Bargain Quest

When my husband had an eye exam and contact lens fitting several months ago, the optometrist’s office offered to sell him his contacts, Acuvue Advance, for $28 a box. He politely declined and we hopped online, where the base price for a box from Vision Direct was $19.95, with free shipping on orders over $100.

But could we do better than $19.95? Buying “in bulk,” absolutely. For an 8-box purchase of Acuvue Advance, VisionDirect gave
-an instant discount of $16 off the total
-an Acuvue rebate for $30 back
-an Acuvue rebate for a free cell phone charger

Plus a quick internet search for Vision Direct promotion codes netted me an additional 15% off discount.

So the transaction was:
$159.96 (8 boxes x $19.95 a box)
-$16.00 (instant discount)
-$21.54 (15% off code)
+$ 1.95 (processing fee)
+$ 0.00 (free shipping)
-$30.00 (mail-in rebate)
and an emergency cell phone charger via rebate, which was less flimsy than I expected

$94.01 ($11.75 per box) Final cost for 2 years worth of contacts,
$130 less than the same product bought through the optometrist

Vision Direct, affiliated with drugstore.com, can call your optometrist to verify your prescription, or you can fax a copy with your order. I’ve written a string of bad company reviews recently, so I’d like to mention that my two experiences with Vision Direct have been positive - I received the correct orders promptly.

The only potentially challenging issue of the transaction was the Acuvue rebate. My rebate submission had to include the eye exam receipt, product purchase receipt, and 5 box tops from the contact boxes. It was also only valid on a contact purchase made within 90 days of the eye exam. But after meeting those requirements, I received my check well within the 4-6 week return time frame without hassle.

Does there even need to be a lesson from this? Once again, thanks to the Internet, we the consumers are not at the mercy of traditional distribution channels, and can save significantly by shopping around and buying directly.

(And I didn’t even remember to use this, but even more savings are added by shopping through loyalty program rewards. Vision Direct seems to have a high rewards percentage - 7% through FatWallet and 5% through Upromise, for instance)

Looking back over a year of posts, I definitely notice a succession of bargain obsessions as I learned about different programs - Target web coupons in August, CVS ECB’s in October, Beer meat rebates in November, etc.

Currently, I’m loving Kmart, as evidenced by my third post mentioning it. This time I have to post that if you only go to Kmart one weekend a year, this is probably the weekend to do it - All clearance merchandise is an additional 30% off this weekend at least through Tuesday, and there is a lot of stuff on clearance in each department. Sure it’s piled haphazardly in aisles and blocking main thoroughfares, but a little digging is rewarded with cheap oven mitts, exercise equipment, and toys. (But please do the world a favor and leave the Bratz merchandise on the shelves!)

PLUS, take along this $10 off $50 purchase coupon for even more savings (The coupon comes directly from Kmart’s website, you can access it by finding the “National Bingo Night” link on the main page)

My Kroger bargain shopping last week was cut a little short due to a Father’s Day trip, but I ended the week with about 35 packages of free lunchmeat and $3 profit (after taxes). They’re in the freezer and we’re set for a while.

And here’s a photo of one of my Kmart bargains:

Fisher Price Sing & Go Choo-Choo Gift Set - orig. $35, clearanced for $3.50 but not marked. (Only the sets with the extra animal (alligator) are on clearance). It’ll make a great gift!

Finally, I happened to find another good deal at Kroger this week (not quite as good as free….)

-When you buy 3 General Mills cereals this week, you get 2 half-gallons of milk for free (In the same transaction)
-Honey Nut Cheerios, new Cheerios Crunch, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch are on sale 3 for $5
-My Kroger had coupon dispensers on the cereal aisle for $1 off any 2 Cheerios.
-A month-long Catalina promotion gives you a coupon at checkout for 1 free gallon of milk when you buy 3 General Mills cereals. This is in addition to the 2 free half gallons.

So, for buying 3 Honey Nut Cheerios and using a $1 off coupon, you get

*3 boxes of cereal
*2 half gallons of milk
*1 gallon of milk
for $4 net cost

It’s rare these days for me to find great deals by myself. Usually some helpful internet source points them out to me. But this one I stumbled across on my own….

Hillshire Farm 6 oz. Deli Select lunchmeat is on sale 10 for $10 this week at Kroger. This may vary by region, so check your local ad. I’m always on the prowl for $1 lunchmeat sales, to pack sandwiches for my husband’s lunch. (When I run out of sale meats, I have to resort to Kroger 1 lb bags and they aren’t nearly as good.) Hillshire Farm is our favorite, over Butterball, Healthy Choice, etc. The Mesquite Smoked Turkey Breast is particularly yummy.

Where does the free part come in? Through 6/17, when you buy 5 participating Sara Lee products (including Hillshire Farm), a checkout coupon prints for $5 off your next order. I realized this when I found a $5 coupon in my register printouts after buying 6 boxes.

