Walgreens-not just for filling Rx's!!!!!!!!

Back in the old days the only time I would go to Walgreens was when I wanted to get an Rx filled, and I would generally go through the drive-up. Not anymore, it's not the place I do a ton of shopping, but they have some great deals sometimes.

Last week I stopped by real quick to grab something and while I was there I checked the razor aisle real quick cuz Wes was getting low on razors. This is what I found:

Gillette Fusion razors were on clearance! These bad boys are $10.49 retail, but were marked wayyyyyy down to $2.69! Each pack has 2 heads, so I loaded up and got 5 of them and also got one (so 6 total) Gillette Fusion Power razor (not pictured) for $3.11, retail $11.99! That is $64.44 worth of razors for $16.56, and this will last Wes for at least 10-11 months!  The best part is that I didn't even have to use a coupon or do a register reward for them. I'm not a fan of doing registered rewards because it's a complicated process, but I will if it's a great deal. Luckily, I didn't have to and was able to save without it!

So each razor head is about $1.34, and if I were to buy the 4 refill cartridge pack at $16.99, it would be around $4 a head and that is why I don't buy the refill packs, much more expensive. 

My sweet Bella

So by the Elk's Lodge they have that metal elk that is kind of by the road. Well, Bella saw it and she said, "Look deer............we need to shoot him!" And that is what we teach our kids, when you see an elk....you need to shoot him. She is hilarious!

Walmart really came through today!

If you know me, you know that I really don't like to shop at Walmart unless I absolutely have to. People are grouchy, cashiers like to argue about every coupon..... Well today was one of those days that I had to go, however I was pleasantly surprised by all of the deals I was able to grab.

First off, people are always skeptical when I tell them that I can get things for free and even make money off some items. Well in this picture are all of the items that I scored for free + made a little bit of money:

Here is how I got these lovely items for free:

Scrubbing Bubbles toilet bowl cleaner. these were on an end cap and if you actually walk down the aisle and get the exact same item without the yellow stripe down the box it is $9, for the exact same thing! - these were $3.97 - in Sundays paper there was a $4.00 off coupon

Reach floss - $0.97 - printed 4 coupons for $1 off

Yup that is KY jelly which has many useful purposes ; ) $2.84 - in Sundays paper there was a $3.00 coupon, actually made a little money

Glade candles - $0.25 (all Christmas items were marked down to $0.25 while I was there!) - I had a coupon that was for a $1.50 off two Glade holiday scents, so I bought 2 for $0.50 and ended up making $1.00! Not all places allow overage like this, but Walmart states they will give you cash back in their coupon policy!

Colgate toothpaste - (this was actually at Safeway) on sale for $0.99 - I had a $0.75 coupon that doubled up to a $1.00. That is why I love Safeway.


So as stated above while I was in Walmart they announced that all remaining Christmas items were going for $0.25 each. This is what I found:

Paid $2.00 for all of it. My kids LOVE to do gingerbread houses and I'm pretty sure they don't care that they are doing a Christmas one after Christmas is over. Lights, boxes, sprinkles, all I will use next year!

Sorry, not trying to make this blog all about couponing but it is really fun!

Another example of why I coupon

Sams club used to be the place I would shop, always thought they had the best deals and I was getting a lot of product. I have 3 kids that still wear a pull-up at night, we go through a ton of pull-ups so I would always just buy a box from Sams. At Sams these are $28.98 per 90 ct box (2T-3T) or $0.32 per pull-up.

Well at Target (have I mentioned my love for Target) this week they have a special where if you buy 2 boxes of pull-ups you get a $10 gift card. So I printed a $2 manufacturer coupon per box and I had a $3.50 Target printed coupon for one box and a $3.50 Target mobile coupon from my smart phone (they scan the bar code from your phone). You can use 1 manu. coupon and 1 Target coupon per item.

So the breakdown per box is:
$25.99 full price
 -     $2 manu. coupon
  $3.50 Target coupon
       $5 (half of the gift card)
 $15.49 for a box of 72 count (2T-3T) or $0.21 per pull-up

I bought 2 boxes for $30.98, $2 more than buying 1 box at sams club, but I also got 54 more pull-ups for that extra $2. Plus I pay $40 annually for a Sams Club membership! This isn't the best deal I've seen on pull-ups either but we were completely out so it had to do.

Without the coupons and gift cards, yes Sams is a better buy. But, Target has deals like this quite often.

Huggies has a new diaper called the 'Slip-on' diaper. I would probably not have used these on a baby but they are made the exact same way a pull-up is made and since they are a new product they had great sales and great coupons for them. I was able to get them for around $2.50 for a jumbo pack doing this same kind of deal and they worked great as pull-ups for my kids!

Don't get me wrong I still shop at Sams for some things but they don't always have he best deals.

Christmas clothes

In our mad rush to get ready last week we didn't get any pictures of the kids in their Christmas clothes. So in our mad rush this week I stopped everyone for a second and took a few and this is what I got. Is there ever a perfect picture where all kids are looking and smiling and being good? I don't think so, but they sure did look nice today.

I told you he was sweet...

Just cuz......

Why coupon?

