But anyhoo, between having a new baby and dealing with Sophie’s delays, I didn’t have time to coupon as well as I would have liked.  Oh, I still did my very best, but I had to give up the old coupon binder for awhile.  I still carefully planned my grocery trips every week and clipped what I needed, but  I just felt like the opportunities to save just weren’t there.  And since the sales just weren’t there, our grocery and household items budget went up by quite a bit in 2011.  It was discouraging!

Now that Jonah is older and Sophie is back on track, I have more time to devote to my coupons again.  So, if the stores will just cooperate, I want to slash my budget again!  SO far in 2012 I’ve done pretty well.  I’ve got my binder back up and running, and a recent mega-event sale at Kroger really got me on a great savings path!  Today I hit both CVS and Rite Aid for a couple small deals, which reminded me that:

So, I think I am going to try to start posting my shopping trips again. I shall try to revive the “See Jenny Shop” page, and hopefully I’ll have something good to put there! To get me going, here’s what I got at CVS today:

I likes me some Suave! CVS had a deal, buy $12 worth and get $4 extra care bucks.  And the Zarbees cough syrup was free after ECBs.

2 Suave Professionals shampoo/conditioner $4

3 Suave body wash $6

1 Suave deodorant $1

2 Suave kids shampoo/conditioner $3

Zarbees cough syrup $6

total = $20

coupons:

$1/2 Suave Professionals

$1/2 Suave Kids

Buy 2 get one free Suave body wash -$2

8 extra care bucks

=$8.40 including tax, got back 4 ECB for the Suave and 6 ECB for the Zarbees, so 10 total for next time!  Let’s just hope there are some decent deals next week so I can keep regaling you with pictures of my shampoo and my brother’s lady deodorant!

But, I don’t love covering up all of our other drivel brilliant content with my bragging posts about what I bought at CVS today.

*So* I have devised a solution, thanks in part to my supa-smart friend Andrea at MommySnacks.  I am going to start posting all my daily deals in a category called “See Jenny Shop”.  I’ve got a pretty “See Jenny Shop” button in our sidebar that looks like this:

You can click on it every day to see my latest drugstore score! And even some of my hot online shopping deals.   And it won’t clog up the main content on Mommin’ It Up.  So head on over to see what I bought today!!

And don’t forget to click on See Jenny Shop every day to see what I’ve been stealing up to.

This week marked a new milestone on my path to Drugstore Diva-hood: Rite Aid came out with a loyalty card.  Their wellness + program is sort of  (but not really) like CVS’ ExtraCare program.  And since I am a faithful user of Rite Aid’s Single Check Rebates, they sent me one a couple of days before the program became effective (this past Sunday, 4/18) so I would be ALL READY to hit the store with my wellness + card!  And they even emailed me some special wellness + coupons to use WHEEEEEEE!!

Sunday was a busy day, so I had to wait until Monday morning to hit Rite Aid.  Here’s what I got:

U by Kotex tampons $3.49

2 GE lightbulbs $3 each

Huggies $8.99

Tugaboos (Rite Aid brand) diapers $6.99

total = $25.47

Coupons: $5/$25 wellness + coupon from my email

$1 off U by Kotex manu q

$1 off Kotex Rite Aid video values coupon (from last month I think. I’ve been saving it!)

Two $1 off GE light bulb printables

$3 off Huggies printable

$2 off Huggies Rite Aid video values coupon (also been saving this one)

total = $11.47 and I will get back $9.49 in rebates!  $3.49 for Kotex, $4 for the light bulbs, and $2 for the Tugaboos. WOOHOO!

Best of all? Most of this stuff wasn’t even for my family.  Thanks to coupons & rebates, I can afford to be generous!

*And then* BONUS because I used my wellness + card, the register printed me out some coupons on my receipt!  Yaaaaay!  With wellness+, Video Values, and the Single Check Rebate program, Rite Aid is really becoming nearer and dearer to my heart!

Woohoo!!

