Coupon stories

Seems like I'm taking my couponing activities a lot more seriously than I thought.

The highlight of my day yesterday was when we went to the grocery store to get baby food. On the way to the baby aisle, hubby made a detour and found Chips Ahoy cookies on sale for $2 each, he bought a dozen of them.

We then went to the baby aisle, as planned, to get some jars of baby food which were on sale. We paid for our purchase and left. I knew that there was something off but I couldn't put a finger on it. We then went to the gas station to have our gas tank filled.

When we got to the station, I took out my my bag and saw some coupons I had tucked into the side pocket. Ayun! It hit me. I had picked up a mailer from this supermarket that my neighbor had discarded at the lobby and it had four $5 off a $30 purchase coupons - one for each week in July. We do not usually buy from this grocery nor were we planning to buy $30 worth of items so the $5 coupon wasn't really on my mind. It just so happened that we purchased .. okay, panic-bought... a lot of cookies and I had picked up some baby food jars that weren't on sale but were mixed in with the variety that was on sale. Add that all up and we were at $32 and change.

I wanted to turn back and try and get the $5 back from customer service. Hubby, on the other hand, was feeling so-so. He was okay if I wanted to go back, he was okay if we just gave the $5 up and just went home - it was my decision, he said.

Good sense won out and we went back. I explained the situation to customer service and the guy refunded me the $5 with no questions asked. I was happy, I felt that I was able to transform what would otherwise have been junk / trash into $. Diba?

Today, I had another couponing-deal experience. We wanted to get Swe-Cha a toy that moves around and has sounds so we went to Toys R Us to go and get one. It used to be that the local TRU in our area accepts Babies R Us and competitors' coupons, then they changed the rules and they still accepted coupons but only applied them to baby items.

Anyway, we found a suitable toy and tried to pay for it. That was when I found out that they do not accept any coupons anymore. It was only $15 anyway so I shrugged and paid for the purchase.

Then, we proceeded to Babies R Us next door, I needed to stock up on Lansinoh milk bags again. On a whim, we passed by the toys section (they have a few shelves with toys, smaller selection compared to TRU) and we found the exact same toy that we just purchased.

Seems like today is my lucky day too. So I took the toy, handed the cashier a $5 off $15 purchase coupon and happily returned the previously purchased toy next door.

Happy happy, joy joy.