Getting the AXE!

It's been a couple of months since Thomas started to ask for me to replenish his "AXE" stash. It brings back so many memories of working at Canyon Hill Center, some of you may recall incidents too. The odor of AXE will forever be etched into my mind. The big day came yesterday when coupons for AXE @ a B1G1 came in the paper. The scents he chose, I'm hoping, won't make me relive those moments all over again from days ago.

I picked all of this up for $13.84. Usually I am close to FREE, but because the Catalina's weren't printing properly, my hard work of scanning, gathering, planning and shopping was foiled.

I got the AXE for free. It was a 3/$12 deal. I had (2) B1G1 Q and (2) $1 off Q. I also had $6 in Register Rewards from Friday's purchase. All I paid was the tax. I EARNED $4 in RR.

This is the order I did the transaction in. I did EIGHT seperate transactions, and asked the cashier to call someone over to the cosmetics counter to check me out. That way I wasn't holding up any line.

1. Axe 3/$12- (2)B1G1Q, (2)$1Q, $6 RR = $1.01 tax , recvd $4 RR
2. Advil 2/$10- (1) $4Q on 2, $4 RR= $1.98, recvd $5RR
3. Colgate Toothpaste 2/$7- (2) $1Q, $5RR= $.26tax, recvd $3RR
4. Advil 2/$10= $4Q, $3 RR= $2.98, recvd $5 RR
5. Colgate Toothpaste 2/$7, and silly band for filler- (2) $1Q, $5 RR= $.46 tax, recvd $3 RR
6. Suave lotion 4/$12 - (2) B1G1 Q, $3RR=$3.71, recvd $3 RR
7. Advil 2/$10- $4Q, $3RR=$2.98, recvd $5 RR
8. Colgate Toothpaste 2/$7, and silly band for filler- (2) $1Q, $5 RR= $.46, recvd $3 RR

I paid $13.84 OOP for $99.49 worth of personal items we will use. I also received a $3 RR that I haven't used yet. That is an 86% savings!!

Not bad for a couple hours worth of work.

Thanks for reading. Hope it helps you to do some deals this week at Walgreens.

be blessed

Couponing 101

Hey there!!

I've taken a hiatus from blogging while starting my new job. I don't have near as much time to post as I did before. I did want to touch on a couple of things that were brought to my attention last night while talking with my mom. (God bless her soul for starting to coupon!!)

Most people make a list of the groceries they need and head to the store. What you have just done is make a list of everything that is not on sale at the store. We need to step back and realize that groceries go on sale. They all have a "rock bottom low price", and we want to focus on only buying groceries when they are at that rock bottom price. Don't worry it's pretty easy, in most areas they follow a cycle roughly 6 weeks long. That means if we see a rock bottom price this week then buy enough of that item to last 6 weeks. That way you don't have to go back and pay the full retail price in between. Does that make sense?

So how do you know? Good question! I'm glad you asked!! When I first started posting I had asked for some feedback to let me know where you were shopping. I was willing to help out and post the sales that were in your area. I only received a few replies, so honestly I didn't think anything of it after that. When talking to my mom yesterday, it became apparent that there are few and far between bloggers that cover your area. I did find one called Little House on the Prairie Living. She has some local stores listed and some things you might find. MIND YOU... this is a LOT of work, so if you use her site, give her some feedback that you are using her site, OR she might stop posting.

One site that I use all the time is called Southern Savers. You can find drugstore buys here that include, but are not limited to Walgreens and CVS. I also use The Coupon Challenge, and The Krazy Coupon Lady.

These websites will provide you with all the sales you could possibly dream about for groceries and personal care items. Most have some links to department store savings too. The work is done for you. All you have to do is pull/clip the coupon and go use it!!

Alright, getting on with the program....


Stocking up:

Sales on items usually run in 6-8 week cycles. This means that when you see an item on sale, adding a coupon, and it making it FREE or close to FREE you should be stocking up. (I get FIVE papers in addition to my home delivery because of this. How can you stock up if you don't have enough coupons??)

You could, buy a box of cereal for $4 a box, every week for six weeks and you’re out $24!

or

Buy six boxes of cereal at their rock bottom price and use coupons. Pay only $6 total for six boxes of cereal.

