Saturday, May 28, 2011

Food Lion


I got to Food Lion pretty late this evening, so not alot of Mark-down meats, but lean ground beef and chicken breasts were on sale so I got my about $20.00 worth of meat.
If you remember, I skipped buying meat last week because the Butcher P'd me off, so we were down to hardly anything left.

The 3-bar Ivory soap is on sale for $1.00. I'm not sure for how long because the tag was missing and I had to go ask for a price check at the CS desk.
Used the $1.00 mq from the last P&G to get them free. (I believe the Ivory q's were regional.)

The other deal I did was the Unilever deal: Spend $20, get $5 off, or Spend $35, get $10 off.
Earlier in the week it was based off of pre-MVP prices, but thanks to all the IDIOTs without a clue (newbies who can't bother to learn about shopping before taking their smart-asses out there) who screw up, and instead of trying to figure out what they did wrong, whine to the Manager and even call Corp! or get on Facebook and tell them that it's *SUPPOSED* to be before sale prices, Food Lion reset their registers to make it tally the sale prices.
THANKS ya effin' idiots!

Breyers is on sale for $1.99 each here, but some other regions it's BOGO, so check your ad.
If you Like Breyers on Facebook, there's a $1.50/2 Breyers Blasts ice cream. Even without the store promo, this coupon makes ice cream $1.24. Great price!

The Country Crock butter was $2.99 BOGO, or $1.49 each.
My .40/1 coupons from last weeks' RP doubled at my Atlanta area store, making them .69 after coupon.

Wishbone salad dressing 2/$3, used $1.00/1 mq from last weeks RP, making them .50 each.

Knorr Sides are $1.00 each, used .50/2 from last week's RP, which doubled to $1.00, making it .50 each.

My total before coupons and promo was $22.94/ cost after coupons and promo $6.54.

Pretty good deal for all that/

Total spent for all $31.xx.
Saved about $20 bucks.

Kroger, Rite Aid, Wags

Had some +UPs and RR's expiring I had to get out and spend, plus I had wanted to hit the Kroger Frozen Mega sale, and today was the last day.

My kid loves the Sister Shubert rolls so I get him some whenever they go on sale. They were $1.99 mega sale priced, and I had a .50 coupon that doubled to $1.00, making them .99 a bag.

The Gorton's wasn't really that great of a deal I didn't think. Last time they were on sale at Publix, it was for the bags with more fish in them, and ended up costing $1.74 after coupons.
These things were $2.99 mega sale price, and I had .50 coupons/doubled to $1.00, making them $1.99 each.
The coupons expired 5/31 so I wouldn't have time to use them before they went out, so I just got the things.

Kool-aid packets are on sale for 10/$1.00, or .10 each, thru 6/04.
I had a .50/5 IP (can't remember from where), that doubled to $1.00, plus a Buy (10), get (5) q from the 3/21 insert, I think.
I had wrote .50 on the coupon, but it auto'd $1.25 and the cashier said we'd leave it at that.

Altogether including tax I spent $15.xx oop. Saved $20.xx, but still not that of a deal to me.


At Rite Aid I was just pretty much cashing out. The Cokes did have a $2.00 +UP, making them 3/$7.99, or $2.66 each, which is a buyable price for me.  With the Cokes and milk, I wasn't that far from $25.00 to be able to spend one of the $5/$25 I've been saving for too long now and won't get a chance to spend the other (4) before they expire in a couple days probably.  I got (4) of the Activity books that cost $1.59 with my disc. and gave back $1.00 +UP.
Spent $20.52; got back $6.00.


Found a few of the deals left at Walgreens this evening; amazingly, alot of the hair elastics. I don't know if those got restocked and the Complete, Reach, and Bayer didn't, or if peeps just didn't buy them all up.
Surprised to find (4) Reach Crystal tb's at one store. Used $1.00 off mq, got $4.00 RR for buying (4).
I got the A&W, foil, tomato sauce, and grill scrubber because I was spending a $3.00 RR buying $2.00 Scuncis.
Think I broke about even with the Reach mm and the Bayer overage.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Friday Again Already

This week has flown by! I wouldn't've had a chance to go shopping if I'd even wanted to (which I didn't).

Last Sunday we went up to my Mom and Dad's for the day. Daddy's cherry trees are full to bursting so we went and picked a bunch. They are delish in homemade vanilla ice cream in the summer.
I love cherry pie, too, but have never made one myself. And besides I still have a whole bunch of the Banquet cherry-pot-pies I got free awhile back in the freezer.


Monday was my youngest son's 17th birthday, and this is the last week of school. He's only been having to go like 3 hours every day, to take two finals a day.  Today is the last day, then he'll be a Senior.


