Mixed success on my grocery trip

I went to the store to take advantage of a few good deals (hot dogs for $.99 - the kids love them, $1 pineapple, etc) but the store was sold out of a bunch of stuff I wanted. Always irritating.

I then tried to do the Kraft cheese deal, & my $5 coupon wouldn't work. The cheese was still a good price, so I didn't return, but I would never have bought five to have on hand if I'd known the coupon wasn't going to work. On the other hand, I ended up getting six boxes of Ronzoni pasta for free.

Here's what I got, & how the pasta deal worked (fyi, this was at Safeway):

• 6 boxes of Ronzoni pasta. On sale for $1. There were blinkie coupons next to the Ronzoni for $1 off of 2 boxes. Bringing the per item total to $.50 each, or $3 total.
• Pilsbury fudge things. Can't remember their name - this was an impulse purchase for my son. They were $2.50 & I had a $1.00 off coupon.
• Cheese - this came out to $10 for 5 packages. I THOUGHT I was getting an additional $5 off, but that didn't work.
• Transformer sticker/puzzle books. These were 75% off, so I picked them up for stocking presents for my kids. Total was $1 for 2.
• Cantaloupe - $.99

Total was $16.53.
I also had a Ronzoni rebate, so I'll be getting $3 off in the mail, making the pasta free. All things considered, I got six boxes of pasta, 5 packages of cheese, a treat, a cantaloupe & 2 stocking stuffers for $13.