Eat This Couponers!

6 bags dum dums (200 count)

4 packs Fun Dip (50 count)

8 packs multi-pack Twizzlers

8 bags Milk Duds boxes

7 bags Whoppers

10 Kit Kat (Jumbo size bag)

16 mixed bags of Reeces, Almond Joy, Hershey's, etc.

2 Reeces Lovers Assortment

1 Bag mixed Hershey's Candy (50 pieces)

1 bag Reeces PB cups

2 jumbo bags of Reeces PB cups

3 bags Reeces/Kit Kat mixes (75 count)

2 bags Dove Smooth Milk Chocolate

1 bag Hershey's Miniatures

1 bag Reeces Fast Break

6 Willy Wonka mixed bags: Nerds, Laffy Taffy, Runts (100 servings)

5 packs Halloween balloons

10 packs spider webbing

9 packages of big napkins

5 packages of small napkins

1 Happy Halloween sign

4 packs of plates

All this: $45.99

Look on fellow shoppers' faces: Priceless

Here's my cart before I went back and grabbed about 10 more big packages.

Here's my overloaded cart waiting to be loaded into my car.

Now lest you all get an image of me laying on my bed passed out from diabetic shock with melted chocolate all over my face, let me tell you what all this candy is for.

For the past year and a half I have sent a lot of candy to Brazil. Most of the rest of the world is candy deprived as far as I'm concerned (exclusions are: Japan with HiChews, Germany with gummi candy, and Belgium & Switzerland with chocolate), and Brazil has major problems in the candy department. So, after every holiday I head to the stores to get the discounted candy to send down to Brazil for my parents and their missionaries.

Last Halloween I bought discounted candy and then we made little bags of candy for a zone conference treat for all 190 missionaries. I started shopping the day after Halloween and went around to several stores gathering the best candy at the best prices I could find. Most of the stores start out at 50% off and then move it up to 75% off later in the week. So, knowing what to buy and when was kind of like playing the stock market...you buy some of the good stuff at first at 50 % off and then hold out hoping you'll be able to buy some more good candy at 75% off and get a pretty low average price without missing out on buying the good stuff.

BUT, this year I got super lucky. I was a little worried since November 1st was a Sunday and I would be a day behind all of the non-Mormon bargain shoppers. But, good things come to those who wait (and keep the commandments) I guess, because I went to Albertson's today and they still had quite a bit of good candy left.

So I'm standing there looking through the carts of bargain candy which was marked at about 50% off trying to decide what was worth it at that price when the store manager, who was nearby organizing some stuff, says to me,

"Hey, whatever you want can be 50 cents for candy and 25 cents for decorations."

To which I replied, "Even this ginormous bag of Kit Kats?"

Manager guy, "Yup, any of the candy."

Nice. So I start to chuck stuff in my cart as this candy is now 90%+ off and I'm now way less picky on what I want to buy. I tried to figure out how many pieces were in each bag so that I'd get the right amount for the 150 missionaries my parents have right now. But once other people in the store (including mostly employees) got word of the new price the manager had given me I got some competition. So I decided to just buy pretty much all the candy other than candy corn and candy packaged with fall colors that I could get my hands on, without starting a fight in the freezer aisle, and figure out if I had the right amounts of candy later.

So I just filled up the whole stinking cart. It was hard to push. And I got a lot of weird looks. And one lady started pulling stuff out of my cart since she thought it was the sale cart and not my cart, so I had to move it to the next aisle over while I finished grabbing the candy I wanted.

Also, because most Brazilians don't celebrate Halloween they don't sell Halloween decorations there. And earlier this year I ended up buying a bunch of Halloween decorations at full price to send down to some people in my parents' ward who wanted to have a Halloween party. So, that's why I stocked up on some cheap decorations too...so I'll be ready for the Brazilians' requests for Halloween decorations next year.

Checking out took forever since apparently I was the first one the manager had given this new price to and they hadn't updated the price in the computer. So every one of the 100 plus items I bought had to be hand entered. Poor checker lady.

This may all be sort of dumb but I was super excited to get $500 + worth of candy and decorations for less than 50 bucks. Some of those big bags of candy were originally 12 dollars each, so it really added up. I guess my life is boring, but being the first one who got the "manager's special" made my day. I love a good deal.

It was almost as good as when, as a kid, my mom and aunt found the Frito Lay dumpster. We aren't too poor but we aren't below dumpster diving for outdated chips either.

Anyway, now I've just got to get home before my roommate does so I can explain to her why our guest room is completely full of candy so she won't think that I'm a complete pig/weirdo.