You save $18 by purchasing them at the right time and stocking up.

Does THIS make sense?? Right now our Stock pile on cereal is HUGE... Our boys will eat for an afternoon snack, and I don't have to tell them anymore "Save it for Breakfast because that's all we have".

Add On The Coupons:

If you buy when the items is at its lowest price AND use coupons, you save a bundle! Here's how it works:

credit here

GETTING ORGANIZED:

You need to have some sort of organization that way you know where and what you have for coupons. I started out with a photo journal book. Three of them, actually. I filed them accordingly: Perishables, Non-Perishables, and Household Goods ie.. toothpaste, body wash, TP, tampoons, etc..


Then James purchased a binder with baseball card holders for me and I've been using that. I have 60 pages of card holders with 9 slots on each page. This allows me to view EVERY coupon that I have. I am giving a thought to using an accordian style folder for inserts. Using this method, you just clip the coupon you need without cutting every one at one time, and keep the rest stored by date received. (I cut them anyway because we are sending to Japan. Our total right now is over $3400 to be sent to a naval base in Japan because they can use up to SIX months after the expiration date. I still have one VS bag to go through and that will probably put our total at $4000!)

Most important, you should just organize to whatever fits your lifestyle. YOU are the one who is doing the shopping.

NOW PUT IT ALL TOGETHER:

1.Save the inserts on Sunday

2.Go to the website that does your match-ups

3.Get the Coupons together (Either clipped or from accordian file)

4.Print out your shopping list

5.GO SHOPPING!!

Good luck!

be blessed!

Kroger and Harris Teeter Shopping Trip

Monday I went to Kroger, and of course they were sold out of everything. T and a his friend H went with me, and thought it was odd that we were leaving with nothing. That's how I roll, usually. If you aren't stocked with 50% of what I need, I won't buy anything. You've just wasted my time coming to your store.

I spoke with a store associate and said that they would get a truck in yesterday and they would be stocked back up. So I made a trip to make sure that I was able to get the Nivea men's body wash for FREE. I also picked up a couple of bags of Boulder potatoe chips, a couple of bags of BF Snackerz, and then they OWED me .24 for taking the stuff out of their store. They don't pay out overages, so I had to buy something else. I bought 2 more Snackerz and used 1 more coupon, (which didn't make the checker at the next register too happy). My total was $.34.

Here's the deal... I don't usually buy candy at our house, so for the boys to get a treat... It was worth it!

They were actually out of some stuff I wanted, but said they would be putting it out in the next hour, so of course I had to go back. Right??

So here's how it played out... After a swim with J in the afternoon, Climb with O, dinner done and over (Pizza night splurge) I gathered my Qbook and went back out. This is what I found:
{10} Capri Sun - $14.90
{10} Kraft BBQ sauce (4 going to food pantry) FREE
{5} 8oz  KoolAid/CountryTime lemonade FREE (coupon was on BBQ sauce and on sale to boot)
{3} Crest pro-health toothpaste for kids (1 going to food pantry) FREE
{4} Clorox 2 stain remover - (1 going to food pantry) $2.00 (.50ea)
{2} Sister Schuster frozen rolls - $.98 (.49 ea)
{2} 44oz Classico pasta sauce $3.98 (1.99 ea)
{2} Kashi Cereal - $1.98 (.99 ea)
{1} Kraft Homestyle MacnCheese- $.50

This total came out to be around $25 with tax.

So, are you NOW ready to learn? 

Printable Coupons

Here are some printables that I have found this morning. If the links should happen to not work, please let me know. Thanks. I will be adding as I find them. One thing I will add... When printing a "bricks coupon" you can use your history back drop-down box, and select print coupon, again. It will print one more time for you. Most bricks coupons you can print {2} of.