I had lots of fun couponing this week!  Today I popped into my local CVS and got some sweet clearance deals, including a 6-pack of Gatorade for $1.75 and some of Bobby’s fave Neutrogena for Men face lotion for $1.62. WHAT UP!??  Here was my biggest trip, at the beginning of the week:

Three Pantene @ $2.99 each = $8.97

4 Soy Joy bars clearance at 65 cents each = $2.60

Complete contact solution $8.99

Skintimate shave gel $3.99

Colgate Total $2.99

Total = $27.54

coupons:

- $5 CVS $5/$25 email coupon

- $2 any Pantene (mailer from Vocalpoint)

- $3 off 2 Pantene manu coupon

-$.65 B2G1 Soy Joy manu coupon

-$.75 Colgate manu coupon

I paid with 10 ECBs, paid $7 & change cash (including tax) and got back 3 ECB for Pantene, 2 ECB for Soy Joy, 2 for Colgate, 3 for Skintimate and $8.99 for the Complete! So I went home with 18.99 ECB!  Woohoo!

Ok, now on to Rite Aid, which is really becoming near and dear to my heart!  This week’s deal  has a bit of a back story, and since I know my mom all you faithful readers love a good back story, HERE GOES!

Three weeks or so ago, I asked my sister-in-law Sarah what I could get her from the drugstores.  Sarah’s dad has been undergoing treatment for leukemia and Sarah was busy helping with her dad’s care, not to mention being a wife to my (very hairy – just had to throw that in there) brother and homeschooling mom to 4 kiddos ages 7-12.  So I told her I wanted to get as much of their family’s household crap that I could while her dad was in treatment, to help them out. SO. Anyhoo.

She said one thing they really needed a good deal on (besides my toilet paper-snob brother’s fave toilet paper – Charmin Ultra STRONG, not Soft, but STRONG) was Zyrtec allergy meds, because she and my nephew both take it.  My son also takes it so I knew it was really hard to find good deals on the stuff.  I considered myself up for QUITE a challenge.

So I started going through the drugstore ads and coupon blogs and looking for printable coupons and all that jazz, and before long I found that Rite Aid just “happened” to have Zyrtec on a rebate of Johnson & Johnson products, buy $50 get back $25.  And they also just “happened” to have Rite Aid Zyrtec coupons on their Video Values site.  And it just so “happened” that you could print a $4 off coupon off of Zyrtec’s site.  And Rite Aid also “happens” to have an Allergy Rewards program which Zyrtec qualifies for!  So I got them a ton of Zyrtec!  I spent a good bit out of pocket, but got alot and with both rebates, actually made about $8 once my rebates come!  Now THAT is a God thing, in my opinion. I was thinking I’d be hard-pressed to find a good Zyrtec deal, and I actually made a profit!  Woohoo!

So all that to say, (Cortney, it’s all about the journey!) that this week Rite Aid has their generic Rite Aid brand Zyrtec on sale buy one get one free.  And it just “happens” to qualify for another rebate this month, buy $50 get $25.  And they just “happened” to email me $5 off coupons for this stuff last week!!  So here is what I got this week!

I did two transactions.  First:

Two Rite Aid Cetirizine 30 count, BOGO Free, so $17.99 for two

Zyrtec children’s liquid $9.99 (for my son)

total = $27.98

I used a $5/$20 Rite Aid video values coupon, two $5 off Rite Aid cetrizine coupons, and a $2 off Rite Aid children’s Zyrtec coupon (got both of those coupons in my email, thanks Rite Aid!)

total = $10.98 plus tax

Next transaction:

Two Rite Aid Cetirizine 60 count BOGO free, so $22.99 for two

Sunglasses for hubby, clearance $5.49

total = $28.48

I used a $5/$20 Rite Aid video values coupon, and two $5 off Rite Aid Cetirizine coupons.

Total = $13.48 plus tax

So my total spent on allergy meds before coupons was $50.97, so I’ll get back a $25 Rite Aid gift card, when I only spent $24.46 (including the sunglasses!) out of pocket!

