Photo Project

I'll be the first to admit that I have grand ideas about different projects that I want to do, but when it comes down to it, I can't seem to get anything accomplished. Just look in my basement (wait...I don't want you to look in my basement!!) for the bins and bins of scrapbook stuff ~ stickers, albums, ticket stubs, souvenirs, photos, etc ~ not to mention, the thousands of digital photos I have not printed out or did anything with.

That said, one thing that I *have* gotten done is the framing/collage of Cody's first year of monthly sign photos. What are those, you ask? See here, here and here for examples.

I was able to take advantage of some deals (of course, are you surprised?!) on Shutterfly for these neat 11x17 collage photo posters. These worked perfectly for what I wanted to do with the monthly photos of Cody. I'm already in need of another collage being made, but for now, these fit on the wall perfectly and I'm super pleased with them. The photos are not that clear (sorry) but you get a general idea.

Garage Sale Finds 8/29

Garage sales were cruddy on Saturday morning. As noted previously, we took Cody along and he did great! It was chilly but he handled things well. My finds were pitiful and definitely not worthy of a blog post, but there is a monster nap going on so I am going to take advantage of it!

1 Christian romance book for my momma - 25 cents

7 kids books for Cody - 75 cents

1 tablecloth - $2.00 [got this right by our house on my way home, had to stop at "just one more".]

1 Noah's Ark plate for Cody - 25 cents

That's it! Ridiculous.

I am getting sad that garage sale season is almost done for the year here in Minnesota. It is such a short season! My "to find list", although technically long gone due to the cell phone mishap of August 2009, still has quite a few things on it. There should still be a few weekends of sales left before the (gasp) snow flies, so there's still time. And if not...there's always next year!

Thrifty Target Treasures

I was lucky enough to meet up with a college friend after work on Friday for appetizers and drinks (hi Lissa!), and Gordon offered to watch the little guy while I did that plus some shopping afterwards. I should admit that I used a $10/$25 coupon at Champps for our "dinner" (if you can call what we had a meal!), so we scored some yummy food and drinks for cheap!

After spending a frustrating time at the mall in Sears, which I will be writing a complaint letter to them about, I stopped into Byerly's to get a movie at Redbox for $1 to watch that night with the hubby. After that, I headed to Target for that week's deals. I was going to take a photo of the loot, but I am too lazy.

Here's the scoop:

6 full size bottles of Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo/wash (some also had "bonus" amounts to boot) - 99 cents each

1 smaller size bottle of J&J baby product - 44 cents

3 baby bottles - free (will save for later ;) or baby gift)

1 big bag of Skittles for hubby for movie night - $1.44

2 packages of Combos (" ") - 87 cents each

1 box of Jose Ole steak & cheddar quesadillas - $2.02 (clearance plus coupon)

1 box of Tyson Any-Tizers chicken - $1.95

1 gallon of whole milk - $1.79

1 bottle of contact solution - $4.51 (clearance plus coupon)

Total Before Savings = $44.85

Saved = $23.80

Total Spent = $21.05

(Thanks to the hubby for the suggestion of my savings bragging!)

So, to summarize, I got three large bags of stuff for just over $20 at Target ~ I call that a victory!

Saturday Morning

Good morning!

Up and at 'em early on a Saturday for a morning of garage saling with Careen and Cody. We usually don't bring Cody along, but Gordon is on-call so I don't want him to have to worry about watching Cody if he ends up having to do some work (as he did when the phone ring-ringed last night at 11:30 p.m. Grrr....). So, garage saling could be interesting (and/or frustrating, and/or fun, and/or tiring, and/or hilarious, and/or exhausting). There's not too many sales listed for today but we never seem to have a problem in finding them in our galavanting around town! (Or should I say "gadding"?!)

