Great Post from Stephanie at TotallyTogether.com

This is a post from one of my favorite folks in the blogging world. It's spot on and kind of summarizes the turning points and decisions I've made in my own life over the last year. Read and enjoy!

Kroger and Publix this week!

There are good deals out there this week! Especially if you've been clipping multiple papers' worth of coupons! Here are my favorite deals at Publix and Kroger:

PUBLIX:

Marie Calendar's Pasta Al Dente Frozen Entrees--BOGO for $2.99 at Publix which makes them about $1.50 each. If you have the coupon from a week or so ago you can get another $.75 off, which makes these only $.75 each. I haven't tried them, but they look yummy so I bought FIVE! :)

Glade Candles--BOGO for $3.49. This makes them about $1.75 each. When you add in the $1/2 coupon from the paper a couple of weeks ago, it makes them only $1.25 each. And they smell yummy!

Campbell's Cream Soups are a dollar each this week and there are assorted coupons out there to make those even cheaper.

Advil is on sale this week--a 50 count bottle for $4.49. There was a $1 off coupon in (I think) last week's paper, so for less than $3.50 you can get a 50 count bottle of Advil.

Quaker Oatmeal is on sale for $1.99. I used a $1/2 coupon and a $1/1 coupon, bought three boxes and got three boxes for less than four bucks.

My total at Publix today was $18.76 and I saved $26.76

KROGER:

Milk is on sale for $1.99 so I bought two gallons of that with expiration dates pretty far out. That's a good price for milk. Some folks will buy and freeze, but I just don't want to risk yucky milk, so I don't do the freezer thing. If you're brave, give it a whirl..this is a great price.

Kellogg's Cereals--on sale for between $2 and $3 a box depending on the brand. A couple of weeks ago there were $1/1 coupons in the paper, so I bought two boxes of pretty cheap cereal today.

Angel Soft Toilet Tissue: Four pack sells for $1.28. There have been coupons for $.50 off lately, so when doubled, that gets you a four pack of tissue for $.28. I bought five. Love cheap TP!

Starbucks Chocolate: The small (3 oz) bars are on sale this week for 2/$3 (remember you don't have to buy both to get the sale price). This makes each bar $1.50. There was a $1/1 coupon recently in the paper, so you can use that with the sale to get some good chocolate cheap! Fifty cents...can't beat that! I bought five...we'll see how long they last. :)

Split Chicken Breasts are on sale for $.99 a pound this week as well. That's a decent deal on chicken. I bought a pack today, brought it home, trimmed off the skin and threw it in the crockpot. I sprinkled on some poultry seasoning and wrapped it all up in about four pieces of bacon. How easy was that and trust me, I will have happy boys at my house tonight!

My Kroger total OOP today was $36.51 (I bought quite a bit of produce and some other odds and ends not mentioned above) and I saved $22.08. Not as great as Publix, but Kroger never really is. You can't argue with twenty-eight cent toilet paper, though. You just can't. :)

Have a great week shopping! Let me know if you find any other great deals!

Here is one of my favorite resources for Publix deals and here is one of my favorite resources for nearly everything else.

Wal Mart

Here's a link to a posting of some of the newest and best ongoing deals at Wal Mart. They don't double coupons, so your Qs won't go as far, but of course their prices are low to begin with so sometimes it's still worth a trip. Check out what's on sale and you be the judge!

Krogering Again

If you haven't been to Kroger to get your free deodorant, hurry! You only have a day or so left! Suave deodorant is 10/$10 this week and a few weeks ago there was a coupon in the paper for $.50 off, which of course Kroger doubles to make free deodorant! I bought five when I finally found a Kroger last night with them in stock! In addition, Pilsbury brownies (10/$10) are almost free with $.35 off coupon from the paper and if you haven't started buying your Johnson's Buddies, remember that you get catalina (register) coupons to make them almost free once you buy your first two. Those are definitely my favorite deals at Kroger this week, so get them while they last!

Don't forget that you can get a rain check for these items if your store is out!

Organization

I've gotten several questions lately on how I stay motivated with all of my couponing. First off, the amount of money I'm saving is certainly the biggest factor in what keeps me going. I've found, though, that staying organized and on top of my game from week to week is really important as well. I thought I'd share my process with you so that you can see how I make sense of so many papers each week and manage to keep them in some semblance of order. We all know that the most frustrating thing in the world is knowing there's a coupon for something somewhere in all of our "stuff" but having no idea where it is.

