YUMMO

This is a new recipe from $5 Dinners. Try it out. Let me know what you think!

http://www.5dollardinners.com/2010/04/baked-black-bean-salsa-chicken.html

WALGREENS DEALS OF THE WEEK!

The Ziplocks were on sale 2/$5, so with my military discount and a coupon for B1G1 free, they were a total of $4.19. However, I also have a B3 get a $5 rebate with SC Johnson, so that makes them ALL FREE with a $0.81 overage. Now to the Stayfree Maxi pads. They were on sale for $2.99 with a $3 register reward. I also had a manuf. coupon for $1.00 off, so with the military discount, coupon and register reward, I got them for FREE with a $1.46 overage. Next, I got 2 60oz Skintimate shave gels on sale for $2.99 with a $3 register reward on each. So, after the military discount and register rewards I got them BOTH FREE with a $0.92 overage. The hair trimmer was on sale for $4.99 with a $5 register reward, so I got it after military discount for FREE plus a $0.76 overage. The Progresso Chicken Soup was on sale 2/$3 and I got four. I had a $0.25 coupon off one, so after military discount I got them all for $4.85 or $1.21 each. I got the potting soil for $2.54. I got the flossers for $2 on sale with a $2 register reward. So, after military discount they were FREE plus a $0.30 overage. This brings my grand total to....drum roll please.....$3.14 plus tax!!!!!! HOORAY!!!

Deals for the day!

So, after my couple of hours of prep, I set out for several stores today!

My first store was CVS. Although they didn't have several things I went in for, I was able to get 2 Oral B toothbrushes for $0.50 each. CVS had them on sale for $2.99, with your CVS card, with a $1 register reward for each. Then, I had a B1G1 free coupon, so I only paid for the 1 brush at 2.99, but still got both reward bucks, bringing the total down to $0.99 for both, roughly $0.50 each!

My second store was Target. Now..I will say this...when it comes to paper towels, I am kind of a brand snob. I like my Bounty. So, Target had it on sale for $9.99 for 8 Giant rolls. But, if you bought two packs, you got a $5 gift card. So, I bought 2 making it $19.98, I had a $0.75 coupon, along with the gift card, so I paid a total of roughly $15 for 16 Giant rolls. That is a pretty darn good deal for Bounty.

The next store was Aldi....and although you can't use coupons, their stuff is so cheap, I can't help but post about all the stuff we got for $22!

Here you go: 5 bananas, 2 dozen eggs, 2 64 oz apple juice, 4 boxes of mac and cheese, 4 cans of green beans, 2 gallons of milk, 2 bags of rice cake snacks, 1 box of hot pocket, 3 cans of sliced carrots, 2 cans of assorted beans.

The last place on our list was Publix......Publix and I have a love hate relationship. They are super expensive but if they have a good sale, it is worth a try. I spent $10 and got a 12 pack of jello (used a publix coupon and manuf. coupon), 4 cans of Campbells Chunky soup (B1G1 free plus manuf. coupon), 2 boxes of pasta (B1G1), and a bottle of McCormick Pinch of Spice (publix coupon and manuf. coupon).

We made a second trip to Publix because Brent forgot the Scrubbing Bubbles the first time. They were B1G1, so we got four for a total of $6.60. SC Johnson has a $5 mail in rebate on some of their products right now, so that brought my total down to $1.60 for four Scrubbing Bubbles or $0.40 each. Can't beat that!

All in all, a good day. We will see what kind of money making I will do at Walgreens on Tuesday!

CVS savings LAST week

Using my coupons and CVS rewards, I was able to get some Cover Girl Mascara, Cover Girl Concealer, Rimmel Mascara, and Rimmel Foundation ALL for $8!! Pretty exciting.

Turkey Chili with Black Beans

This was a VERY VERY good and easy chili. It was pretty cheap too. Try it with your family!

Turkey Chili with Black Beans

Posted using ShareThis

Vera Bradley 20% off Sale Items

http://www.verabradley.com/category/Category/Sale/729/pc/638.uts?utm_source=LinkShare&utm_medium=Affilaite&utm_campaign=extra20offsale&siteID=a4t3jqItZRg-oCYJf5R8gjFftf9vRyYjdA

World MArket: $10 Off $30 Printable Coupon

World MArket: $10 Off $30 Printable Coupon

Meal Plans

4/19-Rotersserie Chicken, green beans, and mac and cheese=$4.75 meal!!

