nov 12?

Becca, this is lame. You need to post something. I'm a loser and have nothing to post lately!

Teresa

Finally, coupon shopping from me...

Monday's shopping trip:

Tuesday's shopping trip below:


and Wednesday's shopping trip:

Total Cost (before sales/coupons): $283.10

Total Out-of-Pocket: $109.55

Savings of $173.55


Here's the breakdown by store:

KROGER (monday)
Total: $152.52
Out-of-Pocket: 64.06
Savings of: 88.46

9 boxes of Cheerios:
- $1.17 each (usually $3.00)
- Each box had a $1.50 Pampers coupon on it - yippee!

3 boxes of Kix Cereal
- $1.17 each (usually 2.30)

4 Glade Candles
- $1.25 each (usually $2.99)

3 Dial Liquid Hand Soap
- $0.10 each (usually 1.99 each)

4 packages of Duracell batteries
- $1.75 each (usually $4.29 each)

2 Shout Laundry Stain Removal Spray bottles
- $1.25 each (usually $2.99 each)

2 Duncan Hines Frosting
- $0.62 (usually $1.89)
- Normally we don't buy this kind of stuff, but TS is having his b-day and I have too much going on to make a cake from scratch! I'm still planning on decorating it fun, though. Hopefully it'll work out!

1 Breyer's Ice Cream 1.75 qts
- $1.50 each (usually $5.19 - for TS' birthday)

3 Scotch Brite Ultra NailSaver Scrub Sponges
- $0.49 (usually $1.99)

2 Hefty Freezer Bags
- $0.45 each (usually 2.49)


All the things above were part of a Mix & Match deal. If you buy any ten of these items, you get $5 off at the register. I bought a touch over 30 items, and got $15 immediately taken off. Most of the items were also on sale in addition AND I had coupons for almost all of them. So, a sale, a coupon, and then money off - pretty good!

I also bought the things below. They weren't part of the deal:

1 Duncan Hines Cake Mix
- $0.63 (usually 1.99)

4 Glade Air Fresheners
- $0.50 each (usually $1.29)

9 Campbell's Cream Soups
- $0.45 each (usually 1.19 each)

Private Selection Angus Ground Chuck, 8.29 lbs
- 1.99 per pound (usually 3.99 lb)

Black Seedless Grapes
- .97 lb

2 Oxy Spot Treatment
- $1.85 each (usually $5.19 each)

2 gallons of milk
- $2.50 (not sure what this specific brand usually is - it's common for milk to be $3.50 or more around here)


ALBERTSONS (monday)
Total Cost: $30.74
Out-of-Pocket: $12.90
Savings of: $17.84

Oranges
- $0.79 per lb (usually $2.29 lb)

Cameo Apples
- $0.79 per lb (usually $1.99 lb)

6 Tiger's Milk Nutrition Bar
- $0.40 (usually $0.79 each)

9 Kleenex Facial Tissue w/Lotion
- $0.67 (usually $1.29 each)


TOM THUMB (monday)
Total Cost: $61.19
Out-of-Pocket: $20.06
Savings of: $41.13

4 Glade Air Fresheners (better selection than Kroger had!)
- $0.50 each (usually 1.79 each)

4 Swanson Broth
- $0.34 each (usually $1.29 each)

4 Progresso Broth
- $1 each (usually $2.89 each)

2 Carnation Evaporated Milk
- $0.50 each (usually $1.35)

4 Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers
- $1.50 (usually $3.99)

Red Seedless Grapes
- $0.98 lb (usually $2.99 lb)

Hot House Tomates
- $0.98 lb (usually $3.99 lb)

3 Campbell's Cream Soups
- $0.45 each (usually $1.50)


TOM THUMB (tuesday)
Total Cost: $25.88
Out-of-Pocket: $7.08
Savings of: $18.80

When I went on Monday, they were out of some stuff. They said to come back Tuesday, so I did:

8 Fresh & Simple Ragu Pouches
- $0.67 each (usually $2.49 each)

4 Safeway Pastas
-$0.43 (usually $1.49 each)


ALBERTSONS (wednesday)
Total Cost: $12.74
Out-of-Pocket: $5.45
Savings of: $7.29

5 packages of Taco Bell taco shells
- $1 each (usually $2.19)

1 package of Veg All Steamed Veggies
- $0.45 (usually $1.79)


Truth is I do not have the time to sit and figure out all of this! My coupon shopping almost came to a halt when Violet was a couple months old - when she stopped sleeping all the time. I no longer had time to try to figure stuff out, so I signed up with this place:
www.thegrocerygame.com.

It's really quite nice. I just print off a list per store, search for what I want, pull out the matching coupons, and off I go. I make it sound like it takes five minutes, but it actually does take a bit of time still, especially for deals like the Mix & Match thing.

They do it regionally so that you can have a list accurate for your own specific area. You can do a trial run for $1 for four weeks (I think it was). If you don't want to continue, you cancel.

Here's the breakdown:
- It's $10 for the first store and $5 for each additional store for every TWO months (or about nine weeks).
- For me that equals $20 per two months.
- That's $2.22 per week total
- or $0.74 per store per week

That $20 is earned back pretty quickly by saving so much. It also gives me some deals that I might have missed otherwise. Right now, it's either I do this or else I don't do much coupon shopping at all... For me, it's totally worth it! Anyway, check it out if you find yourself not having time to figure out shopping yourself. I personally wouldn't use it for CVS or Walgreens. There are so many blogs out there that have that info.

But since I'm using The Grocery Game, I won't be posting any of my deals until after they are over since I'm sure they wouldn't be happy if I did that.

Teresa

Need Glasses?

TS got a hold of my glasses and broke off one of the arms (legs?). So, for the past few weeks I've been walking around at home with my one-legged glasses on. If anyone bumps my face, including myself, my glasses fall off. Though it makes it really easy to rub my eye on that side because I don't have to work around the arm/leg/thing. I've also noticed it kinds of messes up my vision because my glasses tilt funny now making it so I'm not seeing through the correct spot on my glasses.

Basically I look REALLY cool wearing my glasses.

I really wanted to get new glasses, but my prescription is too old. So, I'd been trying to work out an eye appt, which isn't the easiest thing with a 3 month old, who very muchly still wants mommy.

Luckily I have contacts...kind of.

They are dailies. I went to see how many contacts I had left, and I apparently have no contacts remaining for my right eye and five for my left eye. Gee, that makes sense. How does this happen? For some reason my right eye contacts kept ripping, so I went through them faster. Very annoying. They'd sometimes rip just from being put in my eye. They were Focus Dailies, and I'm hopefully switching to get Acuvue Oasis (doing a trial pair right now and I like them MUCH more!).

So, I'd been wearing my one-legged glasses at home. When I went out, I'd been wearing my left contacts in both eyes. It's been great. I like always having my vision slightly messed up.

Now for the main reason I'm telling you my story...

I kind of also wasn't too happy about having to buy glasses, as well as contacts. It gets kind of expensive! Our insurance gives us some money we can use, but it doesn't come close to covering glasses AND contacts, and I really do prefer both.

My solution - an $8 pair of glasses that my not-real-sister-in-law told me about. Before you laugh at me for getting that color of glasses, I would like to specify that I got one of the brown ones - you can see a photo of it if you scroll down to the bottom of the page of the link above. I did not get the color of the one in the main photo.

I'm sure it will look horribly ugly on me since I haven't been able to try them on, but really - it's EIGHT DOLLARS! Plus, I only wear my glasses at home, so if the kids aren't afraid of me when I'm wearing them, then I don't care. Tyler thinks I'm a hotty no matter how grotesque I look (something is wrong with him).

