The Walgreens Game Continued

OK, so I went over all the sales they had in Sunday’s flier and then went onto other websites and used their match ups for sales.  I put them on a spreadsheet so I could figure which ones to buy together so the total OOP (out of pocket) expense wouldn’t exceed the amount of $$ I had in register rewards.  I ended up learning a lot yesterday!

Here are the rules that I have learned so far and there are probably a lot more

1. A RR is the same as a manufacturer coupon, you cannot use both on one item.  In other words the number of RR’s you have and manufacturer coupons cannot exceed the number of items you have purchased.
2. You can use a RR and a store coupon on the same item.
3. If you buy something for $2 and only have a $6 RR, you do not get refunded the difference by cash or RR… you forfeit this “money”
4. You cannot buy many things with your RRs… tobacco, alcohol, lottery tickets, money orders, dairy products, etc. (all of this is stated on the RR itself).

So, I went in prepared to get all this stuff for free by rolling over my RR’s and this did not happen!  I was upset but I guess that was my fault for not doing the research so it was a learning experience to say the least.  I spent $21 on my first trip this weekend and got back $13.50 in RR.  Then, I spent another $28 (collectively between two transactions) and ended up with $31.50 in RR.  All in all I spent $49 OOP and ended up with $31.50 in RR, so “spent” $17.50 as I can use the RR’s to get free stuff now. 

I am going to go this weekend and use all of my RR’s towards stuff we need.  Next, I am going to try the CVS game.  From what I’ve read by trying to learn their “game” online by shopping at CVS and using their reward system with ECB’s (Easy Care Bucks) it is much more lucrative.  So, now begins the learning process for CVS!  Let’s see how it goes!

Menu for the Week

Monday
Grilled steak and chicken legs
cous cous (cooked in chicken broth)
green bean casserole

Tuesday
Burrito Casserole and all the toppings
Yellow rice

Wednesday
Crock pot chicken legs and ribs
Macaroni and cheese
Peas and carrots

Thursday
Turkey Breast
Mashed potatoes
Butter beans

Friday
London Broil
Broiled potatoes
Peas

Saturday
Out of Town

Sunday
Dinner at In-laws' house

Playing the Games

So, yesterday was my first attempt at shopping drug stores based SOLELY on advertised sales, clearance prices, coupons, register reward or ECB type of "cash" back deals, etc. I perused various websites/blogs to find the information that I needed and I excelled at this. Granted, I did this with two more children than I normally have. I watched my cousin's two girls at last moment notice but already had my plan in place of where I was going to go shopping so no choice but to load them all up and hit the stores!

So, that's what I did with four girls in tow... an eight year old, four year old, three year old and sixteen month old!! I went to CVS, Walgreen's, Target and Harris Teeter and then picked up pizza on the way home. More on the pizza and our budget later, but after four kids and four stores I was drained so no cooking and paper plates were what the evening called for.

Regardless... here's what I racked up on.

1st stop... CVS

I have the $100 coupon book and I wanted to get the two packs of angel soft toilet paper and use the $1/2 from the book and then I had two manufacturer coupons for .50/1 so that WOULD have been $2 off two packs, but for some reason they don't carry it. Why in the world they would advertise a coupon for something they don't even keep in stock I don't know.

Still I got two small boxes of wheat thins and a pack of Kotex pads (small) for $1.52 after taxes and coupons. The wheat thins were on sale for .99/box and I had a $1 coupon of each, so they were "free". Then I had the pads which were $3 and change (can't remember and can't find my receipt) and the $1.50 cpn from the coupon book and a manufacturer cpn for $1. I forgot I had $1 ECB so my total WOULD have been .52, but I forgot.

2nd stop... Walgreen's

Now, this too some time because the kids were running around, baby was cranky and it was just a "time".

This is what I bought and matched it up with...
rr = register rewards which is $$ towards future purchase
oop = out of pocket expense, actual money paid

2 x Zantac 150 8 ct, $4.99 ea
$5 printable cpn
free

2 x Children's Benadryl liquid 4 oz, $4.99 (sale)
2 x $1/1 cpn = $7.98 oop
earned $5 rr

Aussie 3 min miracle conditioner, $2.99 (sale)
earned $2 rr

2 x Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, $1.59 ea or $3.18 total
$1.40 store cpn
$1 man cpn
total .78 (.39 ea) oop

Airwick i-motion starter kit, $6.99 (sale)
$6 man coupon
.99 oop

Carefree Ultra Pantiliners (16 ct), $1.99 (sale)
$1 man cpn
.99 oop
earned $2.00 rr

Thermacare Heat Wrap (neck/wrist) 1 ct, $2.49
$1 man cpn
$1.49 oop
earned $2.49 rr

2 x Oral B Indicator tooth brush
$2.79 each
man buy one get one free cpn
$2.79 oop
earned $2 rr

*Note... the $1.49 rr that was advertised, I'm not sure "where" it is. After looking at all the rr that I was to earn I do not see the $1.49 one but I am left with a $2.50 one that I cannot match to what I bought. So, I ended up with more rr's than what I was supposed to. NO argument here!!

