Coupon Crazy!

Walgreens - how I love thee

2011-02-20T08:56:00.000-05:00

So Frugalsuz had listed a great deal last week for Walgreens diapers. Basically it worked out to 2 packs of diapers and 2 packs of wipes for $3.98. Well you had to have 2 different coupons and of course I couldn't find them at any of my Walgreens and I was so annoyed. Frugalsuz had found a couple extra books and graciously sent me one of the coupons I needed. The best part of that coupon is that its a Walgreens one and it doesn't expire until December! I decided to try one more Walgreens to look for the other coupon and low and behold I found 9 of them!!! So I was able to get 9 packs of diapers and 9 packs of wipes for $16.00! Two of the packs were on clearance for $4.xx a piece, so keep your eyes out for the different packaging. It seemed to only be the size 5 ones in the dark green packages that were on clearance - and they weren't marked. I know some people reported finding the old white and red Walgreens packaging of diapers on clearance as well but I didn't find any of those.

I think I have enough 3's and 4's for the little one, so I've been gettind 5's and 6's now which I only have a few of. The bottom of her closet is filled with diapers and on the top rack its all filled with wipes! I'll post my RA trip from this morning later..

Randomness

2011-02-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

So after a busy start to the year we went away for the weekend with my family up north. It was great. It was so beautiful up there and it was nice to not worry about anything for a bit. Work has been busy, but I am glad to have a job!

We're heading out to California next month, so I'm going to do a pantry challenge. This will help me with my goal of making meal plans hahah! We did nachos last night, we had pizza casserole tonight, tomorrow will be cordon bleu casserole in the crockpot, and then Thursday is a stir fry. That's as far as I've gotten, so it's better then nothing! Want to join me on the challenge? I'd love any suggestions for recipes too, I've been trying a lot of new ones lately! Leave a comment on your favorite!

I've still been working out 4 times a week, which is about the only goal I've been able to keep!

I haven't been grocery shopping much which is nice on the budget, but I have been loving RA lately! Although, I'm quite sick of them not having enough stock. Either there is a serious shelf clearer or they suck at ordering enough stock. But I hear the J&J baby items will be free next week, so I'm going to suck it up and get my caboose up early on Sunday to get those deals!!

How have you been doing with your goals? Join me for a pantry challenge, and let me know what you'll be making.

FAIL!

2011-02-08T07:18:00.000-05:00

Okay so I could make up excuses all I want, but I am totally failing at my goals! Obviously my time management is lacking so I'm hoping to improve on that! I haven't even worked on my receipts from January and I've tried to keep all of them from February, but we'll see how that goes. I think our grocery budget is done already for this month, or at least close because of our Superbowl party, but you know what, it was so worth it. I think everyone had a great time and there was lots of good food! You can't put a price on being with family and friends.

With cleaning for the Superbowl party I wasn't able to do my daughters room. I started putting clothes away that she has already grown out of, which is nuts, and that's as far as I got! But in other good news, the rest of the house is clean still! So it wasn't a total loss....

I'm hoping to get some stockpile pictures up here this week or next. This is another busy week, and to top it all off my laptop isn't working at home so it limits my posting time too. Hopefully I can get that in the shop this week!

Please tell me I'm not the only one who has already failed at their new years goals!!

Pictures and some RA shopping!

2011-02-01T21:45:00.001-05:00

Here are the before and after pictures of the basement. It doesn't look that much different but there were games and books out of place and all messy that were driving me insane. Plus its another reason for me to use my new Dyson. I LOVE that thing, its amazing.

This area is right when you walk into the basement. The black shelf and white cupboards are part of my stockpile so I've just been dropping stuff in front of it to be put away. There is also a box of photos and some scrapbooking stuff.

The couch cover just laying on the ground (I hate putting this thing on).

This is the corner of my sons craft stuff and his toy box. He just puts things on the toy box instead of putting them away.

The cubbyhole you see above the bookshelves is where we put our extra fames, luggage, crafts and sleeping bags. It doesn't look organized but I just organized it a couple of months ago. We don't touch this part much so I didn't bother going through it again. For some reason my son has a hard time putting books back how they were so he just puts them on top of the ones that are standing up, it drives me batty.

This is the game and toy corner. We had most of his games stacked neatly into these little cubby boxes, but I think it's hard for him to restack them so they fit so he just puts them on the ground.

After photos

I stacked some of his games that won't fit in the cubbys on top of the toy box so he can see which games are which, and that couch cover makes it look so much better down there!

The books are all put back where they belong.

I emptied all of the stockpile bags and put everything where it belongs. This always takes me the longest and is the most annoying part of stockpiling! The white laundry basket that is in the picture holds the stockpiled dog treats so that anytime we are out my son or husband can easily find them.

The games are all put back nicely...we'll see how long that lasts!

I went to RA today to get all the freebies, and of course they were out of everything except the Stayfree pads. It's so annoying, if they are going to have a sale they need to have the stock to back it up. And its not even like this is the first time it's happened, it happens EVERY week. And they only get a truck in once a week and the sale stuff isn't guaranteed to be on it. Uggg, this is what I hate about RA! Hoping with the snow that is coming today I'll have some time tonight or tomorrow to cut more coupons to be ready for the sale on Thursday in case they actually have some new stock in!!

For this week I am hoping to get my daughters room done. I am SOOO embarassed to even post these pictures because it should never look like this and it's my fault! I've just been going through her new and old clothes and she's been growing out of them like leaps and bounds. Hopefully I can get that straightened up and keep it that way! How is your room cleaning going???

Rrom 2 Done and some RA shopping!

2011-01-31T21:13:00.000-05:00

Well this week it was my goal to get our basement cleaned up and organized. Our basement is home to my son's toys, my stockpile and some miscellaneous stuff we just needed to put somewhere! Last week was pretty hectic as everyone here got the flu so in all honesty I wasn't able to finish the basement until today...oops! But at least its done. I was going to post pictures but now the baby woke up so I can't, so I'll upload them tomorrow.

This week is a great week at Rite Aid - check out frugalsuzs blog on the right hand side to take a look at all of the great matchups including free dog treats, stayfree pads (great item to donate or if you know someone who is having a baby in the near future they could use these!), free edys ice cream and a bunch of other things! I knew I should have sucked it up and went to RA early Sunday morning but I just didn't feel like it. Instead we made a big breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen and then my mom came for dinner. So of course when I went today all they had left was the Stayfree. Oh well, I'll just try another store by work on lunch tomorrow - they usually have more stock anyways. I haven't had the chance to really look at the other ads yet but I think from what I remember Meijer has some decent stuff this week and Kroger's mega sale is extended this week as well. I was able to pick up some cheap Kraft singles and Kens dressing!

I think my favorite deal today was free batteries at Target! Unfortunately, I didn't find out about this deal until the weekend and the coupon expired today, but it might be a good thing to know next time this coupon comes out! At Target, in their dollar bins they sell Every Ready batteries and they are made by Energizer. Energizer had a $1 off coupon in one of the inserts and I was able to use that coupon on those batteries without any issues and only paid tax! I bought 15 packs and paid .90. Now these aren't the greatest batteries in the world but I'd rather pay next to nothing for them and throw them out quicker then pay big bucks for the better batteries. They go perfect for my sons hand held games, especially on car rides!

Room 1 - Done!

2011-01-25T10:22:00.002-05:00

Well this was an intesting week! It was the LONGEST 4 day week of my life! We started our bowling league on Thursday and that was pretty fun! I had my graduation ceremony (whoo hoo all done) on Saturday and then our whole family went out to eat at a yumm restaurant. It was a great time. After we got home, my husband got the stomach flu so I was taking care of him Saturday and Sunday. Then my son got the flu yesterday and it feels like I have it today...booo.