4/20-Scrounge

4/21-Turkey meatballs with spaghetti and asparagus-$6.00 meal

4/22-Pot Roast-$6.00 meal

4/23-Grilled Chicken and asaragus-$8.50 meal

4/24-Turkey meatloaf-$6.00 meal

4/25-White Chili-$4.00 meal

4/26-Leftovers

4/27-Grilled Chicken and green beans-$3.50 meal

4/28-Hamburgers and salad-$6.oo meal

4/29-Tacos-$7 meal

4/30-Grilled Chicken, green beans, and mac and cheese-$4.00 meal

5/1-Lasagna and salad-$9 meal

5/2 Leftovers

Total: ~ $65 for two weeks worth of dinners!

Free Color Grabber: Keeps Color Clothes Looking Bright

Free Color Grabber: Keeps Color Clothes Looking Bright

How I do this stuff....

FIRST AND FOREMOST: I am still learning and am no expert. Second, I cheat a lot using the websites from the top right on my blog here. My goal: feed my family and have all the miscellaneous items we need for under $800 a month. This also includes eating out and all other random little expenses that fall under "misc." It is basically $200 a week for everything we could possibly need. I would LOVE to get it lower as I learn more on how to save money, but for now..I feel as though this is a good goal.

So, the paper comes on Sundays (which I pay like $0.69 for). I go straight to the weekly adds from Walgreens, CVS, and Target. Then, I go to the websites listed at the top of my blog and a lot of them basically tell me what to do. They will say stuff like "match this weekly add deal with this coupon from a specific sundays paper, so you have to save your coupons each week. I didn't use to keep coupons of stuff I do not regularly use or think I would need, but now that I am getting all this random stuff for free, I am keeping all the coupons until they expire. You never know when they are going to offer something for such a good sale that using a coupon will EARN you money. So, I match the coupons with the weekly adds. Then I have a binder that has slots for each store that I visit. I keep everything organized in there.

I ALWAYS pull out the coupons and weekly sales that will make me money because of overages, and even if I do not need the product...who cares, it was free and I earned money getting it. Someone I know will use it. However, all the other items that I use a coupon for are things we actually use. I do not buy something just because I have a coupon if I will not use it.

These weekly flyers will also tell you about "register rewards" that their particular store offers. Register rewards are little pieces of paper that you will get when you check out that are as good as money on your next purchase.

Target, in my opinion, never really has great sales and their stuff is more expensive, but sometimes if you can get a Target and manufacturer coupon together, you can save more and make it worth it.

I also shop at Aldi. Google if you have one in your area, and then rush out the door and check it out. Their stuff is DIRT cheap. It is no frill and very basic. No name brands and not a TON of stuff, but almost all the necessities. I get a TON of staple items and every bit of the kids snack foods, milk, yogurt, bread, and eggs there. Almost everything is cheaper than even the commissary!

I shop at Sams for meats and dog food mostly...haven't decided if I think it is worth it or not.

I get all of the food that I do not get at Aldi (veggies, meats, fruits, sodas, etc.) at the commissary. They have military coupons for certain things and they accept manufacturer coupons.

Basically, my week consists of this: Spend about two hours sorting and organizing coupons on Sunday.....go to Aldi, go to commissary to get everything else I need for the week, go to get anything random that Target has on sale that I need, go to Walgreens on Tuesdays to get all their good sales AND military discount (only Tuesdays), then go to CVS later in the week. If you do not do the really great sale items early in the week, it is fairly likely that you will not get the deals, because all of the products will be gone. Everyone wants the free or almost free stuff, so it goes quickly. Try and get all of your shopping done at the beginning of the week.

I meal plan. That way, I can buy more in bulk and only buy foods that will get eaten before they expire. I buy the meats that are on mega sale or "managers specials" and plan my meals around them. This saves us money.

I know all of this is in no particular order, but this is how I do a lot of it. I will update more as I learn more.

Hooray!

Today, I got all this at Walgreens for a whopping $7.38!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I can say is HOORAY :)

I saved 89% using store sales, military discount, register rewards, and coupons!!! Now, just so you know, only $11.00 of that was military discount, so the other $50 can be accomplished by ALL of you!!