Total oop with tax and all = $21.13
Total savings = $35.59
rr earned = $13.50

Now, I have $13.50 in rr's to use towards other purchases. I will look at this week's and match with coupons and sales and use my rr's to roll over to other things that earn rr's. I guess this is how people end up with "free" stuff. I spent $21.13 to start with and now I will end up with more free stuff from this initial expense. Now, that's not a bad idea!

3rd stop... Target

Now, Target is not somewhere that I normally shop for stuff, but after seeing some of the match ups I figured I might as well try. Here is what I ended up with!

Up wipes (Up is Target brand)
$1.89 normal price
$1.00 Up Target coupon (I got this coupon book from my stepmother and not sure how she got it but will be researching this one)
.89 oop

2 x Kelogg's Pop Tarts (brown sugar and cinnamon)
$1.46 ea sale
2 x $1.00 Target coupon
2 x .55 man cpn
Free plus .14 overage

2 x Lipton to go Green Tea and honey (3 pk in check out aisle)
.99 ea
$2/2 man cpn
Free plus .02 overage

2 x Eggo Pancakes (frozen)
2/$4 sale
2 x $1 Target cpn
2 x $1/1 cpn
$1 ea after all cpns and sales

10 x MP string cheese
.40 ea ($4.00)
5 x $1/2 Target cpn
Free plus $1 overage after cpn

2 x Quattro women disposable razors
$6.49 ea
2 x $1 Target cpn
2 x $3 man cpn
$2.49 each

4 x Johnson Bath Buddies soaps
.97 each
4 x $1 man cpn
Free plus .12 overage

Original total before all sales, cpns, etc. = $34.40
Total oop = $7.80
Saved = $26.60

I definitely liked that!!! I love saving money and evidently yesterday I saved quite a bit. I am going to peruse through Walgreen's this week and see what I can't get for free. One change though, I am going to do it one day on lunch instead of trying to take the kids. That was just a chore. I would have like to peruse the clearance stuff to see what else I could have gotten, but I didn't.

4th store... Harris Teeter

The only reason I went to Harris Teeter was to buy some sausage for breakfast this morning and to get some spaghetti sauce because my eldest child does not like pizza and wanted noodles instead. I should have just cooked pasta for everyone, but I did not have it in me.

I spent all morning cleaning the house. While the baby napped I sat down and mapped out my plan of attack on the stores, what I was going to get, went ahead and pulled out all the coupons that matched so I wouldn't have to fumble through my coupon book (which is huge by the way). While I was doing that my cousin called and asked me to keep her girls for the night, no problem... bring them over! I ran up and took a shower and got dressed and such for the day. They got here, the baby woke up, I loaded everyone up and away we went. I didn't start the shopping until 4:00 p.m. and was home with pizza and all by 6:30. Not bad time wise, but I will NEVER get take out pizza again.

Don't get me wrong... we love pizza, but we have started making our own instead of buying it. My stomach has been killing me all morning from eating this take out splurge. Hubs and I discussed and our allowance and such is going to start on Monday.

I have yet to go grocery shopping for our "real" stuff this weekend and still need to do that. Not sure I want to do that with four children in tow, so will wait until my cousin gets here for her children. My mother in law volunteered to watch my girls so I can get this done by myself and much quicker. I have a $40 budget I still have to keep to and would like to keep it lower than that. I have made my menu for the week and we don't have to buy anything for that but we still need a few staples.

I also looked through the freezer while doing my menu for the week and we are getting low on meat. I need to look through and see who has sales on different meats. We are in desperate need of some chicken because we don't eat that much red meat except for the occasional steak and such.

CVS $100 coupon book

I have looked and looked at multiple CVS stores this week trying to find this $100 coupon book at CVS. I knew it existed because all these blogs online said things about them and the deals they held but when I went to stores they had no clue what i was talking about and pretty much just looked at me like I was crazy. Come to find out the stores told me I had to get the flu shot in order to get the book. I told them that's not what it said online and I wanted a book. A nice manager found a whole box of books and gave me two. One of which I gave to a friend. I had also emailed CVS and they are mailing me one too! How awesome is that.

If you have this book go today and use the Kleenex one and get some free tissues! You can even get the ones with lotion. You can also check out the travel size stuff and get the travel colgate toothbrush. They are .99 and you get $1 ECB back, so pretty much free!

I am going to be attempting the CVS game this afternoon so wish me luck! I might be stopping by Food Lion for some more .10 macaroni and cheese. Hubs thinks I'm crazy because we have 19 boxes already. We did have 20 but we already used one box. Might as well buy another ten because they are normally .89 box, so if you buy 30 at normal price it would be $26.70 and at this price it is $3, so a savings of $23.70. Definitely worth it!!!

