Sunday, May 29, 2011

Get Your Roll On (and I don't mean deodorant)

Pre-Event Dining
You gotta feed your couponing machine! Husband and I had a nice dinner out last night, we used my $20 Applebee's gift card from mother's day and only spent $15 (including tip)... I can't believe they charge so much for drinks! Our waitress appeared to be pretty young and was kinda dorky which my hubby thought was awesome. She was nice so we made sure to tip very well. The stuffed meatballs was really yummy if you're looking to try something new.

Event Planning
Next it was on to shopping, but first I had to come home and sort out the coupons and lists. It took me longer than I expected so we barely made it before midnight, and they were out of everything on my list and there was a HUGE line. No big deal, wasn't anything I couldn't live without so I started gathering the new weeks items and much to my disbelief they were already out of many of those as well. How could that be? The sale just started 5 minutes ago.... well turns out part of that huge line was people who got there early waiting for midnight. More great news, the store's order day got switched to Tuesday so they wont get more paper towels or Crackerfuls until then (so much for the 2 day sale, good job Walgreen's).

The Main Event
Turns out the register was having an issue and not printing the reward for the Crackerfuls, so while we all waited for that to sort itself out I met one of the other couponers "The Harrah's Lady", who turned out to be kinda new to couponing and really a sweet gal! We ran all over the store looking for some of the RR items that seemed to be non-existent and our popcorn filler items. Somewhere in there I managed to find more of the Crackerfuls, yay! I had so much fun talking to her about coupons and finding deals, and our husbands. My hubby always tries to help in his own way, but he is just not into the couponing thing and it was awesome to speak with a live human being about it who actually understood what I was saying. I also sort of met the one I call "Disappearing Lady", she seemed a little cranky (I was getting there myself after waiting so long for the registers to act right and fighting all the drunkies coming in from the casino for Pringles). She would be waiting at the register with us, then suddenly gone for 20 minutes, then magically reappear... she must be related to Houdini.

The Harrah's Lady and I spent about an hour searching for things in the store, gabbing, and waiting for the register to stop being stupid. Finally it started printing the rewards and thus began the longest checkout ever. The other 2 ladies had crackers (and other things) to return and repurchase and I had 9 separate transactions to get through. Did I mention the store was the busiest I have ever seen it in the middle of the night on a Saturday? I've been midnight shopping for a while now and I was shocked by the constant stream of people in the store. It took over an hour to complete my purchases, and my poor hubby was waiting the whole time, completely exhausted and wanting to go to bed. I bought him a candy bar as a little apology/thanks.

I do not think any of us would have made it out alive if it hadn't been for the awesome cashier, Katie! She is so incredibly patient and flexible which helps me keep my cool with all the craziness going on in the store. I wish she worked every Saturday overnight, but she certainly deserves her Saturdays off!

The Nitty Gritty
Its another great time to stock up on paper towels folks... if you can find them. We spent a total of $9.31 and "saved" $82.28. Not too shabby! Since they ran out of Crackerfuls I ended up leaving with a $0.99 RR, which if I can find the darn crackers I will be using on them with my $1 coupon to get them free (and they come with a $2 RR)!

Check out the photo and shopping list I used to score all these great deals! I like to figure out a couple of transactions of things I want or need and any potential money makers and then I roll them until Im out of coupons. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions and hopefully my list will help inspire you to get your roll on too!




A big thanks to Clippin with Carie for all the hard work doing the match-up!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Great Deals at CVS This Week

Quick update. I ran by CVS over the weekend with my $17 in leftover ECB and scored 6 nail polish, 6 Sobe, 8 2L of soda, 3 bags of Tostitos, 2 bags Doritos, and 3 Tostitos dips for about $10 and I got a $10 gas card for FREE!

There are lots of sweet deals, and maybe even a couple money makers at CVS this week. Check out the deals on Clippin' with Carie.

Friday, May 13, 2011

What's That? You Don't Have Time To Coupon??

It's a sad excuse I hear so often, and I admit it was mine at first too. The past couple week's shopping trips, especially yesterday and today, should be a shining example of how much money you can save if you put in a little effort. It only takes one trip to get hooked, so what are you waiting for?

Walgreen's
Last night I ran by Walgreen's on my way home and here is what I picked up for $3.33 (savings of $31.09). I started out with $3 RR from the other day and used my coupon for FREE John Freida foam hair color and got $2 more in RR that I used with my coupon to pay only about $1 for the razor. Then I got the $5 RR for buying the razor that I used to pay for most of the toilet paper! Oh yeah, and I got another $3 RR to use later!


CVS/Pharmacy
I originally had a much larger list, but a few of the items on it either weren't sold at my store or someone was really confused when they did the match up. Lucky for me I forgot to print my list so I took my laptop in with me and was able to move things around on the spreadsheet and make them work. For this trip I started out with $16 in ECB from various trips in April and my $5 off $25 coupon. I spent a grand total of $0.55 and left with $17 in ECB! That's $101.76 in savings! Also on my receipt my YTD savings... $747.47.


Anyone need some air freshener?