the curse

and so it goes.. I'm cursed. everyone has a curse of some sort. I believe. my husband's curse is being the slow driver magnet. No matter where we go, what time of day, it ALWAYS takes my husband twice the time it would take anyone else to drive there.. why? because every person in front of my husband drives at least 10 mph under the speed limit even during rush hour traffic and if they don't do that then they ride the break so you never if they are actually stopping for something or not. my curse has been pretty obvious over the years.. being my friend or just someone who knows me usually proves to be dangerous.. fatal is some instances.
I have the worst luck when it comes to my friends.

but worse is now this coupon hounding curse. I love it so much.. the deals.. out there calling to me.. sooooo I had a ton to do today.. and of course I wanted to hit my walgreens for their $5/$20 deal.. and I get there around 9am there wasn't anyone there.. ahhh yes.. I get my milk and decide to get the glucose monitor why..?? because it's free that's why. and because $14.99 + $5 = almost $20.. woot.. so I pay nothing OOP!! So I decide to stop and get some $1 items like twizzlers and those little crystal light type packets (I think they are Wylers brand) that WAGS sells for $1 per box. I figure I need them anyway so I buy enough to cover a possible $5 overage. I also grabbed a bottle of Pert to add to my easy saver.. armed with my $5/$20 WAGS coupon, 99 cent each twizzler, $3 off Pert, up to $20 off Touch one coupons I walk to the front to cash out.

In front of me walks a lady with only one item and she motions for me to go in front of her.. ahh noo.. I have COUPONS that always seem to take forever. So she goes ahead. I get up there and the cashier now is telling me her life story, showing me her blood monitor, her lunch, and I have no clue what else. oh yeah she was cleaning the countertop.. so finally she starts ringing me up.. I have some weird total like $36 which I never pay attention to..

So I hand her my coupons and she starts to try to scan the One Touch first and I say "ohhh you better do the $5 off $20 coupon first otherwise it probably won't work once the total is under $20" she looks puzzled, totally confused, but does it anyway. Then she tries to scan the ONe Touch coupon.. of course.. no dice. she looks it over and over.. keys in the $14.99 shrugs and keeps going.. my total NEGATIVE $4.81. umm okay.. how did that happen. now there is a huge line behind me (probably 7-8 people and if any of them were at Butera on Tuesday they hate my guts) so finally she calls for a manager, another cashier to open a register, and the cosmetic counter opens up her lane. Very relieved by standers make their little snide comments "thank god" as they glare at me likes it's my fault she has no clue what she did.

In the end it turns out she keyed in the $14.99 twice.. damn.. why didn't I get a few more items huh? At one point she kept telling me it was the $5/$20 because she couldn't give it to me for free. I said THAT IS A WALGREENS COUPON!! omg! she had no clue. so my total in the end was $7.13 I think? sounds right. ughh so in the end my 10-15 minute WAGS trip took me almost an hour.. nice huh? ughhh

So I wound up calling Butera corporate today.. the store I had the issue in on Tuesday. So I told the entire lengthy story to the RECEPTIONIST who was sure she could help me.. so after telling the whole store I'm pretty darn sure she put down the phone and wasn't listening because I told the story in time order and she had no idea what was going.. I was about to hang up and I mentioned something about talking to a neighbor about this last night and she said "oh this happned recently" I have given dates/times/descriptions earlier.. SO YEAHH.. she never took my name, number, anything.. just said she would "look into it" and *hoped* I would continue to shop there.. uhh yeah.. not so much.

great freebies, samples, and deals today OH YEAH!! and proof why I still don't need to buy the cow...

Okay so today I was pretty busy.. I had enough time to squeeze in a good 2 hour visit with my friends son/daughter/mom/brother and help out a bit with the kids. I brought my coupons thinking I might have time to stop at Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Ulta, and CVS... ughh not so much. I was meeting my sister and mom for the $4 matinee of MaMa Mia and possibly a late lunch so I knew it was going to be tight.. I didn't wind up getting out of the house until almost 11.. so time was tight.

I had a great idea to go print coupons that don't print on my computer at my sisters and of course most of the ones I wanted didn't work at her house either!! ughh. so I printed out what I could and found out that I was VERY GLAD I didn't stop at WAGS today because a $5/$20 coupon came out for TOMORROW ONLY!! woot! Tomorrow I'm going back to my friends house to help with the kids again (I promised her 2 year old son some play time at the park)so either on my way there or home I can hit WAGS. I also have to take my nephew to the dentist.. so I can possibly hit Ulta and a few other places.