Boooo Kmart!

Per the manager at Kmart yesterday they normally get a few week's notice when they are going to do super double coupons and so far... nothing! No super doubles in our area this week, so I will be doing my "normal" shopping this week and not waiting for Sunday to do super shopping at Kmart. So sad!

Gung Ho for Budget!!

So hubs has realized that we are nickel and diming ourselves to death!  We are killing our money slowly but surely.  We don’t spend more than we make and we don’t live paycheck to paycheck, but we’re not saving either and that is the ultimate goal.  We need to have a few months worth of money in the bank to cover us in case something happens!

 

Now, I am going to go to the bank each Friday and pull out our money for the week as follows…

$20 – Hubs allowance

$20 – Wife allowance

$40 – groceries

$10 – toiletries

$65 – Christmas fund

$10 – entertainment

Total $165.00/weekly

 

OK, so the Christmas one will eventually go down in December because the last one will be taken out Dec. 11.  This fund will start over again in January, but will be much smaller because we will be starting much earlier next year.  My girlfriend that does this all year is already done with all of her Christmas shopping!  Could you imagine being done with your shopping in September!  That is my goal.  They rack up on presents after Father’s/Mother’s day and stuff like that throughout the year when things go on clearance and end up spending much less than they budgeted.  With the money that’s left over they go out!

 

Entertainment “fund” is a small weekly amount because we will just have to keep accruing each week until we get the funds to do something, but if we save up some of our allowance than we could possibly do something each week or do something really nice at one time.  We have some gift certificates for the movies and coupons from the entertainment book.  Not to mention the specials you can find online. 

 

Groceries is my normal one and I’m going to try and spend less than $40 each week.  I am only going to buy what we “have” to have and what I can get for free, next to free or meat that is marked down or on sale for future week’s menu.  I am going to include all paper products in that too.  That’s going to be hard, but we HAVE to do this.  I’m going to ATTEMPT to include dog food but we shall see how that goes. 

 

I had to add $10 for toiletries so I can learn to play the drug store games.  I am going to learn how to play the CVS game and get ECB’s so I can keep rolling those over to new deals and eventually get all of our toiletries for free.  Some people have been doing this and keep doing it and it’s been years since they’ve actually used any of their own money towards toiletries.  If they can do it, so can I!

 

I have coupons to get $25 gift certificates to K-mart for transferring or filling a new prescription.  I have two I can do now, that will cost me $10 each to fill, but I get $50 gift certificates.  That’s $30 for free!  I can use that for more groceries at our local Super Kmart, dog food or paper products.  Or I can go ahead and start looking for stuff for our oldest’s birthday party coming up at the end of the year. 

 

I will learn how to live within this new budget.  I have to.  I guess it’s all about planning ahead and learning how to get stuff for free and work the deals at various stores.  It is going to take me more time than I’ve been dedicating to staying within my grocery budget.  We should be saving so much more money than what we are.  And hopefully one day soon we will see the results of us living frugally on this budget. 

 

So… here’s to living on a budget and living frugally.  Hopefully by the end of the year we will see a difference!

Long time since last post

It has been a while since my last post.  Things in life have been crazy.  Hubs is now on day shift for a bit and it’s been wonderful having him home in the evenings, but it’s been an adjustment period.  I’m not used to having someone else there to help me with stuff every night.  Plus, he’s been home during the day and awake since he’s not working at night!  He’s been helping more around the house than he normally has the time to.  It’s been wonderful.

Harris Teeter had triple coupons this past week and I racked up.  Since I had my $40 weekly allowance for groceries and I had some surplus in the toiletry fund I moved that money over to my grocery money so we could really rack up.  AND OH YES I DID!  I spent all in all about $70-$80 and saved a bit more than I spent, so it was definitely $$ well Spent!

Last night hubs and I were talking and I was perusing the Food Lion weekly special and saw that they had the FL brand of macaroni and cheese on sale for .10 box, so guess where I went today during lunch… Food Lion (imagine that).  I got ten boxes of macaroni and cheese for less than $1.  I didn’t realize until I was at the gas station that she only rang up nine boxes, so I paid .92 for ten boxes.  Then, I headed to CVS where they have the small boxes of wheat thins on sale for $1 and there is $1 coupon floating around online.  I bought two boxes for .04!  I will post the link once I find it again. 

Great deals are to be had everywhere… you just have to find them.  Next week I am going to start learning the drug store games.  It seems to me once you spend a little money then you pretty much get everything for free.  I guess we will see how I do.  I will let you know!

Supposedly Kmart is bringing back super double coupons (double up to and including $2.00 coupons) and they are supposedly starting this Sunday so keep a look out in your flyer on Sunday!  If so, you will find me there with kids in tow!

