
Final price: $5.99/lb.

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This post is part of BeCentsAble's Grocery Gathering

What other Giant coupon matchups and deals did you spot for the coming week? Did we make any deal-calculating hiccups? Post a comment to let us know! 

5 Reasons to Visit Giant This Week, 12/10-12/16

I can't believe that Christmas is in just two weeks! Now is the time to stock up on low-priced staples that have relatively long shelf lives - for example, the store-brand $0.99 cream cheese deal this week. Many cream cheese packages are marked as being good for weeks, if not months, so you could be fueling meals in January and February with the Christmastime stash. :)

1. Navel Oranges, $0.88/lb.
2. Blackberries or Blueberries (in eeety beeety containers), 2/$4
3. Giant European Salads or Dole Salad Blends, 2/$5
4. SUPER G Boneless Chicken Breast, $1.99/lb. (Save at least $2.30/lb.) This is a freezable price, so stock up!
5. Whole Boneless Pork Loin, $1.89/lb. (Save at least $2.10/lb.) At more than half price off, this is also freezable if you're a pork loin afficionado.

Other reasons to visit Giant this week:

New York Strip, $5.99/lb. (Save $4/lb.)

Large Easy Peel or Medium Cooked Shrimp, $6.99/lb. in a two pound bag ($13.98/bag)

Hachiya Persimmons, 2/$3 Try a warm persimmon butter made in a slow-cooker/crock pot for a holiday treat!


Green Beans, Washed and Snipped, BOGO

3 lb. bag White or Red Potatoes, 2/$5 OR Sold Individually @$0.99/lb.

Jumbo Green Peppers, $0.99/lb.

Cedar's Hummus (8 oz.), $2.99 (Save $1)

Furmano's Tomatoes, Canned, 10/$10

Wyman's Wild Blueberries (frozen), 2/$7 (These are $3.99 retail and I LOVE them for their smoothie-making quality because they're smaller with a more intense blueberry taste.)

Cascadian Farm frozen organic vegetables, 2/$5
$1/1 printable for signing up
Final price: $1.50

Birds Eye Frozen Veggies, 10/$10
$1/2, 12/12 SS
Final price: $0.50/ea.

Green Giant Fresh Steamers, 3/$5
$0.50/2, 11/14 GM
Final price: $1.16/ea.

Claussen Pickles, 2/$6

Giant Cream Cheese, $0.99/ea. (Save $0.60/ea.)

Giant Shredded Cheeses, 2/$4

Cabot Cheese Blocks, 2/$5

Giant Ricotta Cheese, 2/$5

BelGioioso Mozzarella, 8 oz, 2/$6 (Save $1.50/ea.) (By the way, though this is a nice discount, the Sam's Club price on BelGioioso still beats this by far, so if you have a membership there or at another warehouse club it's probably worth comparing.)

Daisy Sour Cream, 2/$3

Blue Diamond Almonds, 2/$5
$0.75/2, 10/10 and 12/05 SS
Final price: 2/$3.50, or $1.75/ea.

Nestle Morsels chocolate chips, 2/$4
$1.25/3, 11/14 RP
Final price: 3 for $4.75, or $1.58/bag

Green & Black's Organic Chocolate Bars, 2/$5 (Retails over $3/ea.)

Swanson Broth, 4/$3
$0.75/5 or $0.75/2 (or other values), 11/07 SS
Final price: Varies

Carnation Evaporated Milk, 5/$5
$0.50/2 Carnation Evaporated Milk Printable
$0.50/2, 11/14 RP
Final price: $0.50/can

Food Should Taste Good Tortilla Chips - includes gluten free!, 2/$5
$1 off coupon
Final price: $1.50/bag

Proctor Silex Small Appliances, $7.99
Includes: 5 Speed Hand Mixer, Juicer, Coffee Grinder, Food Chopper, Can Opener or 2 Slice Toaster

***

This post is part of BeCentsAble's Grocery Gathering

What other Giant coupon matchups and deals did you spot for the coming week? Did we make any deal-calculating hiccups? Post a comment to let us know!  

