Kroger Trip - Mega Savings Event - Saved 81%!

I took a trip to Kroger (my first in a while) last night to take advantage of some of the mega savings event deals (buy 10 get $5 instantly).  I didn't take a pic of my loot because I was slightly discouraged when I got home, but I still feel compelled to list it.  I need to suck it up - I still did great!  Just missed out on about $9 more in savings if I would have done some more research first.

What I got (mega savings event products are bolded):

(6) $1.49 - Philadelphia Cream Cheese
(2) $1.49 - Softsoap hand soap
(2) $2.00 - Dove Deodorant
- $5 from mega savings event made cream cheese $0.99, softsoap $0.99 and dove deo $1.50

(2) $1.50 - Suave Deodorant

(8) $1.00 - Spaghettios

- $5 from mega savings event made suave $1.00 and spaghettios $0.50

(9) $1.99 - Dixie Ultra Plates


(12) $1.00 - Oral-B Indicator Toothbrush
(12) $1.00 - Crest Toothpaste
(4) $0.89 - Old El Paso Taco Seasoning

Do you see my big mistake? Yep, I got 29 Mega savings products rather than 30 so only $10 came off of my bill instead of $15.  I only wanted 5 of the cream cheese (produces a $5 catalina - making them free after catalina) but got 6 thinking I needed one more to get me to 30.  Turns out I needed 2 more.  So I lost out on $5 there.  And for the Dixie plates, I meant for them to be $1.49 after mega savings and $0.49 after coupon.  Instead they were $1.99.  I should also note that after 5 of the $0.50/1 Dixie coupons they stopped doubling.  So 4 of them only took off the face value of $0.50.  Averaging this out I spent $1.21 per package and I meant to only spend $0.49 per package.  I have heard that some Krogers will only double/triple up to 3 like coupons per transaction, so maybe this is the problem.   It took 5 on the Dixie plates though (the location is Park and Coit).  On the Spaghettios it doubled the first 3 and not the 4th one so I'm not sure what's going on. Basically, from now on I will assume the limit is 3 everywhere I go since that is the lowest number I've seen, and just split my purchases into multiple transactions.

Coupons I used:

$0.50/1 Softsoap printable (doubled to $1 - made it free)
$0.50/1 Dixie plates from 5/23 RP
$1.50/1 Dove Deo printable NLA - made it free
$0.50/1 Suave deodorant from 7/11 RP (doubled to $1 - made it free)
$0.50/2 Spaghettios printable (3 doubled to $1.00/2)
$2.00/2 Oral-B Indicator from 7/4 PG - made them all free
$0.75/1 Crest from 7/4 PG (used 9 of these - made 9 of them $0.25)
$0.50/1 Crest from 6/6 PG or 6/27 RP (used 3 of these - made those three free after doubling)
$0.50/2 Old El Paso printable NLA (doubled to $0.89/2 - like B1G1 free)

My grand total was $18.93.

I received a $5 catalina for purchasing 4 philadelphia cream cheese products.

My total without mega savings or coupons (but still with normal weekly sales) would have been: $72.41

That's a savings of: 81%!!

What I would have paid if I purchased 1 more cream cheese and split the transactions correctly to double all available coupons: $11.92

So I lost out on $7.01.  Lesson learned!!