Did you get the Safeway flyer in yesterday’s
Colorado Springs Gazette? In the middle, there were coupons for a different free product every day until Christmas! The coupons require a $20 minimum purchase, and each coupon is good for a particular day only. If you didn’t get the flyer, you can print the coupons here. Thanks to Mommy’s Wish List for the printable link!
Now, if you’re already planning on shopping at Safeway and picking up the good deals, I’d definitely plan to use these coupons, but remember, they aren’t that big of savings. I thought I’d go through each coupon and assign it a “couponer’s value” – the maximum it’s probably worth to you if you shop sales with coupons.
Free Fresh Express Garden Salad (12/13 only)
Max value: $1 – these go on sale for this price all the time
Free Betty Crocker Cake Mix (12/14 only)
Max value: 25-90¢ – these quite frequently go on sale for about 88¢, and if you hit the right deals, they can go even lower.
Free Dozen Lucerne Large Eggs (12/15 only)
Max value: 99¢
Free Hillshire Farms Lit’l Smokies Smoked Sausage, 14-16 oz (12/16 only)
Max value: $2-2.50 – I think this is actually a pretty decent deal. You could actually potentially combine this with a manufacturer’s coupon to get it better-than-free, except that I don’t believe there are any coupons out for $ off one. Most of them are for $ off two, which means you’d need to buy a second at full price, which would then probably bring your average savings to… not much. I’d just get the free one.
Free Safeway Brown or Powdered Sugar, 2 lb (12/17 only)
Max value: 30¢-$1 – we just went through several sales where C&H brown sugar was around 50¢ per bag, I believe, and store brand sugar was just $1 at Albies last week.
Free 2 Liter 7Up (12/18 only)
Max value: 50¢-$1 – especially during the holidays, this goes on sale for around 75-80¢.
Free 5 Lb Bag Russet Potatoes (12/19 only)
Max value: 50¢-$1 – the most I’ll pay for ten lbs of potatoes is $1.99, and we get sales for 99¢ for a 10 lb bag fairly often.
Free Safeway Breakfast Sausage Links, 12 oz (12/20 only)
Max value: $1.50-2.00
Free Safeway Semi-Sweet Baking Chips (12/21 only)
Max value: 50¢-$1
Free Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Chip or Orange Cranberry Muffins, 12 ct (12/22 only)
Max value: $2?
Free Safeway Brown ‘n Serve Rolls (12/23 only)
Max value: $1
Free 2-Liter Safeway Mixer (12/24)
Max value: 50¢-$1
Now, keep in mind these are somewhat subjective “maximum values” that assume that you are shopping strategically with sales and coupons. Personally, I don’t think too many of these are that great of deals (most of them are only about a 5% savings, with the exception of the meat), but we’ll see what they’ve got on sale starting Wednesday.
For the deals going on today and tomorrow, to get to the $20 minimum the Kraft cheese and Nabisco cracker deal could be a good one to get you to the minimum required purchase. And, it looks like Safeway Shank Half or Whole Hams are 89¢/lb, which is a pretty good price, so one or two of those would get you close to $20, I’d bet.
What do you think about the free products? What is their “maximum value” to you?
Safeway looks like they are trying to make an attempt to compete, but they are falling short. Why don’t they offer a $5. off a $20. purchase or something like that? They are out of my way (for driving) and their prices are too high. A free bag of salad isn’t going to bring me into the store. I want to see some real competition against King Soopers.
Oh, thanks for the link! I got an email about the free thing yesterday, and was hoping I’d see one today before I head into town. I’m not jumping up and down about a free cake mix, but I’ll be spending $20 there anyway, so I’ll take it.
I might put a bit higher “value” on some of these things, simply because even at $.50-$1, I just can’t splurge on chocolate chips, for instance. But free? Yeah, I can spend that. :)
I don’t see any deals that I’m going to make a point of driving to town to get though.
Hehe – I’m going to Safeway today, too, and the cake mix is of absolutely NO desire to me, but since I’m going to spend $20 anyway, I’ll take it! :)
Do purchases of gift cards apply to the $20 minimum? I still want to get in on the iTunes card deal that ends Tuesday.
I agree, they need to give out some better coupons. If i was already spending $20, then i’ll take whatever is free!!
This *might* be a good deal if you are shopping at Safeway anyway. I won’t go out of my way for these deals, though.
I wasn’t too impressed with the free safeway offers either. If I was headed there for some other deals, of course the freebie would be nice. Bit there isn’t anything that will draw me to the store.
I wouldn’t place a very high value on the free items either. Definitely not enough to make me purchase more just to get the free offer. I’m going to Safeway later on to get some soda 12 packs on sale though(hubby has been begging for canned sodas lately), so I might spend $20 anyway between that and the cheese deal, and in that case, sure I’ll take the free stuff!
I think I am going to wait until tomorrow to go and get the eggs with the last day of the cheese and cracker sale. But overall, I was not too impressed with the free items.
It definitely doesn’t seem like it’s worth a special trip. Although I wish I had known about it when I was there on Saturday. I would have gone to Safeway a different day to get something free.
If there are good enough sales to get me there this week, I might try to time it to get one of the free things I want. Although, Safeway isn’t too close to me, so unless I will be in the neighborhood anyways, it’s not worth the special trip.
I went yesterday & bought one ham & one package of chicken for 1.99/lb. I know you said that isn’t really a great deal but I usually pay 2.99/lb at Costco. I went to your class so I am in the learning process. I got my salad free with the free coupon for yesterday. I plan to go again today with the Kraft deal & both a store & manf coupon for the colgate and get a cake mix free. Every little bit helps! :)
i usually have a pretty hard time spending $20 at Safeway. We’ll see what is on sale this coming week, I guess. If anything, I might go in on the sausage day – those are great little versatile snacks this time of year (with bbq sauce in a crockpot, mini pigs-in-a-blanket for a playgroup, etc).
I used the cake mix coupon yesterday and the free coupons don’t seem to care if what your total is. I only bought ten boxes of crackers, the cake mix and some bananas and the pre-mfr coupon total was only around $18 but the free coupon came off fine. With mfr coupons for the crackers, I only spent $10.10 for it all (which I plan to get back with the cracker rebate)!