Anyhow, I did complete my first room of cleaning/organizing/decluttering. I got rid of 3 grocery bags of garbage that I didn't even know I had in there! I also organized all my gift bags and Easter stuff, so now I know what I have! This week I'm going to work on the basement. Luckily, it's not too bad but I have stockpile stuff on the floor and just some odds and ends I'd like to tidy up.

This week looks like a slow shopping week thank goodness. There are some great deals on the Sinex at Walgreens and one of the drugstores has a money maker on the Maalox. I'll post the deals on those later tonight. For now, I'm going back to bed, but wanted to post that I did complete my goal of cleaning one room so far!

Holy clothes Batman! It seems like ever since Christmas all I've been doing is laundry. It doesn't help that our house is a quad and the laundry is at the very bottom floor and it needs to be hauled up to the very top floor!

This is the corner of the laundry room where I have a stockpile of kleenex, toilet paper and laundry detergent on the floor. As you can see, it's gotten pretty messy!

This is behind the door and is just a mixture of party and holiday stuff. Its been driving me nuts for a while because everytime I open or close the door something falls!

Here are the after pictures:

Everything is restacked nice and neat. The cardboard box is holding the clothes that my son and daughter are out growing. I usually put those away once a month. The cardboard box is sitting on a rubbermaid box that hold items I want to sell at our annual sub sale in September.

Remember all those crazy clothes? They are all put away now and I can see the floor! The black bag hanging on the door there is all of our unmatched socks - I usually try to match these up once a month.

This is the back of the door now. It doesn't look all that much different, but to me it is!

New Year with New Goals

2011-01-17T15:31:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year! A little late, but none the less! Last year was a very very busy year. I finished up my Bachelors degree, and we had our second baby. December seemed to fly by and January seems to be doing the same. This year I've got a few goals that I'm going to try and tackle and hoping this blog can keep me somewhat accountable...if I keep up with it!

Goals

1. Work out 3-4 times a week
2. Declutter and organize the house - and keep it that way!
3. Track all grocery/drugstore spending so I can see the totals at the end of the year
4. Save as much as possible for vacations/Christmas/new stuff for the house/etc
5. Donate whatever we don't use from the stockpile and our odds and ends
6. Meal plan

Goal 1 - So far 3 weeks into the new year I'm still doing good on this goal! After I had the baby I actually weighed less then I did before I got pregnant, so I wanted to keep my weight the same. We used to belong to Lifetime gym and we loved it, but when we were looking for a house we decided to cut all unnecessary expenses and that was one of them. We decided to join again and love it so much. They have a great childcare room for our kids and it allows us to workout together to keep us both motiviated. I also do pilates classes at the gym on Saturday's....so far so good!

Goal 2 - Ehhhh, we're getting there. After Christmas and all that, our house looked like an absolute disaster zone. It was filthy, there were toys everywhere, unopened presents, clothes, dishes, boxes, everything everywhere! We are finally getting it back to clean, but we want to purge the stuff we aren't using and make better use of the space we have. I'm planning on working on one room a week to get it purged and organized. I know it sounds like a lot of time for one room, but for me it's what will work since I work and like to spend time with the family when I get home from work. Needless to say, cleaning and organizing takes a back burner to everything else.

Goal 3 - 2 years ago I had a great spreadsheet that I tracked all my grocery/drugstore purchases but my flash drive got formatted before the end of the year and I lost everything! So this year I'm going to try it again, but there have been such fabulous deals at Rite Aid that my receipts are ALL over the house, purse and car. So I'm hoping to get those all organized and put together this week and then enter in all the receipts the same day. We'll see how it goes.

Goal 4- At the end of the month whatever money is left over from the month will go right into our savings. Currently we put away $100 a month for vacation and $80 a month for Christmas gifts. Last year we slacked BIG time on putting the $80 away a month for Christmas, and I'm bound and determined to not make that mistake again. So I'm trying to pay all bills as soon as I get paid and make sure we put money away for gifts and only then can we spend on "other stuff".

Goal 5 - We usually donate between 2-4 times a year to Purple Heart or a women and childrens shelter. We made a big donation to Purple Heart in November and I have a big Rubbermaid tote of stuff to take to the shelter. Hopefully we can do that this week or next, but right now the box is just sitting in our kitchen driving us both nutty.

Goal 6 - I've seen everyone meal planning a lot lately and when I've been able to do it it does wonders. Meal planning takes the guess work out of wondering what's for dinner when I get home and trying to throw something together. It helps us from just ordering out because we're too lazy or there isn't any meat thawed out. I've been doing it on and off, I don't know that I could do a whole week's worth of menus, but even if I do a couple of days it helps me out. Its all about doing what works for you. Tonight we are having smoked sausage and macaroni mixed with broccoli. I know I'd like to make a stuffed cabbage casserole this week so I just need to stop and get the cabbage - might do that for tomorrow night. I think I'll just make a weeks work of meal ideas I'd like to do and just make sure we have those items on hand for the most part and see where it takes me.

I'll be keeping you updated on these goals at the end of each month. I got back into couponing big time since I've been back at work (there are all the stores I need right by work so I hit them on lunchtime) so I'll be posting my deals and pictures of the goodies I've gotten again! I get most of my deals from Frugalsuz - she's on the blog roll to the right - she does a fantastic job of outlining the deals and what coupons go with them. Well the baby is sleeping so I need to catch up on some laundry. This week I'm tackling the laundry room!

Wow its been a while!

2010-11-14T18:53:00.000-05:00

Well it has certainly been a while since I've posted! I have to say I do miss it! I finally finished school - I've got my Bachelors now, so that should free up some time! I had our little baby girl Sept 27th and she's been keeping us busy! She is so perfect in every way! I've had to take some time off shopping and hounding for a bit with being so busy and stuff, but I'm back at it and better then ever! There's some great deals at all three drugstores and I can't wait to get out and shop!

Great News!!

2010-04-08T19:37:00.000-04:00

Sorry I've had such a long hiatus, but I just had way too much on my plate and couldn't fit in blogging too! I had a pretty hard and time consuming semester of school and a big project at work and was just so tired all the time! In between all that though I got some great news....I'm pregnant! Thankfully I'm in my second trimester now and feel a bit more pep in my step, but still always feel on the go! Our little one is due Sept. 25th and we find out April 29th what it is! I can't wait, Babies R Us here I come.

I started my second to last semester of school, and I'll officially be done Sept 13th, and I can't wait. It can't seem to come fast enough. I started back up hounding a few weeks ago and it felt great! Oh how I missed CVS. I started out by getting like 8 bottles of Dawn for free, and got a bunch of diapers for pretty cheap too. I think so far we have close to 40 packs and about 8 packs of wipes, so I'm getting there! Anyways I hope to be on here a bit more often, and I'll probably do a mix between posting about the pregnancy (I'd kind of like a journal) and grocery!

Is it the end of January yet?!?

2010-01-20T17:47:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone, hope you had a safe and happy new year! We were just so tired out with everything we decided to stay home and just pig out! I'm usually one of those people who say my new years resolution is to work out more, eat better, etc, but this year I decided I should change it up. I do stay in shape for the most part and I don't eat bad so I don't really know why I make those my resolutions! This year I decided I'm going to try and just relax more and don't worry about the things I can't change and the things that happened yet. It didn't get me any farther last year worrying about those things so I might as well try something different!

January has already been a busy month. My little one turned 5 and we had a birthday party for him last week at the house and I think it went pretty good! Both mine and my hubbys classes started up again, so we miss the time we had off! Work is still going, not all that great, but its going. Things are definitely changing and its really hard to adapt to it, its just been so much like a family there and now it feels like its being broken apart. Oh well, all I can do is keep my head in the sand!

