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