Frugally prepping for possible COVID19 Delta variant lockdown [View all]

[Kaleva]

It's not looking good and the lockdown may be government mandated or self imposed. Either way, I thought it best to spend time doing an inventory and plan a shopping trip to bring stocks and supplies back to norm here just in case.

Being on SSDI, I don't have extra cash to just go out and buy what's needed. I needed to do work for a neighbor to get the money and then look at sales and using coupons to get the most with the money I had.

I do much of my shopping at Dollar General and they usually give a $5 off for $25 or more spent coupon good the the following Saturday when you purchase something during the week. They also offer this as a single digital coupon at their website. Earlier last week when I was in town, I stopped at the store and asked the teller, the place was empty, if I could do 5 transactions to get 5 coupons at one time. He said yes and so I got 5 1 gallon purified water bottles for a dollar each. I bought them individually and got my 5 coupons good for Saturday.

Later, at the DG website, i added a digital coupon, giving me 6 all together, and some digital coupons for products I needed. I then made up my shopping list. With 6 coupons, I was going to making 6 trips into the store keeping the amount spent each trip to just over $25 to maximize savings. Your savings are greater getting $5 off when you spend the minimum $25 then if you get $5 off and you had spent $40. It took awhile to break down my shopping list into 6 segments as I had to look up the prices on line and the working that with the quantity of each item needed.

Below are the results of the 6 trips:

$34.62 - $9.75 in total coupons for $24.87 (includes $3.60 for deposits on pop cans)

$25.55 - $5 coupon for $20.55 actual cost

$25.00 - $5.00 coupon for $20.00 actual cost

$25.33 - $5 coupon for $20.33 actual cost

$25.68 - $5 coupon for $20.68 actual cost

$26.60 - $5.90 in total coupons for $20.70 in actual cost

Instead of spending $162.78, I spent $127.13. A savings of $35.65.

I also got 6 more $5 coupons good for next Saturday.