One more quick administrative note...I changed the settings on my blog that comments are now moderated, so you may not see your comment immediately appear after you submit it. Give it a little while and it will show up (unless I reject it, ba-ha-ha, enter evil laugh here). I just wanted to make you all aware in case you were wondering where in the world your witty banter went! Keep commenting, please! I really appreciate feedback and it makes blogging that much more enjoyable for me.

I made a quick trip to the (groan) shopping mall, as well as Target last night, so a deal post might be on the horizon in the near future!

With that said, I am off! Hope you have a most enjoyable weekend!

Sleeping in Spaghetti

I couldn't resist posting this picture that Cari (our childcare provider) sent to me early this afternoon. Isn't it the sweetest, saddest thing you have ever seen? We have been trying only laying Cody down for afternoon naps for the past few days, as he has been refusing to take two naps lately. He gets SO tired though when it comes to be time for lunch. Poor thing! He ♥ 's spaghetti, too, so you know he is tired when he can't even stay awake to eat it!

I just can't get over how much I love this little guy :)

A couple of administrative notes...

I wanted to point out two things ~ I hope these tips may be helpful to some of you out there.

1) It is super simple to add a comment if you find you want to respond to something, ask a question, or just give me glorious praise (*self-promote* *self-promote*). Seriously. It is so easy. At the bottom right of each post, there is a link that says "0 comments". All you do is click on the link, type a message in the box, choose your Google ID or if you don't have one, select "Name/URL" and enter your first name or whatever name you like, and hit Publish Your Comment. Seriously ~ that's all there is too it! I really love comments and cannot get enough...so, please comment!

2) I have a really neat feature on my blog that will actually e-mail you new blog posts directly to your electronic mail of choice. This way you don't constantly have to go to the website to see if I have posted anything new. It will come in your e-mail inbox and you can read from there or click on the link to the website at that time. All you need to do is submit your email address and VOILA! My fabulously interesting posts (ha) will show up in your little ole e-mail box. This feature is located on the right hand side of the page, at the top. Simply enter your e-mail address and choose Subscribe. That's IT! If you can't see it, you can also subscribe right from here, too]

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Twin Cities Live

This is so funny, but I set up the show,"Twin Cities Live", to record today because Dave Ryan from KDWB was scheduled to be on and my husband I enjoy his morning radio show quite a bit. Little did I know, that right after the segment that he was on, was a feature on couponing! They had Carrie from Pocket Your Dollars on, whose website I go on quite a bit. It was such a neat segment! My husband even had to chuckle as this is totally the stuff that I am into and have been blogging about the past few days.

I did find a link to the show segment on their website - I am not sure how to embed video here. You need to click the "right" arrow until you see a photo of a receipt. Hope you can get it to work:

Coupon Queen

I hope you enjoy it, too!

(By the way, I got the same Rice Krispies coupons in the mail as she did :))

Our Backyard

Since moving into our home in April 2007, we have had quite the transformation of our backyard. It started out looking something like this:

Okay, so that isn't a very good photo. But it was winter, what do you expect!

When the snow melted, our backyard became totally engulfed in weeds, and we were too embarrassed to even take a picture. I kind of wish I had a record of that time period, but then again...maybe it is for the best. It stayed that way until August, when we decided to finally clear out the brush and put in sod and a patio. The yard then looked something like this:

And, then this:

It stayed that way until this summer, when I finally talked Gordon into letting me have a little flower/vegetable garden area. Since ripping out an area of sod was out of the question since I have NO idea what I'm doing, I was granted permission to create a spot in the long weeds at the very edge of our backyard that sits along our neighbor farmer's property & fence.

My little garden area started out being the length of the area between two fenceposts (see above). My mom was here watching Cody, so Gordon and I were able to work without distraction, slaving HARD, ripping out all the long grasses and weeds, by hand. Fortunately, our farmer neighbor came over and asked what in the heck we were doing! Words were spoken, beers were exchanged, and soon he was back with his roto-tiller and riding lawnmower, clearing a HUGE area for us. We were so grateful to him but have to wonder how much he was giggling as us city-folk not knowing what we were doing.