I've been shopping a little bit more this month and my favorite deals are listed below. We went to Meijer last Friday to get stuff for my sons party and just some other general items we needed and our before coupon total (including beer) was $90. After coupons it was $46!! I was so happy, it was a good way to start off the couponing year.

CVS

Oust $3.99 - use BOGO coupon and get $3 ECB for each one - I think the limit is 6?

WALGREENS

Bayer and Contour meters $14.99 - use freebie coupon and buy both in 1 transaction get 2 $5 RRs and 1 $3 RR! So just pay tax and get $13 in RR's!

The grocery store deals aren't very good this week...thankfully, I'm too tired to shop! I hope next week they are better, although Meijer just had their 10/$10 sale, so I doubt they'll have anything good!

I'm BAAAACCCKKKKK!!!

2009-12-30T21:35:00.000-05:00

Hey all, I can't believe its been a month since I posted! It has been CRAZY around here the last few weeks and I'm looking forward to a nice quiet weekend - we'll see how that goes! We went on our cruise Dec 13th - 20th and it was amazing, I wish we didn't have to come back. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, couldn't ask for anything better. My two favorite islands were Aruba and St. Thomas by far - you could definitely do a week vacation on those islands alone!

The night after we got home, our darn furnance went out! We had gotten home around 9 that night and noticed it was cold and after playing with the thermostat realized the furnance would kick on then turn off. We were having my hubbys side over for Xmas Eve and plus it was freezing so we really couldn't go without heat, so we called that night and they were out within a half hour. They said it was a bad board - it would be around $600 - $700. Our furnance is 17 years old as it was, and I know when we got the house 3 years ago our inspector told us we had like 4 or 5 years max on that furnance left. So we decided we should bite the bullet now and get a new one. Unfortunately I didn't have time to compare prices and furnances so we went with what the guy recommended. I think we paid a bit more then we should have but they did come at 10pm and had it all installed by 4am so that was definitely good service. And we live in a quad so this furnance is supposed to help circulate the air better then our old one. We notice that our top level is about 5 degrees colder then our main level and we hated that. I've noticed the past few days its only about a degree or two cooler so it is helping! Plus we will be getting a rebate from DTE and Consumers for having an energy efficient model and we will qualify for the tax credit of about $900 too. So that helps I guess.

Christmas was great, got to see all the family and then we had my cousins wedding shower on Sunday that was a good time. We are just laying low for New Years Eve and making a good crab legs dinner! I just need a few days of pure nothing, I still feel pretty whipped! Although I can't wait to go do a good grocery shopping!! I miss the stores!

How was everyone else holidays? Any good new year resolutions out there?

What good deals did you get???

2009-11-29T20:20:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I know we did! It seems like its non stop around here and I'm just pooped out! I can't seem to keep up with it all. Makes me look forward to vacation more and more! I had to work on Black Friday so I didn't really go out in the mornning except to Lowes to get the hubster something (don't know if he reads this or not so I can't say what it was!), and then I went to Target after to get some xmas presents. I can't believe they had a lot of their games left, so I was pretty happy! And of course I hit up Walgreens and CVS and thankfully that was a 3 day sale! As I've mentioned before I've been shopping a lot online so I'm doing pretty good on presents. I'm actually going to sit and list/evaluate what I have for everyone while I'm watching Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters tonight. I feel like I'm making some progress, but there always seems to be something else!

I haven't been posting any deals really because I haven't even been to the grocery store for "shopping shopping" for about 3 or 3.5 weeks now! Its been nuts, I've been busy, been burned out and just have a lot at home that we make do with, so I guess all this stockpiling is paying off! I've just had to go for the milk, fruits and veggies.

We got a new Walmart by us, but I haven't really ever shopped there....any good deals there?

Well I'm going to gear up to deal with the presents, laundry and then of course some Cyber Monday! What good deals did you get?

Who's Ready for Black Friday?!?!

2009-11-22T21:20:00.001-05:00

I AM I AM!! If you haven't had a chance to check out a preview of the ads head on over to http://bfads.net/ to check them out! Of course I'll be hitting up CVS and Walgreens, but thankfully I just don't need much so I don't have a shopping gameplan yet. I am going to stop at Lowes, I see they have a fire/water proof safe for $20 that my hubby has wanted so I'll grab that on the way to work - yes I do have to work, but I told my boss I could be a tad late :) That man is awesome! I'm hoping that a lot of the sales in store might be online as well, especially Kohls. You can always find great stuff there!

I've been doing some online shopping lately which I LOVE! I use Ebates which gives you money back for your online purchases. Granted its only a few percent, but it ads up, especially around the holidays. If you haven't used Amazon yet, you so need to check it out! I've gotten some great deals on there 64% off legos, cheap cds, and even some awesome vaccum bags. I've gotten half of the presents online and now I just need those little filler gifts, which I think I might get $5 or $10 gift cards for coffee and be done!

So I read about this deal that sounded too good to be true, but it isn't! You sign up for a trial of Complete Home for $1 and get $50 in gift cards for Lowes! After a couple months of hearing people actually receive their cards and were able to cancel their membership easily I decided to try. It took about 2 weeks to get the cards and then about 5 minutes to cancel the membership - go here for the details.

Making a profit at Rite Aid!!

2009-11-12T22:14:00.001-05:00

So I don't normally shop at Rite Aid because their prices are too high for me, but everyone keeps talking about how much they make off their rebate program and this and that. I've wanted to try for a bit, but I don't want to put out a high OOP and I'm so afraid I"ll forget to send in the rebates. Well this was the perfect time to try and with a low OOP!

2 Herbal Essence shampoos - 4.49 BOGO
2 Herbal Essence conditioners - 4.49 BOGO
4 stylers - 4.49 BOGO
1 Oral B toothbrush - 2.99

I think my total was like 23 and change and then I gave the cashier a $4/$20 q from coupons.com and 4 BOGO coupons for Herbal Essence. Drumroll please....I only paid her .01! That's right just one little penny that you can find on the ground got me all that. But the best part is that the toothbrush has a 2.99 rebate on it, so after I get the rebate back I actuallly made $2.98!! I hope the rebate thing is easy, I just did one at Staples and I'm waiting for that still, I get so nervous! I tried to take a picture of the receipt but because I can't figure out how to turn the flash off I just kept getting a blank white screen!

Walgreens has been a trip too! I finally found a store that had the Kleenex in stock, so I got some and I'll grab some more tomorrow. Oh I'm going to wear myself out with all this free stuff!

More Free Stuff This Week!

2009-11-11T20:19:00.001-05:00

Well I seriously thought this was a slow week, but boy was I wrong!

Walgreens

Bayer Monitors - 14.99 and get a $5 RR
     Use Q from 10/25RP to get it free (only pay tax)
     MONEY MAKER!!

Kleenex - 1.09
    Use .50/3 Q from 11/1SS and $1 Q from Healthy Savings booklet
     MONEY MAKER of .23 or so

Ocean Spray - 1.99
    $1 peelies found on bottles + $1 Q from booklet (can't remember if its the Novemeber one or the Healthy savings one, these are by the sales flyers)
     FREE!!

RITE AID

Herbal Essence - BOGO
    Use BOGO Q from 10/11 P&G
    Get both products free (just pay tax)
If you have enough Q's for this, there is a $4/$20 purchase coupon on coupons.com that you can use as well to get $4 in other free stuff!

Well I'm off to watch my for my sis on the sidelines at the college football game! Go Chippewas!

Betcha can't guess how much this was???

2009-11-06T21:21:00.000-05:00

So I went to Kroger to use up some more coupons, but I was a little shy to do more then 3 mega sales at once, but the cashier was so nice. Here is the loot I got...all for .80!! Yep, you read that right, less then one dollar got me all this!