Not sure if I had mentioned it here but it's pretty much a fact now that my mail lady hates me. Every Tues/Wed/Sat we get flyers/coupons in our mail. For some reason I mysteriously stopped getting them about 4 weeks ago. At first I thought they stopped sending them out. Then I realized that other neighbors were still getting theirs after I watched my neighbor get her mail and then asked her if I could have hers when she was done... so for the last 4 weeks I've had to ask her every week. She doesn't mind but it's insane.. so I write a little note to the postlady asking "what's up" she writes back that she isn't sure, she'll look into it and MAGICALLY ads my Tuesday coupons/flyers with my address plainly typed on the front in my mail box yesterday.. then today the day that the all the grocery ads come out.. BAM nothing again.. grrr.. I'm calling the post office tomorrow.. ughh along with about 4 other phone calls I have.

Okay.. I also realized today that I didn't have a FREEBIE part of my blog.. how could I miss that??? I get really great freebies from time to time and normally there is a good story behind how I got them.



don't mind my photobombing son!! eh eh eh.. I learned that from another hounding blog.. and of course I can't find it right now and links never work in my blog anyway! ughh..

so here goes.

sample
Ponds facial towellette

freebies
~two packages of dog poop bags ($10 credit from Amazon prime shipping trial membership I signed up and then so did my husband so we got two for free)
~two 12oz bags of cereal. $1 at Wal-Mart and there were $1 coupons for the 15oz or larger but another site linked the coupons as the ones to use to get them free. I figured it wasn't a bad deal so even though I only had 2 coupons I think I bought 5 bags.
~one Uncle Bens rice (I didn't think this one would ever come, another I think my postlady hates me.. my samples come days after everybody else)
~Smart Start Cereal.. it wasn't free. I have to send in for the MIR. I have had the MIR for awhile and meant to buy it and for some reason this box jumped off the shelf at into my cart today.

I spent a total of $18 at Super Wal-Mart today. I pulled into the parking lot and had NO CLUE what I needed to get there.. so I sat in the car thinking for a long time and decided to only get what I knew I needed.

Rebatetracker.com is still down! ughhh what a pain! I really liked that site! It keeped everything all organized for me! lol!

So now with my $5/$20 coupon for tomorrow I must strategically plan my outing. I need milk so 2/$5 is sort of expensive.. but hey.. I got a $7 RR as well.. so I'll get milk for free.. I'm STILL NOT BUYING THE COW! lol! I honestly can not remember what other deals I wanted to pull along with the milk! lol!

ughhh thank god for good deals EARLIER in the day!!

Okay.. so I wanted to at least use my $5 RR from last week and get that $7 RR for this week.. so I headed to WAGS. I didn't think I made any rookie mistakes in a long time but I was just on the phone with my Aunt-in-law (my husband's aunt) and realized I had better coupons than what I used! ughh I went through those P&G's that are all expiring this week like 20 times.. I don't know how I missed them.

Anyway.. I also realized today that I haven't been adding my samples that I get through the mail. Today in the mail I got tampons from Tampax, at Walgreens I got a skin cream sample and also a Biore sample and one other I can't remember off the top of my head. Also, I got my first 2 rebate checks!! and one of them came with MORE COUPONS!! and wouldn't you know it.. rebatetracker.com is down? WTF! lol! I got $2.49 for the Sure Deoderant rebate and $3.29 for the Zout rebate!! woot!!

Okay so here is all the loot..



WAGS

6 Olay body washes 3/$10
1 Ultra 2 glucose monitoring system $14.99

Used
$5 RR from last week
3 $2 coupons for the Olay
2 $1.50 coupons for the Olay
1 $1 coupon for the Olay
up to $20 for the One touch (she gave me $14.99 so I got it free)

Total $6.81 got my $7 RR
of course I came home and found those other $2 coupons!! ughh! not good.

Stopped at Pet-Co and grabbed one 4lb bag of Nutro cat food (senior) and one 5lb bag of Nutro dog food (small bites) had free coupons for both but I had to pay $2 in tax?? is that right? I didn't want to argue with the girl.. she was really nice and I didn't read the actual coupons so they may have said Free up to $10.99 and my bags were $11 something each or whatever.

Then to Butera (read below)
but I did manage to get 2 monsters for free with my free monster coupons
and Edy's ice cream for $1.49 each. They were $2.49 on sale and I had $1 off coupons. So not a bad day.

$6.81 - $7.00 (rr) = -19 cents
$2 at petco
$20 at Butera

so basically $26.81 OOP
$50.16 in coupons & RR
$7 RR for my next WAGS trip
samples
and $5.78 in Rebate checks!

I know I make no sense do I? lol!

using coupons = RUDE CUSTOMER SERVICE???

