OMG You're Crazy!

 It's been a few shopping trips since I posted last and as a result I kind of got lost.  So, I'm just going to show some of the highlights and things I am most thrilled about.

First up:
The two bottles of Crest ProRinse mouthwash.

Did I pay full price of $4.29 a bottle?
Of course not!  You don't know me by now?

Did I pay sale price of $3.29 a bottle?
Nope!  Did I mention a coupon yet?

Did I use a coupon and was there another offer included?
Yep!  With my coupon and ExtraCare bux I paid 23 cents a bottle!!

 This is one of my favorites *ever*.
Regular price $3.79
Did I pay
A) $3.79 each
B) Use five $1 coupons and pay $2.79 each
C) Use a CVS $3 off $10 cosmetics purchase coupon and pay $3.19 cents each
D) Couple the store BuyOneGetOne 50% off with five $3 off coupons and a $3 off $10 cosmetic purchase CVS coupon and pay 3 cents each including tax
Yeah, that'd be D.  Awesome, eh?

 Guess how much this entire transaction cost me.

4 - 16 oz Heinz Vinegar $1.14 each
4 - Almay Eye Makeup Remover $1.14 each
4 - Bayer LowDose Aspirin $2.22 each
1- Qtip $2.68

I used 12 coupons.
4 - $1 off any Almay product - $4
4 - $1 off any Heinz Vinegar - $4
4 - $3 off any Bayer = overage of $3.12 (it's allowed!)
- 10% discount

total = 51 cents!!

Here we have 1 Werther Original Caramels and 2 Haribo Gummy candies.
Werthers on sale for $1.39.  I used one Albie's coupon for 75 cents off and one manufacturer coupon for 25 cents.
The 25 cent coupon doubled.
I paid 14 cents.

Haribo were on sale for $1 each.
I had two 30 cent coupons which doubled.  I paid 40 cents each.

And this is my last night shopping after work.  For anyone about to ask questions.... the diapers are for an employee who is having a hard time.  I got them for $3 each after Qs and ExtraCare bux.
All Cereal Bars were $1 each.
I got lucky the other day and got 4 $3 off coupons for the Bird's Eye Voila dinners.  So each of those was 98 cents.
All of this only cost me about $25.

The nice thing is....
I am in a position now to where I can help someone if I need to.  When I found out this week about someone I work with having a hard time, I was able to take her food and toiletries this morning.  I even gave her an air freshener and some mascara because I had it to give.  It's nice to be able to help and I owe it all to coupons and the lovely ladies at krazycouponlady.com , cuckooforcoupondeals.com , wildforwags.com and wildforcvs.com .  Thank you ladies! <3

Til next time...

Patriotic Nails

When I last posted, I eluded to some potentially BIG NEWS.
And now, for those who don't read my Facebook updates, I will share said BIG NEWS as it has been confirmed.

In August, I will be leaving the 800 Zillion degree Yuma, Arizona heat for the REAL, LIVE GRASS in Milwaukee, Wisconsin!  I am beside my self with glee.  And trepidation.  But mostly glee.

I am so looking forward to being closer to my brother and snow and flowers and rain and snow and grass and trees and rain and thunderstorms and grass and ...

With my most favorite accessory, the Nintendo Wii steering wheel.

Ok, you get the picture.  I'll stop.

Seen in the top photo is some barrettes I have made of late.  I love the peacock one but it's kinda clunky on my head.

And to the right here you see a horrific photo of my first set of 4th of July nails.  I guess I deleted the decent pix I was going to post because I can't find them on the SD card.  And now my nails are naked.  So there ya go.

Til next time....

Something's wrong at HallMart!

 I couldn't resist making a couple more trips out today. 

This is all from Target.  Glade - 49 cents, Aquafresh - $1, Nabisco $1.50 each.  2 of the cat food were free and there was one more before Muffin got it.  ;)

There was also a bag of TGIFriday's Cheddar & Bacon Potato Skins before I got to it, lol.