Lean Cuisine (expires 4/29)
Oscar Mayer (fb) coupon
Cheez It (baby swiss)
Cheez It Baked Snack Crackers
Playtex Gentle Glide Tampons
Velveta Spicy Buffalo loaf
Dole Fruit Bowls, Gels, or Parfaits (4)
Dole Fruit Bowls, Gels or Parfaits (6)
Snapple Tea 6 pak
Lysol $1 off (sign up may be required)
Glad Force Flex Trash Bags (bricks coupon)
Glad Force Flex (clorox.kewlbox.com)
Athenos Hummus (like FB page, print coupon)
Clorox toilet bowl cleaner (print two and use at walgreens)
Clorax 2 stain remover (bricks coupons, so make sure you get 2!)
Desitin
Friskie's dry cat food
True Lemon or Lime
Cottonelle Bathroom Tissue

Is there something you are needing a coupon for that I might help you find? Claritin, Allegra, Diapers, baby items, flowers for your honey? Just let me know.
be blessed

t

Super Double Days

Everything I had read yesterday about the Super Double Days at Harris Teeter compared the morning shopping to morning shopping on Black Friday. It just wasn't that way at our HT store.

I don't know if I feel let down or elated that our shelves were fully stocked. Clearly I wasn't the ONLY one in the store shopping this morning at 530 am, but there wasn't a MOB like I assume there will be in Nashville or in the Carolinas.

Anyway, this is what I picked up for $13.78 this morning.

{2} Wheat Thins Sticks Chipotle Pepper ($1 each)
{2} JnJ Shampoo ($1 each)
{4} Lysol toilet bowl cleaner {a must for having boys!} (.50 each)
{4} Lysol cleaning wipes (.50 each)
{2} Seventh Generation dish soap (Free)
{1} Homestyle MacnCheese (.50)
{1} Smart Balance fatfree milk (.50)
{2} Ritz Munchables, sour cream n onion & chipotle. ($1 each)
{3} Balance bars (.30 each)

I saved $25.03 for using my VIC card, but more importantly I saved $28.98 with coupons. That's a $54.01 savings!!  That is nearly 80% savings!!

I do need to reiterate one thing. Just because we are SAVING this money on purchases, doesn't mean we HAD the money to spend on everything in the first place. I am trying to maximize the funds we DO have to spend. I still am not working yet. The economy is tough. Fuel prices have skyrocketed the last 30+ days. We don't have a choice. This is what I need to do for our family. And, it really is fun to save and get such great deals.

be blessed, truly in the heart of Jesus

t

Couponing 101

For the last few weeks I am sure you have been inundated with the amount of facebook postings that have been occuring as I link up. I won't apologize. I am super excited about saving money, and I hope I am encouraging you to do the same.

I used to think that coupons were hard to keep track of, too time consuming, and I wasn’t saving enough for the trouble. Am I wasting my time cutting them on Sundays, and printing, and looking for that special item in the store?

Product manufacturers spend billions of dollars every year to supply us all with coupons and more than half the time they don’t get used. I will tell you straight up that three weeks ago I started to do couponing again, and I found a stack of expired coupons in the desk drawer that I had left that expired in December! {Horrified I was for giving up all that money!}(BTW... if you don't use your coupons, I would be happy to send a SASE to you so you could mail them back to me in return.)

I guess I have been lucky that I haven't had a cashier give me a hard time. I've read many things scenarios where customers hand over 25-50-100 coupons and the cashiers sigh, and others tap their feet all in a hurry. I have to wonder if they, too, know that time is money.

The boys have their video games. Couponing is becoming mine. All the while I save money for our family.
You start off slow and as you do it more, you become knowledgeable of all of the In’s and Outs and before you know it YOU ARE SAVING MONEY LIKE CRAZY!

WHERE DO I GET THE BEST COUPONS?

The best places to get coupons are of course the Sunday paper, but there are many websites and magazines that provide excellent coupons.

SUNDAY PAPER: Last week was the first of our Sunday paper being resumed. NO COUPONS were in the paper though, and I knew that was going to happen. However, I am totally stoked about all the coupons that will be in the May 1st paper. You can find a list of what to expect here at the sunday coupon preview. I also learned yesterday that my Dollar Tree has papers for... YES, a DOLLAR. I will be there on Sunday bright and early.
PRINTABLE COUPONS: You can always check out on the Coupons.com and see if there are any coupons that appeal to you. Print what you want, but in most cases there a limits set as 2 per printer and there are national limits so I will print these (the ones that I know I will use) and save them until a sale comes up. Check out the Coupon Network which has catalina offers that I have talked about before. You can go to Redplum and Smart Source.  Thekrazycouponlady has provided a list of printable coupons. You may have to sign up for the product info or register for the product site, but totally worth it for saving money. It is always an option to use your computer savvy talents and search for printable coupons.