After they were all done roto-tilling and we cleaned it up some more, we came to the final result...

We planted a few perennials/herbs that our childcare provider was gracious enough to give to us. (Ugh, look at that nice clay-soil already cracking after it'd *just* been dug up!)

Then, what did we decide to do next?

We left for a week and went to Colorado on vacation, of course!!

So, needless to say, by the time we got back, and given the fact that we didn't lay down anything like, oh, mulch...oodles of weeds had popped up and taken over my lovely flower garden. We left it that way for awhile, I was pretty mad at myself that I didn't think of this. Poor timing on our part to dig up everything right before vacation and expect it to stay that way until we had time to work on it again.

But, don't fret...my mom came down again so we were able to go back to work in the yard while she watched the little rascal. Gordon and I spent an afternoon weeding & clearing, covering, mulching, transplanting and planting...and the results were this....

There's not much there for now, but as you can see, there's lots of room to expand.

And, for the main point of my blog, I was thrilled to see one of my Hibiscus plants have its first flower on it today along with several buds. Okay, well, to me it looks like a Carnation, but I'll still take it. Don't mind its insect-eaten leaves or Lowes price tag (whatever, I shop at the big-box hardware store for plants, sue me!). I figure it's quite impressive it's stayed alive this long!

I Love My Cub!

Cub Foods is awesome! I just called the Rogers store and explained the situation about my $10 coupon not printing out. I talked to the Lead Cashier who researched my receipt and called me back within 20 minutes. Long story short, she manually printed out the $10 coupon and is leaving it at the store's service counter for me. YEAH!! She said that because I purchased one item that was actually over the required purchase amount, but wasn't officially on the eligible list (I bought a wrong item for $3.25 instead of $2.50 so it didn't work), it was fine to print the reward out for me & that I deserved it.

I am so glad I called!

Small victories :)

(btw, Wanda, you rock!)

Deals, Deals, Deals

...Sung to the tune of "Girls, Girls, Girls" by Motley Crue ...

(And, you're welcome for getting THAT song stuck in your head all day!)

I know that me bragging about my deals is getting boring for you non-couponers and non-bargain shoppers, but tough. This is my blog and I''m going to write about what *I* want!

:)

I have today off and the Cody-man and I made a trip to two local grocery stores this morning. As I write this, he is chattering away in his crib and it is 11:12am. He's usually napping by 10 or 10:30, so not sure if I should get him up now for lunch and hope for a long afternoon nap. Uncle Al and Aunt Joann are scheduled to come over for supper tonight, so I hope he gets lots of rest so he will be on his best behavior & can show off all his tricks.

First, we went to Coborn's, which is a local grocery store chain in Minnesota and South Dakota. It's the closest grocery store to our house, just a few minutes away, and while it is nice to have a store so close when you run out of something or need just a couple items, it's definitely never the cheapest from a general price perspective. Did you know that they recently took over the "SimonDelivers" grocery delivery service, and that their family of stores also owns some of the Holiday Gas Stations in central Minnesota?

Anyway, lately I've been just going to Coborn's to get their "loss leaders" and things that they advertise in their weekly flyer. They also sent out a mailer with 4 coupons that you can use per week - these have been some pretty good deals, too.

Today, here was my shopping trip to Coborn's:

• 2 bottles of Ragu pasta sauce - $1.19 each
• 2 bottles of Old Orchard 100% apple juice - 98 cents each
• 2 half-gallon containers of ice cream - $1.48 each
• 6 boxes of Eggo Waffles - $2.89 each, buy one get one free, plus I had $5.00 in coupons so I ended up getting 6 boxes for $3.67 or 61 cents each
• 2 packages cream cheese - 98 cents each
• 2 containers sour cream (16 oz) - 88 cents each
• 2 packages chunk cheese - $2.69 each, buy one get one free - $1.40 each
• 3 apples & 1 muskmellon - $3.81 (no great deals here, but some of the Eggo coupons were when you bought fresh produce)

