Shopping Trip!

I have had several friends ask me about my couponing, savings and shopping, so I thought I would detail my post here. This shopping trip was ONLY to Publix but this will show you an example of how it goes.

1. I buy 4 papers every Sunday. Holidays do not have papers but every other Sunday does. I use the coupons from there. Also our local paper has coupons. I also get alot of my coupons from online!
2. Publix accepts competitor coupons. I use a lot of Target coupons there. Some policy states that it has to be within 5 miles of the store so keep that in mind.
3. We do NOT make a list and then go shopping. We eat and make a list off of what is on sale!
4. I have a price point of $1 or less for a ton of my items.
5. When doing a BOGO (by one get one free), the price is halved and you can use TWO coupons (one for each item).
6. NOT ALL BOGO's are a good deal!!
7. My coupons are organized with a photo box and a TON of envelopes. They are seperated by category, just like the store (baking, dairy, breakfast, etc). Then sub categories in those are like for baking: oil, cake mix, brownie mix, etc.
I also have envelopes for Target, CVS, Kroger and all of my main stores that I visit. That way if I have store coupons, I can put them in there.
8. I try to make sure I can do a double, triple or quadruple deal. Publix doubles coupons to .50. So I use a coupon and they double. Hey that's great, right? Well, then I get to use a store coupon ON TOP of the manufacturer coupon! Cool huh?
9. Create a "stockpile". Stockpiling means buying items a) when they are on sale and b) when you have coupons. Stockpiling enables you to purchase these items at the lowest prices to save you more money. I buy as many items as I have coupons for. Make sure they are items you will use or you will waste your money.
10. Realize that there are "sale cycles". Sales run in cycles of 4-6 weeks.
11. We stockpile on Turkeys and Hams at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. FYI. They are usually their lowest prices then. We buy all natural beef from a butcher for $2.25/lb. (processed). We also have a garden that we can from. It is smaller but growing ;)


Two main sites I used for my trip today was:

Fiddle Dee Dee Mom (she details Publix shopping trips)
Coupon Mom (she does deals by state and by store)
Another one I used but not as much was Money Saving Mom

I make sure to look and to see what the sales are and make a list. I then figure out what the prices will be and how much of a savings. I ONLY buy the items we will eat/use or else you are wasting your money.

Here is what we got:

5 boxes of Cherrios (.49 each)
1 Publix shopping bag (free)
1 gallon of Publix water (penny item)
1 OJ (.39)
4 boxes El Monterey Tornados ($1 each)
8 cans of Healthy Harvest Soup (Campbells)
2 pkgs of Keebler Cookies
4 boxes of Smart Balance Butter (.25 each)
8 bags of Steamfresh Veggies (.20 each)
2 Dole Fruit Parfaits



As you can see, We came home. We got quite a bit of items. Let me detail some of the finds:

Smart Balance Spread
BOGO $3.49 ($1.75 each)
Bought 2. Used 2 $1.50 coupons for a total of $3
OOP (out of pocket) was $.50 for BOTH

Another deal was Cherrios $1.99 each (a GOOD sale)
MINUS $1/1 coupon
$.99
MINUS Target $1/2 General Mills coupon
$.49
PLUS Publix has coupons on their site. Two of them. One is if you buy TWO GM products, you get a FREE Publix shopping bag. Also there was another coupon that says if you buy 2 GM products, you get $1 off of OJ. So not only did we get 4 boxes of cereal for $.49 each, but we got a FREE shopping bag and a $.39 can of OJ.

Another Deal was the Steamfresh Veggies.  They were on BOGO for $2.39 ($1.20 each)
we had $.50/1 coupons.  They doubled to $1.  So we paid $.20 for each bag.  Not bad!!

BTW, look at the top picture.  The only thing you do not see is a gallon of Publix water that is in the bag.  That was my $.01 (penny) item!

Our total was $54.57.  After coupons and sales, our out of pocket was $18!!!    Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!!

Most of you know, we are English Bulldog Breeders. Well, we are expecting more babies the third week of August. We recommend Hill's Science Diet for our babies, especially when they are less than 1year old. If you don't live around here, you may or may not know that our beloved UGA mascot is on this stuff. Anyway, if you Click on this link, you will get a $5 off coupon for the stuff. Because our babies have SUCH small trachea's, we start ours off on "Small puppy bites". We also have mom (Leia), on puppy chow one month before she gives birth.

