My Trip. Week of 1/31

This week I got some pretty good deals. (I had some helps with my pictures)

Rite Aid:

Colgate Total Advanced Toothpaste: $2.99

Complete MPS: $7.99

- $1.00 Colgate coupon

- $2.00 Complete coupon

$8.53 (remember what I said about Rite Aid and the change. This purchase will only count as $8.00 in my book)

Will receive $2.00  and $7.99 via SCR

CVS:

2 Dove Men + Care Bodywash: $5.49 ea.

Colgate Maxfresh Toothpaste: $2.99

Playtex 2 pk sippy cups: $4.99 (typically $7.99)

- (2) $1.25 Dove coupons

- $1.00 Colgate coupon

- $10 ecbs

- $2 ecbs

$4.31

Received $12.98 ecbs

Shaws:

4 Ronzoni Pasta: $1.00 ea.

Package boneless chicken breasts: $5.21

Orville Redenbacher 3 pk popcorn: $2.99

- (4) $0.75/1 Ronzoni coupons (doubled)

- store coupon to get another popcorn and 2 sodas for free

$6.30 (and no tax, how did that happen?)

I saved $18.20 and got $0.50 overage on every box of pasta I bought!

My next project is to get ready for an exciting Money-making week at Rite Aid! More details next week!

My trip. Week of 1/24

This week was a little slow, but still very profitable!

CVS

 

This week there was a great deal featuring chips. A lot of stores are running promotions on various chips and sodas because of the Superbowl and even though I will not be hosting a party I still saw a way to make a profit. The deal was purchase $20.00 worth of ‘chips’ and get $10 ecbs.

4 bags of Lays Chips: $14.00

2 Bags of Stacy’s Pita Chips: $6.00

- (4) $1.00/1 Lays coupons (found taped to bags of chips and tearpads at Hannaford stores)

- $1.00/1 Stacy’s insert coupon

- FREE Stacy’s product (from Facebook Fan promotion)

- $12.00 ecbs

= 0

Received $10 ecbs.

I saved $22.54, paid absolutely nothing out of pocket, and walked away with $10.00!

Rite Aid

Nothing big caught my eye this week except for the Maybelline mascara deal. All Maybelline cosmetics are 40% off this week (1/24-1/30) and there is a $2.00 SCR  on any Maybelline mascara.

1 Maybelline Great Lash Blackest Black Mascara: $3.11 (normally $5.19)

- $1.00/1 insert coupon

- $1.00/1 Video Values coupon

= $1.22

And I will get back $2.00 via Single Check Rebates. Something that should be noted is that when calculating spending, profits, etc I do not count $0.50 or under. That can be confusing so here is the breakdown for this transaction. I spent $1.00 on the mascara (using my Rite Aid cash, as I call it, refer to previous post for more details) and the $0.22 came out of  change. I will get back $2.00 so I essentially made a $1.00 profit on the mascara. Now if the mascara had come to $1.87, I would have paid with $2.00 from my RA money stash and would have gotten $2.00 back, making the purchase free, but not profitable. The $0.13 in change would go with my other change and would not count for anything. This can be a little confusing and is something I recently adapted for this year to make calculating profits much easier for me.

A quick recap

I realized today that since I started this blog up again I failed to post about my goals and progress for 2010. I celebrated my 1 year couponing anniversary in November and while 2009 was an amazing year full of hot deals and incredible growth, I can’t help but think 2010 will be even better! Couponing has become more than just a hobby for me, it’s a way of life! And so here are my goals for 2010:

• Stock up on condiments. Although I felt I did an effective job stocking ketchup, dressing, BBQ sauce, etc when the sales were hot, I am sad to report that I ran out of certain flavors of dressing and ketchup a few months ago.  I have had to buy things at full price or with low value coupons and that makes me unhappy! So this year I must stock stock stock when it comes to the condiments!
• Donate items we end up with too much of or items we can’t use. Sometimes I can get things for free that aren’t always useful in our house. I will look for places to donate these things and make life a little better for others.
• Make a profit by shopping at Rite Aid. This is by far the biggest thing I am looking forward to doing this year. I am starting with $26.00 earned via SCR in 2009. Each month I will try to get back more money than I spend. So far for January I have earned $2.00 extra! So what will I do with the extra money? I’m not sure yet but I will definitely be putting it away for something. I hope to make at least $20.00 this way, but this will depend on sales and moneymaking opportunities.

I am also excited to announce how much I have saved thus far. In 2009 I did not keep track of my savings and have no real idea how much I actually saved which is a little depressing. So this year in an attempt to be organized, I am keeping track of my savings on AFC (A Full Cup). The following number is my year to date savings from all stores I shop at (grocery, retail, drugstore, etc): $368.35 and $80.93 of that is from this week alone!

It’s raining…………diapers?