Necessity = Mother of Invention, When Eating and Couponing Primally

As you may recall, I (A.) have been eating a "caveman-style" diet since mid-June in a bid to manage my insulin levels. That is, no processed foods, no sugar, no grains. While the new lifestyle has been a boon to my energy levels, and has enabled me to lose a significant amount of baby weight with minimal hunger, it has really put the brakes on my couponing abilities!

I used to coupon with the best of them, even once hauling in over $40 in free yoghurt over the course of a Shopper's Food Warehouse double/triple couponing event (yes, we were eating free yoghurt for weeks). It was routine for me to pay pennies on the dollar for my breakfast cereal, yoghurts, condiments, snack foods, and so on.

But now, I'm discovering that almost all of the foods that I'm eating - fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs, full-fat organic dairy products, seafood, animal protein like poultry, pork, and beef, and nuts (excluding peanuts) - have little-to-no coupon offerings. That's not to say no couponing exists for these categories; it's just that manufacturer coupons for such things are rarely offered, and I think that this is because whole roasting chickens are not exactly something that a manufacturer yearns to incentivize. Why? What is more profitable for a manufacturer: getting me initially hooked and then paying retail on nonperishable toastable breakfast pastries, or a perishable, minimally processed hunk'o'poultry?

*Sigh* So our food budget has been going through a few spasms. By no means am I planning on giving up my current eating lifestyle; I've gained too much energy and lost too much baby weight to go back to processed carbs, which just seem to wreak havoc on my system. We have also saved a significant amount of money in that we are no longer buying a lot of snack food and soda. But I am definitely going to have to get a lot more creative if this lifestyle will become a sustainable line item in our budget.

So here is my game plan for the future as I try to get our food budget lean:

1. Buy and freeze animal protein at a discount, when possible. This is a tactic that I've been using for years, anyway. For me, the cheapest that animal protein gets gets is omega-3 organic eggs (I buy these in bulk at Sam's Club) and Nature's Promise whole chickens (~$1.89/lb. retail at Giant).
   
   
2. Find the few coupons out there that enable whole foods eating: Cascadian Farms and Muir Glen coupons, produce coupons (though rare they still exist), organic dairy coupons via Mambo Sprouts. If I can apply $1 coupons during doubling, I could get a deep discount on bags of Cascadian Farms frozen fruits or veggies, or free or near-free Muir Glen canned tomato products. Other items that I could still coupon would be coconut milk, nuts (excluding peanuts), dried (no-sugar-added) fruits, and Eggland's Best eggs.
   
   
3. Research price points at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's on organic dairy and other items. Though I don't live all that near to either one of these, my parents and inlaws do, and we see each other every weekend or so. Though WF and TJ's are often maligned for their expense, the fact is that their organic dairy prices are competitive or even well below those of organic dairy as sold at mainstream chains like Giant. Also, if you buy a case of anything at Whole Foods, you get a 10% discount. So, I could probably save up to about 20% or more by buying my organic dairy products from Whole Foods. My new favorite grassfed butter - Kerrygold - is $2.69/pack at TJ's, but $3.99/pack at Giant! That's a huge difference, especially for something that keeps as well as butter does. (Also, on a related note, Bloom has some of the cheapest half-gallons of organic milk out there, at $2.99/ea.)
   
   Whole Foods' produce is often competitive as well. This past Friday, for example, they were doing BOGO on $5.99 watermelons, making them about $3/ea., cheaper than Giant has ever offered this summer!
   
   
4. Think seafood. I'm slowly gaining an appreciation of price points for fish, scallops, shrimp, and so on. The more I monitor prices on these, the more I become aware of when a truly great sale price comes up in a weekly ad, so I can take advantage. Bummer, though, that most of Giant's seafood is thawed; you're not supposed to refreeze seafood or animal protein that has been already frozen! So while it's often true that I can't stock up for the freezer, I can plan to make a couple of meals in a week from a thawed well-priced seafood product that is on sale.
   
