Frugal Grocery Shopping With Shoppers Drug Mart Coupons

I've posted before about saving money (or even getting things for free) with the often lucrative Shoppers Drug Mart Optimum email coupons.

A couple of times a year a "spend $30, get $10 off" email coupon comes along -- yesterday being one of them. I usually delete such coupons, as I'm always wary of getting caught in the spend-money-to-save-money trap. This week though, I was able to use it buying things that I actually needed (...plus cookies).


The best use for this coupon is on items already on sale. For some reason it can't be used on milk (or more obvious things like gift cards, stamps, or bus tickets) but pretty much all other items are fair game. I read through the flyer and mentally deducted 33% from all of the prices -- which made lots of stuff seem more appealing.

Despite being a drug store, Shoppers sells a decent amount of food -- with their milk and eggs often being the cheapest in town (and not compromising quality either). Today I was looking for cheese. The cheapest I can normally find cheese is $1 per 100 g. Generally these are big 700 g blocks, which I'm always racing against mould to consume. When you live alone, smaller blocks are the way to go. Shoppers had 300-g Armstrong cheddar cheese blocks on sale for $3.99. With 33% off that came to $2.66 -- less than $1 per 100 g, so a good price! Prorated, it was the same price No Frills across the road was charging for their 800 g block. Seeing that the expiry date was not for another six months, I stocked up with six -- which contributed a nice $24 to my bill.

Still $6 short of the $30 minimum to use the coupon, I picked up a package of oreos (on sale for $1.99, so after the coupon $1.33), which I needed for an oreo cheesecake brownie recipe (currently in the oven!). Then came my one unnecessary purchase: Christie Chips Ahoy Ice Cream Creations Mocha Chunk cookies. I was sold at "mocha" and if not at $1.33, when else would I ever try them?

this is why oreos qualified as a "necessary" item

The key to using this coupon is getting the bill just to $30 without going over. Unfortunately, prices ending in 99 cents mean that even if you think you're at $30 exactly, you're always a few cents shy. Though tempted by Ruffles or Doritos on sale for $1.99 (so a cheap $1.33 after the coupon discount), I resisted buying more unnecessary junk food and picked up two cans of kidney beans for $1.29 each (so $0.86 after taking a third off, which is the same price as Walmart). These brought my bill to $30.50...not bad! I cashed in the coupon and paid $20.50.

Another good thing to buy (if I hadn't already had two cartons in my fridge) would have been eggs, on sale for $1.99, making them a very cheap $1.33 after the discount.

Though I know I won't always find practical uses for the $10-off-$30 coupon, I'll definitely give some thought to whether I can use it, rather than passing right over it like I used to. If you have a Shoppers Optimum card, I'd definitely suggest sign up for email coupons on their website. They come every Friday and make shopping a little more interesting!