Mommin' It Up!

February 26, 2013February 26, 2013

Coupon match-ups: There’s an app for that!

This weekend I had some serious grocery shopping to do, and it was also seriously random. I needed to get our weekly staples, plus snacks and baking stuff for Joshua’s family birthday party on Sunday and friends sleepover (which is coming up Friday, eeek!) I was also excited to try out a new app to help with grocery planning and saving, Grocery Nation. Full disclosure, Grocery Nation is sponsoring my review – but – I would’ve tried the app anyway because some of my genius friends are part of the team that produced it!! I’m talking about Andrea from Savings Lifestyle and Erin from $5 Dinners. Not only are they kind of a big deal, they are my friends and I am super-proud of them!!

Right now Grocery Nation is in beta and only available to us lucky shoppers in Ohio and Indiana. I say “lucky” because oh em gee BFF’s, this app is awesome!

Right now it’s only available on Android, so I used our Motorola Xoom tablet, but you can also use it on your Android phone.

Here’s how it works! First, you pick your store. Then, you view the sales items and check which ones you want to buy. If you want more detail on the sale, you can view each one individually. Then, you email your list to yourself.

Here’s the best part: When you email your list to yourself, all the coupon match-ups are listed including LIVE LINKS to printables and digital coupons! So you can open your email and just click down your list to print coupons on load them to your store loyalty card or program. If you’re going with paper coupons, it will list the insert to find the coupon in and what date it came out.

grocerynationcollage — 1) Select your store 2) view the sales 3) view sale detail 4) Email your list!

Here is what I really loved about the app: It is soooo much easier to scroll through sales and match-ups on my phone or tablet than it is on the computer. I can’t always sit down with my laptop but I can have my phone with me just about anywhere. Anytime I have a few minutes of downtime, I can browse the sales, pick which I’m interested in, and email it to myself ( or my friends if I want to share a deal, which I do often!!) so it’ll be there waiting for me when I am able to sit down with the computer. Half the work of preparing my grocery trip is already done by the time I sit down to get myself organized. WIN!

This past weekend I went to both Kroger and Meijer and shopped using the deals I found on Grocery Nation. I haven’t been to Meijer in for-ev-er but now that Kroger is discontinuing double coupons, I may have to shop coupon deals there. My Meijer trip yielded a great score on yogurt thanks to Grocery Nation. Jonah eats a TON of yogurt, and it is his main breakfast food since he can’t eat oats or wheat. He was pretty happy that I got these 4-packs of yogurt for 88 cents each using my list with printable coupon links from Grocery Nation!

Ohio and Indiana Android users, grab this app here. It’s free and it’ll save you tons of time and cash. And you know, time IS money! Apple users, keep your eyes peeled because this awesome app will be available for iOs devices later this year. You can visit the Grocery Nation website by clicking here and enter your email if you want to be notified when it’s available for your device.

Bottom line: this is a great app and I’m so happy to know about it and use it. Give it a whirl and let me know what you think!

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As I mentioned, Grocery Nation sponsored this post. All opinons about the app are my own.

February 18, 2013February 17, 2013

Two-timing at the drug store

Happy Monday! I didn’t make it out to go drugstore ~~whoring~~ coupon shopping until Friday last week, so today you’re getting treated to last week’s shopping trip and this week’s shopping trip. You lucky dogs! Last week I just went to Rite Aid. Here’s what I got:

Last week's Rite Aid trip — Last week’s Rite Aid trip

Two children’s Advil $4.99 each = $9.98

Two Chapstick, 2 for $3

1 Colgate MaxWhite, $3.50

total = $16.48

coupons I used:

-$5 off two Advil Rite Aid coupon that printed on the bottom of my receipt last time I was there

-$2 two $1 off Advil coupons from coupon inserts

-50 cents Colgate coupon from coupon inserts

-$1 Rite Aid Chapstick email coupon

-$1/2 Chapstick coupon from inserts

-$3 +UP Rewards from last Rite Aid shopping trip

= $3.98 plus tax (I can’t remember the tax total and I already tossed my receipt, oops!)