Here's how I process my papers each week.

1. First, I separate the insert into individual pages and collate them by page. I usually do five papers each week so I tear each insert apart and stack them five at a time. This helps later when I'm clipping them because I clip all five at one time by stacking the pages. It doesn't always make for the prettiest coupons, but it gets the job done a lot faster than trying to do each page individually. This week I was behind by a week (NEVER A GOOD IDEA!!!) and so I had a HUGE stack of paper to get through. Here's the stack before I actually started to cut...

2. After I separate the coupons out by pages, then I lay out my index cards. I have one index card for each page in my coupon binders. As I cut the coupons I sort them by category. They fill my coffee table:

...and they also carry over onto the floor as well.

3. Clip, clip, clip. I only do this after the kids are in bed and while there's hopefully something relatively interesting on TV because--no doubt about it--this is BORING. It has to be done, though, so it's best to multitask while you're working on it.

4. As I clip, I sort by category and lay the coupons out on the index cards as I go through them. It ends up looking something like this:

Once everything is clipped and laying on the index cards, it only takes a second to flip through your binder and insert the coupons into their appropriate pages. I keep the index cards in order so that this part of the process goes really quickly. I hate all the flipping around in the book, so that's why I created this system to organize before I start trying to put things into the books.

If you stay on top of things each week, this really doesn't take all that long once you have your system down. Is it fun? Not really. Is it helpful and useful and worth every minute? Without a doubt!!

Quick Kroger Trip today

Well, unfortunately I got all of this put away before I had taken a picture and I'm far too lazy to get it all back out for a photo op. :) At any rate, I wanted to make you guys aware of some good deals going on at Kroger this week. Pilsbury brownies are on sale 10 for $10 this week, which makes them a dollar each. A couple of weeks ago there were coupons for $.35 off a Pilsbury brownie mix in the paper. Once Kroger doubles that, the brownie mixes are $.30 each. Can't beat that! I bought 5. (Another perk to buying multiple papers!) 

In addition, Suave deodorants are on sale for 10 for $10 and there were .50 off coupons a few weeks ago in the paper for those, which makes them FREE! Unfortunately I can't find a Kroger with them in stock, but I'm going to keep looking!

In addition to the brownie mixes, I also bought three more Johnson's Buddies with a coupon for $2.50 off of three and got another coupon to do the same deal next time I go. If you haven't started stocking up on free or almost free Johnson's Buddies soaps, you're missing out. I'm up to about 20 in my stockpile, but my pal Katie has to be over 60 by now. Insane, right? But she's using them for her kids' treat bags at their birthday parties...great idea, right?! And they're FREE! 

Hope you can snag some good deals at Kroger this week...the 10 for $10 sale is always a good time to stock up!

Natural Foods Warehouse

This is exciting!! For those of you who like to buy natural and organic food and live in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, this place is a find! The Natural Foods Warehouse is located off of the Mansell Exit of GA 400 and offers the same type of foods that you'd find at Whole Foods, but at wholesale prices. I had a great trip there today and was really excited at all the things I found! You will never find these kinds of foods as cheaply as you will find the processed stuff in the grocery store, but you can definitely tell that this place is discounted from what you'd pay in some other stores. They don't offer produce, but they have a HUGE selection of packaged foods, drinks, dairy items, frozen items and my favorite: dietary supplements. The prices are great...I will definitely be going back.

Here's what I bought today:

I spent $48.55, which is clearly WAY more than I'd spend at the grocery store for a quantity this small, but this is good stuff that my son and I will definitely benefit from.

Here's the rundown:

Super Seed Powder (the huge jar)--this is a fiber supplement that will last us a looong time, I hope. It was $17.28

Apple Cinnamon Granola (the green bag)--this was my true splurge, but I wanted to try it. It's a "live" granola, which means it hasn't been cooked and it's made of really, really good grains without a lot of sugar. It is also processed in a dedicated facility and since my son has a nut allergy, that's a big deal for us. This bag was $9.68 (ouch!!)

