Year 2 - Day 161 - June 11

This is a terrible picture, sorry.

I know what you're thinking. That's a lot of frozen sugar. Yeah, it is. But I had a Purina catalina & 2 Nestle catalinas to use, and sales and coupons! The cat food is an odd grocery store purchase for me (cheaper at Walmart, Target, & BJ's) but with the catalina, it was worth it.

Purina Cat Food $6.99
Luigi's Italian Ice $0.99 (x4)
Nestle Drumsticks & Ice Cream Pops $2.59 (x4)

Subtotal: $21.31

Coupons & Catalinas
Purina -$5.00
Nestle -$5.00
Nestle -$5.00 (again)
Luigi's -$0.99 (it was $0.50 but it doubled to $0.99)
Luigi's -$0.99
Luigi's -$0.99
Luigi's -$0.99

Subtotal $21.31
Coupons $18.96

Total $2.35 plus tax

It will take us months to eat this much dessert ... and there are some other things I earned for just about as cheap from the other 4 weeks of this process.  So our second freezer is full of dessert now. :) But if you consider it costs $5 a person to go to Coldstone or $3 a person to go to Blooms, the 24 italian ice cups for free and 30 individual ice creams for 36 cents is a pretty good plan. I like that they're all individual servings, too, because we're good about only eating one. If I scoop ice cream into a bowl, there's no telling how many servings I eat. :)

We also went to the farmer's market this morning, but I didn't get much. I do like the cheddar Parmesan bread at the bakery stand!

Year 2 - Day 134 - May 15

I packed a whole lot of stuff into today.  Thank goodness it's summer and there is plenty of daylight! The best surprise of the day was that it didn't downpour. For days they were telling us of the horribly rainy weekend we'd be having, and then it didn't hapen. That was A-OK!

First, we packed our friends lives into two gigantic PODS. Great inventions, those PODS. Pop your stuff in and poof they appear at your next residence.

Then, I left them to their packing and headed off to a baby shower. It was lovely. I am very happy that the first baby shower I had to go to in this season of life was small, friendly, and low key. It made it much easier and I was able to enjoy myself. I was still sad at times, but I'm thinking that just doesn't go all the way away. It's good to have people to celebrate for!

Finally, I did the biggest grocery shopping excursion I've done in years. I actually spent $103, which is WAY more than I ever spend shopping.  But it was a ton of stock up things that drove up the price. AND, I saved $102. So really, it was an excellent trip. Plus I have $29 in store money to spend next week. Not too shabby!! :)

Year 2 - Day 131 - May 12

Our grocery store had a great deal the last couple weeks where if you spent $20 on Nestle products (including this pizza and other things) you got four $5 coupons to use over the next month.  It wasn’t difficult, and with coupons I only spent about $10 to get that free $20.  With a coupon, I picked up this pizza & wings set that Digiornio put out recently.  They are all frozen in the box.  It’s plain chicken fingers & a pepperoni pizza.  The chicken gets cooked for 7 more minutes, so eventually you add the pizza & finish cooking.  Then there’s wing sauce to toss the chicken in after you cook.  We will eat the ones we have left (We actually have pizza & cookies for our other box, not wings) but we were surprisingly disappointed.  Something is different with the pizza.  It tasted like frozen pizza, not like Digiornio.  It was significantly smaller than a regular Digiornio as well.  I wouldn’t say it was bad, but it definitely didn’t live up to a usual regular Digironio.

Year 2 - Day 110 - April 21

You don't need to come home with a hundred bottles of mustard to play your own extreme couponing game.