Okay I wanted to use 2 of the FREE monster coupons I had gotten, 6 coupons for 75 cents off a 1/2 lb of Krakus Ham and 2 coupons for $1 off Edy's ice cream. Soooooo the last time I had these SAME 75 cent off coupons for Krakus I walked into the store and SPECIFICALLY ASKED the customer service desk girl if I had to split each 1/2 lb up or if I could get them as full lbs or what. I said I didn't want to make more effort for the cashier because it's hard enough to use coupons. So she said "go ahead and get them however you need them and then I'll just come override them for you, NO PROBLEM!" big smile.. happy as could be.

I went about my shopping and the only coupons I had were for the Krakus ham and of course it was giving the cashier a problem.. I let her know that the customer service lady said she would override them with no problem, so she calls her over.. little miss smilie comes over, overrides them and as I'm leaving I realize that the way that it appears on the little sticker printout on the meat it looks like I've well over paid.. so I'm standing there and the cashier asks if there is a problem.. and I said "ahh I'm just trying to figure this out, if it's right" so she asks "which product" and I tell her it doesn't seem like the deli had printed out the right sticker or something.. so then like 3 other people come over another cashier, little miss smilie customer service desk lady, oh and one of the deli people even showed up. So we went back and forth and I kept saying over and over "I was just trying to figure it out in my head" and they kept going and going with it.. Finally I said "NO IT'S FINE, I WAS JUST TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT FOR MYSELF" little miss smilie is now NASTY says "I *HOPE* you are satisfied" umm okay.. whatever and I leave.

That was about 3-4 weeks ago.. so fast forward to today. Now I have 6 coupons for the 75cents off.. KRAKUS is on sale for $1.99 a 1/2 lb so I'm riding nicely at $1.25 a 1/2 lb or $2.50 a full lb!! Cool. I walk in again.. get my ice cream, the monsters, wait at the deli counter get 3lbs of KRAKUS all split in 1 lb packages, and a few other items. I get to the cashier and all heyyyylll breaks loose. Somehow I get mr ghetto gangster cashier who doesn't understand that a PURCHASE IS 1 ITEM. so he's fighting me that I can't use 2 coupons for 2 monsters. I calmly explain that each item is a PURCHASE and all my items is a transaction (as you've taught me here, thank you everybody) and he says he can't do it, it won't let him.. so I look over and it's because he is keying in $1.99 instead of their price of $1.69!! So I tell him that he says "ohhhhhh" keys it in, it goes through.. no issue. he gave me major tude, but at some point I said "Fine take one of the monsters off and I'll do it as a separate TRANSACTION" and he said "whatever"

Then he keys in the $1 off coupons for the Edy's..no issue.

Then he get to the Krakus I explain it to him and he's like "oh yeah ok" so he put in one, it took it.. the 2nd one.. nope.. so one of the other cashiers comes over and tries to override them for him.. it lets her do 2 others and won't go any further. so she looks at me and shurgs as if to say "too bad lady" and I said "okay take two of the hams off and I'll just buy THOSE separately" so mr ghetto boy gets all huffy and starts taking them off BUT instead of grabbing the 2nd one which is priced LOWER by 30 cents he tries to take off 2 of the lower ones.. so I stop him just as he's about to do it and he says "I wasn't going to do that" he's still holding the one that is marked $3.90. the $3.90 is already taken off.. done.. so now the line behind me is totally backed up.. and here comes miss smilie all ticked off apologizing to the people BEHIND me for the wait and yelling at the cashiers and me "RING HER OUT I'LL TAKE CARE OF THIS UP THERE" then mumbling "this is nuts, totally ridiculous" and some other choice comments I could clearly hear. So he rings me out.. gives me this little receipt and she says where is the receipt.. I give her what he gave me.. she asks HIM for the receipt he has no idea what he did with it.. tries to give her something else and now nasty smilie says "THIS ISN'T EVEN THE RECEIPT" and looks at me.. I have no clue WTF he did with it.. so we walk over and she says so what happened, I explain it to her (I forgot to tell you he was trying to take all my 75 cent coupons off at one point too), she gets all huffy and says "YES I REMEMBER YOU FROM LAST TIME" and I'm like.. "umm I'm right, I don't see what the issue is with this.. I specifically asked you how I should do this transaction, I did it how you SAID I could do it and it's still a problem" she slams some piece of paper in front of me asks me to sign it.. hands me $1.50 and then rings up the last ham, scans the 2 75 coupons which scanned perfectly fine for her with no overriding.. then as I'm leaving makes some comment in a sing song voice "HAVE A NICE DAY"

OMG I was steaming! What is the deal? I don't get it!! Why is this such an issue???
Smile.. it will make people wonder what you are thinking!

I ♥ Bennigans... no longer...

just heard.. nationwide last night at midnight they shut all Bennigans down..

WAGS plan for this week.