I still have a TON of coupons to use up so I'm excited for that. I am actually getting .50 overage for each playtex glove and I got $2 overage on the rolaids! I think I'll stock up on some other baking things like condensed milk and pumpkin and maybe some lunchmeat or fruit. I'm so excited!! What did you get at Kroger?

Kroger Mega Sale Rocks!

2009-11-05T21:29:00.000-05:00

So for the second week in a row, Kroger is doing their mega sale! I'll try to post pics this weekend, but the jist of what I've been getting are playtex gloves, rolaids, cheez its, keebler cookies, and scott sponges. The gloves are a money maker - .50 on each so I've been getting the cheez its and cookies - .24 each to eat up the overage. I think the Rolaids with the $4/2 coupon will be a .50 money maker too, so I'm thinking of trying to get some canned pumpkin for the holidays. This past week has been incredibly crazy, and I can't wait for the weekend. The hubby and I are going to play bocce ball with a friend of mine and her boyfriend so I'm excited for that. I hope the posts will be more frequent next week, I had to get my stats test out of the way and my presentation for my other class!

Free Dove at Wags!

2009-10-29T22:04:00.000-04:00

Walgreens has a deal on Dove shampoo/conditioner which is awesome! They are $4.99 BOGO and if you buy 8 you get a $10RR! So here is what I did to make it a money maker...

8 Dove conditioners - 19.96
8 $1.50 coupons - 12

Used a $8RR I had from last week and paid $1.47 or so in cash. So it "cost" me 9.47 and I got $10 back! You can do this with 4 conditioners and 4 shampoos an stilll make like ..04 I believe. Its still a good deal even if you pay a buck or two! Head on over there and grab some free stuff!

I <3 Kroger

2009-10-27T22:04:00.000-04:00

Made a quick trip to Kroger and this is what I got for $1.84!!! I can't wait to find some more q's and do it again!!

4 boxes of Cheez Its - kept one at work for a snacky!

4 evaporated milk

2 keebler cookies

7 playtex gloves

1 lean cuisine - ate for lunch, a girls gotta eat

Paid only $1.84!! Run, do not walk to your nearest Kroger and whip out those coupons for the Mega Sale! What deals did you get there?

Some Online Shopping at JCP!

2009-10-26T20:38:00.000-04:00

JCPenney has a coupon code for $10 off a $10 purchase just by using the promo code SWEETS4U, so I decided to take a look. I ended up getting the below bathing suit top and matching bottoms, as well as a set of lounge around shorts for $7.33 (shipping was $5.95).

I needed a new suit anyways and this will go perfect for our cruise! I'm not sure how long the coupon code will be around so get shopping!

Boston Market also has a coupon out now for a meal for $1 that is good for the week, so can you guess what I had for lunch!?!? It was 2 legs and one breast, with mashed potatoes and cornbread. Pretty good if you ask me for $1!

So it looks like Kroger might have the better deals this week over Meijer. I'll highlight them both below.

Meijer

Snuggle - $3.39
     Use the $3 Q from 10/4 RP
     Cost - .39

Pillsbury mini brownie mix - $1.29
     Use the .40 Q from 9/27 RP
     Cost - .49

Campbells Chunky soup - $1.19
     Use the .50/4 Q from 9/20 or 10/11 SS
     Cost - .86 each

Bananas - .33/lb

Kroger

They are having their mega even sale right now which is if you buy 10 participating items you get $5 off your bill. The prices below are noted after the $5 discount (.50 off each item).

Carnation Evap Milk - .50
     Use .50/2
     FREE - Stock up for the holidays

Kotex - $2
     Use $1/1 printable
     $1 cellfire Q
     FREE - great donation item if you don't use this

Scotch Nail Saver - .50
     $1/2 9/20 RP
     FREE

Playtex gloves - .50
     $1/1 10/4SS
     FREE

Cheez Its - .99
     Use $1.50/2 10/4 RP

Keebler cookies - .99
     Use $1.50/2 printable
     Cost - .24 each

Danimals - $1.49
     Use $1/1 10/4SS
     Cost .49 each

Tyson split chicken breast - .99/lb
     Use .50 Q from 10/4SS
     Cost - varies

These are only the best things I see that are free/cheap.

Free KFC Chicken on Monday!

2009-10-25T22:41:00.000-04:00

Yipee, free KFC Chicken tomorrow. Here is the link explaining it, I don't think there is a PDF or coupon to print this time. Looks like free lunch tomorrow!

Link

Cake Pops!

2009-10-19T21:04:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I lovee Bakerellas site which is here. Her stuff is always so cute and creative, and she makes it look so easy! I've been wanting to try these because I was hoping to make them for Halloween if they were easy enough, so I tried them tonight. Let me tell you, they were pretty darn easy, and I had a lot of fun with them. I used orange chocolate disks from Michaels, but either I used too much on my cake pops or I didn't get enough chocolate. My batch made about 36 pops, but I only had enough chocolate for a little more then half of them, so I'm leaning towards I didn't knock enough chocolate off. I also couldn't find an edible ink pen at Michaels, so I want to get one before Halloween when I make these again. I thought it would be cute to put Jackolantern faces on them. We'll see!

I won't have much time to put up the drugstore deals, but check them out here. This is where I come to look before I hit the stores after I've looked through the ads. Sometimes I miss stuff and I like to double check!

Any other good baking sites out there for me to check out? I LOOOOOVE baking!

Cheap Chicken and a new potato recipe!

2009-10-18T16:59:00.001-04:00

So after my fun trip to Meijer yesterday I dropped the boys off and went to Kroger for cheese and Vince and Joes for chicken fryers. I think I got like 20 packs of cheese (shredded, bar and slices) for $1 each. I know I could have waited for a Kraft sale but we were running pretty low, and that doesn't happen around here! We seem to go through cheese like water. I also bought two of the chicken fryers from Vince and Joes, I just love making it in the crockpot sprinkled with some rosemary and lemon slices on it. We usually are able to get a couple of meals out of this, so I'll probably make some chicken salad with the leftovers tonight for lunch tomorrow!

After showing hubby the cheese, he wanted more of the Muenster cheese slices, so I went back out this morning and got more and also grabbed three more chickens. I couldn't resist, they were only $2, and basically were already cleaned out, makes a cheap meal.

So we are pretty stocked on everything for a bit, I hope! My main goal was to make sure they had something to eat while I was at school two nights a week, that wasn't just boring old sandwiches or take out. I think I accomplished that!

I was looking at the stockpile pictures on HCW last night and it inspired me that I wanted to take some and see what everyone else thought. First I want to clean up my shelves though...you don't need to see how unorganized I am! Hopefully I can get around to posting those this week. I grabbed a paper today as usual, so I'll post those deals later.

Tonight for dinner is the chicken in the crockpot as well as these. I've never tried them before, but the ladies at the Grocery Challenge board say they are amazing, and well frankly, we're tired of just regular baked potatoes. I have so many from the garden its not even funny, so I'm trying all the new recipes I can!

What were your favorite deals last week?

Finally Some Good Shopping!

2009-10-16T21:38:00.000-04:00

Okay, I must say, I haven't done a big grocery shop for a while, its usually things here or there because we have such a big stockpile, but Meijer had some good sale items as well as catalina items, so I was able to do a bigger shopping trip! I'm sure its not big like everyone thinks, but its big compared to my standards of just 5 things at each store! Here's my first picture on this blog!