On one of my Yahoo lists (homeschooling), there is a recent discussion of Frugality. I decided that I would condense all the links here for everyone to use as a reference.

Being Frugal: How to survive a recession
Hillbilly Housewife
Budget 101
Frugal Abundance
Money Saving Mom
Living on a Dime
Hot Coupon World
Coupon Mom
Tightwad
Frugal Living
Frugal Mom
Dollar Stretcher
Just Frugal
Frugal Corner
Frugal Families
All Things Frugal

Books that are tremendously helpful:

Debt Free Living by Burkett
Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
Frugal Families and Miserly Moms
Tightwad Gazette (there are three of them)
Any books by Mary Hunt

What are some of your favorite resources or links?

Today's Freebies!

Well, I hope you are having a blessed day with your loved ones! I got my roses, but I got them last week at Aldi's. They were $2.50/6. I was able to pick out my own colors which was nice. Here are some specials for today:



At Ebates, You can enjoy $10 rebate For today only (it is usually $5)! Just click on the picture above or this Link to sign up! It is easy and FREE!

Also at Kroger, You can get FREE Totino's Pizza Rolls! They are 10/$10. If you sign up Here you will get a .50/coupon which will double to $1. Also in this last Sunday's paper, there was a coupon for .40 off. When you buy 10, you get $2 back, so don't worry about the .20. It will be free!

If you click on HERE, you will get a $2 coupon off of Honey Bunches of Oats Chocolate Clusters. They will be free or nearly free!

Clicking on this link will get you a couple of free Campbells Stock pot meals. (BTW when printing off these coupons, if you have more than ones computer, you can print atleast 4)

Here are some deals for CVS:
At CVS, buy 1 at $9.99, Get $6 ECBs (Limit 1). Use the $4/1 coupon from the 02/10 insert and get it free after coupon and ECBs.

If you buy 2 Garnier Haircolors at CVS which were on sale 2/$10 used 2/$2 coupons and got back $5 ECB making the hair colors $0.50 per box!

Enjoy!

CVS coupons!

Well, since my stackable store coupons expired yesterday, I decided to organize a trip to a CVS. Surprisingly, I was able to stack, but she told me that corporate was cracking down on them (but she said "she didn't care!") She also said as she was scanning, "Well, there are these mom's that think they can buy a bunch of stuff for nothing, LOLLLLLLL"

Well, I bought $85 worth of stuff and after store coupons and manf. coupons, I used $39.99 in ECB's and paid $1.85 OOP! I got $48 in ECB's back!

Okay, since my friend Fiddle D asked I will tell you what I got:

4 boxes of Colgate Total (used $2 off coupons)
1 kids card table 7.99
1 dbl box of Excedrin (picked it up by mistake but got $3 ecb's)
2 100 ct Excedrin (had $3 off cpns)
2 insect bite pens (sending to Hscl mom in Zimbabwe)
1 dbl cans of coffee (going to Zim), but got ECB's
Nova Max monitor (sale 29.99, had a $50 cpn exp 1/31 and they took it and adjusted it down to 0 and got $20 ECB's)
1 6 pk Mac and Cheese (going to Zim) got ECB's on it
2 pkts of chapstick with spf (going to Zim)
2 boxes of Triaminic (had manf cpns)


Here are some more "goodies" I found. These are only the $4/20 coupon, and YOU CAN ONLY USE ONE PER CUSTOMER!!!! My recommendation is to LIMIT your TOTAL with a limit of $20.

Here are the links:
$4/$20 will Exp 2/10
$4/$20 will exp 2/17

Have a good day!

CVS.....Kroger........Publix

Since the store coupons expired yesterday, I made it a focus to get to CVS yesterday. I am glad I did. Here is what I got:
1 pkg 20 rolls Cottonelle (9.99)
2 boxes of Colgate total (2.49 each, which equals 4.98)
1 pkg of 2 Oral B Toothbrushes (5.99)
2 boxes of Crest Toothpaste (5.18)
1 box of 100 ct Excederin with bonus of 24 ct Back and Body (8.99)
My total before tax was 35.13. I used a $5/$30, a $4/$20, a $3/$15 and a $2/10. After my manufacterers coupons, my total was $12.20. I used $12 in ECB's and Paid .....

.46 Out of Pocket! I also got $10 BACK in Ecb's to spend!

I hope they bring back these coupons again! It is so much fun!