My not-real-sister-in-law, who we will call Jay, since that's her name, has ordered two of these little babies. She likes both of them. You can read her review here. And she posted pictures of her beautiful self wearing them here.

So, if you're in need of glasses, and want some cheap ones, there are a ton of options here:
ZENNI OPTICAL

Teresa

Weekly Total

I don't typically post my weekly totals but I had such a nice week of couponing that I thought I would share. The nice thing about this week is that it's been almost completely Albs deals and lots of useful stuff too! I hope next week is so nice! :-)

Total OOP: $34.17

Total Savings: $182.62

Becca

Albertsons....again

I went to Albertsons for another deal today.

I ended up with:
5-All small & mighty detergent (MFC: $1/1)
4- Dove sham/cond (MFC: $1.50/1)
2- Club crackers (no deal, just needed some)
4- Carefree (on clearance for .94) (MFC: $1/2)
1- baby wash (no deal, just needed some)
6- strip yeast packet things, clearance (MFC: BOGOF)
6- yogurt (MFC: $1/3)


Total OOP: $12.25

Total Savings: $102.84

I also earned an unexpected $3 CAT. The yeast strips are on clearance for $1.60. I used my BOGOF coupons for it. For each strip I got, I got a .50 CAT. I think I might go back and get some more since I still have more coupons. There are also coupons for .65 off the same brand of yeast but if you use the BOGOF coupons, it's cheaper. So if you live in the area, check it out at Albs, it should be with the other yeast and/or in the front with all the other deals they have for the week.

Becca

Albertsons

I'm glad Albertsons finally had some decent deals this week. Here was I got:

4- Ragu
1- 4 pack of muffins
6- chicken broth
2-spaghetti noddles
2- 2lb bags of flour
1- box of oat cereal
2- frozen veggie stir fry
1- 1 pkg bean sprouts
2- Dove deodorant
1- Suave lotion
3- pkgs of flour tortillas

Total OOP: $15.52
Total Savings: $57.52

Part of what made this deal fun is that if you bought $30 worth of specific items, you get $15 catalina. So the first transaction we did all the coupon deals and got it down to about $14.00. Today we went back and used our $15 doing some coupon deals but mostly just good deals to buy food that we eat, like stuff for Thai pizzas.

I think tomorrow I'll go back and do another deal but get different stuff, of course. It's hard to get real great grocery deals so it's nice when one presents itself.

Becca

October

October really wasn't a great month for deals, I think. There were a few good things going on but overall it wasn't too impressive so I didn't do that much shopping. But here is what I spent and saved for October (this includes all grocery and household items).

Total OOP: $148.96

Savings: $289.63

Unfortunately I totally forgot to get my free stuff at Walgreens for October. I remembered about 2 days too late! Hopefully next month.

Becca

Detergent

There haven't been many deals that I've been too thrilled with the last couple weeks, especially this last week but this is one deal that I like that's going on right now.

Fred Meyer has a coupon in their Sunday ad (this Sunday) for their Purex laundry detergent 3/$5. That alone is a really good deal but it's an even better deal when you do the deal at Albertsons. I used my Fred Meyer coupon, with (3) .50 off any Purex, then I took my doubler too and in the end....

Total OOP: $2
Savings: $17.47

I think I'll do this deal a couple times throughout the week because 3 bottles of nice laundry detergent for $2 total is a good deal, says I. I could do the deals all at the same time but we run to Albertsons enough (since it's right across the street) that it's easy to do it throughout the week.

Becca

Unexpected

I thought we were quite lucky at Albertsons today. We had a trip planned for a couple things and unfortunately they were out of some of the deals we wanted.

I was wandering down the isles and something caught my attention. Stayfree (just a specific product by them) was on clearance for .94. I checked and I had coupons for $2/2!! So I grabbed the 16 they had left (just enough coupons to cover it). They were all free. The cashier didn't allow the overage that we would've got. Stayfree is not my favorite brand but when it's free, I can handle it!

The only other deal I was able to get today was potatoes and dessert. They were each $1 wyb 10. I used coupons, doubled them.

Total OOP: $2.90
Total Savings: $80.64

It actually should've been .50 cheaper but the cashier forgot to double one of the coupons. I would've said something but she was all flustered by the Stayfree deal and I didn't want to confuse her more. Plus the customers behind us were looking very antsy. So I can handle it costing $2.90 instead of $2.40. I love deals like this, they're so satisfying (if that make sense). I love couponing! :-)

Becca

Free Stuff

I realize I don't actually need three pictures of the stuff I got yesterday, but.....


Here's what I got for free, mostly at Rite Aid. Yes, the table is included in that. We were driving down the road and there was a "FREE" sign next to this table. It's dusty and needs some painting but it's really cute so we snagged it. This has happened a few time since moving here (cute free stuff on the side of the road) and I like it! :-)





Close up of the items "purchased". Everything was from Rite Aid except the laundry detergent
which was from Walgreens.



Awhile after taking the first pictures, I walked by to see this. Elliot came running up and said, "Elliot fixed it. Now mama can take a picture." While I was standing there he then tried to stack the laundry detergent on the top of the three stacked boxes until I told him it was too heavy.


Anyway, Rite Aid had like 30 full rebates this week! There were lots of fun things. We just picked a few things though since we don't have that much money to front. They have lots of cold medicine and such things for free which is what we got for this winter. They had all the rebate items in their usual locations and they were pretty cleaned out of everything. Then we noticed at the end of an isle that they had almost all of their rebate stuff there too and they were stocked up so we just grabbed whatever we wanted.

We are almost out of laundry detergent so we got some on sale at Walgreens. It's $1.99 after a $1 rebate and then I used RR to pay for the rest.

So, like I said, everything ends up being FREE and we saved $37.00.

If anyone has a Rite Aid near them, go get some of their rebate stuff for winter!

Becca

CVS, Walgreen's, & Kroger

 

CVS

Total out-of-pocket:  $0.85

I had $34 in ECB that were expiring that day.  I had already accidentally let an additional $10 expire.  Since I had no time to figure out some shopping deals, I went in and spent it on whatever.  We like stocking up on toilet paper when we can, so that's what I bought.  As well as a couple packs of pens and chapstick.  I didn't get any ECB back this time for what I bought.  BUT I did get $10 ECB back for doing an online survey last month, so that was nice!

 

 

 

KROGER: $0.00

3 six-packs of VIVA paper towels, on sale for $5.99, I had three $0.35 coupons that tripled, taking $1.05 off of each pack.  In the end, each pack was $4.94 (or $0.82 per roll).  That's pretty good for VIVA paper towels.  I'd imagine they sometimes have better deals for VIVA, but I love VIVA and wanted to buy some. 

I bought them, plus the newspapers with my gift card.  I might have seemed insane at the time with buying all the Robitussin at Walgreen's, but I got a gift card out of it and now free stuff at Krogers.

 

WALGREEN'S:  0.00

I bought the toothbrush in the above photo at Walgreen's.  I used my gift card again, so it was free.  I think it was $4.94 or something, and I got $4.50 back in RR.  It's an unadvertised deal.  It is an Oral-B CrossAction Vitalizer that gives RR back. 

You may wonder, "Why go to Walgreen's to buy one toothbrush?"  (or you might not wonder that at all) I was going to buy some of the free scrubbing bubble stuff and more of those toothbrushes as well, but they were mostly out of stuff.  Plus, TS was teething and very fussy.  I was hungry...and I decided home seemed like a very appealing place to be.  So, we went home.