Sorry I don't know why its so blurry, but here are the items I got. I have to say hubby and son did come with me and they hardly ever do, but I think hubby just needed to get out of the house! They cost us a few extra dollars, but it was alright, well worth it. It was kind of nice having them come for once.

pig ear - .99 (extra item)

dog chain - 1.84 (extra item)

chicken bouillon cubes - 2.39

2 Tyson chicken thighs - 2.77 and 2.91

bread - 3.69 (I thought this was the one for the pepperidge farm deal but you can get the ones that are 2.49, live and learn)

cheese cake - 4.99 (free item for buying 2 viola meals)

beer - 17.19 + deposit 2.40

2 soup - 1.30

6 soup - 3.90

grapes - 1.87

kid soup - .99 (extra)

tonys pizza - 1.98

4 soup - 5.06

gummy worms - 1.30 (extra)

4 ziploc bags - 6.76

chips - 1.97 (extra)

2 eckrich sausage - 3.98

2 broth - 3.98

2 viola meals - 5.98

OJ - 2.29

snuggle - 27.93

The total was 108.xx - and I ended up paying 43.02. We had about $7 in bottle returns so subtracting that off of the beer total, $12 or $13 was beer. So for groceries it was $30 (I don't include beer in my monthly budget). I also received a $5 OYNO cat :) I am going to go back tomorrow for the Super sale, which I swore started on Friday but apparently I was wrong!

We are going to the Cider Mill tomorrow and then to get a costume so that will be fun!

More Meijer Items!

2009-10-14T21:32:00.000-04:00

So I finally had a few minutes to go over the Meijer ad and see what other good deals were out there, and I have to admit I am exited to do some shopping on Saturday (I try to get it all done on Saturdays as I don't have enough time in the week!).

Here are a couple more things that end up being great prices!

Campbells cream soups - .65
     Use $1/4 mealbox q and this $1/2 printable (or there is a coupon in the 9/27 SS)
     Free or very cheap
     ****Great to stock up - think of any holiday cooking you will be doing*****

Snuggle - $3.99
     Use $3 Q from 10/4 RP

Tyson Chicken (not sure if this is breasts/thighs/etc) - $1.99/lb
     Use .50 Q from 9/27 RP
     I try to find the lowest priced package to make it the cheapest

Campbells Harvest Soup (bowl or can) - $1.29
     Use mealbox q and coupon from 9/20 SS, 9/13S or 10/4 SS
     .39 for the bowls and .49 for the cans

There are a couple of Catalina deals that my friend Pubbler posts about. I think I'm going to do the Ziploc and the Peppridge farm one this week, hopefully it will bring down the cost of the other groceries, or at the very least I'll be able to get some free Snuggle with the $5 catalina from the peppridge farm deal. Not too shabby! She also lists some great money making scenarios at Rite Aid. I haven't tried my hand at Rite Aid yet, but she does really well with the rebates. If you are diligent with doing rebates I highly suggest you check out her blog and start making some money on the things you need anyways!

We are heading over to the cider mill this weekend and then off to find the little one a costume. We usually pick a big bag of apples and then try to make some good recipes with them so if you have any fun recipes you do with apples I'd love to hear them! Also, my mom brought me a large bag of pears from my grandmas tree, so if there are any good recipes out there for that too, I'm all ears!

Favorite Deals This Week

2009-10-12T19:57:00.000-04:00

I haven't had too much of a chance to look through the papers, but so far here are my favorite deals (I'll update as I get through the papers):

Meijer

Snuggle (sheets and liquid) $3.99 - use $3/1 coupon from 10/4 RP
Some people have reported seeing this at their dollar stores for $3 - I checked the Dollar General by me and they only have a 40 count dryer sheet box for $2. I think the one at Meijer has more sheets in it, but I will see when I go later in the week.

Kroger

Kroger Block and shredded cheese 10/$10
I know sometimes you can get the Kraft cheese with a coupon and good sale cheaper then this, but I'm out of cheese (oh no, say it isn't so!), so this is a good deal for me. I bought a few packages at Meijer last week but they were out of stock, so I didn't get as many as I wanted.

CVS

Pumpkin Carving kit - $1.99 get $1.99 ECB

The Dreaded Dentist

2009-10-06T21:46:00.001-04:00

Oyy I knew I hated the dentist for some reason! Little background - me, my brother and sister always hated going to the dentist, I guess I don't know why exactly, but needless to say I still hate it. I started going to a new dentist that my hubby goes to and raves about. He said they all make you feel so comfortable and everything, so I gave it a shot. I went about 2 months ago and took our son, it really was painless and quick, and the hygenists were so nice. And the actual dentist was a real doll, I really like it there, I do. Until they told me I had 3 baby cavitites. Are you serious? I brush, I floss, I hardly eat a lot of candy or sweet drinks, how did this happen? Oh well I pouted for a couple days and just scheduled an appointment to get them all done (I think its the shots that I used to hate that freaked me out). So I told them I don't like dentists, I don't like shots, etc. They numbed me to no end with some minty gel stuff and they were so gentle with the shots, it really wasn't a big deal. It only took about 45 minutes and I was done. I thought, well this isn't so bad.

Fast forward to about 3 weeks ago. I was eating a crouton in my salad and my darn tooth gave me this awful pain where I had the filling done. I just wrote it off as nothing. A couple days later as I was drinking water (ice cold as usual) I got the same awful pain. I knew I should make an appointment but I just didn't have the time to go, plus I didn't really want to. Well since I was off of work with my hubbys surgery I figured I might as well just call to see whats up with the darn tooth. Yeah well not so glad I did that, I now need 2 freakin crowns. She said I must have had fractures in my teeth from grinding them and when they did the fillings the drill vibrations made the fractures worse so they only thing to do is crown them. Well whoo hoo another $800 out of pocket. I do have to say I am thankful for having insurance, but come on $800, that is a house payment! Oh well, guess we can't win them all. Anyways, I'm thinking of doing one at a time maybe one in November or so because its just very uncomfortable with the cold water hitting my teeth and then having to be careful what I chew.

Well as I'm typing this our Tigers just lost the game to the Twins :( Now off to watch NCIS that I taped...mmm I love that show!

Christmas Ramblings

2009-10-06T11:44:00.000-04:00

I know I know, its not even Halloween and I'm talking about Christmas! I LOOOOVE Christmas more then any holiday, and if I had it my way I'd have a tree up all year round! My SIL emailed the other day asking who was having Xmas and since we hadn't had it for a couple of years we offered to have it. So I was thinking, I might as well list some savings idea for hosting Christmas as well as how I buy the Christmas presents on a budget. With my husbands family we do Christmas on Xmas Eve with them and then we are with my family on Christmas day, its worked out well for the past 5 years, and we get the best of both worlds/families!

Christmas presents on a budget

We save all year so we have one less stressor while buying presents. As if its not bad enough to not know what to get the teenagers and everyone else, I seriously don't need to worry about how I'm going to pay for it all! We each put $40 a month away ($960 a year), and then some here and there. Even if I have to spend more then $960, at least its not going to be a whole lot more. I think last year we had about $40 or $50 left over, so that just rolls over into this years budget. This year my lovely parents are taking us (me, hubby, son, brother, sister) on a family vacation for Xmas, and we're going Dec 13th - 20th. So I will have to make sure all my stuff is bought and basically wrapped before we go! I've been doing pretty good, I've already got a few of my nephews pretty much done, and I've gotten a lot of stuff for our son already. We have 3 teenagers to buy for, and I think they might be at the age where giftcards are just the best bet, so I might take the easy way out and do that (even though I hate that). So how have I already started to get presents you may ask? CLEARANCE!!

A few months ago Target and Kmart had a great clearance toy sale. I was able to get our son a couple of Leapster games and LeapFrog books, I got my two nephews a couple of things and I got my niece a couple of clothing things from Kohls. It may not be a lot already, but its a start! I have ideas of at least what to get the little ones so that makes it a bit easier too. I have a feeling there will start to be some good sales coming this month on things, so I want to try and see if I can get some lists from the rest of my family.

