Target: Frozen food bonanza

Target has an amazing regional deal this week:  Buy any 7 frozen food items (and they mean, any), get a $5 gift card.  Any frozen food item, not just selected ones.  Wow, what a deal!  I am lucky enough to live in the area where this deal is offered.

I visited a Target store to see what possibilities were there.  I was hoping that Target had a lot of frozen food items under 71¢, so that you could roll the gift card and get lots of stuff for free.  Sadly, the only thing I saw under 71¢ were Banquet fruit pies (and I've heard that in some places the Banquet items are not included, despite being "any" frozen food item).  I have limited freezer space, so I wanted to limit my purchases to food that was more central to our family's diet than fruit pies.

So I came up with a plan to purchase fruit juices and frozen vegetables.  While I was checking out prices, I also bought some cheese and personal care items.

Today, I made trips to three different Target stores.  The first two were SuperTarget stores with full groceries; they had less selection and were out of many frozen food varieties.  The third was a regular Target store with a small selection of groceries; there I found the shelves pretty much full.  So if you're going to Target for a grocery deal, I'd advise going to a store without a full grocery section; what you're looking for may be in better supply there.

Here's what I got:

Transaction 1:

4 Old Orchard frozen juice concentrate @ $1.14 = $4.56
- $1/4 Old Orchard frozen juice concentrate printable coupon
= $3.56

2 Green Giant vegetables @ $1.27 = $2.54
- 2 50¢ off Green Giant vegetables printable coupon
= $1.54

1 Market Pantry sugar snap peas @ $1.02
= $1.02

Total product: $6.12
- 5¢ for reusable bag
Total out of pocket: $6.07
Received $5 gift card

Transactions 2, 3, and 4 (identical)

4 Old Orchard frozen juice concentrate @ $1.14 = $4.56
- $1/4 Old Orchard frozen juice concentrate printable coupon
= $3.56

3 Birds Eye Steamfresh vegetables @ $1.02 = $3.06
- $1/3 Birds Eye vegetables coupon from the 1/23 Smartsource insert (or printable)
= $2.06

Total product: $5.62
- 5¢ for reusable bag
- $5 gift card
Total out of pocket: 57¢
Received $5 gift card

So after doing the four transactions, I had purchased 16 juice concentrates and 12 bags/boxes of vegetables, for a total of 28 items.  I had paid $7.78 out of pocket for the 28 items, for an average of 28¢ per item.  AND I have a $5 gift card as well!  If you include the gift card as savings, I paid $2.78 for 28 items, or less than 10¢ each.  And wow, my freezer is really full now!