It's fun to get out of the house and go shopping with the kids on their GOOD days, but when it's a bad day, it's sooo very not fun.  TS screamed through Kroger.  He's such an easy going guy most of the time.  I'm pretty sure the 2-year molars are on their way.  Teething & shopping don't go well together.

Why is my entry so long?

Walgreen's

I've been kind of out of it lately with couponing with the new baby. Don't worry, though, I've still been working on my ninja skills. I wanted to make sure you knew that Walgreen's has a pretty nifty deal on their cleaning supplies:

Click HERE to go to Moms By Heart, who listed this:

FREE SCRUBBING BUBBLES AUTOMATIC SHOWER CLEANER: $19.99
-$10 new printable HERE
-$10 EasySaver rebate #29
Final Price: FREE

FREE SCRUBBING BUBBLES 2/$5
-$2.00 new printable HERE
-$1.00 EasySaver rebate #27
Final Price: $.50 overage

FREE FANTASTIK 2/$5
-$1.50 new printable HERE
-$1.00 EasySaver rebate #27
Final Price: FREE

FREE WINDEX 2/$5
-$2.00 new printable HERE
-$1.00 EasySaver rebate #27
Final Price: $.50 overage

FREE SHOUT WIPES 2/$5
-$1.50 new printable HERE
-$1.00 EasySaver rebate #27
Final Price: FREE

Nearly Free Stuff

PLEDGE $3.49
-$2.00 new printable HERE
-$1.00 EasySaver rebate #27
Final Price: $.49

SCRUBBING BUBBLES SHOWER FOAMER $3.99
-$2.00 new printable HERE
-$1.50 EasySaver rebate #30
Final Price: $.49

I don't have the Easy Saver Catalog for this month to look and check, so if you do this, be sure to grab it and see how many rebates you can get back for each. Make sure not to buy more than you can get rebated back. It looks like most of them are rebate #27. I wonder if they allow a limit of two or maybe more? I guess I'll find out when I go in and look.

Also, I wasn't sure whether you really had to buy two of them to get the sale price or not, so I asked Moms By Heart, and she said that you only have to buy one and you'll still get the sale price. Just thought I'd mention that in case you wondered at all:-)

Teresa

This week

I'm glad I was able to do some shopping this week. Here's what I got:


Total OOP: $4.28
Total Savings: $69.45

The toothbrushes were free with coupons and using $1.92 on my gift card.

The veggies (from Albertsons) were on sale for .99 and then I used (12) $1/1 MFC making them free!

Mouthwash is free after SCR (rebate).

The deodorant and body wash were the part that cost $4.28. I'm nearly out of deodorant so I wanted to get some that were a good deal to help me stock up. I'm still trying to get a little better stocked up on body wash so I grabbed a couple (they came to about $1.50 ea).

I shouldn't need any pees or green beans for quite awhile. :-)

Becca

September

This is my first month to keep track of my spending for groceries and household needs.

Sept 1st-30th:

Total OOP: $148.56

Total Savings: $363.42

I still have a $33 Walgreens gift card to use and $8 in RR that I haven't used. I'm hoping to do even better next month in terms of percentage spent and saved...not in terms of the actual amount spent. But if it isn't better next month (well...this month since we're in Oct now), I really don't mind.

Becca

Walgreens

There are several deals I want to get but I've been slacking this week. However I did one run today. It might not look so great, so I'll explain. I am very very very picky about my skin. I oil my whole body twice a day with sweet almond oil to keep it moisturized.

Very few body soaps are actually good for your skin, the three main ones (from the store) that are good for your skin are Dove, Softsoap and Oil of Olay. So I only buy those. My point is that the body wash wasn't the best deal in terms of body wash but it was a good deal in terms of this body wash.

Body wash: $3.49/ea -- $5 RR wyb 3
Hair color: $1.99/ea -- $1 RR ea

Apparently some people had coupons for $1 off the hair color so that would make it free with the RR but I didn't have that. I had a haircolor one but it was for something else.

Total OOP: $13.44
Save: $13
RR: $8

The cashier thought I was so smart for doing all my purchases in separate transactions so I could get all of my RR. She then said, "The other day this lady came in with all these coupons and bought $110 worth of stuff but after her coupons it cost only $60!" I acted surprised but in my head I was thinking, "That's all she saved?" I thought for sure the lady was going to say something like, "....and after her coupons it only cost her $10!" of something more like that.

Becca

Toilet Paper

I'm pretty happy with what I got at Albertsons today. I did two transactions and will probably go back sometime this week to get some other things too.

Isn't Elliot so good at setting things up for the picture?! He just loves doing it and I enjoy seeing what he comes up with. Anyway.....here's how it went down.

The toilet paper (6 double rolls in each one) were on sale for 3/$7. You had to buy three to get them at $2.34 each (normally they are over $6 ea). That alone is a great deal. In my first transaction, I did the 3/$7 on the TP and I bought the Ken's Lite Spritzer stuff which was on sale for 5/$7 (once again, you had to buy 5 to get the $7 deal), that means they were 1.40 each. So I used my:

(3) .50/1 Angel Soft coupons which brought it to $5.50 for the toilet paper.

(5) $2/1 Ken's Lite Spritzer which means I MADE $3 total on them, bringing my total to$2.50.

Then I used my coupon doubler which gave me another $1.50 making my first transaction cost $1!

Transaction two was the other 3 toilet papers which cost $7. Then I used 3 more coupons for .50/1 which brought it to $5.50 and then I used another coupon doubler which brought it to $4.

TOTAL OOP: $5 (less than the regular price of one of the package of toilet paper)

TOTAL SAVINGS: $52.68

It actually didn't work just like that when I bought the stuff. It rang up wrong, I tried to figure out what was wrong but the cashier insisted it was right. I was confused as to how I had figured it wrong by $6. I left and then figured it out at home. What had happened was that both transactions rang the toilet paper up as 3/$10 even though that ad states otherwise so we paid $6 more. Dan was nice and ran to the store to me, explained it to them and they gave him $6 back. That sure happens a lot with Albertson's which is why I always try to know exactly how much it should be so I can at least figure out what went wrong when I get home if I can't figure it out at the sotre. It's nice that it's just across the street from us so if there's something that was wrong, it's easy to just run across the street and correct it.

We already had a lot of toilet paper but now we definitely have a good stash. If I had more coupons, I would go get more toilet paper. :-)

Becca

a sad day...

I feel like my life is ruined. I didn't get the newspaper last week. We kept forgetting, and soon it was Thursday. So, I asked Tyler to pick up the paper on his way home from work. He forgot. Friday came around, and I knew we were nearing upon our last chance. We stopped by a grocery store - THERE WERE NO MORE PAPERS! So, we continued on our trip and then stopped at another grocery store. THERE WERE NO MORE PAPERS!!

Oh, wo is me. I can't believe we didn't get the paper. I feel lost and confused. My eyes no longer focus. My brow has a constant sweat. Who am I? Where am I going? How I wish that I was someone really loved...by a newspaper.

Okay, so now I'm no longer making sense. So, maybe my life isn't really ruined, but how freakin' annoying to miss the paper!!

Teresa

And more soup.....

We weren't sure if there was anything we were going to get but we decided to walk to Albertsons with our coupons and see if there was anything we wanted. Since we just had the stroller, we didn't want to get much. So we ended up with more soup, just a different kind than before.

