Giant Eagle Deals 9/30

I headed to Giant Eagle lat night, mostly to get Bananas for my daughter to take to school for their shape picnic, but also to use up some coupons that were expiring.

I felt like I did pretty well, until I learned that I likely could have purchased one more shredded cheese and gotten back another $5 Catalina. I would have needed to spend $2.89 more, but would have gained $5. In my book, it would have been worth it. I just am never sure how to tell if the Catalina is working on shelf price or sale price. What do you do? Do you ring your order based on shelf price and if it doesn't print out, return and re-ring? The thing is, that mine don't print until after I have paid with my credit card and that seems like too much of an issue to me. I also am not sure how you can tell if you can get two Catalina's for buying twice the amount indicated in ad...sometimes, doesn't it give you just one no matter how many you buy in a transaction? Oh well....I still got a great deal.

10 - shredded cheeses
1 - gallon milk
2 - CheezIt Snack Crackers
2 - Keebler Fudge Shoppe Cookies
4 - Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta
1 - Danonino Yogurts, 6 pk
3# - Banana
1 - Al Fresco Chicken Sausage (4 links)

-$5 $5/5 Kraft Cheese coupon
-$5 $5/5 Kraft Cheese coupon
-$2 CheezIt coupon
-$2 Keebler Fudge Shoppe Cookies coupon
-$1 $1/2 Ronzoni mfg coupon
-$1 $1/2 Ronzoni mfg coupon
-$1 Danonino Catalina coupon
-$2 Al Fresco Chicken Sausage (sign up on their webpage)

Paid with $5 in Catalinas from my last trip and $18.62 OOP and earned $5 Catalina.

Not too shabby, when you consider that normally shredded cheese is on sale for $2 (occasionally $1.67/ea). The cheese alone on sale would normally cost me $20, so it's almost like with the coupons and Catalinas on the cheese, that I got the other stuff for near free.

I do like that at every visit I get a $1 Danonino Catalina. I keep using them, my kids love that yogurt and it is just the right size for a snack. Plus, right now the kids are fascinated with the letters inside. I want to know though, are you getting a lot of different letters - we have 5 Os, 1 S, and 1 E. Not to many words we can spell, I don't think that Sooooo counts.

I do have two $5/5 Kraft coupons remaining and think I have one computer I can still print them from. I might make it back to the store next week to test the shelf price thing...it would be $7.89 OOP if I pay with my Catalina from this week and I would either get back $5 or $10 in Catalinas. I'd like to get Cream Cheese for the Holidays (cookies, dips and all those healthy snacks at the Holidays), but the expiration dates are still in November at my stores. So, I keep checking back. The one set of coupons doesn't expire until later in October, so I have time.