   
5. Buy produce on sale. Again, a tactic that I've been using for years. I think that, more than ever, we will be eating seasonally in conjunction with what's fresh and on sale.
   
   
6. Eye toward next year's produce. I'm mulling options to make produce even more affordable for us - maybe a CSA, maybe some square-food gardening (as many frugal bloggers do), or maybe a bit of both. Of course, the plants by my kitchen sink are about 2% alive right now, so a venture in home gardening may take a few seasons before I've got a workable harvest. ;-)
   
   
7. Source specialty items from Amazon via monthly deals and Subscribe and Save. This way, I can usually save 25, 30, even 40 percent if I watch the deals carefully. (And by specialty items, I mean things such as coconut oil, which is much cheaper from Amazon than from Giant.)
   

Do you have an eating lifestyle that precludes most couponed food items? If so, how are you still managing to trim your food budget?

5 Reasons to Visit Giant This Week, 07/09-07/15 (Starbucks Frappuccinos On Sale + Manu Coupon!)

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a sale/coupon combo for Frappuccinos. Too bad it didn't coincide with all of the dollar doublers which have come recently, which would have made them $2/4-pack! ;-)

Edit to add: Thanks to the alert we received from Laura of Frugal Friends, we found out about the triplers in this week's Sunday Giant ad. (Thanks so much, Laura!) See below for potential tripled coupon deals in red.

1. Starbucks Frappuccinos 4-packs, 2/$8 (Must buy 2)
   $1/4-pack, 05/02 SS, or possibly this bricks coupon for $1/1, any
   Final price: $3/4-pack, or $0.75/ea.!
   
   
2. Ken's Salad Dressing, 10/$10
   $1/2, SmartSource.com
   Final price: $0.50/ea.
   
   
3. Strawberries, 3/$5
   
   
4. Orchard Perfect Peaches, $0.99/lb.
   
   
5. BOGO meats and poultry:
   Top Round London Broil, BOGO (Save at least $4.29/lb.)
   Center Cut Pork Loin Chops, BOGO (Save at least $3.99/lb.)
   SUPER G Split Chicken Breast, BOGO (Save at least $2.99/lb.)
   

Other Reasons to Visit Giant This Week:

Top Round London Broil, BOGO (Save at least $4.29/lb.)

Center Cut Pork Loin Chops, BOGO (Save at least $3.99/lb.)

SUPER G Split Chicken Breast, BOGO (Save at least $2.99/lb.)

Fresh Alaskan Sockeye Salmon Fillets, Wild Caught, $9.99/lb. (Save at least $3/lb.)
Ooooo, I've been craving some salmon!

Giant 3 lb. Beef Patties (frozen), $5.99 (Save at least $2)

Nature's Promise Chicken Breast, $3.99/lb. (Save $1/lb.)

Nature's Promise Fresh Ground Turkey, $2.99/lb. (Save $1/lb.)

Oscar Mayer Beef Bologna, BOGO

Oscar Mayer Beef Franks, BOGO
$1/2, 06/20 SS
Final price: $1 off the price of one, for two!

Fresh Haddock (wild) or Tilapia (farm) Fillets, $6.99/lb.

Large Raw Easy Peel Shrimp ($6.99/lb.)

Medium Raw Easy Peel Shrimp ($5.99/lb.)

Ripe Avocados, 10/$10

Giant Cut Baby Peeled Carrots

Fresh Eggplant, $0.99/lb.

Green Squash, $0.99/lb.

Yellow Squash, $0.99/lb.

Jumbo Southern Cantaloupe Melons, 2/$5

Green Peppers, $1.29/lb.

Green Cabbage, $0.39/lb. (This approaches St. Patrick's Day rock bottom prices!)

