what would you have done?

WHat would you have done?
I went to Albertsons with 4 of the $1.00 off Catalinas and only had $6.00 on my food stamps. I grabbed a thing of Deli Fresh Oscar Mayer and 2 bottles of Palmolive. I had a dollar coupon for the meat and (2) .25 off coupons for the Palmolive. I was thinking that I could use the $4.00 for the Palmolive and use my food stamps for the meat. Maybe I should have done 2 seperate transactions...I went to a checker I was not familiar with (there wasn't any checkers that I knew) and she wrang up everything (after asking another cashier why she couldn't see the coupons coming off?) and then took my coupons. I slid my foodstamp card through and it wouldn't work. So I figured that ment that the 1.00 catalinas came off of my food purchase. I couldn't afford the Palmolive that way because I only had a dollar cash to my name. So I explained to her that I wanted to use the 1.00 off meat coupon on the meat and then use the 4.00 off for the Palmolive. maybe I didn't say it right because she used the 4.00 off of the meat, my final total for the meat was .59 . Then she wanted to ring up the palmolive. By this time we had a big line and my kids were distracting me a bit. So I appologized for the misunderstanding and gave her back the palmolive and got those coupons back from her. She just stared at me dumbfounded and asked if I had a cash card. Again I explained that I had the foodstamp card and only one dollar cash. She still didn't understand so I just wished her a good night and left. I was so mad! Do I have a right to be? Maybe I misunderstood how those catalinas work when you use them in a transaction that you have both food and non food items? Anyone have any info on this? What would you have done?

and after school I went back to Albertsons

I couldn't resist! I am having way too much fun with this promotion!
So my husband and I went back to Albertsons tonight after I got home from school. I forgot about the coupons that I took a picture of for the first blog of the night so I wanted to use them, and when we did out first transaction my husband had mentioned that he needed new blades for his Gillette Fushion.

So here we go, I bought 2 more tubes of toothpaste ...1.50 after coupons ( and ofcourse I received another $1.00 back Catalina)

I also noticed that the Gillette Fushion's were on sale for 9.99. I had a coupn for $4.00 off so that would make it 5.99

well... I also brought along with me the $5.00 Catalina

my total for tonights shopping trip

$2.49!

...And then I went to Walgreens

So I personally have had some mixed results at Walgreens. Some days i canreall get a good deal other day I get very frustrated and give up. As I have mentioned before I have a shelf clearer in my area, so a lot of times when I go to Walgreens they are sold out of everything I want.

Today was not a bad day.
I misplaced my receipt but here is what I did.

Huggies wipes are on sale until saturday night for $2.49. If you look around your local Walgreens, they have a summer saving book, that has Walgreens coupons in it that you can combine with manufactures coupons. In the book they had a 1.00 off Huggies wipes coupon, from last Sunday's paper I had .50 off of wipes...I paid 1.00 for wipes!

I also noticed Crest Just for me toothpaste was on sale for 2.49. I had one coupon for $1.00 so I paid 1.49

Walgreens has in Ad coupons as well, the Quilted Northern 9 rolls were in a in ad coupon for 3.99

I have a TON of coupons for Pantene that expire on the 31st of this month...unless I fin a super deal I am going to end up eating those coupons :( Walgreens did have a pretty good sale on Pantene though...buy 1 get 1 50% off. They are 4.99 each so before my coupon it was $7.49 , after my coupon...4.49

and last but not least,  pretzel M&Ms! they were .99 each and I had 2 coupns for .75 off ---total .48!

So grand total before coupons...17.96
total after coupons... $11.45
total sasvings this trip 6.51...................not my best but its a good deal!

My day starting at Albertsons

Day 47
So what does one do with 11.00 to spend at Albertsons??? HeHeHe what fun!
A friend had told me about the deal she got on Crest at Fred Meyer , using the .75 off coupons she was able to buy tubes if Crest for .75 each. (2 for 3.00) and then when she opened the toothpaste it had a 1.00 coupon in it for Oral B toothbrushes that were also on sale 10 for 10. So she went back and got free toothbrushes. Not bad! Actually it was pretty awesome! So I wondered if I could do something similar at Albertsons. They are having those "cash back" ales that I had mentioned before so I did some investigating and as it turns out Crest was on sale at Albertsons 2 for $3.00 as well!

