Totally free items from the grocery store you say?

I am a card carrying Kroger shopper.  They like to track my shopping habits and the beautiful part - they send me special coupons that I can use for items that I usually buy.  They even send a free item coupon - most of the time it is carrots!  UMMMM

Kroger has several sales and one of the best is the 10 for 10 and if they also have the buy 10 get $5.00 off - and you have coupons...  you can do the following:









 



On the right here you will see multiply items of about 3 food products.  On a good sale you will be able to do this type of stock up shopping.    




The usual stock up items:

• Ketchup
• BBQ Sauce
• Mayonnaise
• Canned Pineapple
• Campbell Soup
• Progresso Soup
• Pasta of all sorts, including the Rice-a-Ronni, bagged, or boxed, and the Hamburger Helper series.
• Cheese
• Lunch Meat
• Frozen bagged vegetables
• Frozen pizza
• Canned Vegetables
• Canned Chili
• Canned Pasta 
• Boxed cereal
• Yogurt
• Butter/Margarine
• Pillsbury biscuit and cookie products
• Cake mix
• Baking supplies 

There have been other items that are great to stock up on - but the secrets to the big savings for stocking up are as follows: 

1.  NUMBER ONE RULE:  You must have a coupon for each item.

2. NUMBER TWO RULE:  The item must be on sale.

Repeat after me "NUMBER ONE RULE:  You must have a coupon for each item. NUMBER TWO RULE:  The item must be on sale."

Of course the most obvious - is usually the hardest thing to understand.  You do not buy something just because it fits in the Number 1 and 2 rules above.  I do not use Hamburger Helper - now why would I want 10 boxes at 55cents each?  Well in this example it would make a good pantry donation at Church.  But I think you get the idea.  I have been in line behind people who just buy up everything - they must have access to 100 ad inserts in the newspapers and buy up all of the items - if the store has set no limits.  Does her Church pantry really need 100 packages of Mentos?  What if I wanted a package?