I have a $5 RR burning a hole in my pocket from pulling the diaper deal on Saturday night so I combed through the ad today and combed through my P&G coupons that are expiring.. for some reason I know there was a bunch of deals I missed out on this month just because I'm totally new to hounding. There is one coupon that just kills me.. it's like a free eyeshadow if you buy their mascara or something.. I have 3 of those babies and I know sometime this month I missed them being on sale or CVS giving ECBs with one of those products. Anywhoo....

Okay.. at first I had this deal all worked out that I would buy 6 bottles of Herbal Essance shampoo/conditioner (they are $3/10) use 3 $3 off 2 shampoo/conditioner coupons use my $5 RR I would have to pay $6 OOP but then I would get a $7 RR because WAGs is running the buy $20 worth of xyz products get $7 back. Okay but I have SCADS of shampoo/conditioner in fact I'll be donating most of it in the next couple weeks. So I looked at the ad again and realized they had Olay body washes on that same deal. They are $3/10 as well. I knew I had good coupons for those so I dug and dug and came up with three $2 off coupons, 2 $1.50 coupons and $1 coupon. Not sure how that happened but that's what I had.. so that's $10 in coupons!! lol! So I'll pull the same deal only I'll make an extra dollar on the deal but I'll have a product I don't have much of in my house.

My other deal I was trying to put together for tomorrow is the One Touch Ultra blood Glucose monitoring systems. I got 2 $20 off coupons and there is a Mail in rebate on them as well.. now I'm not sure it could go a couple different ways depending on which ones I buy, who the cashier is, and how the company handles a MIR when I used a $20 off coupon. Either way I'll get the product for free in the end, I just think there is a money maker here but not sure if it will fly. For example.. with the mini it's on sale for $14.99. Will the cashier issue me the overage? If I send in the MIR will I get anything back? On the Ultra 2 it's $29.99 so I'll have to pay the $9.99 out of pocket for sure but will the company give me the difference of $9.99or the full $29.99? I'm not sure.

Okay those are all the deals I've put together for myself. I haven't dug into CVS yet. Not sure if there is anything I really need/want from there this week.

28 bottles of shampoo on the wall.. 28 bottles of shampoo...

Yes.. I found that Dollar General has tons of coupons which just so happen to be some trial sized items at CVS. Upon reading said coupons and seeing that $1 off any size no other comment.. I made sure to clean CVS almost out of Pantene shampoo and conditioner, Herbal Essances shampoo and conditioner and Head and Shoulders. The other coupons I got did not work out.. but I felt lucky to find this deal.

Okay.. so here is what I got

5 bottles of Pantene Shampoo
5 bottles of Pantine Conditioner
4 bottles Herbal Essence Shampoo
4 bottles Herbal Essence Conditioner
10 bottles of Head and Shoulders
2 99 cent jars of baby wipes that fit in your car drink holder
2 Right Guards $1.99 each
2 CVS 2/$3 q-tips

sorry the partridge in the pear tree was unavailable.

So I had $1 off coupons for each of the 28 shampoo/conditioners. Those were 99 cent each. Those would ring up and on the 10th one it would change it to 90 cents (to balance) and then the last 8 the last one was 92 cents. Ok that's fine. I had two $1 coupons for the Right Guard and $2 off CVS skincare coupon and the $5/$30 (this was Saturday night). I used a 50 cent ECB I found in a cart crumpled up and my total was $2.13. I had other ECBs I could have used however I didn't want to use any ECBS because I wasn't getting any back.

Then I drove to the 2nd WAGS of the night to try to pull the diaper deal. The first WAGS didn't have the size I needed.. the 2nd did and I was glad they did because I found out the tax is less in that county so I only paid $5.40 for the diaper deal instead of $5.47. Yeah, that 7 cents really made it for me! lol! I'm such a dork. I got the diapers for my friends baby I told you about in the post below.

Similac Advance HELP ALL MOM'S OUT THERE!!

Hi everybody.. a friend of mine had her baby on the 16th via c-section.. She went home on Friday and by Saturday was back in the hospital ICU with a very rare 1 in 1,000 chance gillian barre syndrom http://www.distanthealer.co.uk/guillain_barre_syndrome.htm and has been in the hosptial since. Now my issue has been this.. between family/friends/neighbors they have been keeping down her household including her 2 year old son and of course her 10 day old daughter. The baby is on Similac Advance ready to feed in the little bottles.. they got some from the hospital and also bought some at a local store. Problem is is that they only breast fed their first born child and with this baby they had hoped to and of course with mom on agressive treatment including an insane amount of drugs for pain she has been having to pump and dump.

