CVS and Weis Shopping Trip (7/14)

Today my step-mom went grocery shopping with me! I wanted her to go along to help me pick out meat. Usually my fiancé is with me so he kind of knows what the good deals are for meat but I have no idea when it comes to that. So I needed her to help me figure out if I was getting the most out of my money.

First up we went to CVS. I don’t have any pictures from this shopping trip because when we got it all back to my house I just put it away right away. At CVS I bought: 6 boxes of cereal, 2 bags of Chex mix, a 12 pack of toilet paper, 3 dish liquid soaps, and 8 cans of tuna. I noticed at the register a “Green bag tag”.

 

You get a $1 Extra Buck every 4th time you use it. Just attach it to any reusable bag and make sure when you shop at CVS that you have that bag with you. I didn’t have any of those bags, so I figured I would just look at Weis and see if I could pick some up there. I figured that my fiancé and I would benefit from this because of how often we’ve been going to CVS and it’s good to start using the reusable bags.

Total spent: $27.85
Total saved: $35.69

So at CVS, I did pretty good. Without the savings, I would have spent $63.54. So yeah, I’d say I did a little more than pretty good.

Next up was Weis. Now I knew this bill was probably going to be a little bit expensive because we need meat. But that will last us a while, so it’s only an “every now and then” purchase. I bought: a pack of 4 bagels, milk, eggs, yogurt, 5 boxes of pasta, 6 boxes of tissues, 2 packs of tortillas, 3 packs of pudding, and of course, some meat.

Total spent: $72.03
Total saved: $17.91

So overall, I did good. I spent $99.88 altogether. And you know what? Next week we are definitely skipping the grocery store unless I can get really, really, really good deals. We could survive without going to the grocery store for a little while now. Well, we would need the main staples: eggs, milk, and bread. But other than those 3 things, we have a ton of food in the house! Thanks for reading!!!

CVS and Weis trip (7/5)

We didn’t need that many things this week. But I found some good deals on some stuff so we decided to make a quick trip. And since we went to see fireworks Monday night, I was at my aunt’s house last night, and as you are reading this we are away at the beach, we had to go Tuesday night.

So first up was Kmart. When we went there last night, we got a coupon print out for $10 of any purchase of $10 or more. I was so excited about this!! One of the things we needed was trash bags so we got a box of 65 Glad trash bags. My fiancé is on a kick for flavored sparkling water for some reason ever since we got some at Giant last week. He got some at Weis the other day but he didn’t like it. It turns out, he got flavored seltzer water instead of sparkling water. So he picked out 4 bottles of Kmart’s flavored sparkling water.

We got those 5 items for: $6.62
Total savings: $10.00

Up next we went to CVS. We got 2 toothbrushes that cost $1 each, but then we got the $2 we spent for them back in Extra Care Bucks. I was going to get 3 things of Dawn detergent but it ended up being smaller than what I thought it was. It was going to be 30 ounces for $2.97 which comes out to about $0.10 per ounce. The 2 bottles I got gave me 32 ounces for $3.34 which comes out to $0.10 per ounce. I just figured that out now, not while I was at the store, so I made a pretty good deal. I got 2 extra ounces than what I would have got if I stuck to my list and got the Dawn. I went to the coupon kiosk and got a coupon for a free Hershey’s Air Delights bar, but they were out of them so I just got a Hershey’s with almonds bar for free. I also got a coupon that printed out for $2 off Skittles, Starburst, or some other candy, so I got a bag of Starburst for $0.50. We were going to get some bottled water to take with us to the beach, but they were out of it. Oh, and did I mention my fiancé picked up more sparkling water at CVS?

Total before coupons: $45.42
Total after coupons: $28.17
Total savings: $17.25

Our last stop of the night was Weis.  I only had 2 things on my list, but we ended up getting more than that. I think the best deal we got was 2 boxes of brownie mix for $1. They were on sale 10 for 10, and I had a coupon for $1 off of 2, making it 2 for $1. Sunny D was on sale 2/$3 so I got that because it has a longer expiration date than orange juice, and it is cheaper. The Sun Drop is for my general manager who’s last day is Sunday :( Oh, and you see that bottle beside the milk? Yup, that’s another bottle of flavored sparkling water. I guess my fiance wants to taste every different brand of it he can.