Total Spent = $21.31 Total Saved = $25.76

Cody was still in a great mood (and, by the way, as I've written this, has become awfully silent...nap=success!) so we decided to quickly go to The Marketplace. This is a larger store but still a local chain. Upon doing some research, it looks like the same company owns the Buffalo Cub Foods and a few other stores. Again, typically this store is much more expensive than the larger grocery chains, but it is close and will work in a pinch. They had just a few advertised items this week that I wanted to take advantage of. Cody and I hurried and picked up a small cartful:

• 1 package butter - $1.39
• 2 packages biscuits (for tonight's dinner) - $1.09 each
• 4 boxes of Van de Kamps fish sticks/fillets - 99 cents each (score!) **
• 8 boxes of pizza rolls - after coupons, 65 cents each
• 1 head of lettuce - 79 cents

Total Spent = $13.54 Total Saved = $16.26 (this number does not include advertised savings, so it's actually even more than that)

** I was lucky enough to have found $3.00 printable coupons for the frozen fish earlier this month and was able to print out four. The cashier was VERY methodical about checking all the coupons I had against what I purchased, and had to leave the checkout and go ask the manager at the service counter about the $3.00 coupons. I could see the manager shaking her head no and saying "I don't think so" but then I saw her on the phone, presumably calling the coupon company. Lo and behold, they were determined to be valid and the cashier put them all through. I was a bit annoyed to have to wait while they did this (I have never had anyone verify coupons before) but at the same time, I can appreciate it. Too many people abuse the whole coupon thing, so I'm glad they try to stop the illegitimate coupons when they can.

Yesterday, I also stopped at Rainbow and did the deal I talked about previously. With tax, it came out to be $1.50 per 12-pack. I like it, I like it! Will try and go back later to do it again.

Well, with that, I need to take advantage of this precious nap-time to get something else accomplished. Thanks for reading and putting up with my gloating :)

Cub Foods Deals

Okay, time for more bragging!

Stopped at Cub Foods for a quick pickup of their sale and deal items on the way home from shopping for something for Gordon to wear to Natasha & Brian's wedding. (I had no luck with shoes - stopped at 3 stores - am minorly freaking out.)

Anyway, I had my list figured out ahead of time so it was easy to run in quick(ish) and get a few things.

The highlights:

• * 2 cases of Diet Mountain Dew plus free 12 pack = $9.96 total
• * 10 boxes of Kellogg's cereal for $2.50 each = $25.00 less $11.50 in mftg coupons less $10 mail in rebate = $3.50 or $0.35 each. I was also supposed to get a $10.00 coupon on my next order for buying $25 worth of products, which I *just* realized didn't print out because I bought one wrong size of cereal. Ugggh, I am so mad...will see if I can return & re-buy one box & have them manually print out the $10 coupon but I don't know if it will work :( I will be so mad if I can't because this is the main reason I did this deal, although I guess $0.35/box of cereal isn't anything to complain about [And as a side note, I am glad I am writing this post so I realized it before I mailed the receipt off for the rebate!].
• * 2 free Glade candles with mftg coupons
• * free 20 oz bottle of Diet Coke with My Coke Rewards reward I 'bought' with points
• * Oscar Meyer hot dogs - buy one get one free - then I had a coupon for a free package, so both were FREE!
• * 2 bottles of Coffeemate liquid creamer (I am addicted to this stuff) - $2.29 less $1 mftg coupon = $1.29 each

I got some other stuff like bread, eggs, etc but won't bore you with those details.

Total spent - $41.96. Total saved - $40.90. Savings of 50%.

And as a bonus, a receipt printed out for a $2 off your next order coupon when I call and complete a survey. Yeah! I love it :)

The cashier said "I love coupons, and coupons love me!" as he was painstakingly scanning all of them through. I was starting to feel bad but he said, "No, they are great and worth it". Even the lady behind me in line, which I thought was starting to get annoyed because it was taking so long, made a comment that it was great to use coupons and how it was worth the time it takes, especially if you buy a lot of groceries. I hate taking long in line, but figure I have a right to be there, too. Besides, the manufacturers and stores put out the coupons for us to use, right?