My son is 14 years old and I remember having to go through formula after formula before we finally found a formula that worked for him (he was in NICU his first two weeks of life and had problems latching after he came home) so it's been years since I've been in the "formula" isle. As it is this family has been living on a shoe string budget and adding formula to the mix is just going to hurt them more.

I have already started by getting them awesome diaper and wipes deals but I'd love to help them in the formula area as well.. Can any of you offer me some advice on how to get Similac Advance at a great price?

coupon JACKPOT!

Well I'm going to have to add Dollar General to the list of stores I "hound" in because I found a ton of manufacturers coupons inside one of their stores today. Good coupons at that!! Some of them actually have the Dollar General logo BUT they are manufacturer coupons so they should be good at any store right???

Anyway.. here is what I got.

$1 off any two Old Spice deodorant or body wash ex 8/31/08 (no size specified)
$1 off any one pantene pro-v exp 8/31/08 (no size specified)
$1 off any one head and shoulders exp 8/31/09 (no size specified)
$1 off any one Herbal Essences shampoo or conditioner 8/31 (NSS)
$1 off any two secret deoderant 8/31 (NSS)
$2 off wyb $6 worth of sauve and/or q-tip products 8/31
$1 off any two Olay body wash or bar soap 8/31 (NSS)
$1 off any one TAG exp 8/31 (NSS)

WAGS has similar coupons that were on tear pads and also manufacturer coupons
$1 off 3 Powerades
$1 off 2 Full Throttle

I see why moneysavingmom.com took a week off...

this hobby is very frusterating.. every week I make a huge mistake or a cashier makes it impossible for me to get the full deal that others are getting at their stores.. etc.. anyway.. today of course was no different.. of course, I was nervous all over again.. I'm going to make a post about nerves.. I swear.

Anyway.. I had 4 stops to make tonight.. stay tuned.. this ride is gonna bore the heyyyll out of anyone.

stop 1

Starbucks.. I found a link for free starbucks. I posted it on my neighborhood site, gave a few copies to my son/nephew who both refused to use them because it looked fake. A few days later my neighbors told me they've been using them every day. I tried to use one and was told it was fake and I couldn't use it.. bomb #1 of the day.

stop 2

butera grocery store..
got only sale items.. but now I need to look at the receipt because I spent $20 and really didn't get much. I did get 2lbs of ham that were priced at 99 cents a half lb.. other than that some produce, cheese, not really much else.

stop 3

Walgreens.. WHAT A MESS bomb #578,923,190 coming to a theater near you.. omg..
I had a ton of coupons.. both store and manufacturer.. of course I couldn't get half my deals to work because first the store had barely any of the products I wanted and the manager didn't offer rain checks.. I'm such a wuss, I should have asked.. instead I said "I'll check another walgreens before Sunday" ugh

I would have taken a pic of everything I got BUT I'm a dummy and left my camera plugged into the computer which drains it.. the battery is being charged now.

Basically I got 2 bottles of pantene, 3 powerades, 5 folders, paper clips, pencils, markers, dawn dish soap, highliters, pens, mechanical pencils, and a ruler for OOP $4.14 but I'll be turning in $8 in Easy Saver rebates from this trip.. so I made roughly $4 on the deal.. I guess I didn't do as bad as I thought..

I tried to do the stayfree deal.. B1G1 50% off plus a B1G1 free coupon which would make me pay $3 for 2 huge packs of pads.. but I messed up and grabbed the wrong pads.. so that was a rookie mistake (gotta read the little signs in front of the products, the sale ads, etc) and then I got free Monster coupons.. yeah.. Walgreens only gave me $1.99 when they were charging $2.69 for each.. why? BECAUSE the coupons states that you can only get up to $1.99 for each.. ughh I'll get them someplace else that only charges $1.99!!

stop 4

Jewel
I had to pull the cereal/milk deal one more time (5/$10 cereal with a free gallon of milk) we are actually running low on cereal again and was totally out of milk. So this was a good run. They had B1G1 free ICBINB tubs and I had a 50 cent coupon.. not much but it was a product I needed and for some reason I don't do well with food hounding. I gotta work on that. I have enough shampoo and dish soap to last until next year. I'll be donating that stuff for sure. Anyway.. so milk, cereal, ICBINB tubs, and liquid smoke.

I decided to ring up the cereal first by itself to make sure I got the coupon at a self checkout. I did. Cool.. so I had heard that a friend of mine used the self checkout and if you keep using coupons of the same brand product it will take them.. so I tried that trick and it didn't work for me.. oh well..

so my 2nd transaction I stayed at the self checkout so I could see if I could get the full $4.50 when my milk was only $3.79 and I did!! Yeahh!!! So my total for my 2 tubs of ICBINB, milk, and liquid smoke was only $4.38 I think.. my first transaction came out to $7 something.. I didn't do that good on the coupons for that deal.. oh well. I saved $8 just in coupons with both deals and it was for things we actually needed for this week.