Woohoo! God is good, and my sis-in-law and nephew should now have enough Zyrtec to last the both of them all summer!

(And let me say that as I write this, my kitchen floor is being re-done by my wonderful husband as a 10th anniversary present! I am so excited! But most of my kitchen is now in my dining room which means the only clean surface I had to take this picture on was my couch!)

Lemme tell you a little secret which you may already know. A lot of CVS stores start the following week’s deals on Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday morning. *So* if you are a nerd like me and look ahead on the internetz to what is going to be on sale the next week, you can shop on Saturday night and get the current week’s deals PLUS the next week’s deals. Which is what I did this week! And it was awesome! Here’s how it played out:

Pampers $8.97 (current week’s deal)

2 Huggies $17.98 (next week’s deal)

3 Listerine $5.97 (next week’s deal)

Huggies wipes $3.49 (regular price)

Secret deodorant $1.37 (clearance I could not resist!)

Total = $37.78

coupons:

CVS $5/$30 email coupon (expired but my store takes for 30 days)

- $1.50 Pampers manu q

- $6 two Huggies $3 off printables

- $3 three Listerine manu q’s (from paper and printables)

-$3 off 3 Listerine CVS printable coupon from CVS.com

-.75 Huggies printable q

-$.50 off Secret manu q

- $4 CVS CRT when you buy Huggies wipes and diapers

- $3 CVS CRT any Huggies Supreme diapers

- $2 CVS CRT off any $10 baby care purchase

total = $9.03

I paid with 7 ECB, paid $4.21 cash including tax, and got back 8 ECB – 3 for the Pampers and 5 for the Huggies!  Holla!  I was super-excited to be able to use all those CVS CRT’s from the magic coupon machine at the same time!!

Thanks to the great diaper sales at CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens lately, I am SUPER-STOCKED on diapers and wipes.  I keep buying them even though I am going to start to work with Sophie on the potty training thing again soon because a) she is still REALLY opposed to the idea and b) if I don’t use them I have a few good friends with babies in size 4 I can give them to!  Here’s my giant stockpile!

Um, there’s also an unopened jumbo pack of Huggies in Sophie’s bedroom!

Ok, so I may have a little problem…but I’m not going over budget…no one’s getting hurt, right!??

Stop #1 CVS: My friend Jen and I went in, since I am her coupon guru and she is my apprentice. It was lots of fun, we made friends with the new manager at my fave store, and I got some sweet deals!

Huggies box diapers $19.99
2 Excedrin $2.50 each
CVS pain relief $2
SoftSoap body wash $4.99
Total = $31.98

Coupons:
CVS $5/$30 email coupon
$2 Huggies printable coupon
$4 off Huggies big box diapers CVS CRT
Two $2 off Excedrin printable coupons
$3/2 Excedrin CVS email coupon
$.75 cents off SoftSoap printable coupon
$1 off any body wash CVS CRT
total = $14.23
I paid with 12-ish extra care buck and paid $2.63 cash including tax, and got back 8 ECB, 4 for the diapers and 4 for the body wash. YAY!!!

Next stop, Rite Aid! I am recently love, love loving Rite Aid. They have great printable coupons available through their Video Values program where you watch short commercials and get to print high-value coupons. SCORE!

2 Suave shampoo/conditioner $1.99 each
2 Carefree pantiliners .99 each
2 Nivea lip balm .99 each
Tampax $2.99 each
Satin care shave gel $1.99
Listerine pocketpaks $3.99
Garnier styler $2.99 (one of my fave hair products, I have been waiting for a sale for forever!)
$19.90

Coupons:
Rite Aid $3/$15 printable coupon
$1/2 Suave manu coupon
$2 off Carefree Rite Aid video values coupon
$1/2 Carefree manu coupon
$1 off Garnier Rite Aid video values coupon
$1 off Garnier manu coupon
$1 off Tampax manu coupon
50 cents off Listerine manu coupon
99 cents (BOGO free) Nivea lip balm coupon

Total = $8.41 – paid in cash and I will get $6 single check rebate, 1 for the Suave, 1 for the Tampax, 3 for the Listerine and 1 for the Gillette shave gel.