Today was the day I have been waiting for since Friday!  I finally got a chance to head to Target to take advantage of the Huggies/Pampers giftcard promo. Here are the details:

Purchase 3 Jumbo packs of Huggies or Pampers (can mix and match) and receive a $5.00 Target GC

The diapers are $8.99 this week and there just so happen to be some nice Huggies coupons available right now to compliment this deal. Here is what I did:

2 Jumbo pks Huggies Little Movers Size 3

1 Jumbo pk Huggies Snug & Dry Size 3

$26.97

- (2) $2.00 coupons

-(1) $1.50 coupon

- $5.00 Target GC I already had from a previous GC deal

= $17.57 (including $1.10 in tax)

which comes out to about $5.86 a pk

Then I repeated the deal again using the $5 GC I just received.

I bought a total of 196 diapers for $35.14

Now, let it be noted that this isn’t a super duper gottadothisdealtentimes type of deal, BUT because I don’t get spectacular diaper deals in my region this seemed like a good time to grab a few extra packs to get me to what I hope will be a super deal sometime in the near future!

Now that this is over my excitement has turned  over to Rite Aid. I saw the 2/7-2/13 ad today and have already figured out how to make $5.00! Ordering my coupons now! Gosh I love being paid to shop!

Getting ready…

Here I am on a Friday night at home (like usual) laying in bed with my laptop sitting beside me scouring the internet. Whats the reason for the late night session? Well I am getting ready for a very fun filled week of couponing! True this week hasn’t even ended yet but if I say it once I’ll say it again over and over…you have to plan ahead! They say the early bird catches the worm and the same stands true for couponers, although we typically aren’t after any worms (unless we can get them for free, right?) I love to find out about a deal as far ahead of time as I can so I can do all my prep work.  This coming week I see a few good deals at CVS plus the bonus packs are still active and as of yet I still havn’t purchased any. This week also marks a new SCR month for Rite Aid and I am thrilled to see February will be bringing much better deals.  I see the potential to make quite a bit of money at Rite Aid this month. But my biggest focus this week is definitely Target. I saw an ad preview today that said there would be a giftcard deal. Buy 3 Jumbo packs of Huggies or Pampers (both priced at $8.99 this week) and get a $5.00 giftcard. Simple enough deal and it gets better since I already have a $5 Target giftcard to roll and there are some very nice $2.00 Huggies coupons on Coupons. My son wears size 3 and when the transaction is done it comes down to about $0.18 a diaper which I like the sounds of. Some people can get diapers for cheaper than that but up in my neck of the woods there aren’t too many good diaper deals. I plan to roll this deal a few times. The diapers from this deal combined with the diapers I got during the great Shaws P&G deal a couple weeks back will mean my diaper stockpile will be set for a few months. Look for a post this coming week with a break-down of how I did.

On a side note, does anyone like the new direction I am taking with this blog? I am trying to get a little more personal and a little less repetitive. I won’t be having a contest with myself anymore to see how many free samples I can post a day because, well I just don’t have the time anymore. But I still want to share my deals, triumphs, and failures.

And on a final side note, you know you are addicted to couponing when you write a process paper for your college writing class titled: “How to effectively save money by shopping with coupons”. My class is surely in for a treat!

Free Betty Crocker Coupon Book

Click here to sign up for a free coupon book from Betty Crocker containing $10 worth of coupons. It doesn’t state what coupons are included but its worth signing up! Supplies are limited so sign up now.

Hello World, I am back!

I didn’t think I would be back here again, but here I am. I am happy to say that I will be coming back to the blogging scene after a very long but much needed break. My life became very hectic during the fall into the winter and I sadly had to abandon this blog.  A lot has happened and I am still busy, but for other reasons now. I returned to college last week after a two year break. I was very nervous at first but it felt so good to go back to school and I am really loving it! I have been accepted into the Nursing program but because of the demand for the program, I am on the waiting list for who knows how long. They say the average wait time is about two years. So in the meantime I am doing all my general education classes and getting those out of the way so when its time to do my nursing stuff I can focus all my attention on that. I know I have chosen a pretty rigorous program and its going to be hard work but it will so pay off in the end and I am so excited to have a wonderful career (and hopefully not struggle so much!).

Despite being busy with school I have learned how to manage my time and so far I am doing great. I am definitely ready to start going full force into the deals again and I have really started focusing on gathering my coupons and looking for the hot deals. I see some awesome things coming up at the end of this month and into February.

So the real question is, why am I back? Well, because I love bragging about my deals. No, but really I am back because I missed it all. I missed sharing my good deals and helping others get good deals too. I can’t promise that I will be posting as much as I once did but I will try to keep up as best I can. I am no longer a full time SAHM so I can’t devote my whole day to blogging but I will surely do my best.

And another reason why I’m back? I looked at my stats and despite me being MIA for months people have still been checking this place out. That right there is good enough for me!