Not Nuts! Trail Mix--I'm hoping I can get my son interested in this--it's full of yummy seeds and such but has a little sprinkling of chocolate chips and raisins. I'm hoping he'll like it. Another item that's processed in a dedicated facility...very difficult to find trail mixes and granolas that my son can eat. This one was $3.48

Instant Oatmeal--I thought this was a steal. This box was only a few cents more than Quaker was on sale today at Kroger. This kind, though, has no corn syrup, no artificial flavors or colors or any of that wacky stuff and it was only $2.79!

4 containers of Coconut Milk yogurt--My son is addicted to yogurt, but that amount of cow's milk just isn't doing his body any favors, as we're learning. My doc suggested coconut milk yogurt, so even thought it's expensive, I thought we'd give it a go and see how he liked it. I bought four containers for $1.45 each. 

Chlorophyll supplements--This is for my son and they were $4.60

Annie's Noodle Express microwaveable meal--I just wanted to try it. I thought it looked yummy. :) It was $2.66

Bottom line, if you're into dietary supplements or natural, organic foods, this is definitely worth checking out. I'm not sure if they accept coupons...I forgot to ask. I'll update once I learn, because I'm sure to be back!

Rite Aid Trip April 19th

Rite Aid is it's own animal for "playing the drugstore game", but it's really worth it if you're careful about saving your receipts. They offer "single check rebates" (SCR) which are money back for certain products after you register your receipts online. It's more straight-forward than CVS, but there is a bit of waiting because you only process SCRs once a month.

I'll talk you through what I got at Rite Aid today...

Skintimate Shave Gel on sale 2 for $4.00

Colgate Toothpaste on sale $2.49

Tampax on sale $5.99

Johnson & Johnson Tape on sale, buy one get one free for $3.99

Huggies Pull Ups on sale $8.99

Coupons used: 

$3.00 off 2 J&J products

$.75 off Colgate

$3.00 off Pull Ups (from today's paper)

$5.00 off $25 Rite Aid purchase printable coupon

Total: 15.49

Used February's Single Check Rebate (actually works like a check when you checkout) in the amount of $10.99

Paid $4.50 with a giftcard earned by transferring a prescription to Rite Aid

Total OOP: $0.00!!

I'll also get a rebate for about $8-$9 for this transaction as well that I'll use for next month's goodies!!

***The most important thing about Rite Aid is keeping track of those receipts and then the SCRs when they come in the mail. You must have your receipts to register online for the SCRs and then when they come in the mail, you've got to keep up with them until it's time to use them again!

CVS Trip #2 April 19th

Today I made two transactions at CVS because I had two of the $4 off health and beauty coupons to use. Sometimes it's easier to do things in separate transactions because you can roll your ECBs from one to the next. In this case, however I used my second Extra Care Card (technically in my husband's name) because I needed to "roll" some ECBs from that card before they expired. (If you're clueless of what I'm talking about, go down one post, link to the tutorials and catch up for big savings!)

Today I took advantage of the "spend $25 in Aveeno products, get $10 ECBs" deal because I looooove Aveeno. Here's what I bought...

Total OOP: $9.42

Total ECBs: $10.00

The three cleansers were $7.00 each and the two body washes were $6.00 each. I then used the $4.00 off health and beauty coupon, a printable coupon for $10 off 3 Aveeno products, a printable $2 off 1 Aveeno purchase and then $12.98 in ECBs. Even though I spent a little more on this transaction out of pocket, I still made a profit of $.58. Not bad for some high dollar products.

CVS Trip #1 April 19th

I'm such a big fan of "CVSing" (yes, it's a verb!) and I'm really thankful to all of the great websites that put together the deal scenarios each week for their readers to follow. I'm hoping in the future, to have my act together so that I can pass those along to you because they do ALL THE HARD WORK FOR YOU! There's very little thought involved in how to get the best bang for your buck at all of the drugstores when you just know the right places to look.

Here's what I got today at CVS...

Total OOP: $1.18  

A DOLLAR!!!!!! AND EIGHTEEN CENTS!!!

And I got $16.89 back in ECBs for next time!!

So how did I do it? I'll give you the run down...