So I took 4 coupons for .75 off of Crest toothpaste so I bought the 4 for 3.00.
I choose the ones with coupons in them too but more on that in a minute.
I also had 2 coupons for 2.00 off of 2 Oral B toothbrushes. They were also on sale 2 for 3.00 so for the 4 - the coupon I bought those for 2.00

I have a friends baby shower to go to on Saturday plus I have a 7 month old nephew that is over at my house regularly. So it was time to stock up on diapers. Huggies are on the cash back sale. I bought 2 jumbo packages of Huggies...9.99 each -2.00 coupon. So total for the diapers was 17.98

I also noticed a deal that wasn't on the cash back promo but I just couldn't pass it up. Johnson and Johnson's products were on sale for 2.99 each and they had a 1.00 Peelie coupon on them. 1.99 each! I couldn't pass it up!

I also used one of my Catalina's for free milk!

And I always seem to have 1 non coupon purchase, this time it was my husbands Full Throttle energy drink ( Have yet to find coupons for those!)

So this would bring my total to.... $28.95
Then I had that $11.00 to cash out....so grand total 17.95
(My total would have been 46.45 without coupons)

But that's not even the best part! I walked in with that 11.00...I walked out with 11.00 in new Catalina's! How you ask? Well I got $1.00 for each pair of Crest tooth paste I bought, $1.00 for each pair of toothbrushes and when you buy 2 pkg.s of diapers you get a $5.00 Catalina! Oh and a $2.00 Catalina from Crest for buying 4 of the toothpaste :D

Now wanna see something else cool?

The coupons that were in my toothpaste boxes.....weren't just dental coupons! I dd get $7.00 off of Crest Whitestrips but I also got 1.00 off of Cover Girl, $1.00 off of Secret Clinical and $1.00 off of Iams pet food :) **Happy Dance**

2 more blogs to write, so I will end this one here :)



Shopping at Albertsons 7/20

OK another quick post about my shopping trip this morning. As you saw in my last post, i decided to do a little recon. yesterday for today's trip. I paid close attention to the Summer Block Party specials, here is what I bought...

OK 7 up was 4.50 each plus deposit , bought 2 and got $1.00 back
Welches Essentials Jucies  2.50 each - .55 coupon, bought 2 got $1.00 back
Pop Secret popcorn 3.00 each - 1.00 coupon, bought 2 got $1.00 back
M&M large bags 2.99 each - .75 coupon, bought 2
Nabisco Snack Sacks (Nutter Butters and mini Oreos) @ 1.99 each - 1.00 for 2 coupon
Mott's Applesauce 3.00 each - 1.00 coupon, bought 2 got $1.00 back
Knorr Side Dishes (pasta and rices) 1.00 each, buy 3 get $1.00 back- total of 3.00 back
Mentos gum 1.48 each, had a coupon for 1.00 off of 3, bought 6 (6.88 after coupon, 1.15 each)
Nestle Drumstick 8 ct boxes 5.99 each - 1.00 facebook coupon, bought 2 got $1.00 back
(not pictured) Frito Lay variety bag for 6.99 ( was supposed to get free milk with this deal) got $4.00 back

total spent $67.00 ( a little over my 50 budget for the day)
saved $41.87

Got $11.00 cash back!!!!!!!!!! in Catalinas. Awesome I can't wait to go shopping again.
A friend of mine made a request for me to do a meal plan, as to how I make all of this last, I might be able to do a detailed blog on that later, for now it's off to pay bills and get my final project done for payroll accounting.

My Albertsons Deals for today

Again this is going to be quick, I should be studying for a final but this is much more fun!
Ok so as I have mentioned before Albertsons gives doublers in the Sunday newspapers from time to time. The doublers last for 3 days and today was the last day for this round. So here is what I did.

Albertsosn has a deal you just can't beat on Betty Crocker fruit snacks. When you buy 4 you get a $2.00 catalina back. (this deal will still be going on next week). So I used 2 of these coupons for .50 cents off 2. They are 2.50 each, or 4 for 10, with my double coupons I paid $8.00 for all four.
then I found this deal on Capri Sun

I had a previously printed coupon for $1.00 off of 3 (no longer available) So after i doubled the coupon, I got for $2.97 for all three!