We got started building the chicken coop I've been wanting, and finally got our tax refund check so we were able to buy the stuff to put a tin roof on the outdoor-shed-building we've been working on here and there.

Most of the building was built using re-purposed and found or free building materials. I wanted to prove that we could build a nice building for little money, if we took the time to look for or ask for or keep an ear out for people getting rid of stuff.  Alot of the wood was from previous buildings we took apart, and Johnny got a bunch of nails and screws from a friend of a friend who was moving and cleaning out her basement.
He went and they loaded him up with all kinds of stuff! Including the screened gazebo room out by our pool, and the picnic table set sitting under it.
I love free!

We *almost* had free tin roofing, when John met a man one day while out testing fire hydrants who said he was wanting to have an old 40 foot chicken house torn down. But then before J could arrange it, the guy's son went and tore it down and scrapped the tin. ::Still crying over that one::

Anyway, it's been over a year and we needed to make some progress so we broke down and bought the roofing stuff. $500.00 worth, ouch!

The chicken coop is being built from completely free materials; someone posted a free coop on freecycle but the takers had to come take it down. That was right up our alley! It was more like a chicken yard than a coop, with 2x4's nailed together and all covered in chicken wire, but we've been able to cut up the 2x4's to make a little chicken house frame and chicken wired *windows*.  We need to find some more wood to be able to build an enclosed yard for the chickens to be able to get out of the house and run around in. If they run free all the ol' dogs running loose in the 'hood will come eat them.

And then, last night we had to deal with this:


We knew there was a chance for severe storms, but there wasn't even a tornado watch posted, much less any warnings.
My middle son, who's a volunteer firefighter, called to tell me there was severe hail reported south of (our county seat), west of us, headed this way.  Yeah, no doubt, I figured it'd happen, our garden was growing just too well.
It came up dark and the wind picked up, but then fizzled out, and it was just a steady drizzle of rain. I went out on the back porch and set a tray of pepper and gourd plants back out on the steps to get rained on.
Next thing I know, Kevin says well there went the tv (satellite goes out when there's heavy cloud cover) and the bottom had fallen out!  I run out to the back porch to rescue my plants, and it was raining SO hard, and the wind was blowing CRAZY. Tree branches and clumps of leaves were blowing over the house into the back yard, some of the building stuff we'd been working on picked up and blew down the yard. I was scared, Kevin ended up having to go out to the steps and grab the plant tray.
We hadn't brought Iglesius in, so he was down there flopping around like a reporter-in-a-hurricane. He's put together so flimsily as it is, I was sure he was going to break apart and all his pieces and filling go bye-bye!

Amazingly he hung in there, stayed together, and it didn't even hail and ruin our garden. Freakin' weird, but great!

We did lose another tree in the front yard, and were without power until about 2:30 this morning.

The garden will go wild with all this rain, but unfortunately so will the grass. We'll be outside today picking up limbs and tree debris so J can mow the yard this weekend.

I've got +UPs and RRs expiring tomorrow...I need a kick in the pants.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Popsicles for Summer

Here's some printable coupons for Budget-Saver Pops popsicles, valid thru December 2011. They are image (.jpg) files, so you can save them to your computer and print as needed. Be sure to save them while you can, sometimes coupons disappear even with long expiration dates!

Budget-Saver Pops Coupons

Check the Store Finder to see if these are available in your area.

Around here they're available in some of the smaller chain grocery stores like Food Lion, IGA, Sav-A-Lot, Piggly Wiggly, etc. and Walmart.

*I Heart the Mart* lists the price at Walmart at $1.82 each.
Using the .50 or $1/2 coupon would make them $1.32 each.**

But if you bought (4) bags and used:
$1/2
$.50
Buy (3), Get (1) Free
= $3.96, or .99 each (about .05 a popsicle)

**Atlanta area Food Lion stores double coupons up to .60, so if you're in this area you may be able to get a better deal using (3) .50 and a B3G1, depending on the price.**

*Updated: Regular price for these at Food Lion are $2.79, but are currently on sale for 2/$2.00, or $2.00 each. Tag didn't have a date for the sale to end.
$2.00 x 4 = $8.00
-2.00 B3g1 IP
- .50 (doubled to $1.00 mq) x 3
= 3.00, or .75 each (or .04 per popsicle)*

Friday: FAIL


I got Tostito Chips on sale BOGO $3.99, used (2) $1.00 mqs from the Pepsico Moments to Remember or Save or whatever it was called insert, 5/01, I think.  So cost $1.00 each after coupon.

