How much did I actually spend on Halloween candy?

I want to follow-up on my Halloween candy scores.  Usually, before I started couponing, I would run out the day before or day of and buy it last minute. That would usually mean I spent about $20-25 on the cheapest candy I could find at Walmart which includes the pixie sticks, smarties, etc. If you have kids, or even if you don't then you probably know that is the undesirable candy and that most of us prefer the chocolate candy bars. If you are in the minority that doesn't like chocolate, I feel sorry for you. :)

So this year I started early in the month watching for good deals on fun size or snack size candy bars. Boy did I score!

My first deal was good. I ended up paying about $1.50 a bag for 3 large bags of  fun size M &Ms and Snickers. These are the large 19 to 22 oz bags that usually run an average of $5 or more a bag. Then over the course of the next couple weeks I picked up 6 more small bags of candy. These were the 10 to 11.18 oz bags of candy that average $3.50 or more and occasionally are on sale for $2.50 a bag. My final price per bag for these was $0.50-0.99 a bag.

Here's my final score list:
11.18 oz bag of Snickers                                                              $0.99
10.78 oz bag of Hershey's Cookies and Creme bars                    $0.99
10.78 oz bag of Kit Kat bars                                                        $0.99
10.78 oz bag of Kit Kat bars                                                        $0.99
10.23 oz bag of Snickers with Almonds                                      $0.49
10.23 oz bag of Snickers with Almonds                                      $0.49
11.23 oz bag of Peanut M&Ms                                                    $1.50
19.07 oz bag of M&Ms                                                                $1.50
22.55 oz bag of Snickers                                                              $1.50

Total Price                                                                                   $9.44

So to recap I bought 9 bags of candy for under $10. That means I cut my normal candy cost more than in half and it was all the good stuff. There was enough for me to fill my candy bowl for Trick or Treaters and still have some left over to go in the candy jar for my husband and older teenagers.

This is just one of many examples of ways to save money with a little preparation and planning.