I Made Betty Crocker Wish She’d Never Been Born!

Happy Super Savings Saturday! This is the day of the week when I get reaaallllly nerdy and brag about my couponing and CVSing for the week. It’s great because it also gives Emily ammunition to make fun of me with, so, you know, everyone wins. This week I was sad that there were no $$ off coupons from CVS – since my store lets me stack these and use more than one per transaction, I really missed them! However, I did have one $4/$20 “welcome” coupon from my email and one from my hubby’s email that I was able to use, sooo here’s what I got!

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These items were part of a promotion where if you bought $30 worth of products, you got $15 back in ExtraCare Bucks. This all came up to about $31.48 before tax. I used:
$4/$20 CVS coupon from my email
$5 worth of Glade Scented Oil Candles refill coupons that came in other refill packages I had
Buy 2, Get 1 free GSOC refill coupon ($2.50 value here)
75 cents off Huggies wipes coupon I got in the mail
50 cents of Viva paper towels coupon
$1.50 off 2 Ziploc coupon ( I LOVE these Ziploc containers BTW!! They are awesome!)
$19.49 in ECBs

I paid less than a dollar and got back 15 ECBs! All for stuff we need & use! (Especially those CANDLE REFILLS RIGHT EMILY?) Not bad! I then went and spent that $15 ECBs on things I would neeed for Joshua’s upcoming birthday party – plastic forks, plastic cups, etc. After that, I was a little low on ECBs, so I tried to work out a transaction to make myself some more! Here’s what I came up with:

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My total on this came up to $23 something after tax. I used:
$4/$20 CVS email coupon
4 $1 off colgate total coupons (I got these in the Colgate “smile talk” newsletter email and was able to print 2 per computer – we have 2 computers!)
$1 off Colgate toothbrush coupon (also a printable)
$1.50 of Colgate toothbrush CRT coupon that printed on my receipt on a previous transaction
$1.50 off 2 Sunsilk CVS coupon
$1.50 off Sunsilk shamppoo or conditioner coupon from newspaper insert
$2 off Sunsilk styler coupon from newspaper insert
$1 off peelie that was on the conditioner (my cashier let me use this even though I had manufacturer’s coupons already – some will, some won’t!)

I used $4 in ECBS (these were about to expire so I was glad to roll them over) and paid $1.01 cash and got back $11 ECBS!! Woohoo! $10 ECBs for all the Colgate products and $1 for the Cokes. I was thrilled to add some ECBs back to my dwindling stash! Also I would like to point out that the Sunsilk was buy a shampoo or condtioner, get a styler free, so with all my Sunsilk coupons, CVS PAID me $1.01 overage to buy those two things – that’s real money, not ECBs! YAY! I heart CVS!

All that was great fun, but my real success this week was at Meijer. Meijer had a TON of Betty Crocker stuff on sale this week and there were lots of coupons available for them both from the newspaper and printables from BettyCrocker.com, Coupons.com, and BoxTops4Education.com. Meijer also had a bunch of “Buy 10, get the 11th free” items that you could mix & match. So I bought 22 of these items and got 2 free. Here’s the result of my BIG STOCKPILING GROCERY TRIP:

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I got all this: 2 Welch’s grape juice, 7 boxes of Betty Crocker potatoes, 4 tubs of frosting, 1 cake mix, three bags of Chex mix, 12 packages of Grands biscuits, two 4 lb. bags of chicken tenderloins, seven brownie mixes, and four Warm Delights Mini (which I really need when I am having a Bad Mommy Day. Oh wait? Who has those? NOT ME!) I had coupons for all these items except the chicken, which was BOGO free. (The Grands biscuits coupons were for 50 cents off of two). My grand total was $42.43!! It would’ve been better, but at some point the register stopped taking my coupons. I have no idea why! But my cashier was about the grumpiest, unfriendliest one I’ve EVER had. She did go back and verify that I had the correct number of items for my coupons, and she forced the uncooperative ones through. BUT the ones she forced through did NOT double like the rest of them did! So I lost about $4, which made me very sad. Because every dollar I save is truly important to me! But since my cashier was so unhappy with life in general, I considered myself lucky that she forced those through. AND, a $1 off coupon good on my next purchase at Meijer also printed out on my receipt, courtesy of Pillsbury, for buying all those Grands! So all in all I was pleased! The cake mix, frosting, and chex mix will all be used at Joshua’s birthday party also. It was nice to get such a deal on those needed items!

Well that’s it for me this week! Hope you all got some great deals too! For more Super Savings, check out Money Saving Mom. She’s the reason I got started on all this coupon business, and it has been so GREAT for my family!! If you haven’t already purchased her Supermarket Savings 10 course, I HIGHLY recommend it! You can check it out and purchase it here!

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Cleanin’ Up at Kroger and Whoopin’ Up at Walgreens!

Hola Super Savings Saturday readers! If you, like me, love bargain shopping, please read the post below this one where my co-blogger Emily analyzed my baragin-hunting “addiction”. Even though she is ridiculing me mercilessly, it’s still pretty entertaining!