My grocery store experience was great! AT Kroger, my total was $132 and I paid $40 OOP. Then I had to spend a few minutes with my cashier, because she "had to know how I did that". She was a junior in high school, lol!

My total at Publix was $74.98 and I paid $17.03 OOP. BTW on Publix there is a Johnson & Johnson coupon out for $1 off. In SMALL print it says it will be good for buddies. Publix has a buddies bar for .99 which makes it free! I bought two of those, although I had 6 coupons. I will look out for more!

Take care! May this inspire and motivate you!

Super Savings Saturday:

First of all we went to Old Navy yesterday. There is an additional 50% off of the orange sticker, so I didn't pay more than $5 for an item and as little as $1.49.

I made two trips to CVS. The first one's total was $30.15 and my OOP was $4.55 with $17 ECB's. The second one my total was $26.97 and my OOP was .97 with $6 ECB.

I went to Publix on Weds and my total was $64 and I paid OOP $18.03. Here is what I got there:
12 boxes of Barilla Pasta
10 cans of Progresso soup
6 containers of squeezable Jam
6 boxes of Hamburger Helper/Helpers

I went to Super Target yesterday and my total was %54.46 and my OOP was $18.31. I got:

24 cans of Campbells Chicken Noodle
5 boxes of Electrosol
2 boxes of popcorn
6 small coffee's
4 pkgs of salad
10 pkgs of butter

Good luck this week!

CVS info and deals!

**CVS Hidden (non-advertised) Deal**
Spend $20 on ANY Pepsi Co products (including Fritolay chips) and receive $10 in ECB's. Btw Sierra Mist and Pepsi Max might have $1 peelies on them!

**CVS WARNING** I need to warn you about CVS and how they have revamped their coupons from CORPORATE DOWN!! I went in to take advantage of the battery deal at my CVS. I found out that corporate was getting upset at "those that were bringing their totals down to $0!!" and that the stores will NOT get credit for doing for a $20 transaction a $4/$20, $5/$15, $2/$10 etc. Your coupons have to be ACCUMILATIVE and they are retraining all of their people! There was one girl at my store that got yelled at and almost fired because she was "stacking" like before!!! IF your total is $35, you can use a $4/$20 and a $5/$15 but you cannot stack like before! They have TOTALLY found out about us clever ones and my dh was wondering on a few of my shopping trips when THAT was going to happen (when they figured out that they were loosing money to us!) Other than that, I had no problems using internet coupons!

I just found out that CVS is having 20 Free prints online right now. You can click HERE and enter code newmom20. It expires December 31.

FREEBIES!

IF you have a Zaxby's in your area, they are doing a Zaxby's Meal Deal Club
. This entitles you to a free meal. I have more than one email addy, so I did it for each one. They might ask for id, so you and your spouse might want to do separate orders and you might can use it multiple trips. Just click on the Zaxby's meal Deal
and they will send you an email.

Ryan's,
You can register for a free meal at Ryan's or any of their other restaurants. HERE is the link

SNAPFISH:
If you enter UPROMISE07, you will receive 20 free prints and free shipping. You MIGHT have to create a new account though. Also if you create a "group room" where you invite your friends and family here is what you might get:
Following the Link. (Do not type snapfish group room page by your self it won't work.)

Then it would take you to the group room page

Click On "SIGN UP" at right top corner

You need to sign up with a new email it won't work on old account.

After sign up it will take you to the page ask you to upload phots but you don't have to do that

Click on Not ready to upload?Visit your Snapfish home page

Then for the next page click on Your Account.

You will see all your creidts.


That's all.

Following credits will show on your account page:
1 Free Hi-Res photo(s)
1 4x6 FlipBook credit(s)
1 Credit(s) for 8" x 11" Classic Photo Book
1 Premium Subscription Type 1 trial


Following credit will show on your special offer page:
Get 30 FREE 4x6 prints after your first upload
1 Free Developing credit (35mm)
1 Free Developing credit (APS)

Also don't forget in my previous post, about free wipes from Target!! Make sure you get the travel size in the travel area.

SEARS:
Has $5 off of $5 tools and lawn and garden. We have started our boys on Hope chests. Every year we give them tools and ornaments. This will be GREAT! Here is the link to the coupon. BTW it does NOT work on clearance items!!! CLICK HERE!

ENJOY!