Cooking Christmas on a Budget

Well luckily there are always good food sales on Christmas cooking items so I'm not too worried, but I would like to sit down in the next month and just figure out what we're going to have so I know what to look out for for a good sale and again, its one less stressor for me. The one year we hosted it here for my hubbys side, we had made a sort of Italian dinner. We did stuffed shells and I can't remember what else, but it was not the traditional dinner you hear of, and boy it was good! We also bake a lot around the holidays and I have already stocked up on most of that stuff (.99 flour was an awesome deal!), but I just need to go to Costco and get a big bag of Chocolate chips and I need some more cocoa.

Moral of this long winded post....Plan early and stock up! What are your favorite Christmas saving tips?

Baking All Day!

2009-10-05T20:36:00.000-04:00

Well since hubby had surgery on Friday, I decided to take today and tomorrow off to help him out. You don't realize how much you really do use both hands until you can't use one of them! He slept a lot of today and so did the little one, so I got a couple hours to just sit and enjoy doing nothing! I know I know I should have been doing homework or something, but I'm so tired!
After the little one woke up he wanted to make cookies (he found my cookie cutters and was all geeked). So we made some sugar Halloween cookies, it was a good time! I've been wanting to make these since I saw them posted, so I finally did it! Ohh they were really good, I didn't do the chocolate drizzle on top, but I can only imagine how good it would have been! If you get some time, make them, you won't be disappointed, I promise.

I'll post the deals at CVS and Walgreens tomorrow, looks like some decent stuff!

Monthly Totals!!

2009-10-04T21:55:00.000-04:00

Okay drumroll please! Here are the totals from August - remember this was the month we tried to do the stockpile challenge.

Items - 495
Retail value - $865.19
Coupon value - $662.88
Value on gift cards - $49.33
Total OOP - $167.67
Savings - 76.62%
Cost per item - .44

Whoo hooo! I'm pretty pleased and I'm thinking I'll try again another month!

I've been so busy the last week its insane! My husband had shoulder surgery on Friday, so we were trying to get the last minute stuff done that he wouldn't be able to do for a while last week, and then our son got what we think was the stomach flu, and trying to work and clean and everything else, I didn't have a minute to do anything! So I've taken tomorrow and Tuesday off to help with my hubby and get a few things done here, so we'll see how it goes! I didn't even have time to grab a paper yet today so I'm not sure how the drugstore sales are but I did look at Meijer and I'm not impressed so thats good! They are having their 10 for $10 sale on Meijer brand stuff so I think I'll skip it this week!

Saving Money on Insurance

2009-09-28T21:56:00.000-04:00

Even though this doesn't have much to do with coupons, it does deal with saving money, which I know we all love! I received our auto and home renewals last week and thought the rates were fine. The auto insurance actually dropped by a buck (whoo hooo) and the home went up a bit but I figured that was because of rates always going up and because we added water backup coverage (I think that was about $60-$80). I wished the house was a bit lower but I figured there really wasn't anything I could do because I was not going to lower my coverage to save a few dollars. I just chalked it up as one of the necessary evils of owning a home. I had gotten an email from my agent a few days after I received the renewal notices and she said the premium had increased a couple hundred dollars from the year before and she had asked the company to run my insurance score to see if it went up for possibly a better rate. Well guess what, it did go up!! This lowered our premium by $233! I am so super excited as its been a expensive month already and with hubby getting his shoulder done this week I was bummin at all the crazy expenses lately! So lesson learned here, if you aren't thrilled with your rate, call and ask them if they can run your insurance credit score to see if it went up. If not, you can always shop around for the best price, there are tons of companies out there who would love your business!

What a week!

2009-09-27T18:17:00.000-04:00

Well this has been quite a week let me tell you! My boss was out all week on vacation and of course EVERYTHING just had to go haywire. Worked some long hours and needless to say I've been beat all week! My classes started last week, and I had stats on Thursday. I have to admit the teacher is so awesome so I'm actually looking forward to the class. He reminds me of a mix of Santa Claus and a class clown. He actually makes stats interesting...if there is such a thing! My other class starts on Tuesday, its some dumb business analysis class, and from rumors I hear the teacher kind of sucks! I'm so not looking forward to it but at least I'll know people in that class, so we can be miserable together.

We decided to get carpet downstairs (we live in a quad so its not a REAL basement but its our sons toy room and our laundry room). We lost power a few months ago for a couple of days and of course the sump pump stopped working (we didn't even think of that damn thing) and our basement was in a few inches of water. We steam cleaned it and everything just to get it back together until we could get some quotes. We ended up going with Empire Today, they had done our sons bedroom a couple years ago and we really liked them. They will be coming out on Weds. The price he quoted and the end price were over $500 difference, I can't believe how much they mark this crap up, it really infuriates me. Hubby and I ripped up the carpet and padding yesterday and my parents came over to help move the stuff out today - they rock!

Needless to say the house has been neglected and so have my coupons! I did hit up Meijer on Saturday for some good deals, I'll post those with a pic later on. Today Kmart started their doubles (up to $2, supposedly a limit of 10 coupons, but my Kmart doesn't care how many you have), and I just had to go there. I have to say for once I wasn't really impressed. None of the normal stuff was free after coupon or maybe it was just because I used most of my coupons the last two rounds. Who knows. I'm sure as I'm clipping them tonight while watching DH I'll find some good deals. I did get 5 boxes of Hartz treats, 1 can of Resolve, 5 boxes of Kelloggs Special K (buy 5 boxes get $5 off instantly, combined with $1 off Q's made them free) and 4 boxes of Visine for $1.74. Not too shabby considering I love this Resolve stuff and we're out and our son and my hubby LOVE Special K and I was just told last week we were out of it. Meijer has some good deals this week too which I'll post later with my pic and totals.

We're still eating out of the stockpile but honestly I feel like I miss goingn to the grocery store or something, I'm sure its saved a good amount and I know I could do better, I'll post the totals later for so far. Yesterday I made the broccoli cheese soup and was able to freeze two cans of it for another winter meal. Tonight we are having turkey mushroom meatloaf. This week we willl eat leftovers or sandwiches for lunch. On Friday my hubby is having shoulder surgery so please pray his Aflac comes through and pays while he is off of work. Anyone ever have any experiences with Aflac? I'm just so nervous for some reason.

Favorite Deals This Week

2009-09-22T20:51:00.000-04:00

Walgreens

Thermacare 1ct. - $2.49 - get $2.49 RR
Use $1/1 coupon
FREE + $1 profit!

Carefree liners $1.99 - get $1.99 RR
Use $1 coupon from 8/30 SS
FREE + $1 profit!

Target

Market Pantry single string cheese .40
Use $1/2 coupon
FREE!

Meijer

Del Monte veggies - .69 each
Use $1/5 coupon in last weeks paper and $1/3 from Meijer Mealbox here
Buy 15 to get the price for .16 a can - this is rock bottom and a great stockpile item

Crystal Light - $2
Use $2 coupon from 9/13ss and Meijer Mealbox

What are your most favorite deals this week?

Two yummy and quick recipes

2009-09-22T16:55:00.000-04:00

So here are two recipes that I really enjoy. The alfredo one I made a couple weekends ago and we all loved it, we actually think that it was better the second day! The other is a soup I made last year that I can't wait to make this year - they are both perfect for fall/winter recipes! Most of this stuff you'll have on hand, which was pretty nice. I never seem to have the ingredients on hand when I find a new recipe.

Crockpot Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo

Broccoli Cheese Soup

3 cups water
3 cups chicken stock
3 bags broccoli steamers (could use fresh if you have any left from the garden!)
3/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 package kraft american cheese slices
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 cup milk
1 cup light cream
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup cold water
1/3 cup all purpose white flour

In large saucepan, bring the water (3 cups) and stock to a boil. Add the broccoli and onion; boil for 10 to 12 minutes. Add the cheese, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until cheese melts. Add the milk, cream and butter. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly.

