Dave Gates reporting in for my fifth Jewel-Osco Saturday Morning Sampler Savings Report.
Are you wondering what this is all about? Well for starters, I though it would be interesting to report how much I’ve saved by redeeming the coupons for free items at our local grocery store.
Secondly, I like building blogs and this experiment offers me the opportunity to create content and learn new skills.
We live in the Chicago-Land area and one of the major groceries stores is Jewel-Osco. This year I signed up for their MyMixx rewards program and downloaded their smart phone app.
A lot of blogs publish income reports on how much their blogs are earning. I’ve decided to take this concept and turn it around a bit.
Instead of reporting on how much my blog is making, I plan to report on how much I’m saving by redeeming coupons for free items. It’s just a little experiment, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you have any questions about any of the information from this report, please leave a comment and I’ll reply very early in the morning before the wife and kid wake up.
This report includes the following.
- SAVINGS THIS MONTH
- YEAR TO DATE SAVINGS
- NUMBER OF COUPONS REDEEMED
- LIST OF ITEMS
- WEBSITE TRAFFIC
- EMAIL LIST
- BLOG UPDATES
- MOVING FORWARD
SAVINGS THIS MONTH May 2017 ($21.68)
YEAR TO DATE SAVINGS ($83.38)
NUMBER OF COUPONS REDEEMED THIS MONTH = 9
LIST OF ITEMS
1. Voss Water 375 ml glass bottle ($1.99)
2. Odwalla Almond Milk Shake 15.2 oz ($2.00)
3. RXBAR 1.83 oz ($2.00)
4. Chloe’s Pops 10 oz ($??)
5. GIVN Water 700 ml ($1.25)
6. Evolution Fresh Cooler Juices 11 oz ($2.50)
7. Protein2O 16.9 oz ($1.79)
8. Sparkling ICE 17 oz ($1.39)
9. mom to mom diapers ($6.99)
WEBSITE TRAFFIC
Traffic Overview
Any blogger will tell you there is a lot of work behind creating the articles and maintaining a blog. But it is actually fun and interesting. There are many ups and downs along the way. May turned out to be a challenging month. I focused on redesigning the home page. Little did I know we also lost our Google Analytics tracking code with the new home page. ooops!!
As you can see the sessions decreased and the numbers are way off from last month. This is all because of forgetting to include the tracking code on the new home page. Lesson learned for now. May’s report won’t include the other statics since they are not accurate. I need to focus on adding Google Analytics back or changing the home page again.
If you are enjoying these reports please share and comment. I’d really appreciate it. Once change I’ve made to this report is to include both last month and this month snap-shots. I think this gives a better idea how we are growing.
April 1 – 28, 2017
May 1-30, 2017
As for the traffic sources, last month if you remember I started to comment and interacting with others through blogs and social media. This has shown an increase in where the traffic is coming from. One website I’ve been following is Mashupmom, which I’ve enjoyed reading and following.
Here are the top traffic sources from last month.
EMAIL LIST
One of the things I find most challenging is developing and growing a mailing list. I’ve signed up and registered for an email newsletter service with MailChimp.
My plan is to track the growth of this list. Since I joined in January, we have a great base to start with. I One reason I haven’t been focusing on it is because I’m working adding more content and articles.
I’ve also wanted to redesign the home page to include a better opt-in button or banner. Now that we have the home page done its time for tweaking things.
For all you long time bloggers, I know you’ve always said to start growing your email list. Well, now is your opportunity to join my list and help me grow this thing.
May 2017 – no change from last month.
BLOG UPDATES
I’m still loving my theme from Studiopress. I highly recommend them.
During the month of May, I wanted to redesign the home page. I hired someone to do this for me. At the time I didn’t think about how it was configured. The new home page turned out fine, but it also meant that I lost other settings and configurations.
Mainly google analytics is not reporting correctly. So that must have meant that the old existing page was configured with my analytics account. Since I just realized this I’ll be working at getting this fixed for next month.
I’ve haven’t included a lot of statics on the report because of the Analytics mishap. Ah, so frustrating, but I’ve learned something in the process so that is good.
I’ve been working on the monthly report you are reading here. My plan is to publish a report each month, or until they stop offering free items.
I’ve been writing other content for the blog. Most notable is that I’ve added books to the sidebar on what I’m currently reading. I have a long list of books I’ve read in the past and plan to add these to shorter list. I’m looking forward to revisiting some older books I have in my personal library.
LESSONS LEARNED
For the first time since I’ve been tracking this there was one Saturday where Jewel-Osco only offered Buy 1 Get 1 Free. So NO totally free item. This meant that I didn’t post an article that first week in May. Just something to think about.
When I started this report I was just tracking the Saturday Morning Samplers items. However, the first week in week in May of this year Jewel-Osco did offer free diapers. See this wasn’t a Saturday Morning Sampler item but if you are a MyMixx member you still get coupons to show up under your account.
So for the first time I’m also reporting MyMixx items that are Free as well as the Saturday Morning Samplers Items. The purpose of this report and my doing all this work is to report how much money the free items add up too. So it really doesn’t matter if its a Saturday Morning Sampler Item or a MyMixx item. If I can clip the coupon and get the item for free, I will include it here. So May represents the first time for recording this with the free diapers.
Be careful when updating important parts of the blog. Since I’ve updated the main homepage I’ve lost my google analytics, and any reporting I had since the update. I’ll either need to get this fixed or change the theme back to the way it was before.
MOVING FORWARD
The plan for now is to continue visiting my local Jewel-Osco on Saturday morning’s for their Free items. Five months have gone by pretty quick and I’m amazed at how much I’ve saved and how this blog thing is turning out.
I’ve also added a lessons learned section to this report to reminder myself of various things. It’s also a great place for you to reference my exact thinking and process for these reports.
I’ll also be working on tweaking the blog, newsletter and writing. Stayed tuned, and please leave me a comment, don’t be shy!!
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