For the weeks leading up to Mother's Day and Father's Day/Graduation most chain grocery stores (Safeway and Albertsons specifically) do a gift card promotion, where if you buy a specific amount of gift cards to certain stores, you will get a coupon for $10-20 off your next grocery bill!! Usually safeway offers $10 back when you purchase $50 in cards, and Albertsons has been known to do $20 back for a $100 purchase. It's the same 20% savings, so it just depends on which store has the card you want!!
Here is what I have done the past few years:
For Mother's Day, I will buy a few Old Navy/Gap gift cards and just save them for when I might see a great sale...this year, I need some comfy summer clothes for our trip to Disneyland, so I will use them now!!
For Father's Day, they usually do Lowe's/Home Depot so I either use the, to buy my hubby his Dad's Day gift (it was a $250 BBQ grill last year), or just save them for projects around the house!!
Basically, use the gift cards either now for things you need, or save them for later when you see something on sale, the store gift cards never expire...so you can even prepare for Christmas or birthdays!!
Both the 'Catalina' ($ off coupon) and the gift card spend like cash, so when you go to use them, you can use coupons to save even more...that's the best part!!!
CAUTION:
Make sure you buy within the dates of the promo, and only certain gift cards are included, so pay attention!
Although the gift card you bought never expires, the $10-20 off groceries usually does within a week or two, so be sure to use it!! Last year, the $10 off was good for ANY purchase, but this year it has to be used on a purchase of $25 or more (buy $25 of groceries and only pay $15).
