Randalls $5 off 5 - Experiment with 50% off stickers

*Note - I just had most this post typed up and accidently deleted it, so argh, typing it all out again!

On my quest to find some more singles of the Seattles Best Coffee to use my last 2 coupons, I stumbled upon ALL these boxes of Betty Crocker Fruit snacks with 50% stickers. Well, I LOVE testing 50% tags combined with these kind of promotions because many times they somehow turn into money makers! I have to admit though, I didn't even pretend to know what my total was going to be because I did a transaction yesterday with granola bars that DID not go as I expected it to! Also, these NEW receipts from Randalls are VERY confusing to me and I think I need to go back to college for another degree to make sense of them!

Anyway, on to my test! (I hope I can explain this in such a way not to lose you guys!- Don't wan't to end up sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher as your eyes glaze over, lol) I knew the BC fruit snacks were supposed to be .99 wyb 5 or more, but it seems math escaped me at that moment because I honestly thought they were going to cost me .25 a box. Well, that is not how it worked out.
Basically, they rang like this:
$2.99
-$1 store savings
-$1 store coupon
I determined the $1 store savings was to take them to $1.99 which is the pre-promo price. The second $1 savings is for the 50% tag ($1.99/2 = $1).
Well, when the cashier hit the total button, all the Cereal promo -$1 came off making each box -.01 BEFORE coupons! I got 28 boxes and used 14 coupons for .50/2 so .50 x 15 (1 coupon doubles) = $7.50 overage + .28 (the penny overage on pricing) = $7.78 overage (man, I should have thought to grab some block cheese!)

Ok, so then, I also noticed they had Baby Ruth bars with 50% off stickers and I had to get those out of principal. (back story - when dh and I were at Target making up our wedding registry, I made the mistake of letting my husband hold the scanning gun. While my back was turned, he scanned a Baby Ruth bar! That became quite the joke of our registry and needless to say, he got LOTS of Baby Ruth bars as present at our wedding!)
I also had found some tearpads several months ago for candy bars so thought I could make a small money maker out of this deal too!
The bars were $1.19 - 50% = .59 each. I had Buy 2 get 1 free AND save $1/2 bars. My plan was to purchase 15 and use 5 Buy 2 get 1 free, and 5 $1/2 (15 - 5 free with buy 2 get 1 free coupon = 10 I was paying for, hence pigging backing the 5 $1/2 for the ones I was paying for)
Well, somehow, according to my receipt, she rung up 17 Baby Ruth bars but took off a weird amount*(she was frazzled and I will get to that in a minute). So, I can't really understand the math on that one, but I do know it SHOULD have been -$1.15.

Then I threw in a Oreo blonde pack for .59 - .35 tearpad(found this about a month ago at a gas station = FREE.
And a Pure Protein bar .99 - .50 All You magazine coupon = FREE

Somehow I paid .43 for everything and she gave me coupons back because I would have gone negative had she scanned them! (2 $1/2 candy bar coupons and my 2 Seattles best singles coupons)

So, all I can seem to say, is it appears the 50% off tags are still working the way they did before on these promos, which is AWESOME news! (of course I still have the NV granola bar purchase I need to make sense of???) So, keep looking at the clearance racks, because with these promos the stores offer, something can easily turn into a money maker and you can always donate the item if you don't use it(my kids were upset to hear they won't get to tear into these boxes of fruit roll ups, lol)

*Ok, cashier finally was ready to call it quits. On these 50% tags the cashier has to scan the regular bar code and then scan the 50% tag right after. Well, at one point in the transaction she goofed and scanned the Baby Ruth twice while trying to scan the 50% tag. In an attempt to fix it, she tried to void the Baby Ruth bar only to find when you do that, it voids ALL the 50% tags that were scanned prior to that(hmmm perhaps that is what happened on my NV purchase?). Another cashier confirmed that yep, when you try to void it deletes those 50% savings and she would have to start over. She was NOT willing to do that since she had already done 28 boxes of fruit snacks and half the Baby Ruth bars, so she just took a store coupon off for $33.22 (the amount that was added back from the void)
I can't really make much sense out of parts of the receipt, but I do know she scanned 29 (not 28 fruit snacks) and 17 (not 15 Baby Ruth). When I asked if she wanted me to go to the service desk to take care of, she told me she was the front in manager and NO just leave, YIKES - she was polite and thanked me for shopping, but I think 43 items with 50% tags was her breaking point :O

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