Someone had mentioned the Lawry's Marinades were on BOGO, even though I didn't see them in the weekly ad, but sure enough they are, BOGO $2.99 thru 6/14.  I used .50 mqs, which double to $1.00 at my store, making them cost .99/2, or about .50 each. 
I used to get tons of Lawry's free in the good ol' days of coupon shopping, but Johnny was wanting some Sig Steakhouse the other day and I didn't have any, so .50 is still way better than paying regular price.

I used a $3.00 OYNO cat from the Scott deal last week, so I pretty much only ended up paying for my meat, $4.00-n-some-odd plus tax = $4.96 oop

I was still carrying around an Amex with some $ on it, but I was so aggrivated I forgot to use it.

If you're interested: Why my Friday was a FAILday .

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Our Garden

Back in late March, early April, I started sprouting some tomato and cabbage seeds on my kitchen windowsill, and John plowed under the garden spot, though we woudn't plant until after Easter (when the danger of frost *should* have passed).


We've not tried growing cabbage before, so not sure how/if those will turn out. I only started six plants, but we are down to four now.

We ended up with LOTS of tomato plants, though. Four rows, Yikes!  It happened because they advise you to sow three seeds per peat pod, and hope to get one. If you get more, weed the smaller/weaker ones out. I'm not so good at wasting what looked like perfectly plants, though, so I broke them apart and transplanted into larger cups and ended up with a whole lot of them. About three times more than we've had before.
However, we've been having a pretty active weather season so far, with high winds and tornado threats, so I'm not counting my chickens - everyone of them could easily be wiped by a hail storm next week.


This is Iglesius (don't ask; son named it).  I can't really explain too well why I wanted a scarecrow, other than it's kind of old-school traditional to have a scarecrow in the garden, even though we didn't have hay or overalls.  It was just, last year I thought the garden looked...interesting, with all the different things to see in it. There was 10 foot tall sunflowers, a cherry-tomato-box-frame thing, a post in the middle that had a water-sprinkler on it before it was taken off and replaced with a bird feeder later.  I don't know, it's weird, whatever.
It's not really as much a scarecrow as, the idea was to make it look like a farmer in his garden picking veggies. I'm looking for an old, red market basket to attach to his hand.  Although, I guess at this point I could stand an old hoe up against him and make him look like he's working in the garden.
I just like different, interesting, decorative things in the garden to give it some interest.


This is the garden at the moment. The two rows closest are cucumbers. John put up the posts and chicken-wire for the cuke-vines to climb. Before, they'd run all out into the yard and then we coudn't cut the grass and it'd overtake the cuke-vines. So hopefully we can contain them this year.
Behind those are four cabbage plants and three sweet banana pepper. Behind that is a couple rows of corn. Then cherry tomatoes, Iglesius, and three more pepper plants. The whole south side is the four rows of tomatoes.  We planted sunflower seeds along the east side again, but they didn't come up (or they did and I *weeded* them out. I am bad to not be able to the tell the difference between weeds and plants, which is why I start mine inside, so I know what they look like!).


Gardening is such a satisfying undertaking, and the benefits are numerous: saves you money, good for your health - physical and mental both - and it's a great family activity.  Everyone should at least try it. Even if you only have a balconey or small patio, you could grow tomatoes or peppers or cucumbers/squash/beans in a 5-gallon bucket.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

From Junque Mail to Free First Aid and Food

Like many people, we get lots of advertisement/junk mail.
It used to aggrivate me, for a number of reasons. For one thing I fell for that whole "tree killing" hype, believing junk mail was contributing to de-forestation, stealing our oxygen and the end of humankind. LOL, what malarkey.
Another reason is the concern of identity theft. Apparently people were getting their mail stolen and the thieves were opening credit card accounts from credit card offers that came in the mail, such like that.
I think alot of that kind of thing has been safeguarded at this point, but I still feel a residual spasm of nerves throwing stuff with our name/address on it in the trash.


I open the junk mail and sort through it and find alot of the papers are blank on the backside. This gives me Free Paper great for printing my Copy & Paste shopping lists and printable coupons on.


The other papers I shred and it goes into our compost (bin).


We don't have a *real* (ie. commercial) compost bin, but use wooden pallets we got free nailed together into a couple of corrals. We fill one of them up with shredded paper, yard clippings, leaves, and kitchen waste and "turn it over" into the empty one, back and forth, until the stuff "cooks down".

Some of my longer-time readers might remember last year (or the year before?) I posted about my vermi-composting, or worm composting. I had built a wooden box and filled it with shredded newspaper, leaves, grass clippings, and red wiggler worms. The worms would eat my shredded junk mail and kitchen scraps, and poop it back out as Free Potting Soil.
That worked great until that winter, and all my worms moved out through the holes drilled in the bottom of the box for drainage!