PLUS I got back 75 cents from my ibotta coupon app deposited in my PayPal account! AND I got back $1 +Up Reward for the Chapstick and $3 +UP for the toothpaste, making this transaction MORE THAN FREE. Weeeee!

(P.S. You should really sign up for ibotta if you haven’t already! The coupons are awesome and high-value! Sign up here.)

Armed with my 4 +UP Rewards, I returned to Rite Aid Sunday to get some more deals. Here’s how it shook out:

This week's Rite Aid trip — This week’s Rite Aid trip

Tresemme shampoo and conditioner, two for $7

Two Ragu pasta sauce two for $3

Colgate Optic White toothpaste, $2.99

total = $12.99

coupons I used:

-$3.50 BOGO free Tresemme coupon from RedPlum 1/27 insert

– 40 cents/2 Ragu coupon from same insert

-$4 +UP Rewards from Friday’s transaction

=$5.09 + 70 cents tax = $5.79

I got back $2 +UP Rewards from the Tresemme, $1 from the Ragu and $1 from the Colgate, plus $1 from my ibotta coupon app deposited in my PayPal account for the Colgate as well. So basically that cost me 79 cents. WHAT UP!

Now, on to CVS. I had 4 CVS Extra Care Bucks that I needed to use, so I decided to buy some soda for Joshua’s upcoming birthday party next weeeknd.

cvsfeb17 — 7UP products. It’s for the family, I’ll have to buy myself a 2 liter of Dew. 🙂

Twelve-packs of 7UP products were 3/$10 with 4 ECBs back, so that’s what I did. Not too exciting! I used my 4 ECBs I already had, paid $6.70 with tax, and got back another 4 ECBs. Cheap soda FTW!

Well, that’s what I did at the drugstore this week! Have you been coupon shopping yet this week? What deals are you gonna get?

February 6, 2013

Et tu, Kroger?

Last week Kroger made an announcement that pretty well ticked me off, left me feeling betrayed, and definitely took the wind out of my sails.

Oh, ALSO, Kroger? It made me even more determined to shop at ALDI! I was already shopping there 50% of the time, and that percentage is definitely going up. This makes me sad because my kids’ school get 4% back when I shop at Kroger. But we’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do for our family to make ends meet.

So what did Kroger do? They took away double coupons. Savings Lifestyle has all the details here. Double coupons are going bye-bye as of March 1.

I am totally shocked by this because Kroger has had double coupons as long as I can remember. They certainly had them when my mom grocery shopped there when I was a child. So let’s say 30 years minimum.

I know this sounds crazy, but I feel totally BETRAYED! Stores are just taking away all our ways to save one by one…I’m fairly depressed about it.

So. I’m guessing I’ll be going to 75% ALDI by the end of March. Now I love ALDI, but when Kroger has a Mega-Event where you can get great sale prices with coupons, you can’t beat it. I will really miss that.

Ooh, even writing this post is making me SO MAD!!! I’m not an extreme couponer and I’m not trying to cheat anyone. I’m just trying to surviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive, people. UGH.

Since there was a Mega-Event last week, I decided to take my anger out on the Mega-Event. On the first transaction, I got 6 Capri Sun (yes, MORE Capri Sun!) The price after the sale was $2 each, so $12 worth of Capri Sun. I had two $1 off 3 coupons, so that brought my total down to $10. Then, I got back a $4 off my next order coupon for buying them. WHEEE! That makes is $6 for 6 Capri Suns. I did have several other coupons on that transaction that DOUBLED, saving me a total of 33%. Then I took my $4 off coupon and a couple others and bought 1o more mega-event items for a total of $10.07, saving 62% on that transaction.

It was a good last hurrah. But dang I’m SAD! And MAD! And slightly discouraged. What do you say about Kroger’s new policy? They say they are lowering prices all over the store and giving more fuel rewards to make up for it, but somehow I doubt that will make a difference. It certainly isn’t getting me excited.