The CVS deals weren’t too hot this week, and there weren’t any dollar-off coupons to bed had, so I just went for necessities like milk and Mountain Dew. 🙂 But I also went there to get my hubby a Valentine’s Day gift! One of the beauties of CVS is that when they have great deals you can “make money” on, you sometimes end up with more ECBs than you really need. This week I found myself in that situation so I was able to “buy” my hubby something he really wanted for Valentine’s Day from CVS. It’s this heart rate monitor/watch that he’s been wanting to keep track of his heart rate while he’s exercising. It’s $59.99 at CVS and more than I would normally spend for a Valentine’s Day present for him! But after a couple of CRT’s and a lot of ECBs, I paid just 9 cents for the monitor, a Valentine’s card, a Reese’s cup, and some lotion (CVS brand hand lotion that I had a Free CRT for. It’s good stuff too!) Yay! This is just one of the many reasons I heart CVS!

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I was really excited about my trip to Kroger this week. Joshua’s birthday is coming up and I wanted to get all the ice cream and cake mixes I would need for his party. Kroger also had the same Totino’s pizza roll deal they had last week, and I had enough coupons to get 9 boxes for close to free. The pizza rolls, ice cream, and Chef Boyardee items (all of which I had coupons for) were all part of a promotion where if you buy 10 items you get an extra $2 off your order. I bought 20 of these items total, so I got $4 off my order. My order came up to about $55 with tax, but after coupons I paid $32.43 for all of this! I was so excited to get the supplies for Joshua’s party plus our regular groceries for so little!

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I also went to Walgreens a few times this week to get some FREE plus overage Chapstick Naturals! Through Feb. 23rd, Chapstick Naturals are $2 and you get a $2 Register Reward good on your next purchase. But this week, Walgreens had a coupon in their ad making the Chapstick just 99 cents…and you still got the $2 Register Reward! Woot Woot! I did this, I don’t know, approximately 4 million times (slight exaggeration, more like 4) and bought other rebate or Register Reward items with my $2 RR . It was FUN! I got all the 2 Liters for Joshua’s party also, because 7UP products were also a Register Reward deal this week. So after redeeming and receiving new Register Rewards, I got eight 2 liters for about 50 cents total. 🙂 And I put it all on my Walgreens gift card from last month’s rebates! Goooood Times!!

Allright, that’s it for me this week! For more super savings, check out Money Saving Mom!

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It’s Official: I’m a “Coupon Lady”!

Superbowl Sunday was crazy but I had to hit CVS a couple of times since the CVS $$ off coupons were expiring that day! Here is my first trip, which totaled $57.89 before tax:

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I got all of this for just 89 cents out-of-pocket! I used 16 ECBs and got back..are you ready….48.42 in ECBs!!! That’s makin’ money honey!! Here’s how I worked it. I used:
$10/$50 CRT (Cash register tape coupon – printed on a previous receipt)
$5/$30 coupon
$4/$20 coupon
$9.99 off Precision Xtra coupon
$1 of Garnier shampoo coupon
$3 off Excedrin coupon
$2 off Excedrin coupon

I got back $19.99 ECBs for the Precision Xtra monitor (I donate these to our local non-profit hospice), $8.95 for the children’s aspirin, $3.99 for the Garnier, $5.49 for the eyeshadow, and $10 for the Excedrin! Woooo-hoooo!! Definitely one of my best trips ever in terms of money-making! Later in the week I used some of those ECBs to get things I needed but did not have coupons for such as milk, color-safe bleach, and ponytail holders! I also got my sister-in-law Sarah and I some of those Clorox toilet wands – disposable toilet bowl cleaners – something I normally would have NEVER splurged on if I had to use “real” money!! FUN!

I had a funny CVS experience on one of my other trips. One of my favorite cashiers said to me, “I have this OTHER coupon lady…”

(Oh no! I’ve been LABELED! It’s official! I’m a “COUPON LADY”!)

I interrupted her, “Really? Which one do you like better?? Me???”

“Oh you, definitely. You do it the right way. The other lady tries to beat the system. She gives me her $5/$30 coupon and I ring up her whole order, and then she asks me to take things off – making her total below $30 -but still wants to keep her $5 discount!”

“Really?” I said, horrified. “That’s awful! I play fair with my coupons!”

“I know you do!” she said.

So apparently I am the “good” coupon lady in that store. “Bad” coupon lady, whoever you are, CUT IT OUT! Don’t ruin it for me! Geez!

Ok, so my next stop on the Good Coupon Lady World Tour was Kroger’s. Ohh how I love Kroger’s! We didn’t need much this week, but they had Totino’s Pizza Rolls $10/$10 and I had ELEVEN coupons that made them free or almost free when doubled. I got 11 boxes of pizza rolls for $1. BUT WAIT it gets BETTER! These pizza rolls also qualified for a promotion they wre having – buy 10 of a group of participating items, get $2 off your total order. Soooo the 11 boxes of pizza rolls actually cost me -$1! I got a few other groceries and paid a grand total of $9.47 for all this!!

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Yay!

To cap off my week of super savings, last night some girlfriends and I wandered into the Children’s Place after a very un-frugal meal at the Cheesecake Factory, and found Joshua some 4t adjustable waist jeans for just $7.99!! I was so excited, because Children’s Place jeans are my fave but I hadn’t bought him any yet because I didn’t want to spend the money! So I got him two pair for now and one for next year!

Well that’s it for me this week! For more Super Savings from Good Coupon Ladies, be sure to visit Money Saving Mom! To start on your way to your own super savings, check out her Supermarket Savings 101 course here!

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