I haven't fallen off the wagon

That is to say that Yes! I'm still getting good deals but haven't had much time to write about them.  We were out of town for one week and recovering the other weeks, so blah, blah, blah.  But here are a few deals that I've made at CVS:

*I had to buy 8 Cover Girl brow markers and paid $2.22 and got 8 ECBs back.  Those 8 ECBs went to diapers, I believe. 

*I was able to buy 2 packs of diapers for $5 and get 5 ECBs back.

* Today I went to buy some diapers but they were out of my size so instead, I bought 4 huge 13 gallon sized tupperwares for $2.25 each....Not too bad.  Anything that says 75% off current price is bound to grab my attention.

As for groceries...I haven't had as much time to keep up with things but my pantry is pretty well stocked. So, I've just been buying meat and fresh veggies.  My husband requested more fresh veggies and it's a good thing because it's market time!!

Oops...

I keep writing my blogs under my other blog site. Sorry....If you're interested check out the blog on the right: The Holdgate's..

The Tour

So my mom is in town and I couldn't wait to get her to CVS!! I was so excited to show her the ropes, so I grilled her on all the products that she uses. Toothepaste, soap, shampoo, etc. It just so happens that CVS had a great deal on deoderant this week, so I gathered up my coupons and off we went.

The bottom line: Spent $7.50 and got: 9 sticks of deoderant, 2 tubes of toothepaste, and 2 toothebrushes. Not too bad. So, I"m sending her home with 2 sticks of deoderant, 2 tubes of toothepast and a toothebrush....

Anybody else need some Degree?

Were you wondering?

Where I've been? Maybe not, but maybe you were wondering how grocery shopping did this week. Well, my goal was to not shop except for essentials like eggs, milk, fresh veggies, etc. And it worked! Although my father came to visit, which meant I needed to buy a few special things for him, I did not do a big grocery trip. Yea!!

Nothing saves money like not spending any :)

I couldn't help it

And I didn't take a picture. This past week I was planning on not going grocery shopping because I wanted to use up some food I'd been stockpiling. However, HT decided to have a great week and I ended up buying $252 worth of groceries for $70. They had their B2B3 free 2 lb frozen shrimps ($4.33/lb) and a special deal that if you bought a certain amount of specified products, you get $4 and $5 off your total order.

So, I stocked up on shrimp, frozen vegetables, refrigerated doughs (pizza, cinnamon rolls, etc), fruit snacks and cinnamon toast crunch (my husband's favorite). So, REALLY! my freezer is stuffed with food. I can't buy anything else for the freezer! So, we'll be having pizza and shrimp this week, although not together. And I'll be starting Freezer Friday! Where I make 1 item from a freezer item. I mean, we gots to have room for ice cream!

Are you bored?

I asked Alex this the other night. When was the last time you were bored? I can't think of the last time when I had enough time to be bored!! Now, if someone asked me when the last time I was so tired I couldn't drive straight, I could point to the exact date.

As I was reading through some of the other blogs on my favorites list, I felt a little embarassed that mine wasn't very interesting. By now, it's getting kind of old to see how little I spent on a bunch of groceries. Still exciting, but not as much fun to write about. So I'm going to try to get a little more interesting and post 'exciting' deals.

At my HT, they usually have carts and bins with old products, discounted items and post seasonal items. I always check this out for steals. I've been keeping an eye on the Valentine's cart but how much post Valentine's hershey kisses can you really eat?! But they had these super cute baskets discounted down...So, I bought all 8 baskets for $3.47! This leads me to my next subject of Quantity.

Normally, in my past shopping life, I would've bought one or two. But I remembered that I might not see this low price for a long time. What could I use all these baskets for? Well, the wicker ones are lined so I can put my herbs in them and the other big ones would be good for something potted also. Or I could do a flower arrangement and give it as a gift or use them as popcorn bowls...The possibilities are endless and for $.49 I grabbed a bunch!

It's always hard for me to buy a large quantity of things. But I felt like the $3.47 was spent wisely and with a purpose. I also do this with shoes that I love. I buy 2 pair because it drives me nuts when I love a pair of shoes that eventually I can't find again.