Total before coupons: $27.90
Total after coupons: $21.02
Total savings: $5.88

So overall we didn’t save that much this week but we did save some. And some is better than none. Next week we will try to get the stuff we didn’t get this week and we also have to get meat, so we can’t really save there. Have a great day everyone! I will do a post from the beach tomorrow!!!

Our Shopping Trip

Guess what my fiancé and I did tonight? We went shopping!!! As I was looking through the ads on Sunday I wasn’t really finding that many good sales that matched up with coupons I had. Plus, we had just gone shopping on Friday so we didn’t really need that much this week. But, I found some things on sale that we could use for the beach so we made a small trip.

First up was Five Below. They have these cute totes for the beach for $5!! While we were there, we noticed these small coolers right beside the totes so we decided to get one of those. We have a bigger cooler that we are going to take some lunchmeat and cheese in but my fiancé thought we needed a smaller cooler to take with us when we go from the hotel to the beach. I also needed more baseball card holders for my coupon binder so I got another pack of 30. Oh, and my fiancé got his first drink of the night, a 7-up.

Our total ended up being $17.16.
We spent about $7 more than I thought we would because I was only planning on getting the tote and baseball card holders.

Next stop…CVS. I was only getting 2 things here: 4 boxes of Nabisco crackers or cookies and a 6 pack of Bounty paper towels. The first thing I did after getting inside was scan my card at the coupon kiosk. I got 3 coupons: 50 cents off 2 dove large bars, $1.00 off Twizzlers, and $1.00 Pringles to go. I had read about the Pringles one online and knew that you could get the Pringles for free since they cost $1.00. So I definitely knew I was getting that. That was the only extra thing I got at CVS, which really didn’t make a difference since it was free.

So the total came out to be $6.22 with a total savings of $12.40!!!

I didn’t realize how small the boxes of Nabisco crackers and cookies were but they are going to be perfect for the beach.

Next up we went to Acmoore. Remember that lamp I was talking about in this post that I found at Goodwill that I want to paint? Well, I needed to get some fabric paint so I can do that. So I got that and some fabric paint brushes. And my fiancé needed a red bandana for airsoft so he got a red one and black one because they were on sale.  I had a coupon for 55% off one item and the total was $10.81.

 

Our last stop of the night was Giant. After getting our rewards card we proceeded to go up and down every aisle looking for what was on the list. Here is what we got: 10 yogurts, 9 cans of vegetables, 2 loafs of bread, 3 bags of baby carrots, 1 can of shaving cream, 1 bottle of mouthwash, 3 cans of Pringles, 3 tubs of dip, 5 bottles of flavored sparkling water, a 20 oz. soda (I forget what kind), and the newest Rachael Ray magazine. I was only expecting the total of this trip to be around $30 but we got a little more than what was on the list. I had to get mouthwash because when I went to the dentist yesterday he told me I had to start using mouthwash. He told me that the last time I was there and I did use it…but only for a few months. My fiancé found the sparkling water and wanted to get that so we did. And we thought the bread was $1 each but the white bread wasn’t on sale, so it was $1.19, but that’s not that bad.

Our total before savings was $60.31
Our savings was $12.81
And our total after savings was $48.48

I don’t think that’s too bad considering it was only about $18 more than I thought it would have been.

So overall we spent $82.67. We’ll probably skip the store next week unless I find some really good deals because we have a lot of food now. Our pantry is almost overflowing!!! So how do you think I did? Did I get some good deals or what? Leave me comments!!!

My CVS and Weis trip!!

