Huntley’s Coupon Queen to the rescue

• Reprints

She may not be a comic book novel hero, but Jill Cataldo of Huntley does save the world — money, actually — with her coupon-related website, blog and classes.

And she recently became a reluctant shopper’s champion, too, outing grocery store chain Dominick’s for the amount of out-of-date goods it had on its shelves.

“I have no desire to become the expired-food crusader for all of our stores. Dominick’s has long had a problem of not rotating any of their stock,” Cataldo said. “I’m not the activist type, but sometimes we have to raise our voices.”

The issue came to a head last week when Chicago news media — some members of whom follow Cataldo online — picked up on postings concerning the issue with the Safeway-owned Chicago chain.

Cataldo said the matter had been building for about a year, and she had tried to no avail to meet with representatives of Dominick’s about the topic of stocking foods past their expiration dates. The issue had been brought home to her by a reader who used a coupon last year for frozen meatballs. Only after she prepared them did the reader notice the meatballs had gone out of date in 2007.

About two weeks ago, Cataldo said, she found more than 400 items that were past their expiration date at the Randall Road Dominick’s in Carpentersville. Last week, Cataldo and one of her online readers hit the Dominick’s in Lake in the Hills (also on Randall Road) and found more than 300 expired goods, she said.

That led to the chain clearing its shelves of those items and reports from readers of noticing other grocers making sure that they were only stocking current products, too.

Since then, Dominick’s has issued a statement about how displeased it was with itself. And Cataldo heard from someone claiming to work for Safeway in another state. She posted on her website his note about how what happened in the Chicago suburbs was impacting the company nationwide.

Coupon champ

The above saga is just a sidebar to Cataldo’s success story — running her own business helping people learn to use coupons to their utmost advantage.

On a recent trip to the Meijer store in Algonquin, that meant cutting her own grocery bill that day from $75.40 to $27.10.

Cataldo came to the big-box grocer armed with a purse holding a purple plastic wallet filled with her coupons. She said she only spends about an hour a week clipping and only a couple hours a week shopping at grocery and drug stores (which she said usually have the better prices for personal items) for the things her family of five needs.

With a little practice and learning, her coupon-based bargain hunting is something Cataldo feels most people can do.

Her process involves a technique called “stacking,” which is using a manufacturer’s coupon along with a store’s in-house one to maximize savings. On her trip to the Algonquin Meijer, that meant she was able to pick up some vegetable dip for free and four-packs of yogurt for 38 cents apiece.

Cataldo mentioned that the best shopping days for the price-conscious are Monday through Wednesday. That’s because of the overlap during those days of two sets of sales fliers that many of the bigger chains produce each week to bring in customers .

Cataldo uses a combination of sale prices with coupons to get the top deal. She also mentioned that typically there are not coupons for meats, seafood and produce, but the fliers will let her know which stores have the best values for those items.

Cataldo also uses the Internet to search for coupon sites, and for bargains and coupons on stores’ own websites. She also gets coupons through apps on her smart phone.

Another part of the strategy is buying things that can be stocked at home. For the more advanced saver, there are coupons from the Chicago-based Catalina Category Marketing that grant coupons at check-out as a reward for buying certain items and/or spending a certain amount.

Guy clippers

Cataldo agreed that her shopping method is similar to playing the stock market or even poker. That means men are taking to it, too, she said.

At her speaking engagements, the crowds now frequently are about 30 percent guys. And her own bachelor cousin quickly took to her technique, cutting his first grocery bill from about $76 to $14, Cataldo said.

Cataldo has turned such savvy into saving money and earning income for her family.

According to Cataldo’s bio on her website, www.jillcataldo.com, she “became a serious coupon user almost five years ago when we found out we were going to have another baby. I started using the Internet to track store sales and learned the best time to use coupons from the newspaper and Internet in conjunction with those sales.”

According to the site, in June 2008, the Chicago Sun-Times asked readers for tips on how to save money on groceries. So Cataldo wrote an e-mail explaining her system. That led to a feature, follow-up stories, other media coverage and teaching her first class at the Huntley Public Library, where her husband, Doug, works. Held in August 2008, the session drew more than 160 people.

That led to Cataldo launching www.supercouponing.com; a syndicated newspaper column, “Super-Couponing Tips”; and the www.jillcataldo.com blog to go along with those offerings.

These days, “I spend more for the host server for the websites for the month than I do on groceries,” Cataldo said.

Of course, Cataldo doesn’t limit her coupon hunting to food and personal hygiene items. As she put her Meijer purchases into the trunk of her sedan, she pulled out a bag from Target holding a pair of jeans.

“They had an online coupon for $5 off any denim. These were marked down to $4.98, so I got them for free,” Cataldo said.

Cataldo also sells DVDs on her website, and her speaker’s itinerary will bring her to Gail Borden Public Library in Elgin next Thursday for a workshop. Visit www.gailborden.info or call 847-742-2411 to reserve a spot.