The mentos gum I had to grab for my mom, I paid full price for it but I do have coupons for it that would have made it .48 cents.

 So in total I paid around $12.00 for everything and I got these...

Free milk and a total of $4.00 off in Catalinas! so in reality it is like paying around $8.00 for everything! Hope you enjoyed my little haul, I will probably be doing more here soon.

My first try at a match up!

One of my favorite bloggers, Fabulously Frugal actually beat me to this post but for those of you who don't read it, here is my take on the Summer Block Party starting tomorrow at Albertsons.
So here it goes...
You get a $2.00 catalina coupon for every 2 participating items between 7-20 and 7-26
One thing I was able to remember is that facebook has a coupon we can use for this!
here

According to the fur-gals!, these will be $4.99 each when you by 2 tomorrow but with the facebook coupon for $1.00 off  so it will be $8.98 for 2...then you get the $2.00 catalina so it would really be like paying 6.98 :) so 3.49 a box.

OK the next deal i found was on the Skinny Cow multipack ice creams. again using the intel from ff, these will be 4.99 each as well.

I took a picture of the fudge pops but the deal posted is for the ice cream sandwiches. If you sign up for SavingStar you can get a $1.00 rebate! so again technically it would be the same price as the drumsticks.

since I am running out of time, i am going to let the Fabulously Frugal Gals give you the rest of the match ups. I want to do a quick post on my double deals I did today before I head off to school. So click here for the Fabulously Frugal Albertsons Match Up!

Paperless coupons!

We are very fortunate to have the Internet. As a couponer, you can only get so far redeeming manufactures coupons from your Sunday paper so one thing that I have started really looking into is e coupons.

There are various sights that offer e savings.Some I have tried, some I looked into but haven't really tried.

The first one I tried is a store here in the Northwest called Fred Meyer, I believe they are affiliated or owned by Kroger? Kroger has the same kind of deal so I will just continue with my thought...(it's 1 am on finals week, forgive me if I am a little scatter-brained!) When you register on their site with your rewards card. After that then you can add coupons to your rewards card! It takes about an hour for them to come up on your card but you have less coupons to worry about! Plus at my Fred Meyer they have coupons everywhere! So you can use the instore coupons too!

The other one that I signed up for recently is Safeway, or Randall's or whatever it is called in your area. Again, less coupons to carry and Safeway is one of the few stores that allows store coupons to be used with manufactures coupons. Some even offer double coupons up to .50 cents.

Now for the one that I am still trying to figure out. it's kind of new, it's called Saving Star. if you have read the other blogs like I do, it has been mentioned a couple times. with this sight you can earn $ back and get rebates in the form of gift cards, through paypal or by check. These rebates can take up to thirty days to appear on your account and they start paying out after $5.00 is reached in your account. Find more info here  .

day 36

Total savings this year, $37.33 :)

Ok one thing I have noticed while looking at tomorrow's ads if that everyone is starting their school supply sales. I love school supply shopping! Crazy right? Well as I have said I go to night school, so I use supplies for that and in September my daughter will be starting 3rd grade and my son will be in preschool :) As if that was not enough reasons to buy school supplies here is my other reason...Scrap booking!

I started scrap booking before my daughter was born because my boyfriends mom at the time owned a scrap booking shop. Instead of getting flowers after fights I would get scrap booking supplies and it grew from there! But with a new boyfriend (who ended up being my husband 7 years ago today) I no longer got a free supply of scrap booking goodies so I had to figure out a way to make scrap booking affordable.

There are a couple supplies I will not scrimp on like acid free card stock paper and acid free glue. But when you can find these on clearance or at over stock stores like Big Lots they can be pretty cheap. Also I only buy the 8 and a half by 11 papers...why?

Binders!

Especially the ones with the clear pockets on the outside. I decorate the front and back with my own creative covers. they might not be as professional looking as those store bought books but I don't know about you but I can't stand the way professional books are put together with the screws. That and you have to take the book almost completely apart to add pages. I find it very annoying.

Another reason why I buy 8 and a half by 11 paper is because I can use sheet protectors.

