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!