Have a great day!

Setting up for Triples

Since the cashier at Harris Teeter was kind enough to inform me that triple coupons start this week (Wednesday) then there are a few things that I am going to do to prepare...

1. I am going to get three news papers this week. Why? Because Harris Teeter (HT) will permit up to three identical coupons. You have to buy three of whatever the item is, but if you can get it for free or next to nothing, it's worth the extra cost of the additional papers.

2. I am going to peruse all the internet coupons I can find that are under .99. HT will only multiply coupons with a face value of .99 or less.

3. I am going to make sure that all of my coupons are in order, expired ones removed, etc.

4. I am going to use two weeks worth of grocery budget in order to stock up on items during this week of triple coupons, BUT if I get awesome deals then I may just stick to my $40. They've also been running triples more frequently so we will see.

5. I am going to go to different HT stores this week and see what is on sale that they are out of stock on and ask for rain checks. See other post about rain checks here.

6. I am going to make sure I have a babysitter Wednesday night. Oh wait... I already have one... hubs is off! He can take care of the girls while I peruse the aisles of HT after work. Also, I will probably go on Saturday as well. If I use my two weeks worth of grocery money, so be it. We have plenty to live off of.

7. See if anyone has any diaper or wipes coupons! Huggies seems to always go on sale when they have triple coupons.

Baking Day

Since I bought nine extremely ripe bananas this week at HT it is time to bake!

I love banana bread and it's so easy (and cheap) to grab and take to work for breakfast or a snack.

Here is what I'm guesstimating the cost of all this... (and this is an extreme guesstimation!)

.50 - 9 bananas
1.50 - 7 cups flour
1.00 - 4 cups sugar
.70 - 7 eggs
.62 - 3 sticks butter
$4.32 Total

For barely more than four bucks I made one loaf, 3 dozen muffins, 12 dozen mini muffins!

I know that's probably more baking than what most like to do but I can spend that teensy bit of money it cost to make all that at a fast food restaurant for breakfast one time! I'm thinking the savings of that time and cost is huge. Not only the time it saves me in the morning because breakfast is grab n go, but I don't have to take the time and go by a fast food place (which is also better for my waist), what I don't eat I can freeze and eat later, what I made replaces a month's worth of weekday breakfasts easily so the cost saved is insurmountable.

I'm very proud of myself. Now, if I can just learn how to make other things out of seriously ripe bananas!

Rain Check Please

I am just now learning the power of rain checks at Harris Teeter (HT)

They are wonderful little promises on pieces of paper when they run out of stock on any item in the store. This normally happens when something is on sale and the other couponers out there have already snagged them all up. I have only ever requested these twice and extremely recently.

I am just now learning the great things about rain checks...

They do NOT expire! How awesome is that. I could save them for 20 years and get awesome prices on everything then. ha ha ha ha

I think the best part is that you can stock up on these rainchecks and redeem them whenever you see fit... like during triple coupon week! I am going to cash one I got for trash bags during triple coupon week because I have .75 coupons for them. They were buy one get one free normally $8.47 (I think), so that would be about $4.20 on one and then $2.25 off, so total for one pack would be $1.95. A $6.52 savings from the normal price! Now THAT I love.

Per HT's coupon policy, they only accept one coupon for BOGO items, so remember to only buy one of the item because it will ring at half price and redeem a coupon. That will ensure you save the most money. So you may have to go back and do another transaction, but oh well. It's worth it in the end for the money you save (especially if you are like me and write done which items are BOGO so you have an exact list to go back and get).

On a raincheck they will give you a maximum of six in quantity for whatever the item may be. If you get a helpful customer service desk representative ask them to break them into three rain checks of two each instead of one for six. Reason being because they will only take a maximum of two like INTERNET coupons per item. They will take three for the regular manufacturer ones, but only two for internet coupons. So, just to keep yourself covered ask if they will split them up. Couldn't hurt. I've had some that would and others that wouldn't.

I am literally going back to multiple HT stores this week to get more rainchecks for items. They have the small packages of Pampers on sale for $6.99 and there are $2 coupons out there for these, so I got a pack of diapers for $5.00. That is a great price. They only had one package of the size that I needed so I got a raincheck. I am goin to go back and get some more for that because you couldn't use $5 diapers?

I plan on using these rainchecks during triple coupons so I can really rack up! I still have a rain check for buy two get three free on the pizza rolls. They are $2.19/box so total of $4.38 and I have a .40 cpn off these, so if I use two coupons that would be $2.20 off the five boxes, total of $2.18 for five boxes, savings of $8.77! I am just going to have to get smarter about doing my shopping. Normally if I see something is out I never asked for a rain check, but after seeing how much I can save I say...

RAIN CHECK PLEASE!