I'll try to post pics later when I grow a brain and get my camera charged.

Not hounding related

Well as you have gathered or read (above or below) I was laid off in April and collecting unemployment which isn't much. I've been trying my best to cut corners here and there but I've finally come into hounding the past month or so. My husbands hours were cut down to 32 hours per week and that forced me to take a little more drastic action in stretching every dollar.. so here are a few other ideas I've used.



www.angelfoodministries.com (for some reason the link is not showing on my blog.. nog sure why)

ANGEL FOOD MINISTRIES

I have found this program to be helpful to bulk up on meats. I will buy the main box and then a grilling package depending on which month it is. I just picked up this months offering on Saturday at a new church.



main box included milk, eggs, dark meat breaded chicken chunks, dessert, pasta, pasta sauce, ribs, crock pot meal, fajita meat, corn tortillas, lean cuisine pizza, meatballs, pork roast, salsbury steak, hawaiian punch, blueberry muffin mix, frozen veggies. the main box always cost $30



this extra box cost $20 and included more ribs, 2 steaks, another roast, and italian sausage.

there is always different extra boxes and you can order as many extra boxes as you want. this month there was 4 extra boxes I just ordered one. They ranged from $16-$20.

The one other place I have found that I can stretch my dollars is a food pantry an hour away. Local grocery stores and bakeries donate anything that they are going to throw away. There is no "verification process", you pay $10 to get in, and you "shop" with a grocery cart up and down isles in a warehouse. This is only once per month and of course every month is different supplies.



the list for this was insane and I know I forgot a ton of stuff in the list. The boys were hungry because we had skipped dinner (we ate lunch at 3pm) and on our way home with all the groceries it was 8pm so they started eating things out of the bags on the way home.
Here is the list..
Bread (most of which from local bakeries but some do have Jewel stickers)
6 3 foot cheese/rosmary loaves
8 brat buns
6 multi grain rolls
8 whole wheat hamburger buns
raisin bread

Snacks/chips (all name brand)
Blue corn chips
4 bags pacific rim chips
4 bags pretzel flats
2 bags pizza puffs
2 boxes kashi fire roasted crackers
1 bag trail mix
4 bags of pb filled pretzel puffs
1 box caribou coffee carmel granola bars
2 tins of choc chip maccaroon cookies
2 packages sugar free rocky road cookies
1 package mint cream cookies (some healthy version of oreo's)
4 boxes of Force Gushers (sorta like fun fruit kind of snacks)
1 box of chocolate waffer swirls

meat
6 pork chops
6 italian sausage
2lbs chicken nuggetts
honey ham
4 packages of turkey pepperoni

veggie/fruit
1 jar sun dried tomatoes
1 jar sun dried tomato paste
1 large bag with 6 smaller bags of cut apples like you get at McDonalds
4 packages of fresh blackberries
1 large jar of chopped garlic
6 peach smoothie/yogart drink
6 mango smoothie/yogart drinks

Misc
1 jar Southwest sensations marinade
1 jar of some fancy mustard
organic grahm cracker crust
apple cider mix
4 HUGE FULL THROTTLE energy drinks
2 apple ginseng juice
1 raspberry vinegar
1 turkey steamer kind of like one of those chicken roasters you put a beer can in

So that's it.. my ideas for stretching dollars!

I have no idea why I get so nervous! 4 rookie mistakes!

Okay I get nervous when I go to run my deals.. every time.... I *always* walk up to the cashier and apologize like 15 times and tell them I'm new to this and I'm trying my best to make the deals work the right way and everything.. they always say "oh it's no big deal, don't worry, if you have questions just ask etc" and almost every time I walk up and there is not one person in the store and there is no line.. sure enough I place 1 item up and there is a line of 8 people behind me. grrr.. anyway.. here is my list of CVs deals for the week which I of course.. screwed up a little.. grr...

transaction 1
1 clean & clear daily purifying $4.69
2 clean & clear foam $3.49 each
1 clean & clear shine clean $5.99
FORGOT TO GRAB THE CVS TOWELLETTS!! UGHHHH ROOKIE MISTAKE 1

$3/$15 coupon
4 2 coupons

Total $7.22 OMG I followed another bloggers deal but not to the letter and I have no clue what I did wrong.. then ROOKIE MISTAKE 2 I didn't use any ECBS from last week.. I have no clue why.. I get all weird and nervous! so weird. I had $4 in ECBs I could have used (I had another $10 ECB I obviously couldn't use, but I'm new to this so I didn't have much.. but still I could have saved $4 on this deal)