 I spent $17.82 on $34.02 for a savings of 48%.  Would have been better if they had let me use my $2 off 2 Right Guard deodorant Target coupon.  The customer service manager said it had to be the one on the picture and I was using it to get two trial size which the coupon did not say were not allowed. 
Both were priced $1 and would have been free.

I will be calling Target about that tomorrow.  Unless a coupon specifies that you cannot use it for trial size items (and many of my other Target coupons do say "excludes trial/travel size") you *are* allowed to use them for the travel or trial size items. 

 This is Walgreens today.  I bought 6 more of the Suave for 9 1/2 cents a bottle, 4 to donate and 2 for Christian.  I had coupons for the Dial SpeedFoam so each bottle was $1.49.  I got the Ramen as a filler because you have to have at least one item for every coupon and when I was buying the Dial the coupon plus the register reward I used made two coupons.

The Pepsi was again 7 cents for all 4 bottles.

In all I spent $7.72 on $35.18 for a savings of 78%.

Something's wrong at HallMart!

It's starting to look like Big Lots!!

Getting a little crowded in there!

Please, oh please, let my new house have a large pantry or walk in closet or lots of extra storage or a spare bedroom or clean and dry basement or something.....

And I just got the paper and GUESS WHAT!!!!

Albie's is doing double coupons this week!!  EEEEEEEEE!!!!

It's only coupons up to 50 cents and I don't have many but I am soooo excited!!

Til next time....

But.... that's only a penny difference...

 No big shopping trips this week, we don't need it!
LOLOLOL

I did find a couple rockin deals that I wanted to grab while I had the coupons.
Here we go!

General Mills Cereals were $1.88 at CVS this week.  I ad matched at Walmart as I was leaving work and got these 4 using $1 off 2 coupons making each box $1.38!
I had 3 more KoolAid/Kraft BBQ Sauce coupons (buy 2 of the sauce and get $2 off a canister of KoolAid).  I ad matched the Sauce to Fry's 99 cents and the KoolAid to Fry's $1.99 although the cashier said "but... that's only a penny difference..."  to which I replied "yes".  Basically I made a penny on each KoolAid.

The Almay Eye Makeup Removers were $1.14 each.  I used 5 $1 off coupons for any Almay remover making each one only 14 cents!

For all of this I paid $13.01 for $29.54 worth of merchandise.  A 56% savings which is super high for Walmart!!

 After leaving work, I went to two CVSs to get all of this.  I got 4 boxes of cereal at each CVS and one of the .... what is that crap called ... Electro Nyte Rehydration Shot.  It's supposedly some kind of hangover cure and it is free this week at CVS.  Ordinarily I would have passed on it as I don't drink, but it just so happened that I had just had a conversation with my boss on that subject so I got it for her kinda as a joke... kinda not.  LOL
Anyway, as I had two $4 CVS extrabux I only spent $4.20 total at CVS last night.

 Then I went to CVS again today.  I got 4 more boxes of cereal and these three pepperoni/cheese things on clearance for 50 cents each and spent $7.17 for all of it.

In all I spent $11.37 at CVS on $65.37 worth of merchandise for a savings of 83%.

A funny side story... the CVS I went to today has a manager that has come to know me.  Today while looking for the cereal, I found 5 boxes of Cinnamon Cheerios that were out of date so I pulled them and took them to him.
I was trying to be helpful but I think I embarrassed him.  Poor guy.  I really meant well, I'm in retail for cripes sake.  Crap happens.  I thought he was lucky it was me that found them. 

After CVS last night, I went to one Walgreens.  Suave is on a sale wherein you get $2 register rewards if you buy 2.  I bought 8.  Two at a time to make sure I got 4 $2 register rewards.  I basically paid 9 1/2 cents per bottle.  I kept a couple that I knew my son would use but the rest went into my "donate to the teen shelter" pile.  I plan on getting more later this week, IF I can still find it.  