Southern Belle

I posted a few days ago about my trip to Walgreens and CVS. Doing some research I decided that I needed to go back to Walgreens and then to Target! Here is what I did:

WALGREENS TRIP 12/20/07
3 Nice & Easy color glaze priced $8.99/clearanced $3.59 (as I mentioned in THIS post if you spend $20 in P& G products you get $10 in RR. This is included in the sale and I got credit of $26.97 (full price) instead of $10.77 (sale price))
4 Mom's best oatmeal normally priced $1, sale .69
1 Degree Deoderant (dh needed it and had no coupon!) price $3.99
1 Celestial candy cane tea (wanted it for me) price $3.99

Total $15.76
Minus manf coupons for Nice & Easy $2 off EACH box for a total of $6
Minus $1/1 Mom's best oatmeal I had 4 of these. You can get the coupon HERE. So I made $1.24 on this deal.
My total is now $10.52 with the male cashier giggling and saying "Wow they are paying you to buy this stuff!)

THEN I hand him $10 in RR from THIS shopping trip. With the Cashier saying "MORE coupons??" As he giggled, he said "Your total is .52!! As he was finishing the transaction, he said, "I am NOT going to even tell you what just printed AGAIN!! I said, "Yep I know. You are about to give me $10 MORE back in RR! He laughed and said, "That is UNBELIEVABLE!" The cosmetics lady, said I can believe it and once you become a parent you will believe it.

NOW onto Target! My only regret is that we don't have a Super Target. There I bought 9 pkgs of travel Huggies Wipes and 2 large containers of Huggies Wipes. I do not have anybabies anymore, but I do keep wipes on hand. I also put the travel wipes in my Handbags that I make for my diaper bags. The larger wipes I am putting with my deal at CVS on diapers for baby shower gifts (I have 4 friends having babies)!!

My total would have been $13.51 (w/o tax), but I used:
2 $3/2 coupon from HERE for the 9 travel sizes (*WARNING* The 2 Travel Sizes are .97 and less than the $3 (and my Target would NOT adjust!), so I actually bought 3 instead of 2 to bring the total to $3 so I could use the coupons, but still got them for free. It is just that Target will NOT allow the overage and I had issues, I thought I would save the hassle for you!)
I then used 2 .75 manf coupons on the larger containers, plus a store $3/2 to make the bigger ones .28 for both!!

Hope this helps you! I would love to hear comments or questions from you! Take care!

My Walgreens/CVS trips yesterday!

Well after finding out that Walgreens had a one day coupon for $5 off of $20, I decided to make a list and go. Another thing I realized is that Walgreens is caving to the pressure of CVS's tacktics and are mimicking their incentives to get shoppers in the store. They are now offering Register rewards, which are the same as the CVS bucks but you don't have to register for their shoppers card. Unlike CVS, your totals are NOT accumulative. You need to purchase the minimum in ONE shopping order!

I plotted and planned my trip and here is what I did:

Post cereals are 5/$10. Since I had a $1/2 coupon I bought 6. I got a register reward for $3. So I bought 6 boxes for $6.

I found out about many of my deals and sales through Slick Deals. If you go into the search box and type in CVS or Walgreens, you can pull up the deals listed in Hot Deals section.

There is a Procter and Gamble sale right now if you buy $20 worth you get $10 back in RR. Well there is a selection of LARGE shampoos that are normally $6.99. Some reports are that there are coupons on these products but I didn't see any! If you carefully check with these labels:

Herbal Essence (LARGE size) shampoo and conditioners
Nice Easy Root Touch ups
Nice Easy Color glaze
Pantene (LARGE size) shampoo and conditioners
Nice Easy gray solution
Infusium shampoo and conditioners
Head & Shoulders (LARGE size)

There are MANY of them on clearance. I saw where there were some for $1.79 but they were gone. I picked up 3 large bottles of Infusium shampoo that was marked down from $3.59 from $6.99. IF I would have paid full price it would have been over the $20 and that is what the register read. YOU GET CREDIT FOR THE REGULAR PRICE AND NOT THE SALE PRICE. So I paid about $11 for 3 bottles of shampoo and got $10 back in RR. BTW this deal lasts until 12/29.

Coke products are $4/11. Not a great deal but they are offering $3 off in RR, which is $4/9.