They were on sale for $1, which is a very good deal on it's own since they're normally$3 each. Then I used my coupons for .50/2 and my double coupon. So total OOP was $4 for 8 cans. A savings of $20. So each can was .50.

Soup

This deal wasn't as good as I was hoping. I'm not sure how I did my math wrong. I was about $2 off which is a big amount in coupon world for a small transaction. However, it's still a good deal.

Do you like Elliot's skills? He knows that when we get home from shopping, we set things up and take a picture. As soon as we walked in the door, he attacked the grocery bag and set everything up for me. I like how 4 of them stacked high and then the rest on the ground. Sweet boy!

Anyway, I paid $4 for this and saved $27.92. Not bad for a small transaction. They are soup things, I haven't had them before so hopefully they aren't too nasty.

Toothpaste

(I know I already mentioned this to you, Tim.) Nothing real exciting, just adding to my stash of toothpaste. Walgreens had a deal for $2.99 on their Cologate Max Fresh 6.0oz and then you use an in-ad coupon for $2 off each one (up to $16 off -- so 8 toothpastes). Then I used my (7) MFCs for .75/1. So each one equals .25 each for a total OOP of $1.75 for 7 TPs.

Walgreens...

We went to eat lunch with Tyler today. On our way home, we stopped at a Walgreen's. I found more Robitussin!!! I had twelve $3 off coupons, so I bought 12 Robitussin.

Am I insane for buying twelve of the Robitussin when I already bought nine, making it a total of 21 bottles? No. My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE to drink a bottle of Robitussin a day, so this was like a dream come true for them! Plus, when you buy three, use $3 coupon on each one, you get $10 back - meaning you earn $7 for every three you buy. I made $28 by taking those out of the store...and Walgreen's isn't out anything either. They get reimbursed for those coupons and the $10 RRs I received didn't come from their pocket either - came from the manufacturer. (yes, frex, I know you know this - just mentioning it for those who wonder.)

I also bought the Crest Pro-Health mouthwash. I think it was $4.49 and I receive as much back in RR. I bought a bottle of acid relief and nail polish - both were part of the monthly Easy Saver rebate thing (so I will get that back later). Then I needed a couple fillers and bought a couple toothbrushes for the kids.

I did spend money. I spent $11 on about $70 worth of stuff. I know *gasp* - it's shocking. I didn't have anymore money on my gift card, and I didn't want to waste RR more than I needed to. Now I have $50 in RR and will have over $20 added back onto my gift card when I get my rebates.

Quaker

Albertsons had their new deals for this week and they have some good stuff. Here is what I have so far. I don't know if I"ll do anymore deals but I might later this week.


The deal was 10/$15 (you had to buy 10 to get it for $15). My first transaction was all of the Quaker products. I had coupons for $1 off several of the items, then I used a double coupon.
Transaction 1 cost $3.30.

The next deal was for Ortega taco seasoning. After buying the cheap taco stuff last week we were hoping to find some cheap taco season. They were $1, used coupons for .75/2, and a double coupon.
Transaction 2 cost $2.20.

Total OOP: $5.50
Total Savings: $47.64
Each item averages out to .34!

I thought it was a pretty good deal! We eat oatmeal every morning so we should be stocked or awhile. :-)

Walgreen's again

Total Out-of-Pocket: $4.39
Total RR & Gift Card Paid Out: $23.91 ($20 was RR)
Total RR received: $20 ($30 in my possession)

The best deal at Walgreen's is to buy three Robitussin and use $3 off coupons, per Robitussin. In the end, you will owe $2.97, and you'll be given $10 back.

My transactions today were very similar to yesterdays.
______________________

Transaction ONE:
For this transaction, I wanted to use a$10 RR and receive $10 RR back. I also had a few other things I wanted to buy and not pay any cash for it.

- 3 Robitussin, $3.99 each = 11.97
- Used three $3 off coupons (link to coupon in previous entry)
= $2.97 and would give me $10 RR back.
* I needed to find stuff for $7.03 to take up the rest of the $10 RR that I was using to pay for it.

This is what I got along with it:

- 3 Kleenex, $1.29 each = 3.87
- Used (3) $0.50 MFcoupons
- Used Walgreen's $0.89 off coupons (though she rang it up wrong)
= $1.17 ($0.39 per kleenex)

- Round brush, $4.99
- Huge Hershey Bar, $1 (had to buy it to get total to $10)

I gave them the $10 RR.

They gave me a penny and another $10 RR for buying all that stuff.

______________________

Transaction TWO: I used my $10 RR that I had just received to pay for this next deal.
**There are coupon links for these in the previous entry. There are some newspaper coupons as well. I think they were in the 7/20 and 8/10 inserts.

2 Action Scubbing Bubbles Kits - 3.79 each= 7.58 (used two $2.75 coupons)
1 Scrubbing Bubbles Mega Shower Cleaner - 3.79 (used $1 off coupon)
2 Scrubbing Bubbles toilet gel - 3.79 each = 7.58 (used $1 off coupons)
2 Shout Wipes - 2.49 each = 4.98 (used two $0.75 off coupons)
2 Scarecrow figurines - $1 total
= $14.93 (after coupons)

Paid with my $10 RR
Paid $3.91 on my giftcard
Paid $1.43 in cash

Earned $10 RR back

**The cheapest way to do this deal is to buy all cleaning stuff that is $2.49 each. So buy seven of those. But I really wanted some good cleaning stuff, and so I chose some of the more expensive ones. If I didn't have my giftcard, I would have paid $4.93 for all of that - and that's pretty good!

Oh, and I had to buy the scarecrow figurines because they told me I had to have one more item than coupons. I was having a hard time finding something for $0.25, so I found stuff for $0.50 each.

_____________________

Transaction THREE

- 3 Robitussin, $3.99 each = 11.97
- Used three $3 off coupons (link to coupon in previous entry)
= $2.97

Paid it in cash
Was given $10 RR

Now I have $30 in RR. Tomorrow I will probably go back (I'll be in town already) and see if they still have some left, and I'll probably buy six or nine more. I didn't want to empty any store of them, so I've been taking it a little bit slow:-)

Walgreen's

I haven't shopped at Walgreen's for quite a while now. The last thing I did was buy the monthly rebate items. If you're new at shopping at Walgreen's (Mink), you might want to try doing that. You get the Easy Saver Catalog from Walgreen's - it's usually right by the front door - open the booklet to the page where it lists all the items you can buy and get free after rebate. You send in a rebate, and get all your money back for them. Just remember you can only buy one of each item listed (unless it says otherwise). You can send your rebates in online and they'll send you a gift card. Then each month, you can keep doing the rebates and they'll keep putting it on your gift card, plus 10%. (or you can have them mail you a check, but they don't give you the extra 10% on it).

So...anyway, I had my gift card - about $28.

This is what I bought, and I paid nothing for it:


This was done in three transactions at two different stores (only because the first store was out of stock).


TRANSACTION #1:
- (3) Robitussin, on sale for $3.99 each
= Total: $11.97

- (3) $3 off coupons
= $9 off

New total: $2.97
Paid with gift card (nothing out-of-pocket)

Received $10 register rewards (RR)
- That's a profit of $7.03

FYI: Mink, RR print out from a machine separate from the receipt, but it comes at the same time as the receipt. At the stores I've been at, the cashier will pull off the receipt, as well as the RR and give it to you. You can use it like a manufacturer coupon afterwards and buy almost anything in the store with it. The idea is to use it to buy something else that will give you RR again. You don't get cash back on it. You cannot do this deal again and pay with that RR. You would have to do a different deal, get a different RR, and then you could do this deal again.