Turkey Breast : $14.44
Steak #1: $3.06 (On sale)
Steak #2: $2.96 (On sale)
Texas Toast: $1.74 (On sale)
Cortaid: $4.99

Total On Sale Savings: $4.97
SubTotal: $27.19

Reward Points for Holiday Turkey: $14.44
Cellfire coupon: $2 off Cortaid
Texas Toast Coupon: $0.50
Doubled T.T. Coupon: $0.50
Cortaid Coupon: $2.00
Cellfire Reward Coupon: $5.00

Total Coupon & Reward Savings: $24.44

Total Out of Pocket Price: $2.75

This doesn't happen to me very often. Our grocery store (Shop Rite) runs specials around holidays where if you spend $300 in a 6 week time period you get a free ham or turkey.  So that make the turkey free.  (I wouldn't buy a frozen turkey breast anyway, so it's a real reward.)  Cortaid must be hurting for business because they have high value coupons on Cellfire & they spit out from the catalina machine at the store - and it lets you use both in one transaction.  This way, it's cheaper than the brandex hydrocortosone cream.  And finally, Cellfire had a random award day today where you could win anywhere between a $0.50 and $5.00 coupon.  I got lucky and got the big one - that's why I got the steaks as a treat. 

We used the Outback recipe from the Top Secret restaurant cookbook & they were pretty tasty.

Year 2 - Day 8 - January 8

Did you see that show on TV recently about extreme couponing?

I am not one of those people, but I love a good deal and my version of a good deal is becoming a lower and lower price.

I just did a quick trip to Rite Aid to take advantage of a sale ending today and some coupons that were getting ready to expire.

This whole trip cost me 39 cents.  Granted, I had some Rite Aid "Up points" (they're like come back cash) from a trip in December that covered a large percentage of the sale, but it is almost $30 worth of product! Victory!  And now my husband will smell good, have clean teeth, and be clean shaven for quite some time. :)

Day 253 - September 10

Lately, my grocery store has been having a bonus sale from Wed-Sat each week.  I rarely remember to go now that we don't live across the street from the store, because I do the weekly shopping trip on Sunday at the beginning of the week.

This week we stopped by after a trip to the local ice cream shop, because this deal was too good to pass up. (Yes, I know it's almost all junk food - but he's anticipating eating it while he watches football for the next 8 weeks, and who doesn't love a good crappy pizza once in awhile???)

Grand total: $2.63 (The cantelope was $0.99 of that, too!)
Savings: $18 something (I don't have my receipt near me at the moment.)

Day 207 - July 26

Today's Target trip ... $10.52, saved $24.87.  Target puts their own coupons on their website, which can be combined with the manufacturer's coupons (and sale prices) for some awesome deals!  I don't go to Target as much anymore because there aren't any around the corner like there used to be.  But with today's errand running I was in the neighborhood and was able to take advantage of the sales.

Day 157 - June 6

This week I didn't put all the super cheap stuff in my picture, but instead a representative selection of stuff I actually bought. 

All of this stuff was $24 total.  Plus, it came with a $5 off coupon for my next shopping order.  So it was like paying $19!

Best deals in the picture:

• Sausage was 49 cents after a sale & coupon
• The blue Dawn soap was 72 cents after a sale & coupon
• Each roll of foil was 75 cents
• The produce - grape tomatoes, raspberries, 2x blueberries & 5 apples was just 8 dollars
• The Scrubbing Bubbles spray starter kit was 69 cents with stacked coupons
• Scrubbing Bubbles spray refill - Free!
• The pink Dawn soap - Free!
• The Bengay - Free!
• Shout Wipes - Free!
• Italian Ice - Free!

 The checkout guy at Target was even surprised by my little shopping trip today. :)

Day 153 - June 2

WOW!!!!!

A couple months ago, I signed up on the House Party site to get emails about previewing new products.  They set up different party packs and you can apply to get one and review it.  At first, I signed up for each one.  There are (rather indepth) surveys with each application.  I suppose it makes sure people will really use the stuff.

The first one I really wanted was the Breyer's pack.  We all know I love ice cream.  But I didn't win.

Then this game night one showed up.  It said we'd get the newest version of Trivial Pursuit and "other fun things for a game party."

I was shocked today when the box came.  ALL OF THIS WAS IN THE BOX!  For FREE!