What $4.47 can get you...

Harris Teeter had never been on my radar until my perspective on shopping changed. I was diligently going to Publix and buying the same things every week.

Then I learned about couponing and my simple world opened up into this vast universe of freebies and super deals!

Hence, Harris Teeter (HT - as I call it) become one of my favorite stores. Here's why:

1. Each week, HT has an EVic item. That is an item that is marked below the sale price. They also send me an email giving me some personal discounts on items that I routinely shop for like Tropicana OJ for $2.27. OJ is usually 2/$6 or 2/$5 so $2.27 is a good deal, especially if I have a coupon.

2. HT has their sad fruit section. This is the 'old' veggies and fruit that are marked down immensely because they're about to go bad. So, this was my latest find. A bag of zucchini, bag of squash, bag of lemons and a bag of potatoes, all for $4.47! I love it.

3. I used to hate things like Buy 2 Get 3 free, but I've embraced that concept now!! That's how I get my 6 lbs of frozen shrimp for $25 and 12 pack cokes for $2.50...

The point is, I try to keep my options open. Another reason to shop at higher priced stores, is that they sometimes have better sales and discounts...

My Nemesis - for Real

I meant to discuss Walgreens in my prior post, but was distracted by my super cute dress. Again, I generally don't do Walgreens for a few reasons:

(1) Too many rules

(2) Too difficult to count all my items and match up the exact number of coupons

(3) Register Rewards don't always print out as they should - due to another rule

(4) The cashiers aren't very friendly

BUT if there is a really good deal, then I'll go in. For examples, a jumbo pack of diapers were on sale for $8.99 and I had register rewards for 5 and a coupon for $2 off. So, $1.99 for diapers was worth the aggravation. So, I picked out a nail file, the sunday paper (i always buy another one) and my diapers. I walked over to the cashier in the cosmetic section and she was putting the new price tags on the perfume. She looked at me and stared and if I could read her mind it would have read: And you want me to ring you up BECAUSE....?? I politely asked if this register was open and she said " Uh, yes". Let's just say that I felt guilty for having to have her ring me up. Also, there was a gentlemen in front of me who returned a bit item and she just left it sitting on the counter so there wasn't any room to put my purchases down.

Needless to say, I left, but pretty happy for my deal on diapers. I also left with 3 RR for next time.

This is a picture of our diaper ottoman. I have found great deals on pull ups and diapers that we're good for a few months! That money can be used for groceries!

Walgreens - My Nemesis

I don't like to to boycott any store in particular, unless I've given it at least 3 chances. And I also know that sometimes cashiers have bad days and that each store is different. Well, I got to go to a few stores this week that left me a little surprised.

Ann Taylor: I don't typically shop here due to the high prices and the style that I'm not that in to. However, there was a coupon (of course!) for $20 off any purchase if you tried on a pair of shoes. So, I marched myself right down to the store on Saturday in my jeans, t-shirt and rain coat and tried on a pair of shoes. Then I marched myself over to the sale section to look for items that were $20. Unfortunately, all items were $19.88 which meant I needed to find something for a few bucks...like a pair of socks or clearance jewelry. Well, we don't sell socks, said the sales lady. Oh, okay. Well, I'm trying to get around $20 so I can use a coupon.

Well, she said, there's some clearance jewelry in these 2 bins right here. I look and can't seem to understand how $39 for a bead bracelet is clearance, unless it was originally $60. After a few more gentle probing questions, it turns out that NOTHING in the store was under $20. So, I decided to get the most for my dollar and buy another clearance item that was $19.88. Depending on which way you see it:

I got one item for free

Buy one get One Free

Both were 1/2 off = $9.98

Here's my other obstacle when I'm price searching and want to get the most for my buck. I'm always tempted to buy items I already have. I think a lot of women tend to buy the same look, same color, same style.

But since I was buying on clearance and getting an item for free, I wanted to buy something I would feel special wearing. I'm 9 months into nursing and post baby. My figure has changed enough that certain things just don't look that great on me.