At any rate, it worked, and we decided to go with a larger composting idea. I didn't want to go out and buy a commercial plastic compost barrel or anything like that, so I got on the internet to research and see what would work for us. We liked the pallet idea, but as I was telling my son a couple days ago when he expressed interest in it, you don't really need anything but a sunny corner of your yard. (I say a sunny corner, but ours really isn't in the sun that much and it still works.)
Just pick a corner or area somewhere out of the way and start piling up grass clippings, leaves, pruned shrubbery, etc. You can add torn up newspaper, shredded paper, kitchen scraps like egg shells, coffee grounds/filter, tea bags, fresh fruits and veggies peels/scraps (anything except meat/dairy stuff), and even old cotton clothing like blue jeans and tshirts can be composted (so I've read, but never have thrown clothing in mine). 
Every so often, maybe when the season changes, or after a couple of rains, use a shovel or pitchfork and turn the pile over so it can "cook down" right.

Unlike my vermi-compost box where I had to add the worms, in this compost on the ground idea, the worms move into it by themselves. So in addition to getting organic soil, you get a free supply of fishing bait, too.

I got this Aloe plant couple years ago as a little baby plant. I re-potted it in some of the soil from our compost bin, and it has more than quadrupled it's size.
My Grannie always had Aloe growing out beside her house, and would go out and break off an arm to use if someone got a burn or sunburn or skin troubles like dry skin or a rash. Heat rash is pretty prevalent here in the South and Aloe is soothing for it.


And I mentioned free fish bait? My husband and son caught these in a local creek/river this past Saturday afternoon using worms they dug out of one of our compost piles.


They made for a delicious meal slow-smoked on the grill:


With the economy in the shape it's in these days, people are going to have to start cutting back, and learn to do with less.
My husband still has his job, but hasn't gotten a raise in four years. With the gas prices going up, food costs increasing and our insurance benefits decreasing, our income doesn't go as far as it used to. So every bit we save by making, creating, growing our own things helps to get us what we need and still be able to pay our bills.

Although I do throw my newspaper/magazines/plastics/glass/etc into the recycle bins, mostly just because it's easy and convenient for us to do, I'm not a die-hard "Greenie" or tree-hugger or whatever. I like my creature comforts and don't worry over-much if whatever I'm eating is organic or sprayed/injected with poisonous hormones and such.
But my veins are infused with a whole lot of thifty Scots blood, and it tickles me purple (pink's not a good color for me with my orange hair) anytime I can save a penny. Hence, my enjoyment of coupon/deal shopping.

My Native American blood thrills at the sense of accomplishment when I'm able to make/create/grow/nuture things.

When I was younger I didn't care much about that kind of thing, I was all about convenience. Buy it already made, throw the leftovers in the trash. Easy, and done.

Now I'm teaching my kids, and I encourage everyone to try to look back to the old ways and learn to re-use stuff, and how to grow stuff to eat or for health benefits. 

Although I spent alot of summers on my great-grandparents' farms when I was little, I didn't learn much about farming, raising a garden or much like that. So when I decided I wanted to learn - same as when I wanted to learn about couponing - I went to the internet and searched and read and started small. (I also ask my parents and older relatives alot of questions.)

The first year I wanted to try to grow a garden, I completely failed. I only planted a few of each kind of plant, just to see if I could get anything to grow. I think I actually grew three Okra and half a Cantaloupe (not half as in one side, half as in it grew to about the size of an orange, then disappeared. I guess an animal ate it?).
The next year I decided to only go with one vegetable, and planted three rows of corn. It wasn't a bumper crop, but I ended up with enough corn on the cob to put in the freezer!  I was so excited, and it felt great that I was able to do that.
The year after that we only raised tomatoes, and they did really good. I also learned how to "can" them that year, for use in chili and homemade vegetable soup during the winter.

After the tomatoes, my husband got interested and now he's the big time gardener in the family. To hear him brag about the stuff he grows, you'd think he invented vegetables, LOL!

It doesn't matter if you live in an aparment or a trailer park or on 3 foot of property, you can compost and grow stuff in a very small space, or even in your kitchen.

Monday, May 16, 2011

CVS

I had let all my ECB's expire, and didn't really care. Until after the fact, that is. Hate when I do that, when I think, gah, if I didn't want to mess with them all I had to do was go spend them.
Some of the stores I shop will take expireds so I figured, what the heck, I'll stop in and ask, all they can say is no and I'm not any worse off, right.

First store didn't say no, so I was able to spend all of them. Second store would only take the ones that had expired within the past week. So I still lost about half of them (unless I call tomorrow and see if I can them re-issued), but anyway, it was better than just losing them all.