I did get my $5 ECB

COMPLETE FUMBLE #2
3 glade refills (plug in) $2.49 each
2 Loreal color vive shampoo/conditioner $4.99/B1G1
4 Trident gums $1.49 B1G1
1 CVS make up towelettes $2.99

Yeah so I hand her all my coupons and for some reason I figured the B2G1 glade coupon would work for plug ins because the ECB was for plug ins or the candles.. yeah she wouldn't take it.. which was ROOKIE MISTAKE 3 so I had already given her the $3/$15 coupon and already run in my B1G1 free shampoo/conditioner coupon sooooo I asked her to ake the glades off.. and she got down to the last one and I said "wait don't take that off.. it will be negative" so she didn't and my total was $1.10! lol!

Got my $5 in ECBs (is that right?) and on to my next fumble.. I mean transaction.

attempt #3
2 packages of diapers 2/$12
2 packages of baby wipes 2/$12

$3/15 coupon
$11 in ECBS

Total was $2.20 and for my FINALE of Rookie mistakes.. I bring you ROOKIE MISTAKE #4 OF THE DAY which was... NOT REALIZING THAT I HAD SEVERAL $2/$10 CVS PRODUCT PURCHASE COUPONS WHICH I PRINTED RIGHT ONE AT CVS JUST 15 MINUTES PRIOR.. UGHHHH *sigh* I have to go throw up now.

Got my $5 ECB's.. oh well.

I never took pics either and I already gave the diapers/wipes to my neighbor who I bought them for (no babies here).

get-tow (ghetto) CVS

soooooo we don't have many CVS stores in the area but today I figured I would go to a CVS in a different town because the driving distance is the same and I didn't have other errands to run that would involve needing to go towards my normal CVS.. yes.. so this one is in a nearby town that just has a really bad rep for just being plain scummy. So I walk in and my MAIN reason for going, I need hair dye really bad and there was a good deal going on.. well of course they have not one type of blonde in the brand/type that I have coupons for and is on special.. upon inspecting the shelving tags I see they don't even stock blonde!! insane huh? Anyway.. so after getting gas for $4.23 then having to drive over a half hour to get to my nice quiet clean blonde hair dye stocking store I get my steals.. errr I mean deals and drive home.. passing a gas station that has gas for $4.18 KILL ME!



Okay
4 100% hair dye $7.99 B1G1 free
used 4 $3 coupons
2 Sally Hansen nail polish 99 cents each
used $3/2 coupon but it rang up as $1.28 and that's all she would give me
1 Stridex $3.99
used one $1 coupon
recieved $1.50 ECB
1 15ct towelettes $2.99 each
used $2 CVS coupon
recieved $1 ECB

Cashed in $2 ECB
Total $4.81 including tax

Not bad considering normally I would have spent $4 for hair dye and not gotten anything else!!

I now have $14 in ECBS which is nice. I should start checking out next weeks deals to see what I can get.

I just went on CVS and located a couple more CVS's I can hit, one of which has several other stores I can stop at for other things such as Target.

Rookie Mistakes.. (I've made a couple whoppers so far)

Soooo I decided to hit Jewel last.. I needed Milk really bad and it was free after buying 5 boxes of GM cereal for $10. Of course I had plenty of coupons so my total would have been $6.50 for 5 boxes of cereal. I also had a catalina for v8 fusion $1.25 and had found another $1 coupon for that. I saw gronola bars on sale for $2.50a box and remembered I had $1 coupon tucked in my coupon book.. took that out. So my total after all sales and coupons was $9.52.. trusty CATALINA prints out the coupon for the free milk. I had put the milk behind the ceral boxes so I could do that as a separate transaction.. Dumb butttttyyy me never clued in the fact that the catalina freebie could possibly print for more than the actual cost of the milk and didn't include a filler in order #2. So of course little pimple face Johnny rings it up and tells me I owe 64 cents when it was showing as a NEGATIVE, so he gets all freaked out and calls everybody and their mother manager over.. so they void the coupon and just give me the price of the item which was $3.79 and I had to pay tax! duh!! oh well.. so I paid $9.59 for basically $30 worth of groceries.. not too bad.

#2 as I walked out of Jewel I saw a huge garbage bin filled with CATALINAS.. of course there was this lady right on my butt so I didn't stop and try to grab them.. ughh!!

They never saw me comin!

My next stop tonight was Target... wow.. on line I heard they had some good deals.. not any to really be had by me.. but I had a plan, a list, a stack of coupons, plus my regular coupon book ready to go.