So, this is what I found. A sexy blue cocktail dress (orig $170) and a nice pair of black slacks (orig. $110). Maybe when I wear them, I'll post a picture.

Back to Basics

So, I'm going to try to set up a weekly meal plan again. It's fallen by the wayside due to another child, sickness, et cetera, but I really do enjoy cooking and want to get into it. It's tricky because I only want to buy what's on sale, but I have enough meat in my freezer that I could cook without any new meat for a few weeks, shrimp included.

So, I already made a shepherd's pie this week and froze one. I'm going for chicken piccata with frozen chix breasts (my 1st attempt at those), chix thighs on the grill and something shrimpy. That's as far as I got. We eat at my in-law's usually once a week and some other nightgs are leftovers or frozen meals or breakfast for dinner.

I'm excited to get back to cooking and using up my great grocery finds.

Ground Beef

I have a love/hate relationship with ground beef. It's great to cook for chili, tacos, and hamburger helper (on those days that I need help), but it seems as though half the time it goes bad. So, it's terribly frustrating when I forget about it and then forget to freeze it. So, this week, it happened again. I had high hopes of making my shepherd's pie again but when I finally got around to checking out my ingredients, the ground beef was bad. Bummer!! But again, after 4 Dr visits since Saturday, I'm grateful to still have my sanity.

Spare Recipes

That pun was intended because this is about pork spare ribs. I'm going to post recipes on my other site that used on sale ingredients. I recently cooked these ribs and they were on sale so my husband and I ate for $3.50 a person.

www.triedandtruerecipesbytiff.blogspot.com

Enthusiasm and Happiness

Let me just tell you how excited I am. Maybe it's the increase in temperature outside from 25 to 60, or maybe it's my new haircut or maybe it's because I am excited to shop and save!! I don't have a picture of me showing the correct amount of enthusiasm and excitement that I feel, so here's one of Olivia. She's super excited too but has a hard time showing it.

So, it's Wednesday and tomorrow I get to go to my bible study at my church. That always makes me happy. They have free childcare for 2 hours so that makes everyone Super Excited!! There are good deals at the grocery store this week, especially HT and Publix and I'm super excited about setting up my list.

I made a great Shepherd's Pie and Pork Ribs this week and good food always makes me happy. I'm making seafood alfredo tonight and our neighbor's are coming to dinner, so again, more reasons to be happy!!

I hope all of you readers have a happy week too!!

Re-Group

There's no picture to accompany this, but I felt the need to re-group. I finally feel that I've come up with a good system for me in regards to groceries and drugstores.

I spend probably an hour cutting coupons, filing and getting my grocery list together. I've been winging it at CVS and Rite Aid and have done pretty well. So,here's how my week generally goes:

Tuesday / Wednesday:
I print my list off of Southern savers for any combination of Bi-Lo, Publix and Harris Teeter. Publix and Harris Teeter are my favorites, but sometimes Bi-Lo has really good deals on cereal and baby items.
Then I compare coupons to make sure I have them all and see what I don't.
**I don't clip ALL coupons anymore. I clip the ones I'll definately use and then ones I will use if it's really cheap (i.e. makeup)**

My mother in law is very generous and watches the kids for me on Wednesdays so I can shop. It takes me 2 hours because I take my time and compare coupons with the products to make sure I'm getting the right thing. And also, I check out the deals in produce and meat. There's a neat site out there called e-mealz and they make weekly food menus based on certain store's sale prices. I really enjoy putting my meals together myself, so I might not use these sites.

Harris Teeter is my favorite for watching the prices drop: When I'm there, I like the cashier to ring up everything, THEN I give her my VIC card, THEN I give her my coupons. And just like that...I'm happy!! but the cashier isn't always so happy because they usually ask first thing if you have a VIC card and then I have to give it to them. They don't understand why I want to wait. Maybe they get in trouble if they don't ask right away.

I've also gotten in the habit of freezing my meat. Sometimes I just don't cook it all and then it goes bad. And I really don't like that. Especially ground beef. It seems as though that goes first and only has a 2 day time limit on it...Any suggestions other than to use it right away?