-Trivial Pursuit (This version isn't even in stores yet)
-Taboo (The original)
-CatchPhrase (The original)
-4 boxes of various flavors and styles of Triscuits
-2 boxes of various flavors of Wheat Thins (Lets not even talk about the 4 boxes I bought last weekend because I had coupons/sales/etc and they were a quarter each...)
-Bag of "Hershey's Pieces" candy
-Coupon for batteries for Taboo & CatchPhrase
-Pack of $5 off coupons for board games for everyone who comes.

I'm impressed.  I'll definitely sign up for more of these in the future.

Day 145 - May 25

Had some good coupon/sale matchups this week.  All this stuff was 17 bucks.  Did I need 3 containers of ice cream?  No.  But it made the yogurt free and we'll eat it eventually!

I have one more week of almost free cat food.  I don't plan on buying that stuff for months!

Day 136 - May 16

Most of my food was already put away by the time I thought to take a picture, and I didn't want to drag it all out.  We have been creative with the ingredient purchasing for the last month, so now grocery shopping is very different.  We don't buy whole meals on one trip anymore.  Having the extra freezer space is spectacular! 

All of these groceries cost ..... $16.50! 

Of course we bought other stuff too, this was just the amazing deals pile.  I am a big fan of turkey sausage and turkey pepperoni, so I'm hoping that turkey bacon there in the middle is good.  Even though I usually don't go to Safeway - their 10 ears of corn for 2 bucks was too good to pass up.  We also combined a store sale & coupon to get the 2 jars of pasta sauce & 2 boxes of pasta for just $3.  Cheezeits were $0.49 after a sale & coupon as well.  We don't always buy that kind of thing, but for 49 cents we were on board. :)

Day 133 - May 13

Look at everything I got in my mailbox today!  Most of it came from the Kraft Summer BBQ box.  Wheat thins, Vanilla Caramel latte, & coupons for free hot dogs and free bbq sauce.  Then some random cream and shampoo.  Freebies are fun.

Day 129 - May 9

I've gotten some deals lately, thanks to the new coupon strategies ... but this can go down in history as the first thing I "bought" for FREE!  I learned some lingo that helped - because the coupon was for a dollar and the thing was on sale for 99 cents.  The kid cashier said "can't do it, it's an error."  I politely said, "Oh could you just adjust it down to 99 cents?" And it worked.  And I got my free creamer. Excellent. :)  My dad doesn't use this stuff, so I didn't discover all the wonderful flavors until I was an adult.  I dislike hazelnut which is the most common flavor of flavored coffees, but I like caramel.  I've actually never tried chocolate caramel but I figured since it was free, it was worth a shot!

Day 119 - April 29

I recently added some coupon blogs to my Google Reader that alert me to some good deals and freebies.  This is my first freebie to arrive via mail.  Since I go through teeth grinding guards on a regular basis, it was a good freebie to get.

Some links to try: (Several post the same things on any given day, but there are some differences)
http://www.centsablemomma.com/
http://www.consumerqueen.com/
http://dealseekingmom.com/
http://freebies4mom.blogspot.com/
http://hip2save.com/
http://ingoodcents.com/
http://moneysavingmom.com/

Not only do they alert you to the coupons, but they tell you how to combine them with advertised sales to get stuff super cheap or free.  If the stores are in your regular shopping rotation, it can really help.  If we still lived 30 seconds from Target, I'd be taking advantage of a lot more deals.  But our new house is 30 seconds from a Rite Aid, CVS, *and* Walgreens, so we're doing ok.  Can't wait to see what other things we get!

Day 114 - April 24

This week, I came across a coupon for $10 off a $10 purchase at aeropostale.  I don't wear their clothes normally but I thought maybe I could pick up something small.  Much to my dismay, many of the things I wanted were on sale for $9.75 and they didn't have any of that cheap stuff like lip gloss or whatever to bump me over the $10 mark.  So I got some socks.  Each pack has 3 pairs so my grand purchase deal was 6 pairs of socks for $2.10!