I just have to say that extreme couponing is awesome!!!! We were on our way home from the store last night and I felt so proud of myself for the savings that we got!!! We decided to skip Giant because it’s a little farther away than CVS and Weis and I didn’t really have a big list for there. So first up we went to CVS. We got everything on my list except for 3 things. The coupon I had for Caress body wash expired a few days ago and I didn’t realize it. We were going to get the Schick hydro 5 since it was buy one get one free but then decided my fiancé didn’t need it and the coupon was only for a dollar off and didn’t really make it that cheap. And the Gain dish liquid for 97 cents was sold out. We are going to start going shopping on Monday night’s instead of Friday so that the items we want don’t run out. I said before going that the cost was going to be around $14. So let’s see how I did.

Here is what we got:

4 boxes of cereal, 3 boxes of poptarts, and 1 tube of toothpaste

The total without coupons would have been: $29.86

We saved: $14.37

Our total with coupons was: $15.49

We also got $2.00 extra bucks for buying the toothpaste. So already we have $2.00 off our next purchase!!

The best deal we got at CVS was definitely the cereal!! It was $6 for 4 boxes!!

When we left CVS I was very proud of my savings. But like I told my fiance, that was just a warm-up. We were going to save a lot more at Weis!!!

So at Weis we got everything on our list, and then some. But I still think we got a great deal!!! I estimated that the cost would be around $40, but I knew it was going to be more since we got a few extra things.

We got:

3 jars of Ragu pasta, 2 packages of Perdue chicken nuggets, 10 yogurts, 10 gatorade, 1 package of baby carrots, 2 packages of hot dogs, 6 hamburger helpers, 4 suddenly salads, 4 boxes of pizza rolls, 1 box of cake mix, 1 box of frosting, a sandwich container, 1 bag of bagels

We saved: $30.39 (only $8.94 of that was from coupons, the rest was from the store card)

Our total without coupons and savings: $97.22

We saved: $39.33

Our total with savings: $57.89

We also got a store coupon or $5.00 off our next shopping trip!!

I think the best deal we got at Weis was the 6 boxes of Hamburger Helper for only $4!!!

So overall, I think our first shopping trip using coupons went very well!! I can’t wait to get tomorrow’s Sunday paper (2 of them actually) and get more coupons!!! Then I’m gonna look through the ads and plan my next trip. I don’t know if we will go every week though. Maybe only if we need stuff or if we can get stuff for really cheap. Does anyone else coupon? If so, I want to know how often you go grocery shopping. Thanks for reading and be sure to stay tuned for more of my shopping adventures!! Have a great Saturday night everyone!! I’m off to see Cars 2!!

My new coupon binder!

I am on my way to becoming an extreme couponer!!! Okay, so I probably won’t be appearing on the show anytime soon because there is no way I’m going to be able to come close to saving as much as they do. But I’m still going to attempt to save as much money as I can.

So now I want to share how my couponing has evolved within the past week.

First I just had my coupons in this file folder I got at the Dollar Tree. They weren’t organized or anything so I knew I had to do something about that.

That is when I decided to categorize my coupons. One of my fiancé's co-workers told him about the site The Krazy Coupon Lady so I’ve been using that site to get some tips. She has a PDF file for a coupon binder that has listed all the sections you will need to make your own coupon binder. So I organized my coupons into a bunch of categories and paper clipped them together. I thought that this would work, but then decided that I need an actual binder to put my coupons in.

So, here is what I came up with:

 

I got a binder from Walmart and some baseball card holders from Five Below. Then I typed up my own section dividers, because it used up less ink that way.

 

I am all set for my first shopping trip as an extreme couponer!!!  I just have to wait for my fiancé to get home from work and then we are off to CVS, Giant, and Weis!!! Usually when we go to the grocery store we end up spending over $100 every 2 weeks. It has been a little more than 2 weeks since our last trip though. But we don’t need too much because we have the basics (milk, eggs, bread, meat). I went through the ads last Sunday and wrote down what I’m getting along with what coupons I have for each item and how much it’s going to be. I totaled up what I think we’re going to spend at each store. The estimated cost that I think it’s going to be for all 3 stores is $70. I will let you all know what the actual total is sometime later this weekend!! In the meantime, go check out my current giveaways. Have a great Friday night everyone!!!