Purchases:

Tresemme Shampoo on sale for 3/$10-I bought 6 = $20.00

Crest Pro Health on sale for $2.88--I bought 2 = $$5.76

Edge Shave Gel on sale for $2.89--I bought 1

Coupons:

 6 $1.00 off Tresemme products coupons

1 $.50 off Crest Toothpaste (I had two...would've done even better if I'd remembered to use it!)

1 $4.00 off any beauty purchase CVS coupon (this one came via email this week. If you don't have your Extra Care Card connected to your email address, DO IT NOW! You get lots of good high dollar coupons from doing so.)

3 Extra Care Buck coupons totalling $17.47

Total OOP: $1.18 

Total ECBs received: $16.89

****************************

If you've never done CVS before, there are some great sites on the web to get you started with the process. There's a great tutorial here if you're just starting out and really need the very basics of how to do the CVS thing. If you're aware of how it works, this site is doing a CVS from the Ground Up series where you can start building your Extra Care Bucks along with her week by week. It's VERY cool and if you've never done CVS before, I highly recommend it. She's on week 3 but you can jump in anytime-- plus she'll link you to past weeks. As you can see this week from my purchases...it's a great way to get free or almost free health and beauty items.

Gymboree Trip April 19th

So I've posted before about shopping at Gymboree and how I learned recently that even though their clothes at retail price are ridiculously expensive, they offer enough sales and specials to make it worth the purchase if you play your cards right. Today I redeemed my most recent "Gymbucks" from a trip that I made to the outlet mall near our home recently. For every fifty dollars you spend, they give you a coupon for $25 off of your next $50 purchase. I bought quite a lot of clothes for my boys a few weeks ago on clearance at the outlet and received these "Gymbucks" so today I ventured down to a 'real' Gymboree store to use them. (The biggest catch with these coupons is that you can get them at the outlet, but you can't use them there.)

I feel like I did pretty well with these. This is my first try using the Gymbucks and I feel like I got some good deals. 

My purchases:

Total OOP: $45.65

I guess it really doesn't look like much, but I got most of these items on clearance with the use of the Gymbucks, which basically made them 50% off ($25 off of $50) and then in addition, I had an extra 20% off coupon which I used on the items once I got to the $50 mark. (They won't let you combine the gymbucks and the 20% off coupon.)

At any rate, it may not look like much, but these clothes hold up BIG TIME to little boy abuse and I know that if I buy them for my older son, my younger one will be able to wear them later, PLUS, based on my previous experience,  I'll still get close to my purchase price if I re-sell them on ebay. If you were to buy these five items for the original prices, they would've cost $124.50. So all in all, not a bad deal. I'll definitely use the gymbucks deal again when they're available--particularly if I can buy clearance from the outlet.

Cheap Music from Amazon

Sorry to have been MIA lately, kids. Lots going on around here and not a lot of time for shopping! 

Here's a great deal I came across today...150 kids songs for .99 at amazon! Can't beat that price! It's your childhood basics--Itsy Bitsy Spider (although I think they do "Eensy Weensy, which frankly I think is sacrilegious, but whatever...), Mary Had a Little Lamb, etc. My kids listen to music in their rooms pretty much all the time, so I take any I can get. In case you're wondering, these will download through Amazon's player but will go straight into your itunes program if that's your media player of choice. If your computer is smarter than you are, like mine is, you don't even have to tell it anything, it'll just send those files to itunes ready for your ipod or burning to disc. How handy is that?!

Generosity

When you become coupon savvy, you often end up with more of a product that was free or almost-free than your family could ever possibly use. This week, for instance, I bought four bottles of Kraft dressing. Frankly, it's not my favorite brand and we will NEVER use that much Kraft salad dressing. So why do I buy it anyway? So that I can pass it along to someone who might be able to use it. There are innumerable local food banks and shelters that survive based on the donations of the community. We feel like this is a great way for us to contribute to our community, so anytime I end up with an overabundance of products--or find something on a great sale that we won't use--I take it to a food bank or a shelter. Sometimes I'll send a "care package" to my husband's school so that he can give it to someone he either works with or teaches that he knows is having a bit of a hard time. We love being able to help out and it keeps me from EVER wasting these great pantry or toiletry items that we find on sale so often. Every few weeks, I take stock of the pantry and my drugstore stash and gather up all the things we have in abundance and we send them off. I encourage you to do the same...once you become really good at this process, you'll always have more than you need, so help someone else out by sharing your good fortune!