TRANSACTION #2:
I saw a few things on the free-after-rebate list from the monthly saver, so I bought those really quick (I was going to do the cleaner deal, but they didn't have the stock for it at this store).

Excedrin - 20 ct = $3.99
Crest Pro-Health Toothpaste (4.0 oz, I think) = 3.79
- I didn't use any coupons, but there might be some that would've gone with these. I kind of randomly decided to buy this and didn't really check the coupons (I'm behind on cutting mine out and didn't bring them all with me!)
= 7.78

Paid with my gift card.
Will send in the rebate info and get $7.78 on my gift card.

In the end it will be FREE.




TRANSACTION #3:
I went to a different store and they were better stocked:

The deal that I did was buy seven items that were listed in the weekly ad (you can mix and match the items that are 2.49 and 3.79. Just look through the ad, somewhere near the middle, and you'll see what I'm talking about - you can mix and match those). I bought seven of them so that I could get $10 back in RR. There is also the option of only buying two and getting $2 RR and some other option, but I don't remember. .

This is what I got:

Scrubbing Bubbles Wipes - 2.49
Windex - 2.49
Scrubbing Bubbles Shower - 3.79
- Coupon for $1.00
(2) Shout Wipes - 2.49 X 2 = 4.98
(2) Scrubbing Bubbles Starter Kit - 3.79 X 2 = 7.58
- Coupon for $2.75

Total (prior to coupons) = 21.33

$9.50 off from coupons

New total = $11.83
Paid with gift card (nothing out-of-pocket)

Received $10 RR
(kind of like paying $1.83 for all of that)

Another coupon you could use is for the Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Gel $1 off

I used a coupon for each of the things I bought. The 7/20 SmartSource has lots of Scrubbing Bubble coupons, and Windex coupons. The 8/10 SS has the Shout coupon.

The plan was to pay with my $10 RR I just got from the Robitussin deal, but Violet was screaming and TS was upset, and I was flustered and couldn't quickly find an eighth item, so that I could use the RR. The kids are actually surprisingly good when I go shopping! I try to make it as fast of a trip as possible. This was probably the worst it has ever been shopping. Luckily it was only about five minutes of crying, and it was at the end of the shopping trip!

Just FYI, a RR is treated like a coupon. So, if you buy seven items, use seven coupons, and want to use your RR to pay for it - it will appear that you are using eight coupons on seven items. So, I was planning on buying a little $0.25 item to get my eight items, but Violet was starving and screaming, so I just gave up and paid with my gift card.

Now I have $20 in RR that I can use. I think tomorrow I am going to try to do the Robitussin deal again (if there is any left!) and I'll pay with my cleaners RR. Then I might do the cleaning one again, and pay with my Robitussin RR. I'll also try to do more of the monthly catalog items and will pay with either of the RR (and will get the rebates on those).

Mink, I know you might not do this deal, but I thought I'd include all that info in there to help teach a little bit about Walgreen's shopping. If you have any questions, let me know. If I don't know the answer, I have this nifty friend who almost for sure will!

I ramble a lot. I can't seem to make it short and simple...

Confused

I did a deal today and I'm not quite sure what happened with it. I think I'll go by Albertsons tomorrow and talk to them to see if I can get it figured out. I've had to do that before and so far I've always been right.

Anyway, here's what I got:


I don't feel like giving the break down. Basically I got 10 boxes of bars and 10 things of yogurt. The total OOP was $21.50
It should've been $16.50
It's a good deal regardless but $5 is a big difference! With the yogurt the deal was if you bought $10 it would give you $5 off and it didn't give me the $5 off. Dan did the deal and thought it did take it off.
For the amount I did pay it saved $48.20. If I get $5 back then I will have saved $53.20.

UPDATE: We did get our $5 back so it was only $16.50 total and we saved $53.20.

CVS and Tom Thumb

CVS:

Paid Out-of-Pocket: $0.97

Transaction total: $46.95 (total based off of sale prices)

Coupons: $20.99

Used ECB: $24.99

ECB earned: $31.99

Yes, I realize it looks like I didn't get a whole lot!

ECB is CVS Pharmacy store money - kind of like monopoly money that I can use in the store as cash. So, I paid for this stuff with $24.99 of my ECB (monopoly money), and only paid $0.97 with REAL money.

I had a coupon for the blood glucose thing, which made it completely free. It gave me $5 extra ECB (monopoly money), which is why I bought it. I am excited to try the Arnicare stuff. It's supposed to be good. I also got face wash and deodorant.

So, in the end, I left the store with about $6 more ECB than when I went in! The cashier was a sweet old lady who was new. She had to have help with every coupon and every ECB I used. It was funny. Then at the end when I only owed $0.97 in cash, she was shocked. It was really funny. She said she is going to start saving her coupons.

TOM THUMB:

Total (pre-sale/pre-coupons): $50.73

After sale & coupons: $21.93

4 Electrasol gelcaps/powerballs (20 ct each), $4.99, on sale for $3.79 each. I had (4) $2.25 coupons = $1.54 each ($6.16 total)

Airborne Nighttime: $7.29, on sale for 3.64, had $2 coupon = 1.64 total

Airborne Seasonal Relief: $10.99, marked as $5.50, had $2 coupon = $3.50 (accidentally came across this one)

Bag of Chicken, forgot I needed coupon for this and didn't realize it! I think it was in the weekly ad = $9.99 (obviously the chicken is not included in the photo below).

Speaking of Bread.....

Timmy, I just thought I'd mention this in case Kroger in your area ever does this. As I've mentioned, I like Country Oven bread the most (I don't know if you carry it in your area) but when it's not on sale it's not cheap. However, one of our Fred Meyer stores puts some of their Country Oven bread one clearance from time to time for .79. It's kind of strange to me because so far I've only noticed one of the Fred Meyer stores (there's at least 2 or 3 other Fred Meyer stores real close to us) doing the clearance. I don't know if they just do it because their overstocked or what but the bread is just fine.

Since there aren't typically bread coupons then it could be worth checking out. Of course you won't need to for awhile since you have lots of Sara Lee bread. I have like 2-3 loaves still in the freezer of Sara Lee but I'll probably use the Country Oven first before I use up the rest of my Sara Lee. Not that you need to know that.

Albertsons

So, I've been branching out from CVS a little bit more (helps to have energy). After we dropped the missionaries off from feeding them dinner, we dropped by Albertsons. Christine had this deal on her blog, so I copied her (thanks, Christine!!).

Total OOP = $4.99-ish

8 boxes of cereal = $3-ish
- The cereal was on sale for B1G1 free. I used four B2G1 free coupons.
- With the sale and the coupons, it should've been completely free. But what we didn't realize was that the cereal had to be B1G1 free of the same type (so, 2 cheerios, 2 kix, etc). We mismatched one set and did one cheerios and one kix and it didn't ring up as B1G1 free, but we didn't notice. So, we ended up paying for one box of CEREAL!

8 loaves of bread = $1.99
- They were on sale for B1G1 free. I had four coupons for free loaves of the same bread. So, I bought one with the free coupons and then got one free . Did that four times and ended up with eight loaves.
- Again, this should have been completely free, but if you look in the photo above, there is one bag of bread that is not like the others. Yeah, that one is the one that cost us $1.99!!

Also, as soon as we walked up to the self-check out, the cashier hollered "Are you LDS?" I walked over and told him yes. He said he was too. I asked him how he knew we were (I'm not used to people randomly asking me that!). He said that we look like it. He could see Tyler's garments peeking out the top, we "looked" like an LDS family, and all our little kids. I thought it was kind of funny. Good guess. Maybe he randomly yells that question out to everyone...