By using the sheet protects I can make sure that my pages stay nice and have the extra protection. I highly recommend this way of scrap booking especially this time of year...it saves so much money!
Example:

@ my local walmart - this album
is $19.99
A scrap booking kit costs $14.99 but the album matches the paper which leaves little room for creativity.

also at my local wal mart
A standard binder like the one shown above is only $3.47 (1/2 inch for smaller scrapbooks, 3 inch binders usually are about $5
25 sheet protectors are $7.94



I usually buy the 100 count. On the website it says that they are $11.94 however, when they go on sale...which should be soon, I can usually buy them for cheaper then that. In the 9 years I have been scrap booking I have only gone through 3 packages of sheet protectors and have 6 scrapbooks that I have used them in :) In the long run, my way is much cheaper. Maybe one of these days when I am not so focused on couponing I will show you my binder scrapbooks. Have a nice day!

My views on blog match ups

Several of the blogs I read offer match ups. Match ups are when the blogger looks at the ad and has knowledge of their own coupon inventory or coupons that are available from other sources. One website that almost every one checks is the Sunday preview.

I don't know how this website gets it's sources but they are usually right depending on which insert you actually get. Metro news papers differ from suburban news papers, thus the reason why I started buying different papers other then just my local paper.

Bloggers live all over the us, and some even in Canada. The cost of living is different in other cities as well so when you read a blogger's coupon match up you have to take into consideration where they are coming from. I am lucky enough to live in a state that doesn't pay sales tax so if I were to do a match up it would be slightly different then other places. Also some locations price differently based on the local area so if I read a blog from say Portland which is 100 miles away from me, some of our deals will not match up exactly either.

Bloggers tend to give you a key to read their match ups as well. once you get the key down it isn't all gibberish but it still is a bit to keep track of so I have taken to glance at their match ups and then go to the stores web site (say Walgreens for instance) and check the ad myself for my area so that I can figure out what will work for me.

Basically in short, what I am saying is go ahead and read the match ups but also do your own research, maybe you will catch something they didn't!

My day at Target

Well today was an interesting shopping trip to Target. I am going to do this a bit differently then I normal do my "haul" posts. As much as us new couponers have been getting a bad rep (don't steal inserts, don't clear shelves!) there are some cashiers who just do not like couponers period. I have been a cashier, I knew cashiers who were couponers. Yes, it takes a couple extra minutes to go over the coupons and ring them in. Yes, sometimes you have to manually key in the coupon if the printable coupon does not scan. And us NICE new couponers, will be patient and promise not to jump your tail end over every little coupon. If my coupon doesn't work I am ok with that, i will even put the item back FOR YOU.

(sigh) sorry ok little rant is over, needless to say I had a not so nice/smart cashier today at Target. Here is how my transaction should have gone. ( I do want to say that this is a good thing and a bad thing before I start this 'should have been' scenario and you will see why when i tell you what really happened.)

So as some of you may have noticed, I like going to Target now because you can stack a Target printable coupon with a manufacturers coupon.
I started out in the food section, my target is not a super target yet, so they have a very small food section. I printed out the new coupon from coupons.com for buy 3 pop tarts save $2.00, Target also had new coupons today that included a $1 off of three boxes. 

I had two of each coupon, so 6 boxes of pop tarts...yum!

6@ 2.65 ea = 15.90 - $6 = 9.90, or 1.65 a box.

Then I had 3 Hershey's chocolate bars from last Sunday's paper. $1 off of 2 pkgs. A while back I had printed the target coupon for .50 cents off of 1.

So I bought 6

6@ $2.49 ea = 14.94 - 3.50 = 11.44, or approx 1.91 a package

Target also has there back to school displays already started...my daughter just got out of school 3 weeks ago! However they had some great coupons for back to school at Target.com

Besides they had composition books for .25 cents, I got these really great deals

(whoa wow, I just realized that my not so nice cashier nor myself realized that I got the wrong pencils!)

Paper mate products, for 1.09 . $1 off target printable makes it .09 cents!

Bic writing utensils .99 cents each, I decided to be nice and buy 2. so original price was 1.98 - $1 target printable = .98 for 2

Sharpie permanent marker, original price 1.54 - $1 target printable = .54!

Then I needed to get storage bags...



These were on sale for $2.99 and yes I had $1 off target printable for this too so my total was 1.99 :)

(some locations you might be lucky enough not to have a peelie stealer and be able to get this down just a little bit more.)