Meal Plan for April 5th

Sunday: Possibly out? There were a couple of good coupons in the paper this week, so we may take advantage and splurge by going out tonight.

Monday: Tyler Florence's Ultimate Beef Brisket with roasted red potatoes and green beans.

Tuesday: Crock Pot Spiral Sliced Maple Ham with macaroni and cheese and sweet potatoes

Wednesday: Leftover beef brisket on homemade sandwich rolls and chips and applesauce

Thursday: Slow Cooker Pinto Beans and cornbread (and the boys will probably eat ham sandwiches because God-forbid anyone at my house eat something fun like slow cooked beans.)

Friday: not sure yet--something easy because the boys are probably spending the night with my parents

Saturday: My husband and I will be at the Master's, so we'll be having pimento cheese sandwiches (seriously, the best sandwich on EARTH) and the boys will be with my parents.

Publix Trip April 5th

Total Cost: $162.18

Savings: $64.05

Total OOP: $98.13

Well, I did a lot of "stocking up" this week because I found so many good deals and had so many coupon match ups. In addition to EVERYTHING in the above picture, I also got a bag of red potatoes, a couple of pounds of sweet potatoes, some onions, some garlic and two newspapers. I ran out of room on my counter! 

Some good match-ups this week:

Wheat Thins Artisan crackers: on sale for BOGO, combine with a coupon from the paper a couple of weeks ago and you can get BOTH boxes BOGO, which means they're both FREE! I did this deal twice and got four boxes. TIP: Make sure you're ready to tell the cashier when you're checking out the exact price of the crackers because then she doesn't have to look it up to write it on your coupon and you're more likely to get THIS deal as opposed to them giving you one BOGO box (at half price) free instead of BOTH boxes free. Does that make sense? I'm confused. :)

Kraft Salad Dressings: on sale for BOGO this week, combine with a $1.50 off one coupon from last week's paper and you get them for about a penny each or less...can't remember the exact price and I'm too lazy to get up and check. :) Either way--it's a good deal. I bought four of these. TIP: This is why it's beneficial to buy more than one paper. The more coupons you have for the particular item, the more times you can do the deal. I typically clip coupons from five papers each week. Sounds like a lot, but if you stack the sheets and cut them at once you're doing five times the work for the same amount of time.

Duncan Hines Cake Mixes: on sale BOGO this week. When combined with a $.35 off coupon from last week's paper, these come out to about $.10 each. As far as I'm concerned, you can never have too many cake mixes, so I usually keep about ten boxes at a time in my pantry. This was a great deal so I did it five times.  TIP: Did you know you can replace the oil in a recipe for a cake or brownie mix with applesauce to reduce the fat and calories of your baked goods? You can use this trick in almost any (sweet) recipe that calls for oil. Usually I do half and half so that you still get richness from the oil, but if you're making cupcakes for your kids and you want to cut back on the fat, go ahead and replace it all. They'll never know the difference and you're getting in an extra serving of fruit. Just make sure you buy the "no sugar added" kind of sauce. WHICH IS BOGO at Publix this week! Stock up! :)

Tropicana 50 Juice: This is Tropicana's new low-sugar orange juice and I hadn't tried it yet, so I thought this week since it was BOGO and I had a $1.00 off coupon it was worth trying for a buck. I don't do artificial sweeteners, so I'm going to have to check on the make-up of this TruVia deal that they've put in there. It's supposedly a plant extract, but I'm not sure exactly how "natural" it is...I'll do some homework on that and get back to you. We'll see if the juice is any good too.

Farm Rich French Toast Sticks: These were BOGO several weeks ago and my store was out, so I got a rain check. TIP: If EVER your store is out of a particular item that's on great sale that week, go to the customer service desk on your way out and ask for a rain check. Save your coupons and when your store restocks, you can use the rain check in combination with your coupons and still get your great deal.

"Buy Theirs Get Ours Free" Sale: Publix does these sales from time to time and I love them. They'll put their store brand up against a national brand and if you pay for the national brand, they'll GIVE you a FREE bag of the store brand to "compare". Well, I already know that Publix' brand is good, but I'll gladly take anything for free! This week I got the Quaker Rice Snacks for $2.99  and then used a $1.00 off coupon and then I got the Publix brand for free. I did the same thing with the Organic Corn chips. We can always use corn chips for something and getting both bags for about $3.99 was worth it to me for organics even though I didn't have a coupon.