Back in March I started couponing because we were spending a fortune on groceries and I was tired of it. I heard about a website called 'The Krazy Coupon Lady.' They sell a really good book about the ins and outs of couponing. There were so many things I didn't know. I always looked at the $.25 and $.50 coupons and thought it wasn't worth my time. The book points out so many different things, for example at Target.com there are target coupons. Usually at most stores you can only use one coupon per item, but at Target you can use a regular coupon (manufacturer coupon) and a target coupon together and if the item is already on sale it's even better. You can do this at Safeway too and Safeway doubles manufacturer coupons up to $1.

Several people I've talked to recently have said that it's too time consuming, or they can't find coupons for the things they use or they just can't make it work for some reason.

Here are a couple of examples of things I found at target recently. This first one is the Welch's juice that I would always pay full price for at Walmart, this is what my family drinks. It was on clearance for $2.08, regularly $2.99. At Target I always check the end caps for their clearance things and see what coupons I have to go on top. Well this week they had about 20-25 of these on clearance. Now to most people a difference of $0.91 is not that big a deal. Well when I add my $1 off coupon to it, it makes them a steal. I bought 14 of these bad boys for a total of $15.12. Now full price it would've cost me $41.86. This is at least a 2 month supply of juice for my family and I won't buy it again until I find another steal, which I've seen every few months but it's usually at Safeway.

The trick is to stock up on an item when it's at a low price like this so that you aren't paying full price ever if you can help it. This is a great way to build up a food storage and coupons and sales are always rotating so you are constantly buying different things for your food storage.

A lot of times when a manufactuer is promoting an item and they send out coupons, the store is also trying to promote it by putting it on sale, which makes for very cheap and a lot of times free items. There are several things that I have gotten for free such as:

toothpaste (colgate, crest, etc)
toothbrushes (Colgate, Reach)
deoderant (Secret, Right Guard...)
scotch tape
bbq sauce (Jack Daniels, Kraft, KC Masterpiece)
ketchup (heinz)
pasta (Healthy Harvest)
soap (Nivea, Olay)
shampoo (Finesse...)
conditioner (Finesse...)
reams of HP printer paper
Excedrin and so many different kinds of medication!
bandaids (Curad, bandaid brand)
pens (papermate)
Revlon tweezers
dish soap (Gain)
worchestershire sauce (French's)
Glade, Febreze, and Air wick candles and sprays

I could go on and on. These things aren't just the cheap, off brand either, all name brand things that I used to pay full price for, and everything I just listed I easily have a year supply of. Some examples of some really cheap items are:

Glad trash bags
Hefty/ziploc bags
Clorox cleanup ($.49 a bottle at Walgreens)
Laundry detergent (Wisk, Arm&Hammer, All, Gain)
Duracell/Energizer batteries (got these from Amazon.com)
peanut butter (Skippy, Planters)
jelly (Welch's, Smuckers)
Huggies diapers and wipes
Puffs tissue
Target shower curtains and pillows
HP ink
Gillette razors
shaving cream
Banana Boat aloe vera
Nivea shaving conditioner for electric razors
Cereal (try not to pay more than a $1 a box) (Kelloggs, General Mills, Post...)

Seriously, I've never even had close to a year supply of any of these things but now I do and it's all due to couponing. If I had to pay full price for all of this to try to get a year supply I couldn't afford it.

The other day Wes was saying that we needed some supplements around the house, that day I went looking at Target to see what I could find. Here is what I found:

These are $11.99 each full price, which I would never pay! But I had a $5 manufacturer coupon per each item and a $2 Target coupon per item (these I got from the Target pharmacy coupon booklets-just ask for them at the pharmacy). Already that brings them down to $4.99 each, but that still wasn't going to be good enough, then I noticed that they were on an end cap and if you buy 2 of them you will get a $5 Target gift card. So, I decided to get 4 of them which will give me 2-$5 gift cards and after factoring the gift cards in that brings them down to $2.49 each. But wait, I also had a coupon for $5 off a $50 purchase, I am very close to $50 so I threw in $2 item that I was already buying and dividing that $5 between the 5 items it makes my Centrum $1.49. That's a price I can afford and so I did 2 separate transactions. I bought these first, got the 2 gift cards and then used them on my next transaction for the other items I was buying. I LOVE Target, they are the best! Full price these would've cost $47.96+tax, but I only paid $4.96+tax for all 4 of them. This is why I coupon! It is so fun getting deals like this.

Ok one more example and this was actually back in Sept. Back in May or June I got a $2 off coupon for the Off! fans (mosquito repellent). These are usually about $8.49 each and even with a $2 coupon it would not be good enough and I really wanted to try it but was not going to pay $6.49 for just one. So I held on to these coupons throughout the summer all the way until Sept and they expired about the middle of the month. About a week before they expired Target had these clearanced out to $2.12! So I bought 6 of them at $0.12 each = $0.72+tax for 6 of them! I will hold on to these until next summer!

One other thing I have learned though is that you can't be brand loyal. For example, I used to love Tide and that's all I would buy. Tide is really expensive and very rarely have I seen it for a good deal and I would see really good deals on the ones I listed above. You know what? I think they work just as well as Tide does and I'm saving money.

Always stock up on seasonal items after the season/holiday is over for the next year. I already have all of my kids Halloween costumes for next year and I paid $1 per costume (as opposed to $15-$20 per costume) the Saturday after Halloween.

I could go on and on with examples of different deals but it would take forever. Just know that couponing is worth it and we have saved so much money and it is really fun!