Homeland 1-23-11: 38% savings + books

It started off so well . . . I bought the following items at Homeland today:

• River Ranch petite sirlion regularly $3.95 minus $2 coupon for a total of $1.95
• Borden shredded cheese regularly $3.49 on sale for $2.29 minus $1 coupon (friend them on Facebook then print off the coupon) that was doubled for a total of 29-cents
• Rhodes crusty frozen rolls regularly $2.69 less $1 coupon (from the newspaper insert last week) that was coupled for final cost of 69-cents
• Kleenex box regularly $2.29 on sale for $2.19 less $2 in-store register coupon for total of 19-cents.

Had I stopped there I would have paid $3.12 for $12.42 of groceries - a pre-tax savings of 69%. Then I ran into a display of discounted hardback fiction books . . . in the grocery store? Books are one of my weaknesses so I dug right in and found books by two of my favorite authors (Jayne Ann Krentz and Sandra Brown) at $6 per book. Yes, I bought them. And ended up with a measly 38% post-tax savings. Ugh! LOL.