I got $17 back in RR. I also had a coupon with me for $10 off on the Entertainment book. I was questioning whether or not to get it. My dh said it was a good deal and I made it a better deal. It was $25. I used the $10 off to knock it down to $15. I used $14 in RR and paid OOP $1.66!!!! THAT is a good deal and worth it's weight in gold just in the Kroger coupons!!!!!

**WARNING** I had seen on slickdeals that people were taking their RR and putting them on American Express gift cards to use elsewhere. Tried it!! Register BOOTED me out and didn't work! Thought I would save the hassle factor for ya!

BTW, dh was with me during this time. He was laughing as we were leaving Walgreens. I asked him why. He said, I wonder first of all how many shampoo bottles you have, lol. Then he said, I wonder how long it will take these stores to realize that people like you are playing this game and learning how to buy things for nothing! I told him there were MANY others like me, RIGHT Friends, lol!?

Now onto CVS:

They had a Buy $20 worth of Gilette products and get $10 in EB's. WARNING: I tried to use a $1 coupon on a $1.79 container of Gillete shaving foam. It was considered a TRIAL size and didn't give me credit!

Here is how that transaction went down:
Bought 2 Gillette Fusion Razors at 9.99 each
bought 1 can Gillete foam $3.79 (due to the refund she gave me credit for an extra $1 coupon so I got $2 off of the foam)

used $5 off of $15 coupon
used $2 off of $10 coupon
used $9 (actually got credit for $10) manf coupons

Total oop $3 and got $10 eb's back

Bought Shick Quattro mens razor at 7.99 minus $4 manf coupon got $4 back in EB's FREE
Bought Shick disposable razors at 5.99 used $1 off of 1 coupon and got $3 back in EB's paid 1.99

They also had a soda deal (kids and dh loves it and we will go on detox after Christmas, lol) that if you bought 4 cases of Pepsi you got a free 12 pk of Pepsi max (dh's favorite!). We bought 5 cases of pepsi (got one free) and 2 bags of candy (for a reason) and total was $13.24. Used $13 in EB's and paid OOP .24!!!!!!

I still have $10 left in RR from Walgreens and $10 in Eb's with a $5 off of $20 purchase at CVS. Debating on what to use them on......hmmmm!!!!!

My next adventure! BTW if you search on Slick deals under CVS you can get the scans for next weeks sale. Looks pretty good too, although some of it is a 3 day sale! Good luck and be inspired!

My CVS (and Grocery Shopping) Trip yesterday

I pretty much consistently save ATLEAST (minimum) of 50% or more on my groceries. I use sites likes Coupon Mom and The Grocery Game to be able to "stack" coupons, be on sale and even double my savings on top of that. Well, while watching Money Saving Mom I was intrigued about the savings that can be had at CVS. I knew there wasn't one on our exit, so my FIRST chore was to even see where the nearest one was, to see if it was even feasible. I found out that amongst our 4 exits for our town, the CVS was located 2 exits down from us. It is a fairly new store. SO, my plan was to really start the savings. Before I get to the "nitty gritty" it didn't take me that long. The thing that took me a little time, was figuring out a "strategy" of what to buy when and buy things in 1-3 products at a time to be able to use my Extra Bucks. You can see my picture at the top.

**Drum Roll Please**

My total at CVS was $219.90 (before ANY savings)
My total OOP (Out of Pocket) was $36.37

What did I get for all of that. Now, I will go into detail. The one thing I did before I left the house, was to write out which products I would divide up into separate transactions (1-3) to be able to turn around and use my Extra bucks. Basically they give you money in a paper receipt format and you can use it on a separate transaction, so that is why you divide it. First of all, I signed up my card and logged in online, and they sent me a certificate for $4 off of $20 purchase. BTW, my store said, as long as I use it in separate transactions and trips, I can use as many as I want, so I saved it in my email. Secondly, I used $2 off of $10 purchase on each of my transactions. Thirdly, there is also a sale on some of their cold and flu remedies with bucks, so I stacked another coupon like $2 off of $10 Flu/Cold Coupon HERE which gives you $2 off of $10 for colds and flu meds. Now my CVS told me as long as the certificates have different numbers on them, you can use more than one in a transaction. I also noticed that your total needs to be more than your ECB bucks. IF you need more clarification or details on things, you can head over to Money Saving Mom's post on CVS 101.