Now we have more bread than we need. Do you want some, Frex?

TERESA

Clothes

This isn't a coupon deal but it's a good deal. We are always on the lookout for cute cheap clothes for Elliot. We don't have a lot of luck with it since we're pretty picky about what we dress him in. We were at the mall and saw that Hot Topic was having a 50% sale off their clearance, which is really the only good time to shop at Hot Topic, I think....or not at all is good too. Anyway, this is what we got for Elliot. We paid $4.98 and it would've cost $20.00 not on sale. They're too big for him for now, they're a large 2T. He really likes them though!

Kroger

That's right, Frex, don't gasp or pass out...there is no CVS shopping being posted today. Though, I did drop buy CVS with Siouxsie this morning after my haircut, and we bought her a couple free lipsticks ($20 value).

Tyler had a work dinner he went to after work today. I was invited to go with him, but the baby couldn't come, and she's too little to be away from me for a couple hours, so we decided I wouldn't go. We both wanted him to go because it was a thank you dinner for him for something he did (I can't remember which thing it was for). There were other employees also being thanked for whatever it was. It was clearly incredibly important to me (actually, I know it's between two things, but there is no reason to explain all of that here, as that is not the point!). I knew Tyler wasn't going to be home until around 8pm, and I needed something to pass the time with the kids. So, I decided to go to Kroger to buy a couple almost-free things.

Total out-of-pocket: $1.36

The Poweraids were on sale for $1 each, and I had $1 coupons for each. So, they were free.

The Cottonelle toilet paper was $1.19, and I had $0.50 coupons that doubled, making them $0.19 each (in theory...had I done it right).

You might think, "Oh, that looks like a good deal." But, I say unto you, no...not as good as it was meant to be.

ERROR #1:

I did the toilet paper transaction in ONE transaction. Dork. I knew that in order to double ALL of my coupons, I could only do three at a time. I even wrote it on my nifty little piece of paper - DO TWO TRANSACTIONS. Only problem with that is I didn't LOOK at my paper! I was slightly distracted by TS who kept trying to stick a big sticker to the top of his head (his hair) and Emma who was dropping pieces of paper out of the back of the cart. So...that's the reason I paid $0.50 more than I should have for that! YES - $0.50!!! As silly as it might sound, it really does frustrate me. I feel like I played the game wrong...

ERROR #2:

When one does a sale, it's rather important to do the sale when it's actually within the sale date range. Have I mentioned I'm a dork? Well, I am. The sale is TOMORROW. Not today. Had I done it tomorrow, buying six poweraids would have given me a $4 coupon back to use on my next purchase (I would have used $1 coupons on the poweraid to make it free, in essence, they would pay me $4 to take six poweraids). I was going to see if I could put that $4 on a gift card, like I read I should be able to do, and then buy two more poweraids (using more coupons). But no, I had to forgot to pay attention to the date and ruin it!!

I can still do the deal tomorrow, but I only have $0.75 coupons, meaning I'm going to have to pay $1.00 total for four more poweraids. We've never had a poweraid before. I was only buying it because it's free! But I would get $2 back since I'll be buying four of them. So, in the end, I would make a whole dollar...whereas had I done it right, I would've made $4. That's all assuming that our Kroger is doing that deal as well. I suppose I could look in the ad. Though, it's just a $3 difference...whoopdeedoo

Anyway, live and learn. Or, if you're me...you mainly just live. I learn too, but then I forget that I've learned it, and so I have to learn it again. One day I'll get enough sleep and my brain will slowly stop leaking out my ears and maybe it'll even regrow a little bit.

This entry is far too long...

Timmy

Wednesday Shopping

Nothing real fancy at Albertson's this week but there were a few decent deals.

The Old El Paso stuff were on sale for $1 if you bought 10 items (you had to buy 10). I had coupons for $1/2 and then I doubled 4 of them.

2- Darigold yogurts were free! I really wish I had had more coupons so then I could have gotten lots of free ones. I don't know why I only had 1 coupon. Oh well, 2 free is good too!

Pasta Salad-I don't know how much they were. They were $1 ea and I used coupons. Same with the Yoplait Yogurt in the front.

Total OOP; $11.85

Savings: $26.77

Rite Aid doesn't have that great of deals this week. Nothing I'm real excited about at Walgreens either. Hopefully next week will have better deals.

Tom Thumb, Kroger, and CVS

I did a little bit of shopping at a few stores today.

Here's what I ended up with:

TOM THUMB: $0.26

Four Soft Soaps, $1 each, used four $0.35 coupons that tripled. In the end, I paid $0.26 total for the soaps (tax included). These coupons were in a previous paper, somewhere.

KROGER: $2.13

Eight Bounty Basics, $1 each, used eight $0.25 coupons that tripled, and in the end, I paid about $2.13 (tax included). The coupons were in the Sunday's paper. I bought eight papers...so I had eight coupons.

I also learned that at grocery stores, they will only triple so many coupons of the same item per transaction. I had no idea! Luckily I found out prior to going to the store, and my handy friend Christine, let me know how many each store will allow per transaction. Each store differs. Tom Thumb will only do one of the same item per transaction. Kroger is three items, and Albertsons is four. But I think each store, even within the same chain, can choose how many they will accept. So, I did some of the purchases in a few transactions. I used the self-serve lanes, which made it easier.

CVS: $0.98

I did a total of two transactions, one per card (my card and Tyler's card). This is what I ended up with after both transactions:

Four Toothpastes, 2.99 each, $1 off coupons for each, earn $2 back in ECB for each = $7.96 after coupons, earn $8 back in ECB

12 lipsticks (the photo only shows ten, I had given two to my sister). Six of them cost $9.99 each. CVS had a BOGO free sale, combine that with the BOGO free coupon in Sunday's paper, and it's free. Four of them were $6.99 (?) and were on sale for BOGO 50% off. I combined those with the BOGO free coupons that were in Sunday's paper. Then the two lipsticks with blue caps were $5.99 each, used two $1 off CoverGirl coupons, so the new total was 9.98 after coupon for those two, and I earned a total of $11.98 back in ECB.

In the end, at CVS...

I bought $111.94 of makeup/toothpaste

After store sales and coupons, I paid:

- A little less than $20 in ECB

- Earned back $20 in ECB

- Paid $0.98 in cash

coupon booklet

I got this in my email today. It's a P&G booklet offer with lots of coupons (at least I think it's P&G!) Either way it has a lot of coupons:

Coupon Booklet

terri

Doubling

I ran to Albertsons today for some double coupon deals. Here's what I got (didn't Elliot do a nice job stacking it all for me!):-) :



(3)Scott TP: on sale for $1
(3) .75/1 = .25
doubled = FREE

(1) Kleenex on sale for $1
.50/1 = .50
doubled = FREE

(6) 6 pk Raisins on sale for $1
(3) $1/1 = $1 for 2
doubled = .25 ea package of 6 = $2 for 36 boxes

Total OOP= $1.95 (with cloth bag discount)

I actually have like 6 more coupons for Kleenex but I need to get more coupons for doubling. I'll probably do that tomorrow and they'll all be free.

I wish I had had more Scott coupons because I would've stocked up for sure. A few weeks ago we totally forgot to buy more newspapers (we often get 3 or 4 on Saturday and then the rest of Sunday since Albs--where we get them on Sat--often only has 3 of them) and didn't notice it until we went to cut them a week later when the next paper came out. One dollar is still a really good price still but I don't feel like spending money especially since Scott TP isn't one of my faves.