6 Head & Shoulder travel size .97 each
used 3 $3/2 coupons OVERAGE $1 EACH SET OR $3 TOTAL!!
Scotch Brite Cook Top Cleaner $6.49
used $1 off coupon I found
~will use MIR so this item will be free plus 50 cents after postage
Scotch Fur Grabber $9.99
used Target $4 coupon
used Manufacturer $4 coupon
Crystal Light 3 pack 99 cents
used 50 cent coupon
Old Spice RED ZONE Swagger bonus pack 12oz of shower gel
plus trial sized deoderant
on clearance for $2.10
used $1 coupon I got with Wal-Mart sample just this week

$7.49 with tax after coupons
MIR $6.49 so basically.. I spent $1 tonight on all items.
My original subtotal was $21.39 with out tax

BAWWHAHAHAHAHA

I stopped at Woodmans after dinner (after that Target and Jewel see next posts).. this is what I got.

3 Pert Plus Shampoos $1.99 each
used 1 $3, 1 $2 coupon, 1 $1 coupon
equals 3 cent overage
3 Kernal popcorn seasonings $2.19 each
used 3 $1 off coupon... so $1.19 each
2 Airwick sprays 99 cents each
used 1 BOGO free coupon.. 99 cents total

$5.33 for $15 worth of great products!

Also, one of them came with the same MIR I have done before.. can I send in another one?

I beg to differ...

So tonight I had a small work meeting (very long story) but anyway we got on the subject of how on the news I guess they were talking about how people are going out to eat rather than eating at home because it's "cheaper" now that the price of food is skyrocketing.. yeah not so much.. it's not the healthiest lunch but I fed my son, my 2 nephews, (so a 16,14, & 10 yo all boys) plus myself lunch for...

$1.50 3 boxes of Kraft mac & cheese
$.69 cent turkey hot dogs
$.69 cent hot dog buns

$2.88 total.. 4 people including 2 teenage boys, a tween, and myself.. and there was left overs. Plus the news crew that discussed this was combaring McDonalds.. I can feed everybody crap food for $5 for 5 people.. at McDonalds it's $5 per person.. how is that cheaper? get real!

HOUNDS OF HELL!!!

Okay.. I've started a new (well new to me) hobby.. they call it hounding.. they meaning.. http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ http://frugalsuz.blogspot.com/ any ladies on the WIR (women in red MSN threads) grocery challenge etc.. basically it's finding deals on things that you can get for $1 or under, FREE, or best of all THEY PAY YOU TO TAKE!! woot! So I've gotten to be not as good as I could be, but I'm getting better. Yesterday I went to Walgreens and got $50.32 worth of products for $4.77.. not bad.. this included things from Powerade, to toothpaste, to lysol, razors, pudding, tampons.. you name it.. and tomorrow I'll be out again bright and early because wooahhhaaazzzmeeee we are out of milk.. and MILK IS FREE AT JEWEL STARTING TOMORROW.. so me and my trusty coupons will be out buying 5/$10 boxes of GM cereal.. but with our coupons we will only be spending $6 for those 5 boxes of cereal.. and we'll get the milk for free.. how does that saying go.. why buy the cow when you get the milk for free.. shit.. that should have been the name of my blog! duhhh..

Okay.. so tonight my son and nephew begged me to drive them up to my sisters house to pick up my nephews mouse for his lap top (weird I know) but I refuse to even start a car unless I have a purpose.. ohh the 24 hour CVS and Super Wal-Mart are a purpose.. so I made a deal.. so they agreed and off with my coupons and little spiral notebook we went.

These are my CVS deals.. I had 3 transactions planned however I'm waiting for some coupons to be mailed to me (trades rule) so I just did two tonight.

#1
3 Sally Hansen nail polish 99 cents each
CVS makeup toweletts 15 count $2.99
speedstick $3.99
CVS antibacterial pen spray
2 Glucerna snack bars $4.89 each
2 CVS Gold Emblem mini bags of pretzels 69 cents each

$3/$15
$2 off CVS skincare product
$1 off CVS gold emblum snack
$10 off 2 Glucerna snack bars (they only gave me $9.78 for)
some misc $1.98 coupon I can't even identify I think it was for the nail polish becasuse I gave him a $3/2 but I bought 3 to cover the fee..??

my total was $5.78 with tax

I got back $3 in ECBS and forgot to give them the coupon for the free antibacterial pen spray..

#2
excederin back care $4.79
excederin PM $5.29
excederin extra $4.79
gas-x thin strips $5.69

$4/$20
$1.79 from above transaction he just put it on this.. cool
$1 gas x
3 $2 excederin coupons
2 $3 ECBS

Total was $1.92 with tax and I got $10 in ECBS PLUS I'll mail in a refund for $4.79 for the excederin back and body. So roughly tonight I made $11 on all those products! well.. really $5 because I used $6 ECBS from before.. but I brought home $13 in ECBS!!