I got the Dial soap because it was cheap after $1.00 ECB, and I found the Aquafresh/Sensodyne/Biotene coupon booklets so I got a couple of the Aquafresh to get back $2.00 ECB, same with the Speed Stick deo. The John Frieda hair color was free with a coupon I got in the snail-mail last week, so was a $2.00 mm after ECB.
The rest I just spent.

Free Makeup:
Physicians Formula Bronzers, Powders, Blush, and Concealers (but not the $5.99 ones) are on sale for $6.00 off. 
I found some Bamboo wear, I think it's face powder, for 10.99, so 4.99 on sale, free with $5.00 pdf q (adjusted down). 
There was some $8.99 concealers and $7.99 concealors which were 2.99 and 1.99 on sale. Combine a 2.99 and 1.99 for 4.98, free after $5.00 q (adjusted down).

You can combine more expensive items with the cheaper concealers, for instance I found a Happy Booster something or other for 12.49, or 6.49 on sale, and a couple of the 1.99 concealers and used 2 of the coupons.  You can get a $13.99 item, on sale for 7.99 and a 1.99 concealer and use 2 coupons (adjusted down).

Walgreens

I had $77.00 RRs expiring today I needed to get spent. I thought about going to Publix and seeing if I could spend them there, but I had alot of them, low demoninations like $1, $2, $3 and a few $5. It makes the cashier nervous to accept alot of them at the same time. So I figured I try to roll as many as I could on the $10.00 Nova max. Which turned out to be (2).

I didn't even really consider the Body Wash deals because I seriously doubted I'd find any, or tape, in stock by the time I got there. Amazingly, though, I was able to find what I needed at the stores I visited.

The Gillette Body Wash is a Trick Wags is playing on us this week, to keep us on our toes I think.
I made the amatuer mistake of assuming it was the same old bottle of body wash we always get; I guess the BA thought the same thing since the smaller bottles on the shelf was tagged with the 3/$10 price. Good thing I was paying attention to the register and saw them ring up at $4.49 each. Whoa, Nellie.
I re-checked the ad and saw it was supposed to be the larger 16oz bottle instead.

On top of that, apparently the body washes are also BOGO50%, so it took $1.67 off of one of the bottles at the end of the transaction. I knew the deodorants were BOGO50%, but wasn't prepared for the bw to be also.

$10/3 Gillette Body Wash 16oz
- 2.00 body wash 5/15 RP x 3
- 1.67 BOGO 50% on one bottle
= $2.33; Get $3.00 RR

I was buying Scotch tapes in the same trans for $1.01 overage to make the body washes free, so it turned out to be a $1.68 mm.

$1.99 Scotch Magic tape B1G2
-1.00 IP x 3 (give first)
-3.98 in-ad q (give last)
= +1.01

The Softsoap body wash is 2/$6, get $4 RR.
I didn't have any coupons for those, so I bought (6) Scotch tapes in the same trans to get those free after RR.

The Jell-o's were free with a $1/5 blinkie q from Publix awhile back, and the 5/$1 in-ad q.
The Chips Ahoy with Reece's were clearanced at .25 and was what I used for my fillers.

At one store the J&J Bandages had $1.00 peelies on them, and the stuff was on sale for BOGO50%, and you got a free "Build Your Own First Aid Kit Bag" with a $15 value coupon booklet inside of it when you bought two of the items.
The bandaids were $3.79; or $3.79 and $1.90 = $5.69
- 1.00 peelie x 2
= $3.69; get the free bag with $15 worth of coupon booklet

(I'm not using my red bag as a 1st aid bag, but as an Aunt Flo bag instead.)(Don't click if you feel women's issues are TMI.)

Friday, May 13, 2011

Food Lion

Food Lion was my last, rather than first stop today, so the mark-down meat selection was lacking. I got a thing of steaks for just under $5 bucks.

The big deal was the Scott Catalina deal, which is supposed to be working through or until 5/15.
Google it for more exact info, but I knew you had to buy two or three DIFFERENT items in the same transaction.

$1.39 single roll paper towels
$ .99 single roll TP
= $2.38, get $2.00 Cat = .38 cost for PT and TP
Roll Cat as many times as you want/can to get .19 PT and TP.

I found a .50 off Scott wipes coupon in one of my inserts, which will double at my store(s), so I carried it along to see if would be a good deal.
The wipes were $2.19, so $1.19 after coupon, and I get a $3 Cat for buying (3) items, so another $1.00, wipes ended up costing .19 also.

I ended up paying .57 + tax = .85 oop each time

There's also a Scott $3.00 rebate...I don't know the details but guess I'll be looking into it to see if I can make this deal totally free or maybe profit.

