A recent Albertsons promotion gives me a great opportunity to explain how catalinas can save anyone a lot of money on your grocery bill!  For anyone new to couponing, catalinas are coupons offered for purchasing certain products. Once you purchase the items included in the catalina promotion, these "catalinas" print after you pay for your items. These 'catalinas" are like cash toward your next purchase.

Albertsons was offering a $20 catalina for every $100 worth of gift cards you purchased from their gift card mall. The gift cards included stores like Amazon, Best Buy, J.C. Penneys, Sears and many more plus restaurants and even movie passes. While this current promotion is over, these types of promotions are offered throughout the year and they can be a great opportunity to save a lot of money!

Deals like this only make sense if you plan to shop at these stores included in the gift card promotion anyway. I was able to combine my Father's Day shopping and other upcoming projects with this promotion and received $80 worth of free groceries over the past 2 weeks.

I only paid $4.02 for all of these groceries after my catalinas, store sales and coupons.


Before coupons, sales and catalinas these groceries would have been $44.52. I only used one of my $20 catalina plus a free milk catalina to pick up a couple of weekly deals and staples for the week. I still have catalinas to use this week!

Save money matching up coupons and sales with current catalina promotions! 

Catalinas can also print for other items like a coupon for "free milk" when you buy a specific type of cereal, a coupon off your next purchase when you buy a specific type of lunch meat, or $5 off your next order when you buy $20 of a specific brand of products.

Another technique for saving money with catalinas is to "roll" your catalina. This means that you buy the items include in the promotion again and pay with the catalina from the last transcation to lower your out-of-pocket cost.

For example, if you get a $4 catalina when you buy ice cream

Transcation#1
Buy 4 packages of ice cream
Use your coupons
Pay $8 out of pocket
Get a $ catalina

Transaction #2
Buy 4 packages of ice cream
Use your coupons
Use your $4 catalina
Pay $4 out of pocket

Check back often for more tips for beginners and great deals for anyone who wants to save money!