Fabulous Lowes Foods shop today!

I had a great trip to Lowes Foods today and with the combo of sales, coupons, rain checks, Fresh Rewards and more I saved 81%!

Total before sales and coupons: $98.04

Total Saved: $79.54

Total Paid: $18.50

Here is the breakdown of what I bought so those of you who are newer to couponing can get an idea of how we save so much, even with veggies, milk and meat in the cart.  Keep in mind that I also bought local strawberries at the strawberry festival today and will buy some other produce from the local produce stand near the house on Monday (including some very tasty Florida tomatoes for $1.50/lb). I don't need to buy any meat this week because we are well stocked in the freezer after the Harris Teeter buy 1 get 2 free chicken breast sale last week and meat sales from previous weeks.

You can see from the picture that I bought:

6 Green Giant boxed veggies $1 each - .60/3 printable coupon doubled

3 Bird's Eye Steamfresh veggies .75/3 printable coupon doubled

1 head of green leaf lettuce

1 Vidalia onion on sale

2 Silk milk 1/2 gallons $2.50 each with raincheck from last week - 2 printable coupons I posted about on the blog a couple weeks ago for $2 each = .50 each ($1 for a gallon of soy milk!)

2 Heluva Good cheese 8 oz bricks $2 - .50 coupon doubled = $1 each (my buy price for 8 oz cheese)

1 Sargento shredded light cheese 8 oz BOGO for $1.75 - .55 coupon from All You Magazine April (I think) = .65 (love that price for cheese!)

2 Natures Own Whitewheat BOGO for $1.25 each - we usually buy 100% whole wheat but this was a good deal and has 2 grams of fiber per slice and no high fructose corn syrup in the bread so I thought we would try it. My kids think white bread is such a treat because we have it so rarely - little do they know this has fiber!

Brach jelly beans .88 - .50 coupon from All You Magazine April = Free

2 GM Cheerios - $1 peelie coupons from previously purchased boxes = $1 each after coupon and $1 off per box discount when you buy 4 GM cereals promo

2 GM Trix - .55 printable  = .90 after coupon doubled and $1 off per box discount when you buy 4 GM cereals promo

1 box Morningstar veggie burgers $3.59 - $1 coupon = $2.59

Onion rolls marked down at bakery (that we ate tonight) $1.99

4 bags Lowes Foods tortilla chips 9 oz BOGO for .80 per bag

4 Mahatma Rice $1 each - .75/2 coupons = .25 per bag

1 Ramen noodles

3 Texas Toast croutons $1.50 - .50 coupons from recent inserts and All You Magazine = .50 each (I love these in vegetable soup, which I eat a lot of for lunch these days)

3/4 lb. honey ham from the deli on sale using $2 off any $2 or more ham or turkey purchase coupons given to me by a beer distributer in a Food Lion a couple weeks ago (He was stocking the shelves and I asked him if he had a good coupons and he handed a number of them! - Thanks beer guy!)

1 Land o frost rotisserie turkey deli meat package $2.50 - $2 turkey coupon mentioned above = .50

1 Wholly Guacamole and pico dip container with free product coupon from manufacturer

2 Michelinas Lean Gourmet cheese lasagnas with free product coupons from e-mailing manufacturer and asking for coupons - thanks Michelina's!

1 Kraft Philly cooking cream with free product coupon from Vocalpoint.com (I recommend this site if you are not signed up for it already - they send great coupons for new products!)

I also had a $5 Lowes Foods Fresh Rewards coupon from taking the Rex Hospital survey I posted about on the blog months ago. It finally came last week.

I also had another $5 Fresh Rewards coupon that I earned from bringing my own bags to bag groceries. You earn 5 cents in Fresh Rewards for every bag you bring to use to bag your own groceries.

So - with the combo of sales, coupons, a rain check, free product coupons from contacting manufacturer's and requesting them, and Fresh Rewards coupons from taking surveys and recycling bags I saved 81% on produce, frozen veggies, meat, cereal, veggie burgers, bread, rice and much more!