Add the water (1/2 cup) to the flour and mix until smooth. Add slowly to the hot soup, stirring rapidly. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the soup is the consistency of heavey cream. Serve with rolls.

Hope you enjoy these as much as we do!

MIA

2009-09-19T22:13:00.000-04:00

Sorry I've been MIA for a few days, but we've been preparing for our garage sale that started on Thursday and will end (finally!) tomorrow. My aunt did one a couple weeks ago and I put a few boxes in hers and made $156 so I decided to participate in our sub sale to see if I could get more! I put some stockpile stuff in there as well as some junk from our house. So far I am at $130ish and we still have tomorrow to go! I'm so happy because all of this will be going into our vacation fund for our cruise in December! Its kind of tiring and overwhelming because all your energy and time goes into sitting outside (which has been gorgeous weather so I can't complain about that!) but my house is in some serious need of TLC.

We've still been keeping up with the stockpile challenge. I've been taking turkey sandwiches to lunch with some type of snack and my hubby has been coming home for lunch (as usual) and either making a sandwich or eating the leftovers from the night before. Today we ran out of milk so I ran to Meijer and spent $25, I was kind of upset but there were some good deals on things that I didn't want to pay full price for. I got milk, doritos (hubbys Sunday snack for halftime, don't mess with him if he doesn't have his Doritos), romaine hearts, 16 cans of campbells soup (for those lazy winter lunches/dinners), 5 boxes of Nabisco 100 calorie packs (ended up being about $1 for all of them and I like those for little snacks with lunches), 2 tombstone pizzas (I just knew I wasn't going to want to make lunch today while doing the garage sale, these were $5 all together, not too shabby, but a splurge, bad me!), sour cream, oatmeal (for oatmeal cookies in the winter) and I think a few other things. I like to stock up on the baking stuff when its on sale because if I had to buy all that at once it'd break the bank! Thanks to Pubbler for letting me copy her Meijer deals and being so patient while explaining them to me over and over this week....my brain is sort of mush this week.

I found a few things at the other garage sales today, I got my son 2 computer games for a dollar each and 4 books for $2. Then my SIL called and said this lady had a basically brand new trampoline (I've been looking for one) for $50! So I got there and the springs look brand new and so does the jump part, but when I got it home I noticed there was a dime size hole in the jumping part, I hope its still okay, anyone know if this is fine or if I should take it back? Anyways we are going to give this to our son for his xmas present, hope he likes it!

Well thats enough rambling for the night, I'm going to read the little one a bedtime story and then hope I can make it up for SNL....haha.

Totals so far..

2009-09-14T21:14:00.000-04:00

Well this is day 14 of eating out of the pantry/stockpile and I just thought I'd report my totals so far! Below is for health and beauty stuff as well as food (its mostly food though). I noticed we were able to mainly eat from the stockpile but as I was searching for recipes to make I found some really good ones I just had to try and that caused me to run to the store to get the few things I was missing. All in all it was worth it....especially for the crockpot chicken fettucini recipe! It was to die for.

Drum roll....

So far $69.40 has been spent this month! That's it! Usually I'm in the $150 or $200 range by now! I am pretty proud of myself but I do think I could do a little better next time, live and learn! This has definitely taught me there are a few things I need to keep stocked like canned mushrooms, cream of chicken/mushroom and some other canned veggies.

What are your most stockpiled food items?

Just some randomness!

2009-09-11T17:52:00.000-04:00

Well it looks like it will be a gorgeous weekend here in Michigan! We are going to the bus races at the Flatrock speedway this weekend, its always a great time!

Yesterday I had yogurt for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and we made egg salad sandwiches with chips for dinner. I did go out to Aldis yesterday and got 4 cans of mushrooms, a bag of chips and some parmesan cheese. It was about $7 dollars.

Today I wasn't feeling so good this morning so I didn't eat - hubby and son had cereal at home. I had a sandwich for lunch and for dinner we are making steaks, potatos (from the garden) and salad (with fresh veggies from the garden).

I'm hoping to make a crockpot chicken fettucini alfredo this weekend one day (probably Sunday), which is why I needed the cheese.

I'll have a bit of time tonight after we close the pool to put up a few deals that I see for next week...

LeapFrog Issue and Food for the day!

2009-09-09T21:19:00.000-04:00

Well today I had yogurt for breakfast and half a bagel. Lunch was leftover chicken marsala and we ate dinner at my moms (homemade spaghetti sauce!).

We bought my son the Leapster 2 for Christmas last year (its like a gameboy but its ALL educational games, but the kids don't know they are learning haha) and my son absolutely loves it and so do I! He has about 7 or 8 games for it and last month he kept telling me that it was turning on by itself. Naturally I thought he was joking with me. So we had to sleep in his room one night while our bedroom was being redone and sure enough my husband got up and took the batteries out because it kept turning on! So I looked at it the next morning and I could hardly see the darn screen! I had to turn it every which way to even see anything. So I emailed LeapFrog and let them know what was happening, and they gave me somethings to try and I did try with no luck. I emailed them this morning saying it didn't work and within a couple of hours they emailed me back saying they will make an exception and send me a brand new one!

I have to say I am very impressed with their customer service. The first time I emailed them it didn't take long to respond either. We have so many LeapFrog toys and that is what I get for most of my nieces and nephews now. I'm just so happy because he uses this thing a lot and really likes it (right now the Sonic game he is playing is teaching him to count by 5's!).

If I didn't ask or take 3 minutes of my time to email them to let them know the issue I was having, I honestly would have broke down and bought another one, that is how much we love this product. But I did ask and I got an even better response then I thought!

Moral of the story: Always call if you are unsatisfied with a product, you might get more then you expect!

$1 Restaurant.com certificate!

2009-09-09T08:23:00.000-04:00

Hurry hurry to get 90% off your restaurant.com purchase. You can get a $25 gift certificate for $1 by using the code NINETY. This will also work on the $10 ones. I looove getting these for Christmas gifts (yeah I know I am starting my shopping early), and my most favorite place is the Melting Pot. The stipulations on this one aren't as bad as I've seen before so I'm super excited. Me, my mom and sis usually go there for a girls few hours out, oh its soooo yummy! I'm drooling just thinking about the chocolate fondue!

Tiring Day!

2009-09-08T19:27:00.001-04:00

I think this weather has me feeling tired! I didn't sleep very good today so that didn't make for a good day back to work after the long weekend! Here's what we ate today - all from the stockpile.

Breakfast - the boys had cereal and I had a bagel at work
Lunch - leftover chicken bruchetta
Dinner - chicken marsala, side salad and broccoli with cheese

There should be enough left over for my husband or I for a lunch tomorrow, I'll just have to figure out another lunch for the other of us!

I was surfing the net for a few before I hop on Wii Fit, and I found this interesting frugal story...read it if you have a few minutes.

Frugal Article

August Totals!

2009-09-07T21:08:00.000-04:00

Here are my August totals I promised. I try to stay around $250 a month and this includes feeding my hubby, me and our son. This is for food, healthy and beauty and household items (cleaners, tp, pt, etc).

Number of items - 469
Retail value - $1,209.08
Coupon value - $957.60
Paid out of pocket - $264.19
Savings percentage - 79.2%
Cost per item - $0.62

Not too shabby I must say. Hopefully September will be even better with the stockpile challenge. I have to admit, we were awfully lazy today, I mean really lazy. We had a good crockpot chicken recipe to try and neither one of us wanted to get up and make it, so we got pizza tonight. Anyone just have those days or is it just me?

Keepin' it real

2009-09-06T12:40:00.001-04:00

So this eating out of the stockpile thing isn't going too bad, I've had to get a couple of things but they should last us a bit and we can use them for multiple meals.