Ugh, still annoyed about the $10 coupon deal. I don't know how it will work to try and get the correct size & the $10 coupon, as I don't want them to mark up my receipt because I'm sending it in for the rebate, but I really want to cash in on that deal since it was the whole point of buying (gulp) 10 boxes of cereal. (I plan to donate them or give them to someone who could use them more than us. We will use a few but not that many.)

Tomorrow is Monday and I have my lists ready for Walgreens, Coborns, Target and Marketplace Foods! Now where to find the time...?

By the way, they have a fantastic deal on Coke 12-packs at Rainbow Foods this week. I normally don't shop Rainbow because, as you can see, I have way too many stores to go to as it is, but they have 12 packs of Coke products on sale this week for $1.77. You have to buy five, but that's not a problem for us as we go through a lot of Diet Coke at our house. I also have coupons for $2 off when you buy four 12-packs, so it makes the deal sweeter and comes out to only $1.37 a 12-pack. Awesome deal!! (I am glad pop prices are coming down, for awhile there they were sky high for some reason!) I am hoping to try and find time to go to Rainbow a couple times this week to take advantage of this great deal.

St. Michael Daze & Knights Parade

FINALLY!!!

We took Cody to his first parade today. We have been trying to go to a parade all summer, but it just never seems to work out. Either Cody is sick, or teething, or crabby, or the weather is bad, or the time is bad, or, or, or...

So, finally we made it to the St. Michael parade this morning...not without some drama, but we made it. Cody loved it! He stayed in his stroller the whole time & watched all the parade entries go by. He really scored on the candy & goodies too! I remember getting candy at the 4th of July parade as a kid, but it was never that much and you just had a few pieces to eat and maybe a few to take home. The other kids around watching the parade went home with half-full grocery bags of candy! We even scored a nice little stash and we weren't even trying :) (I wanted to run after the salt-water taffy laying helplessly in the street, but I resisted.) Cody enjoyed a couple freezies & a sucker (his first ever!) as we watched. Cody enjoyed it, but didn't care too much for a few of the firetrucks & ambulances that were really, really loud. There were tears. I felt so bad, but I admit I was laughing too...poor little man didn't know what in the world was going on.

We had a good time & saw my friend Wendy (fellow Mom & couponer/deal-er extraordinaire!) after the parade and got to chat for a few minutes. Our little family then checked out the carnival grounds and hastily ate a quick lunch of fair food. Cody was in the car for, OH, maybe 45 seconds before falling asleep. When we got home, I took his socks & shoes off, carried him into the house, took his pants off & changed his diaper, all without waking him up. Hmm, think he was tired??! We deprived him of his morning nap so we could go to the parade, so he was preTTy darn exhausted, to say the least.

Here's a few photos from our morning fun:

Waiting for the show to get on the road (literally)...

I really loved this!

First sucker - that I'm aware of, anyway...

Mmmm....!

Nearing the end...getting tired...God Bless America...

Edited to add...I forgot I had this picture of our "haul" - not too shabby for not even trying to get candy and goodies, eh? I like that free popcorn coupon, wish we would have got more of those!

Walgreens Deals

Okay, really. I need to stop shopping. You should see our bathroom 'pantry'!

That said, I couldn't resist getting some good deals at Walgreens on Friday afternoon. Up until about 6 months ago, it had probably been about 10 years since I had been in a Walgreens store. Isn't that wild? I just always bought my drug & toiletry supplies at Target and the like.

Anyway, they had a deal at the end of this week that if you bought $25 worth of stuff before coupons, you got a $5 Register Reward coupon to use toward your next purchase. This was a breeze!