... and to top off my shopping trip I needed dog food, Target had Kibbles and Bits on sale for 11.49...no coupon for this one, it was just a good deal :)

So the right way that my transaction should have gone. My 8 year old daughter would hand the coupons to the cashier who would say thank you and then would begin to ring up our transactions.

Here is how it should have came out: 21.34 in food stamps and 15.34 out of pocket, total = 36.68. Thank you and have a nice day :)

............................ Instead this is how my transaction really went.

-My daughter was making sure she had all the coupons when the lady held out her hand for them and put them on the counter.

-The lady rang up our order and then went to look at the coupons. She rubbed one printable coupon up against the scanner with force and says "These printable coupons never work, they are such a pain in the butt."

- Then instead of keying in the coupon sku she uses a master code to take off the coupon amount...of all the coupons!

Food Stamp balance, $27.84. Out of pocket cost $9.74 , total cost 37.58 (the main discrepancy being that I did not get the paper mate pencils, I accidentally bought the bic pencils which are 1.99)

Now like I said this is a good thing and a bad thing. It's a bad thing because the cashier did not do her job correctly...at all! She should be courteous to all patrons, check the coupons with the products and use the correct coupon codes, then we would have approx 5 more dollars on our food stamps.

However since she did not do her job correctly I do not feel bad that we only paid 9.74 for a big bag of dog food, storage bags and school supplies. What have you found out about cashiers when you use coupons? Have a safe and happy Fourth of July





Printable coupons, where to find them and more!

Being the first of the month, this is the best time to print out your monthly coupons. Now granted they add coupons to most sights throughout the month but a lot of them reset at the beginning of the month.

A little advice on printing coupons. Most sights will only allow you to print a coupon twice from a computer. Extreme couponers have several coupons, since I am just starting out I have my house computer and my little notebook laptop computer. So once I have gone through and printed all the ones I want off of my home computer I unhook my printer ( it would be nicer if I had a wireless printer, I just turned one down last weekend, now I wish I didn't) and print the same coupons from my notebook. I have found that the more coupons you have the more you seem to save.

The best source for online coupons is Coupons.com

Go to coupons.com

Another great source for printable coupons is the Grocery Coupon Network

Go to Coupon Network

There are other sites like this one that will allow you to load coupons onto your savings card, but to be honest I haven't tried a lot of them but I hope to soon.

The other two good ones are Smart source and Red Plum... these are the same that bring you the inserts in the Sunday papers :)

I might have mentioned it before but another favorite tip of mine is that there are store out there that will let you combine a manufacturers coupon with a store coupon. My favorite being target. You can get target coupons here!

The new stipulation for this type of coupon stacking is that you can not use two bogo (buy one get one ) coupons...however ask other stores , the last one I heard was that Walgreen's will allow you to do this, therefore getting the item free, but do not quote me on that.

On a side note, I know that some family members of mine are traveling this holiday weekend so i want to say to you as well as them, Be Safe and have a great 4th. 



Day 26...

I am very very sorry for my absence, like I said in my previous blog I got a visit from the mean old bill fairy who turned off my Internet because I was behind in payments. Something i do intend to work on. Also, I needed to write my research paper for Law an Ethics, so ethically that was more important then my blog, but I can catch you up over the last 2 weeks.

Like I have said before I do not do much couponing during the week in between school and the family it is a bit hard. So last Saturday (June 25th) I stayed up until 5 am writing my research paper. As the sun started to come up I thought to myself, " I better get a couple of hours of sleep if I intend on getting my coupons and going shopping." I set my alarm for 7 am.

I was still a bit tired when the alarm went off so I asked my husband to go get my papers. He was able to get my 2 local papers but when he asked about The Oregonian ( Portland Oregon's newspaper, usually has better regional ads) they were already completely out of them. I was really disappointed. So my sweet understanding husband (not the one that is sometimes clueless about my needs[ :) ] ) decided to take me all over town searching desperately for an Oregonian. We went clear across Eugene and Springfield and out to the rural town of Veneta , one way is about 20 miles. No luck. So lesson learned, we will get up at 6 am every Sunday to get the paper.

So as far as the world of couponing that should catch you up. now I will write my advice blogs :)