We broke $500.

[noamnety]

Two months ago I wrote about a foodbank donation project I was starting, using websites that match coupons to sale prices to maximize our dollars. Since someone messaged me about that this week, I thought I'd post an update. Using the coupons, we're averaging spending about 5% of retail cost on groceries.

The retail value of our donations since late August is currently $541.26.
Our out of pocket expenses to date: $24.65.

The donations are mostly still coming from me, but also some of my students' families have gotten in on the action. There are also some additional donations of random goods - we've donated more than $541 total - but if I didn't have the receipts or purchase value I wasn't able to track them in our totals.

When I last posted, people were teasing a bit because cereal is usually easy to donate, and milk - not so much. I'm happy to report though that we were able to buy milk for free last week. The smart balance milk was on sale locally for $2 a half gallon; we were able to print $1 store coupons and combine them with $1 manufacturer coupons to get it for free. We donated milk to the food bank, I got enough to keep it in my classroom for students to help themselves if they supply their own cups. The expiration date for that brand is longer - these will keep til mid December.

Some of the best items we were able to "buy" for free or extremely low cost included cans of black beans, 30 boxes of frozen green giant vegetables, tuna fish, and whole grain pasta.

On a side note: people are awesome. I tried to drop off last week's donations on Thursday, got there just before closing time only to realize that they were closed for Veteran's Day. I knew it would be almost a week before I could make it back during business hours, so I stopped into the party store in the same strip mall and they happily donated cooler space and made sure the donations made it next door yesterday.

[niyad]

1. thank you for that update. I do something similar on my own--gathering the coupons for all the

packaged and convenience foods, non-perishables and personal care, etc., and, when they are on sale, get them (usually for free). then I donate them during the drives. it is a small contribution, I know, but is at least something I can do.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. I missed your original post about this. This is awesome!!!

I admit that I've never had patience to do coupons; maybe now is the time to look into it again given the accessibility to them online.

I love what you're doing, and empowering others to do. My question is regarding what is most effective for food banks. When people post about donating food, others suggest that because of the buying power of food banks, they can best make use of monetary donations rather than food itself.

Is your approach something that could help food banks or other venues even more, perhaps, by leveraging the coupon idea in an even bigger way by getting others to help?

I don't know. Like I said, I don't know coupons and what all can be done by using them (it's like taxes, my brain shuts down when people start talking coupons. ;)). But it seems like you're onto something great here that could be expanded upon perhaps.

Kudos to you!

:yourock:

[noamnety]

3. Here's the original post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9117865

Generally if you are paying full retail costs, I think there's no doubt the food banks could stretch the dollars further. They can purchase through surplus programs or what ever other systems they have set up.

But if you are getting the food almost for free, the foodbanks can't stretch beyond that point. And in some cases with the coupons I wasn't even just getting it for free, there were a few items I bought that I made a small profit on - and used that to fund my own groceries. There are a couple ways to pull that off, like shopping at a store that gives coupon overages, so you use $3 in coupons for a $2 item, and the extra dollar is applied toward the rest of your purchase. Or you can spend $2 on items that trigger a $3 register coupon off your next order

Cracking the code on this has helped us save money on our own groceries. Now that I'm looking for food bank deals, I've found crazy ways to reduce my own expenses. If there's an item we use too, I get some for the bank, some for us. And since I started this, I figured out a few items that are always available for free, like toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, soap. I am done paying for those. What I need is a second food bank on my normal commute path that takes toiletry items - the one I'm donating to only does food.

[LWolf]

4. This is great to hear. We're gearing up for our winter food drive

at school, and the organizers tell me that there are triple the usual number of families already signed up.

[noamnety]

5. That's great to have community involvement and enthusiasm.

You might want to suggest that the organizers take a look at the Penny Experiment blog. I've come to the conclusion that it's more efficient to do this on an ongoing basis at virtually no cost than to have everyone donate one or two cans a couple times a year without regard to where the deals are.

A lot of times we pick a week to donate because it's thanksgiving or because it's christmas - instead of picking a week because milk or peanut butter or eggs are free this week.

[LWolf]

6. Good point.

I'll certainly pass it along.