Four trips to the store...four times pulling out the debit card. In the course of an two hours, I saved $801 over retail on snacks and breakfast items.

It's that time of year again...my favorite time actually. Quaker sales are fast and furious right now.

Look in your store ads. Many stores in the country have $3 off 5 items. And dozens of stores have some kind of deal on assorted quaker items. Quaker items include Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup, as well as Life Cereal and Cap'n Crunch.

Here was the deal that save me the bucks and netted me 200 items for $36.

Albertsons in my neck of the woods has the Quaker items 10 for $15 with a $5 off instant savings at the register, and it can be used multiple times.

Between the $3 off $5 and a ton of manufacturers coupons from the Sunday paper I'd accumulated, I have enough to bring down each item, normally retailing between $3.29 and $4.59, down to .18c each. That's .18c for syrup, pancake mix, granola bars. 200 items literally filled an entire shelf in my garage.

Crazy thing is, I have enough coupons to grab another 100 items, and because many of the ones I have are $1/1 coupons, I'll probably be out of pocket $10.

You're probably thinking there's no way they'd use all that stuff, so why bother?

Well, you're right - we won't use it all. But others will, and for the price, I'm happy to give some away.

I have a brother-in-law who has raised my two nephews on his own since my sister is a flake...I give to them regularly.

The school likes the kids to bring things for snack once a month. Some kids can't afford to bring, so the teacher winds up out of pocket. 10 boxes of granola bars will keep her in snacks for the entire class for 5 days. So, we have enough to do that for several months, and I don't mind donating $1.80 to the kids' classrooms that way. Five days of snacks might have run her $30 for 20 kids, so I'm glad to help her keep $300 in her pocket this year.

The foodbank down the road rarely gets "the good stuff". For me, the good stuff is stuff you know a kid will eat instead of some of the weird food items that get donated there. And while people's hearts are in the right place when they donate, it's a shame if the food won't get used because the kids won't eat it. Oatmeal, cereal, and pancake fixings go a long way with little kids, and they're a nice way to encourage sitting around the table for a meal together when someone actually cooks.

Most ads end on Tuesday of this coming week, so RUN, don't walk, if your store has these deals. If you don't get in on them this time around, don't worry. Quaker sales are hot twice a year...once in Sept/Oct and again in January. So watch for quaker coupons with long expiration dates and hang on to them, because they are surely almost as good as cash when you can land that much food that has that many uses.

Happy Shopping!!!