Safeway Savings Rally, Free Groceries Free Gas!

Safeway Markets is running a two week "Savings Rally" promotion through 2/26/08. They are offering more than 2,000 participating products and if you buy 25 items in one transaction, a "Catalina" coupon comes out at the register. This seems to be an annual promotion, and although there are sometimes problems with items not being keyed into their computer system, but being tagged on the shelf as being a "participating product", this can mean some free groceries for savvy shoppers.

This week there are a few highlights. Pillsbury breads are priced at 8/$10 or $1.25 each. If you were to buy 25 of them at once, and you used a coupon for .30/1 for each item, you would spend $23.75, but then you would get that $20 off your next order coupon for future groceries or gas. If you store doubles, you could get overage to use on other groceries (In Oregon we get four coupons that we can double up to .50 each, so in my example, I could save another $1.20 using double coupons and pay just $22.55.) It gets even better though, because you can "chain" the Catalina coupon to maximize your weekly savings.

What is a "coupon chain"? If I buy those 25 Pillsbury breads and pay $22.55 and then turn right around and buy another 25 participating items and use my $20 off next order coupon, this is a "chain" because I could use my first $20 off coupon to earn another $20 coupon. For example, one of the other good deals this week is on Del Monte Tomatoes at $1 per can. I have (2) coupons, each is good for $1 off when I buy 12 cans of Del Monte tomatoes, so if I buy 25 cans of Del Monte tomatoes for $25 and then use those 2 coupons, plus 2 double coupons, I would pay $22, but I would also use my $20 off next order coupon and get 25 cans of tomatoes for just $2! Of course, you can mix and match the sale to get what you want or need to also maximize savings.

Betty Crocker pouch cookie mixes are $1.25 each. There are .50/1 coupons that were in the Sunday paper a few weeks ago. If you buy 25 cookie mixes and use 25 coupons, you would pay $19, before any double coupons and before using a $20 off next order coupon. In this scenario, you would have "overage" to use on other items. You would spend at least another dollar or two and have some free groceries.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your coupons and head to Safeway. It's time to stock the pantry!