Digging the Coupon Thing...

Ok, so I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Today was  my first real venture into the world of CVS and Extra Bucks!! I'm no guru like many others, but I'm working it!

So I created my coupon binder this week! Much easier! I was even able to just hand a lady in the store a coupon that I didn't really need, so hopefully that saved her a buck :)
Today I hit up Walmart, Winn-Dixie, CVS, Walgreens and Target...all with the 5 yr old in tow. He did really well and I thought it was important to bring him to show him WHY Mommy does what she does...that if we plan and work at it, we can save enough money to do fun things!!

So here's today's deals!

Walmart is hard to save a ton of money in, and overall MOST of their prices on groceries are pretty good.  I should note NOWHERE local doubles coupons..NO ONE. Target will "stack" manuf. coupons with Target ones but NO grocery store doubles. Bites, big time.
Anyhoo, so here is this week's Walmart finds...not pictured is another bag of chips ....DH stole those before I could take the pic. Between coupons and price matching, I saved 10-11 bucks...not major but helps! Grand total: $40.65

Winn-Dixie: I should note, I'm not a fan of most of the local grocery stores. Their "sale prices" are really not that great a deal when you look at how much cheaper they are at Walmart or even in bulk in Sam's or Amazon. But, their Buy 1 Get 1 (B1G1) deals are usually a pretty good savings. Not fab but not horrible. This round cost me $21.04---but I SAVED $23.16...more than I spent! So the non perishables go into my stock pile and the salads are to enjoy this week. I should mention...bagged salads are not NORMALLY a good deal. The CouponMom ran the numbers once and you basically are paying someone 5k a year to cut lettuce for you. Her theory is, if it takes you less than 5 minutes to do it yourself...DO IT. However, EVERY now and then, the bagged salads will be a better deal than the by the head lettuce. Today at Winn Dixie even the iceberg lettuce was 1.69 lb, so sometimes it's worth it for the convienence to me!

Next up, Walgreens. This one was funny because my son thought the Arizona teas were beer! Yes, little man...you stressed mama out so much she needs a Colt 45! They were out of the Crest Whitening Strips that were on sale, so I got a raincheck...but it's ok, I scored those later also at CVS.
Total at Walgreens: 2.68 saved 2.96. The teas were .50c ea with in store coupon, and the pantiliners were .99c with in store coupon PLUS I had a .75c off manuf coupon! ROCKED that one.

I didn't snag a picture of Target, it wasn't THAT impressive. 48 roll of Scott toilet paper, toy for the little human, movie for the little human (hey what's the point in saving if I don't splurge every NOW and then...his splurge cost me all of 13.00 bucks.) and 10 yogurts for 33.00! Not to shabby! Remember to sign up for the Target Red Card..you do NOT have to make it another credit card!! Mine is linked to a checking account and it gets you 5% off EVERY day!! If you're going to use a debit card anyway, not having a RedCard is like throwing money away!

Ahhhh, last but not least...CVS. Now...I'm a coupon virgin still compared to some and I haven't learned all the in's and out's of drugstore deals. I've not touched learning Rite-Aid yet...I wanted to master CVS and Walgreens first! So this is the first time I really paid attention and worked the CVS Extra Bucks program. The best way to work these deals is to break your purchases up! Also, the cashier told me, scan your CVS card every time you go in--REPEATEDLY! She said keep scanning it til it doesn't shoot any more coupons out!! She also said do it FIRST so you can help plan your shopping right when you walk in.
So today's CVS deal..I know many of ya'll can do WAY better, but this is great for me!
Grand total of $32.17 and that includes a 31.99 box of Crest White Strips (way in the back there if you can't see em!)

So basically I paid retail for the white strips then the cereal, candy, toothpastes, keychain and candy were free!! Now, I don't normally BUY Crest White Strips, but I figured I'd give it a try since it was such a good deal.

My point is...it CAN work. IT IS doable! You saw no meat purchases because I hit up Sam's and the recent sales already for that. My pantry and freezer is stocked! Just start slow and you can do it too!!

~~Amy

A Year of Living Frugally--Update

Time for an update gang!

Well my Adventures in Couponing is 2 months in. I can't really say whether it's totally paid off yet, although I do obviously see the savings at the register. For instance my bill yesterday at Walmart went from 318 to 272 with coupons! Mind you, this was a BIG shop but included hardly no meat...it was the "coupons are expiring shop". :) I now have a plentiful supply of bath and body/cleaning/personal products. Our teeth shall always be clean in our house!!

But that is one of the points from CouponMom, you should NEVER run out of stuff like toothpaste, tissues, toilet paper, etc, if you shop with coupons and when it's on sale. Those are also items to combine savings at drugstores on and save them for easy donations. For example, a .97 Secret deodorant with a .50 coupon means for .47c you can donate that deodorant to your nearest women's shelter for a woman who has quite possibly escaped with only the clothes on her back. Will you save her life? No, not literally, but you could provide her with a little comfort and nicety in a difficult time for her.