Walmart

Wanted to go into Walmart to see if I could find any Nivea, but seemed like alot of effort to go for one thing, which I knew I wouldn't find anyway. So I checked boards and blogs looking for other stuff to look for while I was there.

I was able to price-match the Glade Sense'n'Spray to Walgreens 2/$5.00 ad price. Used a $3.00 insert q to get .50 overage each.

They had no problem PM'ing the Clean-n-Clear BW to Wags BOGO $5.99, but did not want to take the BOGO mq. The register said "Too much" and only took off .88 cents. Where the heck did .88 come from??
Anyway the CSM said I'd have to buy 4 to be able to use the mq. I didn't argue with her, paid and went to the CS desk. They didn't know, so they called the CSM.
I tried explaining to her that me using the coupon was no different than me paying with cash because they were going to get reimbursed the same amount. She just said in an exasperated tone to go ahead and give me the $5.99, and I said she needed to call her Corporate and verify it because they've been telling people it's okay to use a BOGO coupon on a BOGO sale and I felt like she didn't believe me and was just pacifying me to shut me up.
Anyway, it was a PITA.

Got more free Poligrip w/ insert q.
The Reach floss has apparently been price rolled back from .97 to .88, so more overage with $1.00 coupons.
There were some Degree coupons in one of the inserts - 5/01? - not excluding trial size. I had several of the coupons but good thing I read them because only two of them were $1/1, probably the ones I got from my sister who lives in Florida. The other ones were $1/2.
Noxema bikini razors are $1.97, so free/overage after $2.00 insert q.

They have 4-pack of some razors called Wilkinson Sword at .97 cents.
There is/was a $1.00 IP q here: Wilkinson Sword Razors .

They have Daily's Fruit Mixers frozen alcoholic drinks for $1.97.
Here is a $2.00 IP for Daily's Mixers .

Oscar Meyer Hot dogs were $1.68 - $1.00 IP = .68

The donuts were on the Oops we baked too much rack for $2.39.  Who could pass up that deal?

Final total was $8.something, then I got $5.99 back for the C&C BOGO q, so $2.something.

Publix

I visited my more favorite Publix stores this morning to see if the New Coupon Policy was heard of yet (if not, the first store would still be accepting $5/$25 Rite Aid q's). They had heard, though, and said their only Competitors would be Kroger and Target. YaY for Target!

So I asked about the RRs (an "insider" had posted that they would take any MQ, even if it had another store's name all over it, and had an RR pictured as an example). The A.Man said "Absolutely!"
But just to make sure, I pointed out that it was for no particular item, or any item (barring exclusions). Because no one could seem to answer if it was going to be like Walmart and only accept them on a specific item.

He didn't have any problem with that, but was taking it as a Total Purchase coupon, as in One Per Transaction. I showed him where it said about not having more coupons than items in a transaction, and explained that I could go to Walgreens and buy, like, 5 Body Wash or 5 bags of candy or whatever, and be able to use 5 RRs.

So he read it, considered it, conferred with the CS clerk, and made the judgement call that it would be alright for me to use them like that today.  (They were expiring today, so if not, I was going to Walgreens to spend them and he knew it.) He said I could use them today, but he wanted to check on it and make for sure, so he took my name and phone number and said he'd call if he found out differently. If I don't hear from him it's good news.
I haven't heard from him, but I don't know if he was talking today, tomorrow, next Monday or what.

When I went to check out, the cashier said, We don't take Walgreens. I said it's a MQ, and she as like, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see that. We do take those. Then the other cashier doing the bagging said, but we may not after the new coupon policy goes into effect. I said, this is the new coupon policy, that you'll accept any MQs from any store.  They were like, oh we could always take these.
Arggggh!  No they couldn't! I asked! Obviously I should have kept asking until I asked the right person.

It was pretty much exactly the same story at the other Publix I visited. I was allowed to use them for today. Maybe next time, Who knows. Nothing like being able to go shopping prepared.

I used them on some things we like and I haven't been able to buy in awhile and some we needed: corndogs, frozen burritos, sausage-biscuits, bacon, Zebra cakes, refried beans, salmon, pizza crust, lettuce, bananas,  and a thing of shortening.
OMG, do you know how much shortening is now? The freakin Store Brand was $5.19!! FIVE-NINETEEN! Are you kidding me?? That's crazy!  I used to be pissed off because it was $3.65. I still remember when Crisco would go on sale for $1.98!! FIVE-NINETEEN! I need to figure out a substitution. Geeeezzzzzzz!
Found the Stanley work gloves on clearance 2/$8.99. The ol' man's always needing gloves, and he's big on Brand names, so I got him these.