Also, on another site that I love, I found out that you can get a free glucose monitor (my dad is diabetic). On that site it said that you get $20 in ECB bucks, BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE. But what I DID find out, is that the Breeze 2 is regularly $59.99 and was on sale for 14.99. In the pharmacy is a diabetes magazine for $50 OFF of a the Breeze 2 or Contour. (They adjusted the coupon for the price of the monitor). Now to sweeten the deal, there was a sticker on there, that YOU GET A REBATE. It says up to $40, but I have been doing rebates for a while, and I know they are going to give me the price that I paid ($14.99 before coupon). So basically I will make $14.99 on this deal

If you click on THIS BLOG, you will figure out how to get your Christmas pictures (or any) for FREE. I was only able to figure out how to do 60 on each card(I have two cards), so I got 120 pictures, FOR FREE. I just uploaded my pictures online to their photo center, and sent it to them. I picked them up when I arrived. I was very pleased with the quality and I saved $22.80!!! .

Here is my list of what I got:
120 4x6 Christmas pictures (free)
Glucose monitor (reg 59.99 and I will MAKE $14.99)
2 pkgs of Jumbo size 1 Pampers (I have two friends having babies soon! These are for gifts)
1 pkg jumbo (dbl pkt) Huggies Wipes
2 bottles of Oasis Mouthwash (free after ECB bucks)
2 Gillette Fusion razors (FREE after ECB bucks)
6 cases Pepsi (I don't drink it but dh does. After coupons and ECB's I paid $1.08/case of 12)
2 boxes of Garnier hair color
2 tubes of Cover Girl Lipstick (It was already b1g1 and I had a b1g1 manf cpn so they were BOTH FREE)
2 double pkgs of Charmin bath tissue
2 boxes of Theraflu strips
5 pkgs of cough drops
1 box of children's cough expectorant

That is not all my friends, after looking at the weekly sales for this week, I decided to go to Publix. Now other than eggs, the rest I did with using The Grocery Game. My total at Publix (we have double coupons BTW) was $51.83. My total OOP (out of pocket) was $15.63. Now here is a list of my items:
2 1/2 doz. eggs (non coupon item)
2 LARGE Publix pizzas (got them for .02)
3 boxes of Totino's pizza rolls (on sale for 50% off, had a .40 cpn that doubled. Paid .20 each box)
1 bottle of high end shampoo and conditioner (paid $1 for shampoo and $0 for the conditioner, it was FREE)
2 revlon nail clippers (they were on sale b1g1. Reg price $1.49, which is about .75 each. Had 2 Manf cpns for $1 off each one, which I MADE .50. Make sure you know that you can use 2 $ off on b1g1)

6 boxes of Uncle Ben's Wild Rice (it was on b1g1 and I had a manf b2g1f)
4 bags of Marie C. Croutons (look out in those Publix coupon fliers! These were.60/bag)

I am not done. I hope to go to Kroger later this week. It depends. I know CVS is great for HBA, but I also like to save at the grocery store too!

Hope this helps some of you and encourages you. I would love to her comments or questions! Don't forget our 30 Days of Joy Box going on right now. I will post on that one again in a minute.

Southern Belle

Now is for another time where we talk about going to the grocery store. Before I forget, one of my recent blogs that I love is Money Saving Mom. I used her in combination with The Grocery Game and Coupon Mom. The Money Saving Momis helpful and insightful in her posts. One of the things that I didn't know and learned is that P&G will load your Kroger card with coupons. You pick the ones you will use and transfer it to your card. That is it! It is important to remember that sales run in cycles (4-6 wks) and it is best to stock up during that time. That is just what I did. Also remember that there are TWO times of year to get really good deals on turkeys and hams. One is Thanksgiving and the other is Easter. We plan on getting three turkeys and freezing them, cooking them one at a time. I thought I would throw a reminder out there. Both Kroger AND Publix doubles coupons up to .50! Some non-perishables, we go to Aldi's or check and see if you have a Save a Lot near you. If it is within 20-30 miles or so, it is SO worth it!

