Could You Feed Your Family For Free?
Many of you have asked how did I actually shop for free on the Can You Feed Your Family For Free segment on The Rachael Ray Show. (Note: Click the link to see ALL 4 videos from the segment). Items in my cart included items that usually do not have a coupon. Items such as meat, veggies, eggs and much more. So, I thought I would actually show you how I did it for the show.
We are always talking on the site about how there are so many ways to save besides just using coupons. Some of those ways include:
- Knowing your prices
- Knowing the sales cycles of products
- Stocking up on products at their lowest prices
- Knowing all the ways to save at your store, including double coupons, store coupons, store promotions
My shopping trip for The Rachael Ray Show actually included all of these techniques even the stocking up part.
Previous to my shopping trip for the groceries that Chef Ryan Scott cooked up from my shopping trip, I had shopped and stocked up on Poise liners & Fantastik the previous week. Now why would I do that since the shopping trip was suppose to be for food? There is a simple reason for it. You see, those deals made me money each time I purchased a pack of Poise or Fantastik. So, I purchased a bunch and used the catalinas to pay for those items that didn’t have coupons.
And although you did not see my trip to Pathmark on the show, I did one there too. The week before I also took advantage of the awesome General Mills deal which made me almost $5 each transaction.
This simple technique is the same way I was also able to buy over $200 worth of meat at Acme at the end of last year. I took advantage of the Buy $100 in Visa Gift Cards and received a $20 catalina. Each time I purchased a gift card, I did have to pay a $5.95 activation fee but it still netted me over $14 for each catalina. I then used the catalinas to buy meat. Score!
So, here is how my shopping trip worked out for The Rachael Ray Show….
The week prior to my Rachael Ray Show shopping trip:
- Did 2 Fantastik Transactions at ShopRite paying $2.50 out of pocket for each and receiving a $4 catalina (net $3.00 total)
- Did 12 Poise Transactions at ShopRite paying $0.99 out of pocket for each and receiving a $3 catalina (net $24.12 total)
- Did 4 General Mills Transactions at Pathmark paying $0.32 out of pocket for each transaction and receiving a $5 catalina each time ($18.72)
Normally I would roll my catalinas to keep my out of pocket low, but because I knew I was doing a big shopping trip so I paid for each one individually. My total out of pocket was $18.16 to generate the catalinas. I ended up with $64 in catalinas for a profit of $45.84. For the Rachael Ray Shopping trip, I only used $41 of the catalinas because I only wanted to tap into the profit of them to make it a true “shop for free” trip. And, I still had $4.84 in “profit” leftover even after the trip.
Here are the actual screen shots of the chart I used to plan my shopping trips on the Rachael Ray Show. Only one trip was shown on the show but I did 3 separate trips to 2 different stores.
ShopRite Transaction #1:
ShopRite Transaction #2:
Pathmark Transaction:
So, can you actually feed your family for free? Well not every week but there are many weeks that we can get deals for free items and there are even weeks that we can skip shopping all together, which, in my opinion, is the best and easiest way to Shop For Free!
Have you ever had a completely free shopping trip? Did it also include fresh veggies and/or meat? Share your trips in the comments.
Just a note that all these deals are no longer available to take advantage of.