Here's what I scored:

• Angel Soft toilet paper - 12 double rolls - $5
• 2 tubs of Huggies wipes - $6.60 less $4 store coupons-$1.50 mftg coupons=$1.10
• 2 scotch bubble mailers - free after coupons
• Orajel teething medicine - free after coupon (had an issue with a previous product & the manufacturer mailed me a free product coupon; it pays to complain!)
• 3 packages of Bic Highlighters - 39 cents each less $1.00 coupon = 17 cents for all
• Motts applesauce (6 pack) - on sale for $1.67 less $1 coupon = 67 cents
• Softsoap bodywash - $4 (got $4 reward to use next time, so ultimately, free)

After all coupons, I paid $8.64 plus got $9 in reward coupons to use the next time. I also bought another Softsoap bodywash in a separate transaction which was free after register reward. I try not to do multiple transactions, but if they have something like this that I know I will use (we go thru a lot of body wash here...showers=bliss), I am not shy to ask to do a separate transaction.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself...

Target Deals 8/20

I had a chance to run to Target tonight & of course I found some deals. I also found a shortcut to one of our nearby Targets that involves pretty much NO traffic, so that must be the best deal of the day!

Here's some highlights of my trip:

1 bag of Skittles - they paid me 48 cents to take it (overage from coupon)

2 boxes of Cinnabon bars - 50 cents and 75 cents each

2 tubs of Hillshire farm deli meat - $1.04 and $2.04 each

4 bananas - 9 whole cents!

2 Dove deodorants - 29 cents each

1 can Skintimate shave gel - they paid me 26 cents to take it (thanks Wendy for the coupon!)

1 Head & Shoulders travel size shampoo - paid me 3 cents

1 roll of Bounty paper towels & 1 travel size TP (don't ask) - 24 cents

1 Kotex pantyliners - paid me 30 cents

8 bottles of Renu contact solution (travel size) - $6 for all (which I will submit to our work reimbursement plan for 80% back or $4.80 - so net cost to me will be $1.20

1 Hungry Hippos travel game - $1 (save for Cody or gift)

Those are the highlights! Too much fun, don't you love when the store PAYS you to take their things?!?

I spent a total of $39.33 (bought other regular things too), used a $5 Target gift card I had from a previous purchase so out of pocket expense was $34.33. Total savings was $38.37. Love when I save more than I spend!!!

Basement Framing - Progress Photos

Here are a few progress photos of our basement project! I am thrilled to see clear definitions on rooms and spaces.

Heading downstairs to see the progress.

Doorway leading from the family room to the bedroom/office.

Family room. The TV will be mounted on drywall in the middle part on the top, with a custom-made cabinet below to hold all the components & hide the wires.

Storage area, think we need one???!?

Closet in the bedroom/office

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

And Cody, the little man is snoring, so I can write a blog post. Hooray!

What a wonderful birthday it has been!! I took the day off from work, which would have been enough in itself. I don't think I have ever taken my birthday off before. I sent Cody to daycare for the morning, and my friend Careen came over at the crack of dawn (read: 8 am) to go garage saling. Which is where the Title of this blog post comes in. It was raining the ENTIRE morning! We were completely soggy, soaked & spongy by the time our shopping was done. We had a lot of fun, and Careen took me out to a yummy breakfast/lunch at Emma Krumbees afterwards!

Nothing earth shattering in the garage sale finds today, but I did get some fun finds. We always manage to fill up the back of the car. That's never a problem.