Deals I got:
$3.79 Sundown Folic Acid (Ended today)
-3.00 Green Flyer PQ
-1.00 MQ
= +.21 overage

$.89 Mahatama yellow rice
-.50 mq (doubled)
= +.11 overage

$3.19 Sominex x 2 (Ended today)
-5.00/2 Green Flyer PQ
-1.00 mq x 2
= +.62 overage/2

$.89 BOGO Yakisoba
- .50 mq (doubled)
=  +1.11 overage/2

$1.99 Noxema Bikini Razors
-2.00 mqs
= +.01 overage

$2.00 Yoplait Kids x 2
-$2/2 Yellow Flyer PQ
-.50 mq (doubled) x 2
= FREE

$2.25/2 Breakstones Zesty Blend
-1.00 Facebook q x 2
= .25/2

$(I forgot?) Hunt's Ketchup
- .35 (doubled) mq from inside Banquet meal box
= .37

$2.89 BOGO Vlassic pickles
- .55 PQ Spring Family Gatherings booklet
- .75 Blinkie mq
= .14/.15 each

Walgreens

Still had one $3 RR expiring today to spend, so went in looking for a Colgate deal. The Colgate was $4/2 adter (2) $1.00 mqs from the DIY magazine, so I looked around for something else to buy to be able to add another RR into the mix.

Saw the Raid Bug Barrier spray on clearance for $3.59. I had JUST found a Raid display with a tearpad of coupons at Kroger for $3.00 off Raid Bug Barrier!!!! So I got it for .59!!
I'm just never that lucky.

The toilet paper kicked me up to where I needed to be to add a $5 RR, and the candy was a filler to be able to use another filler.
I stupidly forgot I had to buy (2) Cottonelle to get the Cat back :-(
I don't know if I'll take it back and re-buy with another one. Probably not, I'm too tired.

I was about to check out when a lady and her kid walked by and the kid was carrying a can of nuts. I had looked at the clearance shelves, but for some reason looked right over the nuts as Not Interested. For some reason seeing the kis with the nuts reminded me my ol' man was griping last night that there wasn't any nuts in the house (I don't know what he's talking about - this place is full of nuts, LMAO).
Anyway, I ran back there and saw the cans of peanuts and mixed nuts were clearanced to .74/.75, and the jar of peanutes to .87, so I got several for nuthead.

Spent $13.00 RR and $1.03 cash; Got back $4.00 RR. Cost: $10.03 (The bug stuff alone was like $17.99, I think?)

Kroger

Kroger shop was mostly looking for Nivea BW to be able to blow the coupons I have left before they expire tomorrow. I was still surprised to find any when I did. Used the overage to buy some .49 Propel, and a couple cans of baked beans.

I had alot of .50 Carefree coupons I was afraid would end up going to waste, even though they're good until the end of next month, who knows if there'll be another decent sale on them.

Had and still have alot of the free Poligrip coupons to use between now and the end of this month. They still cost me tax, and normally I wouldn't buy something I won't use like that if it doesn't profit me, but on the other hand I hate to throw *free* coupons away.
If I could get my act together and have a yard sale, if I could get even .25 out of them I've made a profit.

The Nestle candy is on sale 2/$1.00. There's a $1.00/2 in one of the inserts, 5/01? (Check a database)
I also had tearpad q's for B2G1 free, so I got all 3 free.
The last Kroger wouldn't let me do it; they said the B2G1 coupon was for all 3 candy bars.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Rite Aid


I've been in a shopping slump the past couple of weeks, so, as will happen, I had +UPs expiring. Last week it was $30.00 worth. I just went to the local store and spent it on milk, bread, and some swimming pool goggles/mask things.

But today I had $177.00 worth of +UPs expiring. I knew I wasn't going to be able to spend that at my rinky-dink little local store, so I headed to a store I hadn't been to in awhile, but which I used to have really good shopping luck at. I was hoping to have the same kind of luck, but if not, at least there were 3 Rite Aids in the area so I should be able to find something to spend my +UPs on between that many stores.
I ended up not having to worry about it, though, because I was able to get what I wanted at the Good store.

Deals:

$3.99 Breathe-Rite (I bought 5)
- FREE RAq (no longer available)
Get $1.00 +UP (limit 4)
Get $5 +UP wyb $25 Allergy (limit 1?)(I  had $6.00 Allergy already)
Free + $9.00 profit
(*My RAq wouldn't scan so the cashier put them in at $3.99, so I didn't get the $2.00 overage that some people are getting when their coupon auto-scans for $5.99.)

