Today was the last day to redeem coupons from Safeway's "Monopoly Shop Play Win" game. Whenever I was asked if I am playing, I always said "yes" even though I never played the actual game. I just wanted the free stuff and discounts from the coupons you get in the game piece tickets.*

And so... against my better judgement... I drove the 20 minutes to Safeway to claim my booty...

• Free bagel or donut (4 of them).
• Free sour cream (2 of them).
• Free yogurt (2 of them).
• Free pasta sauce.
• Free Taco Seasoning.
• Free $5 Safeway Gift Card (2 of them).
• Discount coupons for Almond Milk, Doritos, and a half-dozen other things I actually eat.

A part of me was just going to skip the trip because I did not feel like going grocery shopping after the tough day I had... but... free stuff.

And call me crazy, but the prize I was most excited about getting was not the $10 in gift cards... it was the free bagels.

When it comes to bagels, I always buy the packages of Franz bagels when they go on sale for around $2.50. They are perfectly serviceable and delicious bagels, and I buy extra so I can freeze them for times there are no sales going.

But the bagel I crave is the Ultimate Cheddar Cheese bagel from the Safeway bakery. Not as good as an Asiago Cheese bagel, but I do love them so very, very much. Problem is, they are almost as expensive as four Franz bagels on sale, so I rarely have the opportunity to buy them. And here I am getting four of them for free!

There was no way I was passing up on that!

It was close enough to payday that I could buy my monthly groceries as well. Which goes something like this... 1) Is it on sale or do I get "Just 4U" club card savings? And 2) Is it something I will eat or want to try? If the answer to both of those are "yes" then it goes in my shopping cart. These days I don't buy anything that's not on sale... unless an emergency dictates otherwise (hey, sometimes you have to buy toilet paper, even if it's not on sale).

At the bottom of the receipt Safeway always tells you how much money you saved and I average 20%-30%. Today, thanks to Monopoly coupons, I reached 38%. That's pretty great. Though I should have cashed in all my free stuff on a separate transaction so I could have reached 100% savings. Then I could have framed the receipt.

And now, if you'll excuse me, it's double Ultimate Cheddar Cheese bagels for dinner up in here...

   
*The grand prize is something like $250 million, so I probably should play the main game... but it's such a huge amount of work with all those little pieces, and I never even got a game board to stick them on.