Also, please don't forget the military. Military families on bases can use coupons past their expiration date. So NEVER throw out those coupons! You can find info on the Military program here. PLEASE follow the rules and do not waste time sending coupons that are over 6 mos expired. Remember you also don't have to wait til their expired. As you go through your coupons, if you will not EVER use the product, put it in your folder for military ones!

I will say, I have not hardly bought any meat since the first of November! I went then and purchased boneless, skinless chicken breasts, ground meat, bacon and lunchmeat from Sam's Club. I also snagged 3 turkeys when they were on sale for Thanksgiving, and 2 Roasts when they were on sale in November. Since then I have only had to buy 2 ground meats (and really only because they were on deep sale, I didn't "need" them.) and 1 bag of chicken leq quarters (which at 6 bucks a bag, makes 5-6 meals in my house, so that's a good price!).

So only time will tell if all this stockpiling is really going to save me money. I suspect that I will not actually SPEND less but I will get FAR more. I have an extra stock pile of non perishables in the garage, and have been able to splurge on some sodas and a few things for the boys that I don't normally because I saved money in the food dept. I'll be reevaluating my spending in January as that will be the 3 mo mark of starting my adventure, and we'll tally it up and see if I REALLY got more for my money :)

The main lesson I've learned is, if you'll REALLY use it, and the coupon makes it cheaper than the store brand...go for it!!

~~Amy

A Year of Living Frugally--Update

So how goes your frugality!? Finding any good deals? Learning new ways to save money??

My next major post on frugality will be on how to use social networking to help save you some dimes, but I wanted to check in and share this week's major savings!

Walgreens has Coffee Mate buy 1 get 1 free (liquids 2.49 value). I used this coupon and you can find more here. So I snagged 2 Coffee Mate liquid creamers (french vanilla was all they had, but hey!) for .49c!! Can you beat that?????

I also snagged up the Reynold's Aluminum Foil for .89...the ad was for 20 sq feet but they didn't have any, just the 25 sq feet, so I snagged up 3 of them for .89c each! :) That goes in my extra stock pile in the garage along with other non perishable items!!

I'm enjoying the challenge of saving money and hope you are finding some good deals too!

~~Amy


Pssst, don't forget to enter my giveaway to win a badge reel or ponytails!! Hurry before Thanksgiving, because once the Saints/Cowboys game is over, the giveaway is over!

A Y ear of Living Frugally--Be Entertained....

Ahh, we continue the year of living frugally. I've been diligently cutting coupons, scouring the net for deals and tricks. I have to say I think it's going fairly well. I am now stockpiled with enough meats to get through our family dinners for several weeks or more!


So carrying on with my little experiment....how shall we entertain ourselves on the cheap?

Entertainment
This is one area where we don’t need much help because we rarely do anything! We are the family that has no problem using a TV we got for free until it literally falls apart, we rarely go to the movies, we take walks, play games, read books....we're rather low key.

Here’s what we’ve done so far that helps:

MUSIC:
Pandora.com: This is a free music service you can use on your PC (and I’m guessing it has other mobile apps, but that’s obviously something I don’t waste money on). You create custom radio stations based on your fave artists, songs, music genres and viola---free music! I believe you are only allowed 30 free hours a month, so use it wisely. It took some time but I have trained myself: I pause the music or turn it off when I’ll be out of the room for any length of time. It automatically stops the music for you in some time if you are not ‘active’ on the site for some time. It has nifty features like song lyrics, the ability to buy a song, and social networking connections. You have to listen to a few ads every so often, but who cares? I buy CD’s only for the artists I REALLLLLLLY love.

Movies/DVD’s: Okay seriously, we RARELY buy or even go see movies. We don’t even belong to anything like Netflix. But if we did, it would probably be Netflix where you can stream videos on your computer or with your Wii! We just aren’t huge movie people. We buy the ones we REALLY love that we want to keep forever, and the few that the kids want (and we do so on sale or with discounts!). With as much is on television these days, we don’t have time or need for buying/watching movies.




Redbox is also a great way to get movies. There are tons located around the country and for 1.00 you can check out a movie. Return it the next day and you have spent 1.00 and tax (and a little gas) for a movie! You can use Redbox.com to pay, hold movies and if you sign up for the emails, they usually send freebie coupons every so often!