Crisp Cucumbers, 3/$2

Pick Your Own Sweet White Corn, 6/$1.99

Dannon Yoghurt, 20/$10
$0.40/6, 06/13 SS
Final price: $2.20 for 6 ($0.37/cup), or triple to get them for $0.30/cup

Nature's Promise Organic Yoghurt, 4/$3

Nature's Promise Bread, $1.99

Pepperidge Farm Cookies, BOGO

DiGiorno or California Pizza Kitchen Pizza, 2/$10
Check coupons.com for DG and CPK coupons

General Mills Cereal, 2/$4
Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Lucky Charms
Trix
Cocoa Puffs
Kix
Sprinkles Cookie Crisp
$1/2 coupons, coupons.com
$1/3, 06/13 SS

Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks, Buy 4, Save $4
Fruit Shapes, Gushers, or Roll-Ups, all varieties (excludes Fruit by the Foot)
$0.50/2, coupons.com and bettycrocker.com
Final price: Buy 4, Save $6 or use triplers and buy 4, save $7

Canada Dry, 7-Up, A&W, or Sunkist 12 packs, 5/$10

Stella Artois, 12-pack, $13.99

Aquafina 24-packs, 3/$10

Cottonelle 12 Double Rolls Bath Tissue $5.99
$0.50/1 (bricks)
Final price: Probably $4.99, or use a tripler to make it $4.49

Osteo Bi-Flex, BOGO
$5 coupon for signing up
$4/1, June All You/27 RP
$5/1, 06/06 RP
$3/1, 06/27 RP
Remember to use two coupons since you're getting two!

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10/$10 Sale!
Giant Solid White Tuna
San Giorgio Pasta
Kraft BBQ Sauce
Bush's Baked Beans
Utz Potato Chips
Pasta Roni or Rice-A-Roni
Giant Canned Fruit
Giant English Muffins 6-Pack
Chef Boyardee Pasta With Meat
Fuze Drinks
Gatorade
Giant Tomatoes
Hershey's Theatre Box Candy
Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Easy Fries
Del Monte Vegetables
Renuzit Solid Air Freshener
Duncan Hines Brownie Mix
Edy's Ice Cream or Frozen Yoghurt Single Serve (Or Haagen Dazs Single Cups)
Bar S Jumbo Meat Franks - $1/2, 05/16 RP, final price: $0.50/ea. - Also $1/2 Bar S coupon online
Armour LunchMakers

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Health and Beauty Buy 2, Get 1 FREE deals:

St. Ives Body Wash

CareOne Implements or Professional Implements

Wet'n'Wild Cosmetics

CareOne Multi-Purpose Eye Solution

Oral-B Indicator Brush
$0.75/1 or $1/2, 06/27 RP
$2/2, 07/04 P&G
Final price: Varies, but if you use triplers on the $0.75/1, you'll probably get this for free or near-free!

Noxzema Disposable Razors
$2/1, 05/23 RP
Final price: $6 off the price of two, for three!

CareOne Suncare

CareOne Aspirin

***

This post is part of BeCentsAble's Grocery Gathering

What other Giant coupon matchups and deals did you spot for the coming week? Did we make any deal-calculating hiccups? Post a comment to let us know!

Other Giant Finds - $3/$25 purchase coupon!

Though some of these deals may not have appeared in your regular Giant ad, they certainly appeared in the abbreviated Sunday ad!

• First and foremost: $3 off a $25 purchase coupon, good 06/20-06/24 - snap it up! (Also ask friends or neighbors for their Sunday ad if they won't be using it!)
  
  
• New Jersey Grown Pint Blueberries, 4/$5 - the ones from my Giant are mouthwateringly
  delicious - the best blueberries I've had in ages. This could be considered a freezable price at $1.25/pint, as I can't remember them getting much cheaper than this.
  
  
• Whole Seedless Watermelon, $3.99/ea. Be sure to check out this week's coming Works for Me Wednesday feature, posted Wednesday morning, on how I max out my watermelons for time, space, and juicy watermelon goodness. :)
  

Did I miss any that weren't already featured in the weekly ad? Post a comment if so to let everybody know what other steals to snag!