The gum was 3 for $2 using a coupon on the back of this week's circular.  I bought 6 and used 3 50cents off two coupons making the sale more like 6 for $2.50 making them about 42 cents a pack.  This is a great addition to the gum stockpile I have for my kids!  (I don't chew gum because I tend to bite myself.  Don't Judge!)

This morning, I went back to Walgreens to get Pepsi which was on sale with the coupon in the circular for 4/$4.  I used two of my register rewards from last night and paid 7 cents for the four two-liter bottles! 

All 6 of these Walgreen's transactions cost me $11.40 on $24.60 worth of merchandise.  When I was going over my receipts I was disappointed that my savings percentage was low but then I remembered that I still have $4 in register rewards left meaning that I basically paid only $7.40 and now my percentage is 70%!

And lastly, I also went to Target today.  I had my last, about to expire, $2.25 off any Nivea men's facial care product coupon.  To stack it with, Target blessed me with another $2 off any Nivea men's facial care product mobile coupon.  This meant that the $4.89 Nivea only cost me 64 cents.  The glade was also a coupon stacking deal.  It was $2.99, I had a $2 manufacturer coupon and a 50 cent target coupon so it cost 49 cents.  With tax I paid $1.76 at Target which was a 78% savings!

All shopping trips saved me $89.85 on $127.39 worth of product, a 71% savings!!

I still have another set of coupons for the glade, a bunch of Right Guard coupons to stack with Target coupons, more Suave, free toothpaste (hopefully *cross fingers*) to get later this week.  Plus I am eagerly awaiting the grocery store circulars which come tomorrow to see what great deals I can get at Albies and Fry's.

Til next time....

Current Stockpile & Turquoise Nails

 I redid my hall closet this morning to accommodate all my recent purchases.  I was going to crack out my circular saw (which is still sitting new in its box) and build some shelves but then I got to thinking...

... the goal is to be out of Arizona in the next couple/few months.  If I build shelves in there, it's yet another thing I either leave or tear down and patch up.  As I may not be here to oversee the patching up when my house is packed and moved, I figured maybe putting in some movable shelves was a better choice.

So in went the plastic shelving unit and on went all my *stuff*.
I'm a little disappointed that the photo doesn't show everything in all it's glory.  You can't see the razors and toothbrush section or tell that there are 22 boxes of cereal but they are there.  It's mostly the angle, but that was the best I could do in the cramped hallway.


My last couple of manicures have been pretty bland.   I seem to be on a turquoise kick, completely unintentionally.  Before I did my nails today, I put the last two colors I used on my middle and ring finger and then did my index finger as I intended to do my nails today.   On the left you see my 69 cent Sally HD Spectrum, middle is Sally Blizzard Blue and as of today all my nails are what you see on the right - Revlon Radiant with a Wet n Wild White Creme base.  With work being so crazy of late, I simply have not had time to do anything major.  Maybe this week.

Wish me luck.  Big things tomorrow and that's all I want to say about it right now.

Til next time...

These coupons say "one per purchase" ma'am

 It's been a few days since I last posted but I have been shopping.  We had inventory at work on Tuesday and what that translated to for me is a lot of extra hours at work and a lot of pain and sleepless nights.

I've been positively exhausted and just too run down, or maybe it was run over by a truck, to spend time on here but that doesn't mean that I'm not totally stoked by some of my recent purchases.

Last week I went to Fry's, Albertson's, Walmart, CVS and Walgreens.  I spent $255 on $584 worth of merchandise for a 56% savings.

These Tampax I got at Walgreens for a total of $4! 

The pasta was on sale for 10 for $10 at Albertson's.

The Watermelon's are from Fry's.  I had a coupon for them which is rare for produce.  Since they were 2 for $3, I got them for 85 cents each.

Had a great coupon for the Hot Pocket Snackers so they wound up being 80 cents each.

