I learned from our neighborhood pantry is that many basics are supplied by the Greater Boston Food Bank (think beans, rice, canned goods). However, they do not get toiletries, baby products, personal care items, or other staples (like coffee- HELLO- that is a necessity in my mind!) The food pantry doesn't generally have the money in their budget to buy these items. Therefore, they rely on donations from the community.
People- toiletries are our specialty, right? Do we EVER pay for shampoo, toothpaste, body wash, or toothbrushes? What is free at CVS to us is a hot commodity to the food pantry.
So here's an example of a CVS run I made last week:
Most of this is for the food pantry. Want to know how much it cost us? $14.79, BUT we got $18.49 in Extra bucks. So I guess we made a few dollars here.Here's what's going to the food pantry:
Huggies Diapers: $10 -$5 coupon=$5
2 Schick Razors: $9.99 (Buy one get one free) - (2) $4 coupons= $1.99
4 Nivea lip balms $2.99 (Buy one get one free) - (4) $1 coupons= $1.98
2 Excederin $1.99 - (2) $2 coupons= FREE
2 Similac formula $5 - (2) $5 coupons= FREE
The Claritin, Nexxus, and Shave gel are for us. These three items cost about $29 (after coupons), but earned me the $18.49 in extra bucks. Usually, I like to keep my food pantry/personal stuff separate, but sometimes I combine them to use the $/$$ CVS coupons.
So in addition to coupons I used for the food pantry stuff (and for my own stuff), I used a CVS $15 off of $75 ($/$$) coupon, and $10 in Extrabucks.
See how this is pretty reasonable? So at pretty much zero cost to our family, we are able to give some pretty cool stuff to the food pantry.
Tomorrow I'll show what a typical month of donations looks like, and how much it cost our family.
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5 comments:
Thanks for posting this. It does my heart good to see that other extreme frugal deal seekers are generous too. I just gave a ton of Dove soap to our local homeless shelter. Can you guess where I got it?!
My new personal stockpile limit is three items and the rest gets donated.
That is great, and I've been doing similar. Where are you getting all the great coupons? I am relying on my Sunday paper and coupons.com. Any other sources, especially thoses where you don't have to subscribe to... I hate all the junk e-mail!
Thanks for all the great tips!
gina
What a great thing! I have never used coupons for much of anything.. but I might have to start. I'd love to be able to donate more than I've been able to lately ..
I'm not sure how I found your blog, but I'm in Portsmouth, NH..
sorry, but you really are "expert" level!
I'm reading your posts backwards. I commented on "Food Pantry Example #2" about asking them what they want. I see that you did that! I didn't mean to sound preachy. I about fell over when I asked ours and they said Spam!
Great job sharing. I've said for years that I don't have cash to donate, but I have coupon/sales skills I can give!
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