Here's the loot:

* Wall clock - I think I have the same one in my office at work - $2

* Sesame Street Sing-a-long DVDs - 3 for $3

* Elmo in Grouchland movie - sealed/new - $2

* 2 pen/desk trays for my home office - $1.25

* Children's dictionary - $1

* couple of old "Sticker Fun" books, I remember having these when I was a kid and bought purely for the reminiscent value! - 75 cents

* new package of trouser socks - 50 cents

* Thomas the Train jammies - $1

* 2 shirts, 1 shorts, 3 pants for Cody - $4.75

* My Big Animal book - $1

* Monkee night light (will match Cody's bathroom to a T) - $1

* ink cartridge to resell - $0.75

* decorative glass plate - $1

* wipes holder for diaper bag - 25 cents

* bag full of books including 10 Little Golden Books, odd looking Wizardology & Piratology books and something called The Invention of Hugo Cabret - $2 for all

* Fisher Price portable booster/high chair in like new condition - $5

Photo doesn't include the DVDs or clocks. Stock photos of the booster chair is below - a similiar one sells on Amazon for $30 and the exact one with same colors for $70. I'm thrilled to have gotten it for 5 little dollars!

(I didn't even realize it folded up like that!)

All in all, it was a highly enjoyable day!

Basement Finishing - Before Photos!

It's official. We started finishing our basement last Friday. We are having our neighbor, Jon, do the work as he is a carpenter by trade and is currently not working a regular job. And he lives literally next door! They started on Friday and have already got so much accomplished! He is having a buddy help him out with the project, which he wasn't initially planning on, so it's going very quickly. Right now they are working on framing out all the rooms. My plan is to take before, during, and after photos to show the progress. We're excited about having the extra space, especially for the winter for more room to run for Cody (and yeah, I do mean run.), although I have to admit I'm not thrilled about more rooms to clean!

Here are a few before pictures, like REALLY before, before we even moved in!

On the left will be the bedroom/office, and on the right will be a storage area.

This will be the bathroom, which we are only framing up right now.

This will be the large living room/family room. Kind of hard to see how big this room really is.

I'm excited to show more progress photos as the project continues!

Good Deals, Good Times

Oh, neglected blog. You poor thing.

I had to come visit you today though, because I had to share in my fabulous finds today during my normal Sunday morning shopping trips. Lots of prep work, but the rewards were worth it!

In summary, Cub Foods paid me $16.50 to take home $81.19 worth of stuff! Yes!

Here's a quick recap of the goodies I bought...I mean, that Cub paid me to take home. No photos, I'm not going to start going down THAT route; I spend way too much time clipping, calculating & conniving as it is!

2 Digorno's Pizzas

9 boxes of various Ritz/Nabisco/Honeymaid crackers

3 packages of Jello pudding snacks

2 packages Oscar Meyer lunchmeat

6 packages Kraft cheese singles

1 Digorno flatbread melt

1 Oscar Meyer hot sandwich kit

4 Easy Mac cups

6 packages shredded cheese

Apart from possibly the Easy Mac cups and the hot sandwich kit, these are things we would buy anyway. We should be stocked up for quite awhile on items like cheese, crackers, pudding, etc!

I also scored a great deal on some Gold N Plump extra tender chicken breasts/tenders. These were on sale for $3.33, I had coupons for $0.75 off each, making them $2.58 a package. Bought 10 packages. Should last us a couple months at least. Thank goodness for our chest freezer, the best thing we ever bought (err, received for free).

I also got a free pint of Starbucks ice cream (using a Facebook promotion from earlier this summer), and an energy drink for my hubby for a whole 50 cents using a coupon I found at the gas station that had expired!

In addition, I also went to Walgreens and got some great deals there with sales & coupons & previous Register Rewards:

3 packages Huggies diapers - $7.50/package

4 small bottles of honey -$0.75 each (honey is expensive!)

Colgate toothpaste: FREE after $3 Register Reward to use on next purchase

6 packages of Bic pens - FREE

4 bottles toilet bowl cleaner - $1.00-$1.10 each

1 bottle Advil - $3.49

2 pkg of 3 pack gum - FREE

2 cans Campbell's soup - $0.29 each

2 bottles coffee creamer - $2 each

less $31 in previous Register Rewards

equals $10.06 for $90.86 worth of stuff...plus I got the $3 RR to use on my next trip.

Holla!

I love saving money!

Too bad it's so much work...