The Takis were free!  Sent them to my niece's boyfriend.

 Both Walgreens and CVS have clearance makeup right now.  I got the Cover Girl blush for just over a dollar, the Wet n Wild lip gloss was free, so were the hair clips which I sent to my niece.  The razors were $1.40 each after coupons and register rewards at Walgreens.  The Covergirl mascara was $1.45 each after coupons.  The toothpaste was free and the hairband (under the gloss, blush, toothpaste) was free as well. 

 I picked up two blood glucose monitors at CVS.  Don't need them, but I figure they will be good to donate.  Both were a $19.99 value, both were free!

 This was my entire shopping trip last week.  I picked up all the cereal for $1.20 a box.

Sidenote - I now have 34 boxes of cereal in the house.  Tomorrow we are building shelves in the hall closet to store my stockpile.

I got 4 bottles of Pantene for $1.50 each and 4 Garnier products for 98 cents each. 

This is one of my favorites.  This Sally Hansen HD is originally $7.99.  Both CVS and Walgreen's have it on clearance for $1.69 so with my $1 coupon was .... a killer freakin deal!!!

 This is today's trips.
Smart Balance butter, First Aid bag, 8 bottles of Tresemme shampoo, gallon of milk, all the white Kotex - all of them FREE!  There was also a canister of KoolAid I got free but I think it got put away before the photo.

Haribo candy - 70 cents each!  The ThermaCare - $1 each!!!  Gum, IHOP meals, ProFusion razors and cartridges, Rimmel mascara - $1 each! 

 This is my favorite from today.

I had some $2 coupons for Magnum but figured I wouldn't find a sale in which to use them.  They expire soon and I nearly tossed them yesterday.

But then the paper came and in the Albertson's ad I saw this deal: buy 8 of the mix-n-match items and save $4 at the register.  This meant that each item would get a 50 cent deduction at the time of the discount.

The Magnums were on sale for $2.99.  Minus 50 cents for the mix/match deal, minus my $2 coupon off each =
o. m. g. they were 49 cents each!!!!

I finished off the Kotex coupons I had today.  I now have 28 packages ready to be donated to the teen shelter here in town.

I built Scar a little castle out of the boxes but she knocked it down.  She is Queen of the Kotex, lol!

And I'll end with a little lesson in couponing:

When a coupon says "one coupon per purchase" it does not mean that you must use one coupon, pay for your stuff, put more on the belt, pay for that, put more on the belt, pay for that, etc.

I had 5 coupons for the Kotex today, meaning that I bought 10 boxes.  I have had a problem with this Walmart every time I go in there.  Today, I had to run my debit card 5 times to buy them; once for $38 plus, then four times for six cents.  Rediculous.

Why?  Because they saw that the coupon said "one per purchase".  I hate going in there to be made to feel like a criminal.  Then the CSM said "well, all the extreme couponers try to take advantage of us.  They get the wrong sizes and try to pull one over on us."

Um, hello?  You are talking to a woman with an extremely large, bright pink binder full of coupons that you can't help but see.  Then I got to hear all about how the cashier couldn't afford to mess up because "one more and he's gone."

wtf

When the CSM left, the kid told me that he had gotten written up for taking care of a customer.  I told him to call our market manager.

I know I have a lot of Walmart friends and who knows how many of you read this, but I am begging you to learn the coupon policy.  Please don't treat us like shoplifters because the resounding majority of us are grateful for the opportunity to use our coupons and don't want to do anything to jeopardize that privilege.

And also, purchase refers to an item (or two or three  depending on the coupon) not a transaction.

Thanks for listening.

Til next time....

Nails - Zip it Up!

This is a prime example of what has been going on lately with my nails.  A great idea that I just wasn't able to pull off in the end.

Sally Hansen's Blue Lagoon with Wet & Wild Black Creme zipper stamped on top.  Yes, the little notches at the top were planned.

Now back to kickin ass on Mario Cart....