Publix, Publix, Publix

Today I'd planned to visit 4 Publix, whether I actually shopped at them or not, because I was on a coupon hunt. My regular stores didn't have the coupons I needed...I'm not sure why I thought these others would, but the driving distance is more or less the same, so it didn't hurt to try.

Before I left this morning I checked my usual blogs/sites and saw that the Penny item today was bread. Yay! I needed bread.

The day didn't start off with a bang. First I stopped in at CVS and asked for the $100 coupon book. The Phamcist said they only give those with the Flu shot, and they aren't giving those until Oct. 14th. I said, oh? Because this book (hold up October 2009 Clipless coupon booklet) says "No puchase Neccessary".
He came over and looked at it, and through it, and "hm'ed", and nearly gave me one, but then decided he still couldn't give it out before October 14th.
I just said okay and went on my way. Too early on a Sunday morning to fuss.

Next I went to Walmart. I needed gas, and figured I could get my Sunday papers here, even though they are a little more for the bundle pack than I usually pay $1.00 each for from the roadside sellers, it was worth the .50 to not have to drive to Hiram to buy them. Plus, I was hoping to be able to use overage from the Adams flea collar coupons.
But they didn't have any of the .97 collars anyway.
I was going to get 3 bundles, but decided to only get 1 bundle, mainly for the Publix Penny Item coupon.
But then I got in the store and found out they had the flyers with the penny coupon on them anyway. Seems like my regular stores don't put those out, you have to get the coupon from the newspaper, or you don't get a penny item.

The first Publix I visited was my "Bad" one. I didn't want to go and my tummy started hurting when I turned into the parking lot. I don't know why I was so upset, I was mainly only looking for coupons and at least $10 worth of something to be able to get my penny bread.

I stopped by the CS desk and asked about their coupon policy...I hadn't been there in so long I figured it had changed. It had really only changed in that they no longer take the $5/$25 Rite Aid coupons...no surprise there, I don't even carry those in my Publix envelope anymore.
They still took Food Lion, Target, and the Drug Stores if it is a product they carry...in other words, no RRs either. But Wags sometimes has good coupons out that can be stacked with MQs for good deals at Publix, so that's good.

I decided to go ahead and try to do a $50 deal, because I still have a few $5/$50 Publix coupons I need to use up before Oct. 31st. Even though I didn't even try to use any of my maybe somewhat questionable coupons, I was still very wary heading to the registers.
There was a multitude of Couponers in the store this morning, so I stopped one nice lady and asked her what I could expect trying to use my coupons there. She said they were really good about coupons, and very nice. I told her it hadn't always been that way, but I felt better, maybe they had gotten better since I was last there....it was pretty obvious they now had ALOT of coupon shoppers.

And everything mostly went fine, except I couldn't get two of my free shopping bags because they said Pillsbury and Progresso soup weren't General Mills items, because they didn't have the "G" on the label. I had not looked at the soup can label at that point to see that it did say General Mills on the can, and it was just a free bag, no big loss. I said okay, sorry, I didn't know.

And then I don't know what happened with the totals. I kept a running tally as I shopped, and I watched as she scanned the coupons and didn't think she scanned too many or anything, but at the end the balance was already below $1.00, and there was still a $1.00 Chex coupon. My tally was that I went $1.37 into the negative to cover tax, and the tax was $1.58, so I don't know how the balance went below a dollar and there was still a coupon left.
The cashier was worrying about it and trying to figure out what happened. I told the CS Associate there what my final total was supposed to have been, but that I apparently misfigured somewhere, and did they just want to give me the last coupon back. So they did that.

Total before Coupons: $54.65
Total Spent: -.56 + .51 regular tax + .92 food tax = $0.87 Paid w/ Kraft Rebate Gift Card

I found about 3 of the P&G pink coupon sheets at the next Publix. Better than none I reckon! And I got the Cookware mail-in forms, they had plenty of those.
Also found some of the pink Live Well coupons, with the Covergirl coupons...after I went and ordered some off Ebay the other day. Way it goes.
This store also had pretty Pink shopping bags.

Again, one or the other of us messed up on the final total of the order. My tally was like .18 plus tax (not being familiar with this store, I wasn't sure about running into the negative even to cover tax). However, it not only ran into the negative, covered the tax, and then some!
I was going to offer to take some of the coupons back, but she kept scanning, and the CS Associate told her to give me cash back.
I don't think the Cashier much liked it, though. She made a comment about them paying me, that was a first.
I did not mean for that to happen!

Total before Coupons: $50.87
Total Spent They paid Me: $1.93

I will also submit this one for the $5 wyb 3 SC Johnson Rebate.

Publix shop number three was pleasant, and the final total finally matched my tally total.

Total Before Coupons: $54.36
Total Spent: $0.17 + .77 Reg Tax + .89 Food Tax = $1.83 Paid with Cash overage from last shop.

Final Final Total:
Value of Items Before Coupons: $159.88
Total Spent: $0.77 from Gift Card
Earned $5.00 Rebate

*It was getting late and I was too tired to make it to 4th Publix.