Also, I wasn't planning on getting raisins, I didn't know they were on sale but I noticed them and thought I'd get them. We make our own trail mix a lot so we'll definitely use them, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought them because I don't really eat them otherwise.

Lastly, I really like not having sales tax! It's fun to get things for free and to have them be actually free.

Albies

Since Dan will be transferring home in a couple weeks, we are trying to save money until he gets his freelance checks in a month or two, so we hardly drive anywhere. I was feel like getting out so we decided to walk to Albertsons for some free ranch. On our way in, we saw an Albertson's coupon on the ground for a free 2-liter drink. I used to never pay attention to coupons on the ground but now I always snatch them up. I've gotten 5-6 good ones that way so far. After getting our free ranch (and other dressings) and free drink, we felt like getting more free stuff. So we decided to use our 6 coupons (I had my coupon binder with me, of course) for a free loaf of bread.



It was slow at Albs and that typically means we do a self checkout but we were in the mood to be flashy with our purchase and go to a cashier to show off. It worked. The cashier couldn't believe it was free! The total, without the coupons (with things at their sale prices) would've been almost $47.

Actually, this would've been free if I didn't have to buy a candy bar to make up the discount from my cloth bags. Everything I bought brought me to a $0 balance. But then he gave me the discount for my 2 cloth bags, .10, and the computer didn't like that. So I grabbed a candy bar, actually, I grabbed peanut m&ms and we all shared them on the walk home. Next time I think I'll probably just ask them not to give me the discount but this time I didn't mind the m&ms since I was pretty freakin' hungry.

I'll have to figure it out but the past two weeks (or somewhere around there) we've hardly spent any money compared to our regular budget. It's so fun (even if I don't have a CVS)!

Something New

For the past few weeks I have been paying a lot of attention to Safeways deals. Typically they have one or two I'm interested in but that's it so I never care to make the effort to go there. Two or three weeks ago when I was at Albertsons, I handed the cashier my big stack of coupons and he asked if I had any Safeway coupons. I told him no. He explained that I could use my Safeway coupons and double coupons there. It didn't really click in till a couple days ago though. I don't know why I've been so slow to figure it out. I've read about people doing such things on their blogs but it still didn't occur to me to try it. But it suddenly made sense so I tried it out yesterday.


My first transaction was just on Albertson's deals using coupons and doubling them.

Kotex were 2/$5
--$1 off one
--(doubled) .50 off
--$.75 off one
--(doubled) .50 off = $1.12 ea

Ritz Bits were $1 ea
--(2) $.75 off 2
-- (doubled) $1 off = .38 ea


Transaction Two (Safeway stuff)

Super Coupon for $2.99 All Detergent
--$1 off coupon
--(doubled) .50 off = $1.49

Super Coupon for $1 per pasta sides
I can't remember what coupons I used for it but I do know that they came to .75 for the two of them so they were .38 each.

So I ended up paying $6 for it all.

Next time I'm going to try getting a little fancier with it and try doing several transactions. This time I was trying to keep it simple because I was getting confused by it with the double coupons, Safeway deals and everything. Luckily I know the workers at Albertsons quite well (thanks to Elliot's flirting) so they are typically very helpful.

Holy St. Ives!

Good day of shopping for me. Dan was putting Elliot to be so I checked a couple of my coupons blogs for deals that are going on. I found that Rite Aid was having some good deals that I failed to notice in the ad so I headed to the store.

For a deal that should've cost $73, I made $3.03 on it! Isn't that awful!! Here's what I got:


The yellow, brown and green bottles (St. Ives Elements) were $6.99 each and were BOGOF, so I used 5-BOGOF coupons and got them all free. If I hadn't cleaned them out I could've got two more of them. They look really nice too, they are facial things which I love! I was just telling Dan a couple days ago that I needed some facial things.

The white bottles (St. Ives lotion) were .99 each and I had 6 coupons for $1 off ea one and they were also BOGOF, so I made $3.03 on them.

I love free stuff and I love Rite Aid! I'm going to go do a facial now! :-)

CVS...again

AND

WE BOUGHT:

• six packs of HUGGIES = 53.94
• four LAMISIL DEFENDERS = 31.96
• two PEDIA-LAX ninja ENEMAS = 3.98
• 3 fillers: 2 candy bars, 1 tic tac = 2.35-ish

At least now if any of our ninjas are constipated, we have some enemas they can use.

By the way, it was cheaper to do it this way than to only buy the $25 worth of diapers in one transactions and use coupons. Making it cheaper was really the only reason I bought the Lamisil and Pedia-Lax because we all know Ninjas don't get constipated...

TOTAL PRICE: $92.23

WE PAID: $5.31 out-of-pocket

TOTAL COUPONS: $38.00

TOTAL ECB USED: $48.56 (or so)

TOTAL ECB EARNED: $34

When we did the little Kodak DVDs a couple weeks ago, we actually made an extra $15 ecb per card than we paid. So it kind of covers the difference here, plus some.

__________________________________________________

TRANSACTION 1 (did this two times per card, 4 times total)

• 1 LAMISIL, 7.99 each (earn $10 ecb per 2)
• 1 pack of HUGGIES, 8.99 (earn $5 ecb per $25)
• TOTAL: $16.98

Coupons:

• 1 LAMISIL, $4 off
• 1 HUGGIES, $1.50 off
• 1 $2 off $10 purchase
• TOTAL = $7.50 off

= $9.48, paid with ecb and little bit of $$

earned $15 ecb per card the second time we did the transaction and none the first time we did the transaction (we earned none the first time since we hadn't bought $25 worth of diapers and hadn't bought 2 lamisils until the second time we did this).

__________________________________________________

TRANSACTION 2 (did this one time per card)

• 1 pack of HUGGIES
• 1 PEDIA-LAX, $1.99 each (earn $2 ecb)
• TOTAL = 10.98

Coupons:

• 1 HUGGIES, $1.50 off
• 1 PEDIA-LAX, $1 off
• 1 $2 off $10
• TOTAL = $4.50 off

= $6.48, paid with $5.79 ecb and the rest in cash

earned $2 per card

__________________________________________________

Have I mentioned I love Rite Aid?

Last week I was really bummed that I missed out on some great deals at Rite Aid. I could've gotten lots of free stuff if I had had the money to front before the rebates. But today I had a great time shopping at Walgreens and Rite Aid, mostly Rite Aid, so I feel better about last week.
Here's what I got:

(2) Cottonelle TP double rolls
$1.75 ea

(3) Kotex feminine pads
.99 for one of them and 1.99 ea of the other two

(4) Electrasol dishwasher tabs
I made .25 on one of them and the other three were $1.75 ea

(4) Right Guard deodorant
$1 ea

(6) Dawn dishsoap
.50 ea

(2) Loreal StudioLine Gels
$1.50 ea

(2) Scotch tape
.50 ea

(1) Soliel Razor
.99

(3) Soliel Razor refils
.99 ea

(2) 12-pk AA batteries
$2.25 ea

(12) Bic markers
ALL FREE

The total price was $130.32.
Matching sales with coupons, it came to $34.18 that I paid out of pocket.
I know to some couponing people that might not seem like a great deal but I just think those people are crazy. I haven't been happy with Walgreens so I haven't been shopping there much, therefore I had no gift card or Register Rewards to use to make my Walgreens trip cheaper.