And that's how it goes with me right now. On the first 3 weeks in January, I've spent $438, Saved $483 on a value of $920 - 52%. Not too bad...My goal is 50% on average. This includes groceries and drugstores.

Oops, I did it again...

I went back to CVS. I just loved the lip gloss I got and I had more coupons so I just HAD to get one more!!! I also HAD to scrounge around in Rite Aid's 90% off Christmas section for $.19 light up pens and $.99 rice krispy treat decorating kit....Can't go wrong there. So, my savings percentage was 90% which made me super happy!

Also, I've been keeping an eye on 12 pack diet cokes or diet pepsi. The lowest we see for them is $2.50 for the 12 pack, but it hasn't been that low for a while. Any of you who know my husband, knows he lives on diet coke more than I live on coffee. So, we've been slumming it and haven't had diet coke in the house for a bit now. Well, CVS has Diet pepsi's on sale for 6 / $20 and you get 10 ECB back. So, you can use the 10 ECB's to buy another 6. So, 12 for $30 ...$2.50 each!! I have to go back this week and stock up!

Will you try it?

If it costs $1, will you try it? Is it worth $1 to you to try new makeup?? For me, Yes! I made a run to CVS this morning with 6 ECB's just dying to be put to good use. Items on my list included Cottonelle Flushable Wipes, shaving cream and Aussie Shampoo. All on sale and most with chances to earn more ECB's. However, when I looked through the makeup section, there was a deal for L'oreal. Spend $10 (before coupons) and get 3 ECBs back. I checked my stack of coupons and sure enough, I had many coupons for L'oreal products. To make this even better, there were select items that were 75% off!!! So, I scrounged around till I found a few items 75% off, then matched up with my coupons and headed to check out. I had $58.45 worth of cosmetics, which was 2 eye shadows, 1 lip gloss and 2 Age Defying foundations (orig. $18). All of these items were 75% off, making the cost $14.60, then I had coupons totaling $10, so my Out of Pocket cost was $4.60. Then I got $3 ECBs, so essentially I paid $1.60 on $58 worth of stuff!

The Aussie shampoo and hair products were $2.88 and I had $1 off coupons for each. The Dial body wash was 50% off and the shaving cream gave me 1 ECB. So, I left CVS with 1 ECB, spending $20 and saving $90 or so.

Success at Harris Teeter

I've been very, very, very patiently waiting for Harris Teeter to do their Super Doubles again. That is, they double all manufacturer coupons $1.98 or less. The math is much simpler than the triples program and the savings is much bigger, I think. this is a picture of just a portion of the shopping trip. What makes me feel the best, is that I purchased actual, food we can live on, groceries. Sometimes during these fun promotions, I end up with lots of Pillsbury crescent rolls or fruit snacks, but not a whole lot of substance. This time, there weren't many snack items on sale but the meat selection was great!

I purchased 2 London Broils (B1G1 - $10), 3 pkgs of chicken breasts (B1G2 - $9) and 6 pounds of frozen shrimp for $26 = less than $5 a lb). So I saved $81.49 on meat alone. Not too shabby! I picked up a few items, like blistex, dish soap. I also splurged and bought my favorite Brianna's salad dressing. I've also stocked up on our favorite popcorn - Pop Secret Homestyle. Yes, it was on sale and I did have a coupon. The Stacy's chips weren't on sale, but the guacamole was free!

So, I spent $120 and saved $136 - approximately 53% savings.

J. Crew..Really?!

I typically don't venture into J. Crew, especially in downtown Charleston on King Street. Just a bit too fancy for me. But when given the opportunity to have an hour without the kids and head out with the girls, I couldn't resist.

Not expecting to find any item less than $20, I began my search. All sale items were an additional 30% off so I did some quick calculations and saw $16 pants and $18 Shirts. Good, but not great for this extreme couponer. Then, I saw this tag. $9.99. Hmmm. That sounds good. $7 sounds even better. Yes, that's right. I found jeans and khakis for $7!! And at J. Crew no less!! So, I bought both pair of jeans and one pair of green khakis for $21!!! Yes, it was a good day on King Street. Turns out $98 jeans do fit quite nicely :)