Finally, WALGREENS. Now I will tell you that Walgreens is my THIRD-favorite drugstore. However I was in there about 80 bajillion times this week because they had some sweet deals I could not pass up. And I CAN BE BOUGHT. I do the coupon shopping for my BFF Luanne (because she is coupon challenged, and I LOVE her) and I went in a couple times to load her family up on toilet paper, paper towels (VIVA!!), laundry detergent, Kleenex, and feminine care products (she has two daughters, they need their own Fort Kotex) and I did a few transactions for myself as well (Viva, Kleenex, laundry detergent, clearance diapers, lots of free plus overage Tylenol PM!) Here’s a couple examples:

2 Purex BOGO free, $5.99
6 Kleenex, BOGO free $2.19 (for two)
total = $12.56
coupons:
BOGO Free Purex – $5.99
two 50 cents off 3 Kleenex – $1
total = $5.57 and I got back 3 register rewards for buying the Kleenex, yippee!

Then, much to my frugal delight, I made a magical discovery in the baby aisle at Walgreens. They had some sizes of Walgreens brand jumbo pack diapers clearanced to $2.29. YES, I SAID $2.29 FOR A JUMBO PACK!! I about died of nerdy happiness. I got SIX packs as I have some peeps to get baby gifts for. I used several register rewards I had accumulated through the weeks and paid less than $5 total out of pocket. WHEEEE!! Oh, and I got two more bottles of Purex, (pictured with the kleenex above), WHAT UP!? Somebody give me a high five!

Ok, that’s all for me this week. From Fort Kotex and the Viva Palace, I bid you happy couponing!

Wanna see some more sweet deals?? Check out the round-up at Shopping SUperstars at the Thrifty Mama’s place!

Recently I’ve been teaching my friend Jen (and to a lesser extent Cortney, really all I do is put together scenarios for her ’cause she already knows how, she just looooves it when I tell her what to do. Don’t ya Ney-Ney??) to COUPON. Jen is my second protege, big PROPS to my friend Elizabeth who is now a Mariah Carey-esque Butterfly and has her own wings to fly and the coupon binder to match. More props to Elizabeth because unlike Mariah, she has still managed to spread her wings and fly while wearing age-appropriate clothing that actually clothes her body. But anyhoo. What was I saying? Oh yes…

Now if you read this here mess blog often, you know I loves me some coupons, some drugstore rebate programs, and some grocery store sales! I have been thinking about it, as I’ve been Jen’s coupon Mr. Miyagi and she’s been my Daniel-san, why do I LOVE it so much? Not just the scoring free diapers, wipes, razors, etc. or “turning a profit” in CVS bucks or Rite Aid rebates – why do I love the process? I come from a family of teachers and always said I would be a terrible teacher, but I think I am pretty good at teaching coupons. And I LOVE doing it. Especially the hands-on lessons where we go to the store together!

I guess it just feels good to be good at something. There is not much in my adult life I have been really good at and also enjoyed. When I was working, I was a good employee, maybe even good at my job(s), but I didn’t enjoy it. It was stressful. Sharing couponing, well, that’s just fun. Giving away stuff that didn’t cost you anything to people who need it = fun. Helping a mom like you stretch her family’s tight budget = fun. Amazing your cashier = fun. Making friends with your cashier who you see once or twice a week = fun. Yesterday I freaking sang “Happy Birthday” to one of my cashiers at CVS (What up, Robin!!) because she’s AWESOME and it was her birthday and I bet none of her other customers was gonna do it!

So, I guess what I’m saying is: registration for Mr. Miyagi’s coupon training school of Savings and General Weirdness is open. Singing not required. But I might make you wax my car.

And lucky for me, Walgreens had my *favorite* Glade soy candles on clearance this week! The little ones were just $1.74 each and I had several $3/2 coupons! Soy candles for 24 cents each? Yes, please!