Of course we had to get some eggs for dyeing this week with the kids and I got a few other incidentals that we needed. My grand total came to $98.13. Now this is definitely more than I usually spend, but this is Spring Break and my husband is home and so we'll go through more food this week than we usually would. Also I bought a couple of more expensive proteins this week, although we're going to eat on them ALL week (meal plan to follow). Anyhow, even with spending $98.13, I still saved $64.00. That's a pretty good deal, I'd say. Hope you have great success this week...let me know how you did!

Easter Parties

Tonight was the night for baking Easter cupcakes at my house. My older son's Easter party at preschool is tomorrow and I created some cute bunny cupcakes that I thought I'd share with you just in case you're trying to figure out something for a family, church or school get-together. These were really pretty easy to put together and you can take this "template" of an idea and make just about anything. They definitely look "home-made" but that's okay sometimes. It's been a long day around here and I needed something I could put together without breaking the bank or my back.

The supplies are:

2 containers of white icing: I dyed one container blue and then took a little out of the other white container and dyed it red to make the mouths. 

ziploc bags for piping

pink sugar

star sprinkles

Starburst candy

chocolate sprinkles

large marshmallows

cupcakes

The icing and cake mix I got nearly free during a Publix BOGO sale. The sprinkles, marshmallows and sugar and candy I got for about a dollar each at Wal Mart. This was a super cheap project. 

The Method:

Ice each cupcake blue (or whatever color you choose). Cut each marshmallow into thirds cross-ways. Take one third and cut it in half to make the ears. Dip the sticky side down into the pink sugar and then place them on the cupcake. Put about half the white icing into a baggie and clip off one corner to make a piping bag. Pipe white onto the cupcake to make the bunny's head. Cute a small piece of a pink Starburst candy and roll it in your fingers until you can form it into a nose. (You could also use pink jelly beans for this, but my Wal Mart was all sold out!) Put the stars on for eyes, the chocolate sprinkles on for whiskers. Dye a bit of the icing red, put it in a bag and then snip the tiniest corner off and pipe on a mouth.

Happy Spring Break, everyone! It's almost here!!!

New Coupon Printables

Today is the day that all of the coupon printable sites have reset their printables. So run for those sites and print what you can. They don't all last long, so you'll want to print off what you can--there are a few high dollar coupons that are worth snagging.

www.coupons.com

www.smartsource.com

Pilsbury's website has new coupons.

Home Made Simple will mail you some fairly high dollar Proctor and Gamble coupons, so this is definitely worth the short sign-up process. It only takes a second.

Stock up your printer ink and get cracking! (By the way, remember that if you buy your HP ink at Target this week you can get a $10 gift card. I don't know how their prices compare, to tell you the truth, but if they're going to give you ten bucks back, it's worth checking!)

Target Deals

I found a great posting on the web this week that will give you the best deals at Target in Excel spreadsheet format complete with links for printable coupons. I printed this out, organized my coupons and took it straight with me to the store. I had great success at Target this week getting a lot of stuff for FREE or almost free. The website is here and it's definitely one of the best I've seen lately for Target. 

The great deals I got this week were the fruit snacks for free, the cheetos for almost free, the gilette body wash for free and the Artisan bread for free. A couple of notes: the cheetos and fruit snacks are located in the aisle of the registers, so look there for those. I believe the Artisan bread is only available at Super Targets. Finally, the Gilette body wash is a little tricky to find. The majority of the body washes they're carrying now are over $3. I found only three of the $2 ones on an endcap in the soap section. Fortunately I just happened to have 3 coupons, so it worked out well. 

Lastly, the Target printable coupons say that you can only use one per item per transaction. My Target will accept as many as I print in one transaction, but all Targets are not created equal. Ask before you fill your cart and then don't be afraid to just make your purchase, walk right around and go back through the register again. "Per transaction" is not the same as "per day" or "per hour" or "per five minutes".  :) And always remember that you can stack a Target coupon with a manufacturer's coupon if you have it. 

Have fun at Target!