Meow

For those of you new to the wonderful world of couponing, a Catalina deal is something to get a little excited about. You know when you buy, say, a frozen pizza and when you checkout, you get a little slip with a coupon for a competing brand's frozen pizza? Those are Catalinas, named so because the machine they print out on is called a Catalina machine.

But there's another kind of catalina, where companies like General Mills will give customers a certain numbers of dollars back in future purchases when you spend a certain amount. So this week, there was a General Mills catalina at Shaws. The best thing about these catalinas, or cats, as we couponers call them, is they're based on pre-sale price. And they don't take coupons into account. So for this particular cat, you needed to spend $20 to get $5 back. But these cats usually are in concert with a sale on the items, so I ended up spending 10.55 out of pocket, after coupons and sales, and getting $8.50 off my next purchase. Not as good as some of the coupon geniuses do, but not bad for a newbie. I actually messed up and two of the items I purchased weren't on sale-- a reminder to double check next time.

My total before sale: $25.58
Total coupons used: $7.00
Total out of pocket: $10.55, with $8.50 in cats. Not bad. And the hubby has snacks now. Purrrrr.