Food Lion Shopping for Gas Ticket #4 and The Big Deal

Picture above are the results of my Food Lion shopping trip on Wednesday.

When I walked into the store I found several Catalina coupons hanging off a register. One was for a free head of iceberg lettuce with a $10.00 purchase!

I used it together with my FLIP coupon for $2.00 off a $5.00 produce purchase, and also picked up some tomatoes and a few bananas. The lettuce was on sale for 99 cents, but the cashier took off the regular price of $1.39!

I bought the following items to get the $5.00 discount for The Big Deal:
2 Rice A Roni
1 Pasta Roni
1 Pillsbury Frosting
2 Ragu Pasta Sauce
3 Hormel Sandwich Makers
1 Oatmeal Pop-Tart

However, the $5.00 didn't come off my bill, so I went to customer service, where they gave me $5.00 in cash. After I got home and reviewed my purchases, I realized that only the 12-count Pop Tarts qualified for The Big Deal, and I had purchased the 8-count. Ooooops!!

I also did the "free" chicken deal with the smallest package of Holly Farms that I could find. It was $4.73 and I got $3.00 off my bill for also buying the Wish-Bone dressing, can of Hunts Tomatoes and box of Food Lion spaghetti. I normally wouldn't pay full-price for these items, but I was low on salad dressing, completely out of spaghetti noodles, and trying to reach $40.00 to earn the gas ticket.

My remaining purchases were a gallon of milk that I needed and 3 cans of Spaghettios that my daughter wanted. I let her add them as a reward for helping me shop and also because they were on sale for 80 cents each.

At this point I had a $31.00 subtotal, so I asked the cashier to add a book of stamps for $9.20. My total was just over $40.00 before coupons and $31.70 after coupons, but my gas ticket did not print.

I went to customer service and asked if I needed to spend $40.00 after coupons in order to get the gas ticket, since this is the second week I did not receive it. They said that the $40.00 threshold is based on your before-coupon total and gave me a gas ticket.

In summary:
My bill was $40.59
- $5.00 off $25.00 purchase Home Mailer Food Lion coupon
- $5.50 Manufacturer's coupons (Hormel, Ragu, Pop Tarts)
- $2.00 Produce FLIP
- $1.39 Free lettuce catalina
- $9.20 for stamps (they don't come out of my grocery budget)
- $5.00 for The Big Deal
Out of pocket cost for this trip = $17.50