A couple of the things I wouldn't have got if I didn't actively need them, like the hair gel. Since I have curly hair, I'm pretty picky about my store gel so having it BOGOF made it good enough that I paid for it even if it wasn't amazing. Also, the dishwasher gel tabs I had coupons for $2.25 off that were expiring today and I wanted to use them and Rite Aid had a pretty good sale on them. One of them (as you might have noticed) I made .25 on because I get a rebate for it.

Anyway, I'm happy with it! A few days ago we were driving to the coffee shop and on the side of the road someone left some shelves that had "free" sign on them. We are in much need of shelves for storing stuff so we grabbed them. I put it in my closet and they are nearly full from all my good deals. They aren't huge shelves or anything but they're a good size. Since I haven't been doing this for long and I've NEVER stocked up on stuff, it's really fun to look at it full of stuff even though I know this is just the beginning. :-)

CVS: Week of 8/3

Total Cash Spent = $6.88
Total Coupons Used = $38.05
Total ECB Spent = $35.79
Total ECB earned = $28.58

Total Purchase (w/out card savings) = $128.71
Total Purchases (with card savings) = $85.71

THIS IS WHAT WE BOUGHT:
1 Schepps Milk, (no coupons, no ECB) = $3.79

6 Oral-B Advanced toothbrushes, $2.49 = $14.94
- Coupons: (6) $1 off = $6 off
- Final Price = $8.94
- ECB earned = $9

4 Colgate Total Advanced, $2.99 = $11.96
- Coupons: (4) $1 off = $4 off
- Final Price = $7.96
- ECB earned = $8

2 Infant Advil, $5.79 = $11.58
- Coupons: none
- ECB earned: $11.58

6 Pert Plus, 3.69 = $22.14
- Store Sale (card savings): Buy-1-Get-1-Free = $11.07 off
- Coupons: (4) $3 off = $12 off
- Final Price = FREE ($0.93 profit)
- no ECB

8 Sure Deodorants, $2.89 = $23.12
- Store Sale: B1G1 Free = $11.56 off
- Coupons: (4) B1G1 Free = $11.56 off
- Final Price = FREE
- no ECB

1 CVS Mouthwash, $2.39 = $2.39
- Coupon: (1) CVS Mouthwash coupon = $2.49 off
- Final Price = FREE ($0.10 profit)

1 CVS Aspirin, 100 ct, $1.99 = $1.99
- Coupon: (1) CVS Aspirin = $1.99 off
- Final Price = FREE

6 Post Cereals, $4.59 = $27.54
- Store Sale: B1G1 Free = $13.77 off
- Coupons: (3) $1 off two boxes = $3 off
- Final Price = $10.77 ($1.80 per box)

Photos: (4) 5X7 = $5.96
- Coupons: $5 off = $5 off
- Final Price: $0.96

Sunday Shopping

We did a bit of shopping today before the good stuff was gone. :-) Here's what we got at Walgreens
4- Hair color : $2 ea with coupons = $8
2 -Toliet paper: $.99 ea with Walgreens coupon = $1.98
1- 5 lbs sugar: $1.99
4- Index cards: $0.19 each with coupon = $0.76
3- Pencil boxes: $0.49 each with coupon = $1.47

Total OOP: $14.20


Obviously the biggest part was the hair color. I'm running low so I wanted to get some while it was cheap. Also, the sugar wasn't a GREAT price but we're starting to run low so I thought I would get one in case there isn't another better deal in time.

I was a bit annoyed because the Right Guard deodorant was BOGOF so it would've been like $1.29 for 2 of them with coupons. I decided to get 4 of them and use my 4- $1 off coupons. The cosmetic lady cashier wouldn't allow it. She said since she could only take two of the coupons since I was actually only paying for two. I briefly tried convincing her otherwise but could tell she wouldn't budge. I haven't had this problem at Walgreen's before but I've only done a few BOGOFs with coupons there before. Do you know if they often do this in your area?





This is what I got a Fred Meyer
I'm definitely not going to be running out of PB&J anytime soon since I did a similar deal a few weeks ago. This one was better though since each item was $1.33 (last time they were $2 each). I already have a lot of peanut butter so I just got one this time. So this cost $16.

TWO CVS Shopping Trips

Tyler went shopping at CVS last week. ECB only last for a month, and they were about to expire. So, he went the day they were expiring and bought the stuff below:

QUICK STATS:
Total Purchases $119.89
Card Savings: $44.98
Total w/Card Savings: $74.91

Total Cash Spent: $2.50
Total Coupons: $39.50
Total ECB used: $33.93
Total ECB earned: $49.95

Purchased items in two purchases on two cards.

(2) Stayfree Pads, $4.50 each = $9

* Coupon: B1G1 Free = $4.50 off

* Final Price = $4.50

* ECB earned = none (not yet)

(3) DVD Home Movies, $9.99 each = $29.97

* Coupon: (3) $5 off = $15 off

* Final Price: $14.97

* ECB earned: $29.97

(2) Revlon Limited Edition, $9.99 each = $19.98

* Coupons: (2) $2 off = $4 off

* Final Price = $15.98

* ECB earned: $19.98

(4) Schick Intuition Razors, $3.99 each = $15.96

* Coupons: (4) $4 off = $16 off

* Final Price = FREE (actually it was a $0.04 profit)

* No ECB earned

It was quite the adventure for Tyler. He found some $5 off coupons for the DVDs and used those. Then he got confused (because coupon shopping can be confusing!) and accidentally bought them differently than I had written out for him to buy the stuff. He combined two transactions into one and didn't roll the ECBs the way they needed to be. So, instead of making a $15 profit on the DVD deal, he broke even. Also, at first they accidentally entered in the DVD movie coupons wrong and charged us $5 for each coupon, so we were paying $15 more and didn't get the $15 off. So, we got it sorted out afterwards and ended up getting a $30 refund.

WHAT WE BOUGHT TODAY

QUICK STATS:
Total Purchases $164.28
Card Savings: $43.82
Total w/Card Savings: $120.46

Total Cash Spent: $1.56
Total Coupons: $36.99
Total ECB used: $81.91
Total ECB earned: $95.55

Purchased items in four transactions on two cards.

(8) Packs of Stayfree Pads, $4.50 each = $36

* Coupons: (3) B1G1 Free, $4.50 each = $13.50 off

* Final Price = $22.50

* ECB earned = $20

(8) Maybelline Define-A-Lash, $5.99 each = $47.92

* Coupons: (2) $1 off = $2 off

* Final Price = $45.92

* ECB earned = $40

(2) Bandaid Bandages, $2.99 = $5.98

* Coupons: (2) $1 off = $2 off

* Final Price = $3.98

* ECB earned = $4

(2) Infant Advil, $5.79 = $11.58

* Coupon: (1) $2.50 any pain relief = $2.50 off

* Final Price = $9.08

* ECB earned = $11.58

(3) Kodak DVD movies, $9.99 = $29.97

* Coupons: (3) $5 off = $15 off

* Final Price = $14.97

* ECB earned = $29.97

(1) CVS Chapstick, $0.99 = $0.99

*Used as a filler (no coupons, no ECB)

It was fun going to CVS again. It's so addicting to go to a store where you can buy so much stuff for free. The cashier was super nice and didn't seem to get it at all how I was getting the stuff for free. She said something about wanting to learn how to do it. Out of four transactions, only two of them did we pay anything for (one was $0.27 and the other was just over $1). It was fun. It was also my first shopping trip with the new baby and the two other kids. Luckily Tyler was there! I think I will never go grocery shopping without him...hehe.

TERESA