So buy 5 packages for $5, get a coupon for $5 off your next Kroger purchase.

Even better (believe it!), most packages seem to have coupons printed inside for “$1 off any 3 Hillshire Farm Deli Select Products.” Look for labels on the upper right of the package marking boxes containing coupons.

After an initial purchase and acquiring coupons, you can repeat transactions of either

5 packages (using 1 coupon and only paying $4, “making” $1 each time) OR

6 packages (using 2 coupons and still only paying $4 and making the $1 extra). Nifty, no?

Any one have experience freezing lunchmeat - are there any tricks beside stuffing it in the freezer and does the quality suffer?

Edited to add: I saw a post on Slickdeals that Ballpark Franks are on sale for $1 in Texas Krogers. They’re also part of the Sara Lee “Buy 5 get $5 Catalina coupon” deal, so if you don’t have Hillshire Farm for $1, check to see if you have Ballpark Franks.

I’ll be upfront - I don’t like Kmarts. They overwhelmingly seem messy and unpleasant (although still a slight step above Dollar Generals). Until recently, my last Kmart experience was highlighted by a hairy, shirtless, middle-aged man in a kilt wandering the sidewalk with a shopping cart. That was when I decided there was really no reason I needed to go there.

But I have changed my mind, at least temporarily. The bargain beauty of Kmart apparently stems from the very chaos that makes me resent it - Kmart doesn’t or can’t keep up with its clearance items. With grunt work, bargain hunters can uncover steeply discounted clearance items still sitting unmarked on the regular shelves.

I wouldn’t have known this, but yet another internet resource clued me with a list of items, mostly nationwide, that ring up at 80 to 90% off in stores. I’ve found lots of cheap toys and larger baby items to resell or donate. Unfortunately, I’m not going to share where I found the info, because I don’t have permission from the group organizers to publicize it and they prefer to keep it within a specific circle.

But I can explain the basic process - trial and error.

Start with anything that has a yellow clearance tag on it. Often the tagged price is far above what the actual price has been reduced to. You can find the actual price by scanning the UPC at one of the price scanners stationed around the store. If it rings “Check Shelf Price,” it’s on final clearance, but it’s up to the store to give you a price and the price might or might not be a good deal.

Next you have to expand your search - look for anything that looks like it has been there a long time, especially battered, one-of-a-kind boxes looking a little out of place. It might be a discontinued product on clearance. You won’t know until you check. Unfortunately, this involves a lot of scanning and dragging boxes around the store in carts. It’s really for bargain hunters with a lot of time and patience.

Finally, check bargain message boards around the Web for posts about specific finds that you can look for in your own store. Not all stores discount at the same time or same amount. Frankly, the dirtiest, messiest stores are the best place to start. They are the least likely to have moved clearance items out, and there are probably lots of bargain items hiding in random places. The rare neat Kmart holds less potential, through virtue of being up-to-date and organized.

So Kmart gets a reprieve with me, but only as long as the clearance deals last!

Speaking of unsatisfactory business experiences, add Shopper’s Voice to the list of companies I don’t recommend.

Know those household surveys you get in the mail? That ask you to share info about all sorts of random consumption habits? I’d never done one before. The sales pitch doesn’t exactly wow me. One response chosen for a $5000 prize, plus a few assorted several hundred dollar prizes. I’m not the sweepstakes entry type. I prefer my guaranteed returns

But in February I finally succumbed to the bait of coupons that were supposed to materialize after I shared the nitty gritty about my denture cleaning purchases, etc. with Shopper’s Voice (the survey company). In the name of bargain questing, I felt I should give it a try. It didn’t take particularly long to complete, and I had forgotten about it by the time the envelope showed up in my mail last Saturday.

Here’s what I received:

-1 $1.50 coupon off coffee creamer
-1 $1.50 coupon for Colgate toothpaste
-1 Life insurance ad
-A message thanking me for being a panel member and listing a few survey results

The only thing of use to me is the Colgate coupon. It’s a pretty decent discount. But guess what? It expired 5/25/07! (I received it on 5/26)

It’s one thing to return a very sparse 2 coupons for my participation. It’s another to have one of them be expired. And the very best part is the big note printed on my thank you message:

“Coupon Expiration Dates - Look closely, some of the enclosed coupons may have much longer expiration dates than regular coupons.”

Shoppers Voice forgot to mention “and some may be expired.”

So that the experience wasn’t a total loss, I’ll share a random survey stat result that was reported in my thank you message..

Question: “How many coupons does your household redeem in an average month?”
More than 20 - 21% of households
10 to 20 - 30% of households
Less than 10 - 49% of households

Which tells me that most respondents to this survey aren’t in it for the coupons (I guess the sweepstakes?), and is why the company doesn’t waste time on tiny details like expiration dates.