Television: We currently use Dish Network. It was cheaper than DirectTV and WAY cheaper than our local cable company.  We have the 2nd cheapest plan meaning, for us, we get the channels we want for the most part and a DVR for under 50 a month. Your plan will vary for your families needs. For us, the DVR is priceless, because instead of buying my kids movies, I simply record their fave tv shows and viola…30 minutes of peace. Dish Network also regularly previews other channels not included in your package so if you see a show you like on that preview channel…just DVR a whole mess of them. That is how I have my stash of Golden Girls episodes. Don’t be hatin…you know you love the girls.
Dish even showed a marathon of all the "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" episodes that were off air when Dish and Fox had their little spat over money and airing their Fox shows. I find their customer service to be superb over DirecTV.

Hulu.com is also a great resource for FREE television. You can also watch many of your fave shows on the website for their network, for example, you can watch ABC Primetime shows on www.abc.com.

Books: Seriously, do I even NEED to spout the benefits of going to the library???? REALLY? Books for free. DUH. Videos too! If you simply MUST purchase books and you do it on a regularly basis try your local bookstore chains rewards program. Some cost, some don’t. But if you buy books enough, the cost of the program should be far less than the savings you’ll receive. If you do NOT save more than you spend on the program, um, duh, drop it. Amazon and Ebay are great places to get good priced books as well. There are also various swap websites and trading websites for books, but I don't have experience with them. For that you shall google.

And get your behind to the aforementioned library.

Black Friday and this time of year is the time to stock up on family board games also! One Black Friday (when my oldest was a newborn and I was up before dawn ANYWAYS) I stocked up on several of the traditional kids games (Candy Land, etc) for 5.00 each a game!

Memberships for Local Activities: These things will vary based on your area. Generally speaking, if you are even a small family and you visit your local museum, zoo, aquarium, etc more than a few times a year....joining the membership is worth it. For us, we also go more since we are members. We may still only go to the zoo 6x a year or so...but if we even go 3x we have paid for our membership. We are blessed to have access to the Audubon Institute were we can go to the zoo, aquarium and get discounts at the IMAX and the Insectarium. Keep an eye out and scope around for deals on local activity memberships on the cheap!

I hope these were helpful tips and saves you some moola! Do you have any tips you can share with us!!??
~~~Amy

Living Frugally Weekly Confessional

So I'm actively attempting to save money and thought I'd share this week's adventures! :)

I checked out the ads in the free paper they throw around my neighborhood and it has the weekly ads in it. I knew Toy Story 3 was coming out, and that I had to get my son's blood work done on Tuesday, when the movie came out (nifty coincidence so that could be his reward!)

So I saw the CVS ad and noticed if you bought 25.00 worth of certain items you got the movie for 3.99. Usually I disregard those type of ads because they are lures and it's not really worth the savings. The movie itself is 15 bucks at Walmart or Target usually, so spending to save doesn't make sense to me usually!

But this time I did the math. I looked at the items on sale that qualified for the deal. I looked through my coupons. Lo and behold I had a coupon for every single item I would have normally bought in that deal! So that's how I ended up with:

20 count Charmin Toilet Paper for 9.97
8 rolls of Bounty Paper Towels for 6.97
10pk Duracell batteries (x2) for 5.97 eac
Crest Pro Health Toothpaste (x2) for 2.75 each
Dawn dishwashing soap for .97c
Puffs Tissues for .97.

So that meant I got the movie for 3.99.

So in the end I spent 39 and got all that stuff plus the movie. I could have not gotten for example, the batteries, but everything I bought was stuff we use on a normal basis. Everything I got was on sale and had a coupon, not too shabby considering the movie itself (with its fancy useless to me blue ray disc) is 30 something alone in some stores.

And I have plenty of toilet paper...can't complain about that....


~amy/mama

31 days of nothing.....

Okay, so perhaps that's a little melodramatic. But as I sit here, ignoring the soon to be arriving credit card bills from my Black Friday shopping, I am inspired.

New challenge for myself for the month of December. No non-essential shopping.

Alright, get it out, laugh. I know, you're thinking surely I can't go that long without buying SOMETHING crafty!

So let's see! I am challenging myself in the month of December to purchase ONLY necessities and pay bills. (Seems the kids to get antsy with no food or heat...) Any bills that arrive, obviously I need to pay them. But all those "just gotta have it" fabric purchases, spontaneous coffee runs, etc--NO!

Can I do it? Could you do it? Perhaps you are wondering if I ate a magic mushroom because surely this challenge cannot happen in the month of DECEMBER!?

Ha-Ha! That is where I've got the angle...I do not celebrate Christmas!! MUAHAHAHHA! So I do not have to purchase presents, trees, decoration! So while much of the world racks up their debt, I am going to challenge myself to NOT rack up any debt and see how much money I can save!!

Who else thinks the husband is going to support this challenge 110%?

So let the games begin tomorrow..December 1st. 31 days of nothing...

gulp.

And check out the OUS blog for more therapy around supply hoarding/shopping!