Here is my run down:

Kroger

TOTAL $165.41
Coupons/savings: 65.06
Final total $100.35

Walgreens

Total $26.95
coupons and savings $24.46
Final total $2.49

**A little note here. I WOULD have had THEM pay ME money, but I am making Thanksgiving blessing mix (check blog) and they had Hershey's kisses 75% off from Halloween in fall colors. The $2.49 is for 4 bags of Kisses! The things to remember at Walgreens, is not only do they have a monthly rebate program, but they will alot of times run specials with store coupons and allow manf. coupons on top of that. So this week they had their PRO line from Vive on sale (shampoo and conditioner) for buy one get one free. Now I have noticed a trend. ALOT (majority) of stores will split the cost in 1/2 for buy 1 products. Walgreens does one at full price (4.99) and the other one free. I had manf. coupons for buy one get one free, so I got 2 bottles of shampoo and 2 bottles of conditioner, FREE. They also had the Purell santizer foam for $3.49-store coupon (in book at store) for $2.50 off, then I added in my manf. coupon for $1.50 off, which means product was FREE!

Publix

Total: $58.92
minus coupons/savings $36.24
Final total $24.02

On Publix, they had Kelloggs cereals for B1G1, which made them $1.84 each (they split it in 1/2). I had $1 coupons off of EACH box (I use 2), which made my total for each box, .84!!!!!! With 3 boys and in our house, I stocked up. I don't just buy a couple. With a sale like that, I got as much as I had coupons for (because if you run out, you will be back in the store, probably spending $ you don't have or you will go over budget).

Now, MILK prices are driving me NUTS! $3.50 is NOT a sale! NOT! $5.69 for MAYFIELD's? You kidding me? Milk has been a budget buster-So I went on a search for not only REAL powdered milk but one hopefully without any hormones, antibiotics, etc. We found Grandma's Country. We bought the 25lb pail. It has NO additives, anything and the cows are all natural too. I will get approx 46 gallons of milk from my pail at a cost of $1.73/per/gallon! Now friends, IF I were to pay the 3.50 SALE price or even reg. price at 3.99 (the prices I am talking about, 3.50-3.99 is from Kroger): (Walmart is 4.29/gallon?), my savings is a bracket of 81.05-103.59 NOT including tax! That is JUST on milk! It took about 10 days for us to get our milk but it is SO worth it in the long run! When I did our budget for last month, some of our overages are from Walmart (which we have cut dramatically, to almost nothing) and late night runs for milk (which end up usually being more than JUST milk, lol)!

Hope this helps you. God Bless
Southern Belle (Beth)

MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK!

Well, I have always tried to be frugal and a good steward of our money and have pretty much tries to get the best sales and/or prices. It wasn't until we moved to GA and I was excited because of DOUBLE coupons, I have been doing things a little different. I have gone to ALDI's and I love it, but I also love couponning and wanted to do it, but obviously my stacks of coupons were piling up and the daunting taks of going through them was well, sometimes overwhelming. The FIRST thing I did, was to grab a box that allows for hanging folders in it. I grabbed some left over hanging folders, and took address labels and put GENERAL categories on them (like Dairy, Breakfast, Frozen, etc) I then filed the coupons under their genreal category. Also I have folders for the ads of the main stores and then a folder for coupons for those stores. I have been using Coupon Mom and The Grocery Game. The difference is that Coupon mom is Free and helps remind you to take extras to help feed the hungry. The Grocery Game, turns it into a game and helps you realize that there are cycles in sales and when they are at their lowest or free, to stockpile and build your own Grocery Store in your own home. The Grocery Game does cost but it is minimal and you can try it for the first 4 weeks for $1. This week, I was determined to get a handle on things and be a better organizer of my coupons to cut down on my time. This last week, I used both of these and planned my trips.

Here are my totals:

Kroger $119.59 MINUS 60.31 in coupons, store specials and doubled coupons, equals 61.85 after tax, which is a 50% savings.

Walgreens $62.17 MINUS $46.09 in coupons, store coupons and specials, and my total after tax was $16.08 (2.36 was tax).

Publix $45.75 MINUS $32.48 in coupons, double savings and sales, and my total after tax $13.27.

My total shopping trip totals are here:

Total amount in groceries is $228.04

Total amount in savings with stacking, coupons, doubles, sales: $138.88

My total paid between the three is $91.20



While that is all great and I am EXCITED that I saved so much money, the thing that excited me the most, was how much product I got FREE! Here is what sales and coupons will get you:

1 24 ct. Excederin

1 3 oz pkg Sunkist Tuna

13 cans of Purina One dog food

14 boxes of Crest Toothpaste

2 boxes of Quaker Oatmeal granola bars

Not only that but the toothpaste has an extra tube of travel toothpaste and floss which will be put in bags for the homeless this year that we make up. It is worth it to do this and the savings are tremendous!