Gilbert mom uses database to grocery shop.
Nina Brannock knows the secrets of free milk and mustard and cheap peanut butter and bread. 
Armed with a binder and a coupon-organizing box, the Gilbert resident emerges from her Bashas’ with about $40 worth of groceries.
Her bill? $8.08.
It’s all in the coupons. Coupon Sense, actually.
This week began with Food Check-Out Day. Monday marked the day when most Americans have earned enough disposable income to pay for all the food they eat for the entire year, according to the Gilbert-based Arizona Farm Bureau.
But Brannock’s grocery bills are so low, that day may have come in early January for her family. And that’s with three kids.
The Farm Bureau designates Food Check-Out Day every year to illustrate the affordable food produced by America’s farmers and ranchers. American consumers pay less for food than citizens of any other country in the world, Arizona Farm Bureau spokesman Neil Schneider said.
On average, Americans spend about 10 percent of their disposable income on food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that the average American family of four spends $150 to $200 per week at the grocery store.
But in Gilbert, where grocery bills can creep sky high due to the larger-than-average family size, Brannock’s tales of bills cut as much as 50 to 90 percent almost sound to good to be true.
By combining sales and member discounts with coupons at stores that double and sometimes triple coupons, Brannock said she stretches her dollars farther than the average shopper.
And she’s got the receipts to prove it. She said her best ever was a shopping trip where she spent $52 and saved $468.
“The people in line behind me at the store, their mouths just drop,” she said.
Brannock has been involved with Coupon Sense since 1999, and estimates that she has saved more than $20,000 in those six years.
“Since then, I’ve cut my grocery bill from $600 per month to $300 per month,” she said. “I get groceries for free all the time.”
Coupon Sense aims to eliminate some of the hassle from using coupons by offering a database of 10 stores’ sales matched up with coupons found in the Sunday newspaper. Subscribers pay $3.50 per week for the service, but the work of sorting through sales and knowing which coupon to use is taken care of by Coupon Sense’s database.
“It’s foolproof,” Brannock said.
She and other Coupon Sense instructors teach classes on how the program works and how to use their techniques to stretch every dollar at the grocery store. For more information, e-mail Brannock at thecouponlady@cox.net.
Gilbert resident Laurie Neighbors shops for a family that includes her husband, three children and three dogs.
Fresh produce tends to be among her most expensive items, but she saves money on the rest of her grocery bill by using Coupon Sense.
“When people say it’s not worth it, I explain that if I’ve saved $50 at the store, then I’ve made about $25 per hour,” Neighbors said.
She introduced the program to Chandler mom Lorri Miller, who used to spend $250 a week on a strict grocery budget to feed her family.
With eight kids and a husband, Miller has to buy eight to 10 gallons of milk per week and at least seven pounds of meat.
“I shopped in bulk, cooked everything from scratch,” she said.
Her weekly budget using the combination of coupons, store sales and member discounts taught by Coupon Sense?
Now it’s less than $100.
“I keep a spreadsheet and track it now,” she said. “It’s become a sport.”
The Arizona Republic
By Cary Aspinwall | February 10, 2005
http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/0210gr-groceriesZ12.html