MAGAZINES: I pick up the ALL YOU magazine which features coupons on almost every page, but also gives a lot of recipes and advice like most womens magazines. You can subscribe to it and save around $.50 per issue. Woman's Day also has coupons. (I'm sure there are more)
OTHER PLACES TO FIND COUPONS: When you are walking around the store, keep on the look out for peelies (coupons that are peelable off a product), blinkies (coupons that are in blinking machines near a product) and hangtags (coupons either hanging on or around a product). Another of my favorite places to get coupons for items I could possibly need is Couponsthingsbydede.  For a small fee you can get the coupons you need, when you need them. It can be a lot less expensive to do it this way than to buy additional papers, and they are already clipped! (So there really is no reason you should NOT be couponing) ;o)

HOW DO I KNOW WHAT COUPONS TO KEEP?

First and foremost…you CAN NOT be brand loyal and save a lot of money. You have to be flexible. When going though coupons and deciding which ones to clip and keep, think to yourself…If I might use the item in the coupon and I can get it for really cheap, or better... FREE, then I clip and keep it. It’s that simple…I DON’T have to buy it, but if a sale comes up and I want to try it out and I can get it cheap to free, why not keep the coupon.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO STORE/KEEP MY COUPONS?

It really depends on your personal organization habits. I started with a three small $1 photo albums from Walmart. They have the see through pages, and I could easily turn to whatever I needed by being able to view the coupons. In two weeks I had graduated to a notebook that has baseball trading card dividers and I keep separate coupons in each trading card slot. I haven't got dividers in them, YET. But I am working on it.
Another method is keeping the coupon inserts in a notebook and marking them with insert name and date. This is another method I know some use so when you see a posting on my blog or afullcups blog or thekrazycouponlady's blog, you know exactly where to get them. For example 4/17 SS would be April 17 Smart Source insert. You would pull it and find the coupon, instead of cutting them all out at once.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A STORE COUPON and A MANUFACTURER COUPON?

A store coupon is a coupon that can only be used at that particular store. For instance, if it has the target logo on it, it might say at the top Target Coupon, same with Walgreens in ad coupons. The nice thing about these coupons, is that you can stack them with a manufacturer coupon. A manufacturer coupon will state that on the coupon and can be redeemed at any store that accepts coupons.

Now that you have your coupons, then it is time to match them with sale ads. The absolute best scenario is SALE+STORE COUPON+MANUFACTURER COUPON. That is when you save the most.

So you have got your coupon stockpile going.  Now it is time to work on your product stockpile. When items are on sale, and you can get them for dirt cheap or our favorite word... FREE, then you should stock up. Any paper products you use, personal hygiene products (Walgreens is really good about having razors on sale), cereal... etc... You know what you need better than I. Right now I've been on a yogurt kick because I've been getting it so cheap!

Keep your eye out for the sales, the same stuff seems to go on sale every 3-4 months. So if you miss a sale, don’t worry, chances are it will come back around.

Please remember to be considerate when shopping. When I shop at Walgreens for instance, I will shop either early in the morning or later in the night.  Also, be organized with your coupons, have them ready to go at check out. Usually when I am shopping, I pick out the item and put it in my cart, I will double check the coupon make sure I am getting the right thing and quantity and check the expiration date. If it is all good, I throw it in the bottom of may cart. When I go to check out, I unload all my items and all the coupons I will be using are right there and ready to go.

One more important thing. The overseas military bases can use expired coupons up to 6 months AFTER they have expired. I will be sending a package once a month to Japan. If you would like to include your expired coupons or any you would not use, please send them to me. OR if you would rather, find a base that you can send them to. They appreciate it, and it's just another way to show your support for the people who are keeping you free.
If you have ANY questions, please drop me a note here or send me an email.

I can't wait to hear how things are going for you, so leave a little note if you don't mind just so I know who I am writing to. (HI mom!! You are always so good about leaving a note! Thank you for believing in me!!)

be blessed

t