Here's the loot:

3 bottles of windex: $0.12 each, Hydrogen Peroxide: $0.63, 2 Huggies 36 ct.diapers: $4.64 each, 2 boxes of Kotex pads: FREE plus $0.45 overage on each, Dawn dish soap: $ 0.34, Vitamin D Vitamins: FREE plus $2.50 overage, Colgate Pro Health toothpaste: FREE plus $0.46 overage, Colgate Total toothpaste: $0.24, Bic Razors: $0.29, and finally two bags of gummy bears: $0.05 each=$7.38

Pineapple Chicken from $5 Dinners-a HUGE hit in my house

http://www.5dollardinners.com/2010/04/grilled-pineapple-orange-chicken.html

Our meal was closer to $6.5o because I did a fresh fruit salad instead of the baked beans. YUMMO. And, the leftovers were GREAT as a salad topper today!

We should all strive to be this good!

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/36415638#36415638

Neat Couponing Article

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SmartSpending/blog/page.aspx?post=1742520&ocid=twmsnss

Weekly Meal plan

4/12-Steak, Corn on the Cob, Asparagus

4/13-Chicken Parmesan, Salad

4/14-Meatloaf, Green beans

4/15- Pineapple Chicken, Asparagus, Grapes

4/16-Lasagna Soup, Salad

4/17-Chicken enchiladas, Carrots, Grapes

4/18-Leftovers or sandwiches/soup

Another major success!!

So, today, I went and did some shopping at Walgreens! Remember military peeps, that you get 15-20% off on Tuesdays (at least you do here in FL). I bought 19 items, spent $19.90 and saved $22.28! That is a savings of 53%!! I know that wasn't a coupon savings, but I count it because I did a lot of work to save that much. I used coupons, weekly ad deals, and bought specifically on Tuesday to save the military discount! If we just count coupons, then I saved 29%! The two best deals of my day were:

Pepsi products were on sale, 2 liters for $1.00 and then I got the 15% off, so each 2 liter was only $0.85. That is like at least $0.20 cheaper than the commissary...I know...I just checked!

They had a sale on Right Guard deodorant, 2/$5. I got the two, downloaded two coupons for a total of 2.50 off, then got the military discount, so I only ended up paying $ 0.87 EACH. They are normally $3.50 each at Walmart!!

$3 Huggies Printable Coupon!!!!

Click here: Huggies Coupon

Another success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I have been working really hard to find a way to save more than my 11% on groceries and misc items. And today I DID IT!!! I saved 25% in coupons today. A total of $32 in coupon savings!! I spent $91 and got this:

2 56ct boxes of Huggies overnights

1 112ct box of Huggies regular diapers

1 80ct box of LUVS

1 Johnsons baby wash medium size

1 20 oz soda

42 big rolls of Quilted Northern

2 Benadryl anti-itch ointment (i actually got these for free with a 42 cent overage thanks to http://moneysavingmom.com/2010/04/free-benadryl-itch-relief-sticks.html)

How did I do this, you ask?

I had gotten several Huggies $3 off coupons from Money Saving Mom a while back, and stacked them with actual Target coupons. I did this same thing with the LUVS and Johnson Baby wash.

And, right now at Target, if you buy two qualifying diapers, you get a $5 Target gift card. I also had a coupon for the Quilted Northern and another coupon for $5 off if you spend $20 on qualifying items that I got from the newspaper coupon book.

I got the Benadryl anti-itch by using the $5/2 Benadryl items coupon from this weeks paper. Each one was $2.29, so $4.58, total, leaving me with the $0.42 overage which just went toward the total purchase!!

SUPER EXCITED!!

Success

I FINALLY got up to an 11% savings on my large grocery trip today. I have not been able to get more than about 10% off using coupons, but today, I did! I saved $25 in coupons! HOORAY. I know that doesn't seem like much, but I am getting there. Not to mention that most of the stuff that I bought was on sale, which cannot be reflected in a coupon. Something I had forgotten about the commissary is that they have military coupons for certain things that I can stack with a manufacturer coupon, so I got several things for dirt cheap!! PLUS, they had a managers special on chicken today, so I racked up! $1.69/lb for fresh breasts. Even my great Sams can beat that! I have been devoting more and more time into online coupon research, so if I find something new I will pass it on. I did add two new reference links, so check them out!