$5.00 Tylenol Precise
-5.00 5/08 SS or IP
= Free
{Get $10 +UP wyb $25}
I only had 4 coupons so I didn't get the $10 +UP yet.
I was actually surprised to see the WW tracking on my receipt because I'd read that it wasn't even supposed to start until 5/15, but had gotten accidently turned on last week, and had been turned off again this week. Hopefully it'll still count later on when I find something else to finish it off. I thought about going ahead and buying another Tylenol and just spending the $5, to go ahead and get the $10 +UP, but I didn't, so hopefully I didn't mess up.

$6.99 Hyland's leg cramps, get $6.00 +UP = .99 cost
*They screwed me on this deal...it was mentioned the regular price was $6.99, so my 20% should apply, making this a small mm after +UP. Sure enough I checked and the regular price tag said $6.99. I didn't see until later my receipt says 6.99 was the sale price, regular price was 9.99. And, the ad said limit 4, but I only got 3 of the +UPs and they are having to mail me the other one.

$1.00 Carefree - 1.00 5/08 SS = Free

$1.99 Stayfree and OB - 1.00 5/08 SS = .99 cost

$6.39 Biore Strips (w/ 20% disc)
$6.39 Cleanser
-6.39 BOGO (?insert?)
Get $5.00 +UP wyb 2
= $1.39 cost

$1.59 (reg. 1.99) Activity w/ stickers coloring books
Get $1.00 +UP
= .59 cost

$0.99 Single Serve Candy BOGO
Used BOGO Hersheys Dark/Milk chocolate 5/01 SS value .85 = .14 cost/2
Used B2G1 Mars 3/27 RP
Buy 6 = 2.97
Use 2 - 1.98
Cost = .99/6 candy

Other:

$0.49 Fly swatters clearance

and, uh, a few other things :-)

Publix

I don't really like the bagged Tidy Cat litter for Kitty's litter box (don't know why the bag and jug stuff are different), but for .20 each, they'll be good for absorbing oil or stuff off the driveway.
$2.39 BOGO
-1.00 5/1 SS x 2
= .39, or .20 each

$2.95 BOGO Edwards Pie Singles
-1.00 4/10 SS (?) x 2
= .95, or about .43 each
(I wanted Lemon Meringue but they were out. I got a couple Oreo pies for the boys, then a raincheck for some LM's later.)

$50.00 Amex Card
+ 4.95 Activation fee
-10.00 in-ad q
= 44.95 ($5.05 profit)

$0.89 Yakisoba x 10
-  .50 (doubled) (?insert?)
= +$1.10 overage/10

Used $5/$25 Rite-Aid competitor Q

Total $41.58 + .36 tax = $41.94
= $8.06 profit w/ $50.00 Amex card

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Walgreens

I stayed up too late with some sexy men last night and had a hard time dragging my old bones out of bed this morning, so I guess I missed the $1.00 paper sellers (or they never showed up? or?). They probably just sold out fast, I missed out on the double-papers at Wags, Publix AND Kroger, too.

Despite that, I was apparently first for the deals at Wags this morning. They had everything I was looking for.
I had about $35 in RRs to roll/spend, but I ended up rolling/spending alot more.
Haven't done the totals yet, but here's the deals I did:

$3.99 Noxema Razors
-2.00 5/01 RP
Get $3.00 RR
= $1.01 profit

$2.00 Gum Flossers
Get $2.00 RR
= FREE + tax

$3.99 Fixodent Cleanser
-3.00 5/01 insert
Get $1.00 RR
= .01 profit

$4.49 Right Guard Bodywash
$0.50 Right Guard Bodywash
(1 @ 4.49, or 2 @ $4.99; don't know why it rang up this way instead of 2 @ full price and then taking one off)
-4.49 5/01 insert BOGO q
= .50/2, or .25 each

$8.00/2 Head & Shoulders
-4.00 BOGO q (4/17?)
Get $2.00 RR/2
= $2.00, or $1.00 each
(My oldest and youngest sons need this, so I stock up when it's this cheap)

$4.89 Gillette Razor kits/packs
-4.00 5/01 PG
Get $5.00 RR
= .89 each

$5.00 Cottonelle 12-pk
-1.00 May booklet q
Get $3.00 RR wyb 2 packs
= $5.00/2, or 2.50 each

$2.00 papers
$0.15 Indiana popcorn stuff
$0.49 Arizona Tea

Publix

Got some new $3.00 Bic Soliel q's in one of today's SS inserts.
They are BOGO $5.49, so overage of .51/2.

Which I wanted to spend on Pizza sauce, but they were out.
So I got some bananas $1.32; my middle son asked me yesterday to make some banana-nut bread.
I remembered I needed some potatoes, too $2.99. They were .20 cheaper at Food Lion, but it would have cost more than that in gas to drive out of the way to the FL.

$2.78 + 1.08 tax = $3.29 pd with Amex gift card profit