I also got paid $1.50 (each) to buy 2 bottles of Dove Men’s body wash at Walgreens, (gotta keep the hubs smelling fresh!) and got a few packs of Huggies diapers for about $2.50 a pack, got some “feminine hygiene” products for about 75 cents a box, and still have some register rewards to spend. WHEEEE!!

At Rite Aid, I have been buying P&G products with coupons for a couple of weeks to get a Visa Gift card from P&G after rebate. Here’s what I got this week:

4 packs of Stayfree $1.99 each
Fusion razor $7.99
Gillette Satin Care $1.49
NyQuil $3.50
Total = $20.94

Coupons:
$5/$20 Rite Aid coupon
$4 off Fusion Razor q
$.55 of Gillette q
$1.50 off NyQuil q
B1G1 free Stayfree q
Three $1 off Stayfree q’s (peelie on package! score!)

Total = 4.90
With tax I paid $6.54, and I’ll get back $1 for the Gillette, $1 for the NyQuil, and because of earlier spending plus this order, a $15 Visa gift card from P&G. LOVE IT!!!

I found some more coupons hidden in my coupon binder and went back later and got 2 more packages of Stayfree, a package of Carefree liners, yet another Dove Men’s bodywash (they were out of them at the first Rite Aid) and a Nivea women’s body wash, and paid $4.23 including tax, and will get back a $4 rebate for the Dove.

Also, I now have enough feminine hygiene items to last until menopause!! It’s like Fort Kotex in my bathroom cabinet!

All of this drugstore fun combined with the Daytona Event promotion at Kroger this week, and I was truly in coupon heaven! I wish I had taken pictures of all my purchases this week so Emily could well & truly make fun of me, but you’ll have to take my word for it! It was EPIC!

I did two transactions.
Transaction #1:
Contour meter $14.99
Two Santa hats, $7.98
Gillette shave gel $1.99
Neosporin lip balm $2.78
total = $27.74

Coupons: $5/$25 Rite Aid coupon (my CVS accepts competitor q’s!)
$14.99 (up to $30 off off) Contour meter manu q
$1 off Gillette manu q
$3 off Neosporin (adjusted to $2.78) manu q
Total = $3.75
paid with 2 ECBs and a CVS gift card = 0 OOP, got back 5 ECBs for the meter and $7.98 for the Santa hats!

Transaction #2:
2 Nexxus shampoo $5.29 each
1 Nexxus conditioner $9.99
Emergen-C $3.99
Total = $24.56

Coupons: $5/$25 Rite Aid coupon (they rounded up for me!)
$5 off Nexxus Rite Aid coupon
Total = $14.56

used $12.98 ECB and paid $2.27 (including tax) out of pocket. Got back 10 ECB for the Nexxus and 3.99 ECB for the Emergen-C!

I was pretty pumped! I absolutely LOVE the Nexxus hair products!

Hope you all did great couponing this week! To see how everyone else did, check out Super Savings Saturday at Money Saving Mom and Shopping Superstars at the Thrifty Mama!

6 Nivea Lip balms 99 cents each
2 Nivea lotions $7.49 each
2 Oral B toothpaste $2.50 each
2 Oral B kids toothbrushes $2.50 each
2 Glade soy candles $2.50 each
Gillette Fusion Razor $8.99
2 Liter Dr. Pepper, not pictured ($1 with Walgreens in-ad coupon)

Total = $44.91
Coupons used:
Three BOGO free Nivea Lip balm -$2.97
Two Buy 3 Nivea lip balm, get a free lotion $14.98
$1 off two Oral B toothpaste
$1 off two Oral B toothbrushes
Two $2 off Glade fragrance collection
$4 off Gillette Fusion
Total = $16.96 (before tax), $20.85 after tax

I paid with 11 register rewards, paid $9.85 cash and got back 10 register rewards! Not too bad for all that! Got lots of stocking stuffers and I got my FIX!

For more great couponing adventures, check out Shopping Superstars at the Thrifty Mama, and Super Savings Saturday at Money Saving Mom!