Staples

Anyone else a Staples reward member? If you are not, run out and join right now.I joined back in January. I promise you it will be worth your time and effort.

One of the things David & I discovered, when we set down to look at where our monies were going, was that we had a huge spike in the budget at the beginning of the school year. We all dread the back to school shopping and those list the teachers pass out with what they feel is a years worth of supplies. Last year we trudged to Kmart with the back to school sales flyer, list from the school website, and 4 children in tow. When we left we had spent $200 on school supplies. UGH!! Really $200?? Come on!!

On of my goals in couponing is to try to save at least something in every shopping trip. Well I have yet to see a coupon for paper, & pencils. So whats a girl to do? Well I started looking at different blogs to get money saving ideas. I ran across a blog that listed a Staples Dollar Days Sales Flyer. Dollar Days? Well that sounded promising. I went to my sales flyers for the week and pulled out my Staples flyer. Well some of the dollar items were things that were on my children's list EVERY year. I thought great, I can dollar shop during the year and stockpile what I can under my bed until school starts. But something even better on the front page drew my attention. FREE AFTER REBATE. Anyone else know this term? LOL!! Sitting on the front page was FAR binders, and pens. Well that is a good way to start a stock pile, free stuff. So I loaded my cart with dollar items and anything FAR I thought my kids might need. I ended up spending $58.64 OOP. Out of this $58.64 I have since gotten back $33.45 worth of rebates. I thought that was a great deal $70.93 worth of products for $25.19 after rebates. That is a 65% savings.

I thought to myself this could not get any better, I now have a nice stockpile of things for my kids list and I feel I had accomplished a great thing by finding a way to make another thing in my life cheaper. Then I went to my mailbox this week and was blown away by what I found. By using my staples reward card I accumulated a $15.50 gift card on my purchases from January. WHAT?? More free stuff? Are you kidding me. WOO HOO!!

So I loaded up the babies and headed out to Staples. I walked in and went straight to the customer service desk. I explained to the girl that I had sign up for the rewards card back in January just to be able to do the FAR items and didn't realize that I would be getting a gift card for my purchases. I wanted to know what the stipulations were because I had obviously not read the welcome pack that came with the reward card. She laughed and said it happens all the time. She explained that I could use it to purchase ANYTHING except gift cards. I thanked her and went to find the latest sales flyer. When I got it I was happy to find it was dollar days AGAIN. SCORE!!

So I purchased :

2 packs of dry erase makers (teachers always need these)

1 pencil pouch (these are always lost sometime in the year)

1 mini notebook (I wanted this to TRY to start a price book)

1 pack of 24 gel pens

3 packs of 5-tab insertables (Somebody always needs these)

2 mini dry erase boards (For Ashlee & Hayden)

Product price before sales and GC: $30.35

Total OOP was $0.29 after tax (99% savings)

So as you can see this was an even better idea than I first thought. So keep an eye out for dollar day, stock up through out the year on FAR items, and enjoy the bonus rewards. I know I will. And as you can see Ashlee & Hayden are already enjoying their FREE rewards.