Went to Costco and got milk, bananas, eggs, pickles (hubby and son eat this like no other and will probably last a couple of weeks) and I splurged and got myself a big tub of hummos (this will probably last a bit too, but I will take it to work for a mid day snack). I'm having my parents, sister and aunt and uncle over today for my aunts 60th birthday so I'll have to run to Kroger in a bit to get some cheese and a veggie, for some reason I thought I had more cheese then I do, but still at least its just a few things! Oh yeah and we also bought some beer this weekend....oyy guess this isn't going as good as I thought!

So in honor of keeping it real and making myself accountable I figured I'd post what we eat for the rest of the month and if I had to run to the store to get anything!

Yesterday we had yogurt for breakfast, and then we bought lunch at the Toledo zoo, (it was only $13 for 3 of us which I thought was good!) and then for dinner we had grilled chicken sandwiches, rice and a salad.

Today was a pop tart or cereal for breakfast, lunch was pb&j with fruit and a few chips, and tonight will be chicken bruchetta with salad and a veggie (I'm thinking asparagus).

That's all I got for today, I'll be posting my August totals later on today, enjoy the gorgeous weather!

Friday Shopping!

2009-09-04T21:22:00.000-04:00

Betcha can't guess how much all of this was?!?!? $2 and some change! Yep, you read it right, I paid under $3 for all of this. I know its a little hard to see so here is what I got!

Target

4 GM cereal cups - $1.00 each
     Use 4 $1 off GM cereal Target coupon here

8 Chef Michael dog food - $4.26 each
     Use 8 $1.50 off Chef Michael Target coupon here AND $3 off Chef Michael from 8/23 RP

4 Gerber bottles - $1.00 each
     Use $1 off Gerber feeding accessory Target coupon here

2 Kit Kats (oops already ate them haha) - $.52 each

5 Schick Quattro Razors - $6.99 each
     Use $4 off Target coupon from 8/30 SS AND $4 manufacture coupon from 8/23 SS

7 64 count Kotex liners - $2.94 each
     Use $2 Target coupon from 7/26 AND $1 manufacture coupon from 7/19 SS or 8/23 SS

12 Chef Michael wet dog food - $.84 each
     Use BOGO Target coupon from here or 8/30 SS AND BOGO coupon from 8/23 RP

I did this between two different Targets and the first transaction went crazy. I think the BOGO coupons actually applied to the dog food because it looks like $4.26 was taken off instead of the .84 for the cans! I ended up having to take back 4 or 5 coupons back and still ended up with a negative $1.22. So thats why I had to grab the two candy bars - ended up being .58 for that transaction.

The second transaction I had to take back a couple of the BOGO can food coupons because of the overage I got from the razors - usually you don't get overage but this lady just kept scanning! My total on that transaction was $1.23.

Kmart

1 Leapster game - $19.99
     Used $5 printable coupon and $5 Kmart Q - Xmas present for my little one

5 Ponds cloths - $2.50 each
     Used $1.25 Q from 6/28 RP

8 Kotex liners - $1.29 each
     Used $1 or .75 Q from 7/19 SS or 8/23 SS

1 Suave hair gel - $2.49

1 Neutra Air - $2.67
     Used $1.50 Q from 7/12 SS

10 different kinds of dog treats - $2.50 each to $3.99

This was done at two different stores, and my total for both stores was $12.12 - $9.99 of which was the Leapster game!

Anybody get any good deals this week?

I <3 Kmart

2009-09-02T21:59:00.000-04:00

Well I finished my two finals today - I know I got an A in one class, and I'm hoping for a C in my Stats class....yeah needless to say I didn't care for that class!

I started making my stuffed pepper soup to have for this week and realized I needed tomato sauce so I ran to Aldi's. I also got some squash for the crockpot soup I'll make later in the week. As I was leaving I saw this HUGE cloud of black smoke, so me being curious I tried to "follow" the smoke. I thought it was literally half a mile up the road so I went about 1.5 miles and then realized it was still far away. On my way home there was a Kmart calling my name!

Here is the quick run down from Kmart:

3 Beggin Strips - 2.50 each
3 Canadian Bacon Strips - 2.50 each
2 Pupperoni treats - 2.99 each
3 Trio building sets - 4.99 each (after instant $5 off for the monthly ad)
2 Scotch tape pop up holders - 2.49 each

Total was 43.xx

Coupons used:

3 - 1.00 off Beggin Strips
3 - 1.50 off Beggin Strips
2 - 1.00 off Pupperoni
3 - 5.00 off Trio building set
2 - 2.00 off scotch tape

My total was .07!! The ladies behind me were so amazed it was hilarious! I hope I can grab some coupons from my mom tomorrow and get some more loot!

Anyone else get any good deals this week so far?

Kmart Double Days Again

2009-08-31T21:28:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post - don't forget about Kmart double coupons this week. Rumor has it this will be their last time until January of next year :( I ran there today and just picked up a few quick things since I used most of my coupons in the last double days. Be sure to ask for the coupon book they have at the cash registers or sometimes at the CS desk. You will be able to get free Secret deodorant with the coupon in the book and Beggin Strips for .50 each! My puppy will be one happy dog!

I'll try and post a few good grocery deals and Kmart deals tomorrow, I'm just wiped out tonight!

Stockpile Challenge!

2009-08-31T21:23:00.002-04:00

So who is up for a challenge? My mom was watching the news the other day and they showed a lady who ate from her freezer/fridge/stockpile for a month and saved $800 or something crazy. Now we don't spend nearly that much on food and such a month, but my mom and I decided to have a stockpile challenge to see if we could go a month eating from our stockpiles! Is anyone with us??

Of course we'll still have to go out and buy the bread/milk/fruits and other fresh produce that we normally have, but thats it! I think this will really make me do a meal plan, and I've been meaning to do one forever!

So tomorrow I am at class, so hubby will make our son grilled cheese or something easy like that.

Wednesday I'm going to make a crockpot soup from this recipe End of Summer Harvest soup
Thursday I'll probably make stuffed pepper soup (oh so yummy!). I make enough to freeze to have throughout the winter.

And thats all that I've planned so far!

How To Find Coupons

2009-08-29T19:47:00.001-04:00

The best place to find coupons are in the Sunday paper. I've heard from a lot of people that they say the newspaper only has coupons for junk food. I will tell you this is definitely not true. I have gotten a lot of Tyson chicken coupons, for their frozen product as well as fresh chicken. When combined with a sale, I've been able to stock up on chicken for rock bottom prices. I usually check Taylor Town for the list of coupons that will be coming out for the next week to determine how many papers I want to get.

There are also a lot of printable coupon sites that I absolutely love! Listed below are some of the best ones that I've found.

Smartsource
Redplum
Coupons.com
CouponLoop

There are also two other sites that I like to use that you can load coupons onto your grocery card. You simply sign up, enter in your grocery card number, and when you buy that product the coupon automatically comes off at the end.

Cellfire
Shortcuts

The only grocery card that we have in Michigan that they offer to load these coupons to is the Kroger card.

New Blog

2009-08-27T21:24:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone! This is my very first posting of my new blog! I decided to create this blog to post the best deals out there to help everyone create their very own stockpile. I have been able to save my family a great deal of money, while donating to charities, family and friends without hurting my pocket book.

I have a monthly budget of $250 for me, my husband and our 4 year old which includes groceries, toiletries, health and beauty items and other household items (cleaning stuff, paper towel, toilet paper, etc). I started keeping track as of last October, when I found out we were spending over $400 a month! It will be a year now and after looking back at my spread sheet I am usually between $250 and $300 a month, which I still consider pretty good.

I will post my totals at the end of each month, and I encourage you to do the same! Join me in this crazy adventure!