Peelie Heaven!

Ok I am sorry, I really should say that Albertsons is not the only store that has amazing deals but for me it's the most convienet and really does have some awesome deals! I have also decided to try a new approach to my blogs so we will see how this goes...

In my opinion this is the best thing Albertsons has ever done. It is only going on this week. All of those random change coupons that you have saved...you can round up to a dollar this week! But the three best deals I found today were from peelies.

What are peelies...See the pink coupon on the above package? That is a peelie. coupons that you can peel and use when you get to the check out but don't do this....

I took this picture at Target when I first started couponing. If it is an awesome peelie, don't take it off the product! Not unless you plan on buying the product that day! Or else other people will not be able to take advantage of the deal.

Ok off my soap box and back to subject at hand

I always look at this part of the ad. Sometimes it's not worth my time but other times it is a life saver!

ok so good to great on this promo this week.

So the "peelies" on these were actually coupons that were taped onto the boxes. 1.00 off of 2

buy 10 without the coupon = 14.90

find 5 of the 1.00 off coupons ( I think these are in the new savings book up front) = 9.90 for all of them or .99 a box

They have these on the promo as well.  These were in a display up front, w/ peelies!

buy 10 = 14.90

use 10 peelies ( because the coupon is for .55 off of 1) and ROUND UP!

final total = 4.90 or .49 a box!

BEST DEAL!

( we use these for the holidays, lots of great recipes, might post the banana pudding recipe)

ok 10 of these are 7.50

wonderful peelie on the display said .55 off of 2

Grab 5 peelies!

ROUND UP!

2.50 total or .25 a box! :)

I did a whole bunch of shopping today but these were my 3 best deals... more blogs to come :)



speaking of box tops for education!

Go to this web sight and see if your store participates, I can't believe how much I have earned for my daughter's school and let's face it...most public schools need as much help as they can get!

Box tops for education and my shopping trip today

So much stuff it covered my entire freezer chest...and I don't have a small one!

I did try to get some closer up pictures to really show you what I got but my camera batteries died :(

Here is everything I bought today...
10 boxes of Hamburger Helper
4 boxes of Butter and Herb Betty Crocker boxed potatoes
2 Frito Lay variety packs
10 cans of Green Giant canned Vegetables
4 boxes of frozen Green Giant Vegetables
5 boxes of Totino's pizza rolls
2 boxes of Toaster Strudels
2 regular Jello puddings
2 Jello Temptations
1 6pk of Pepsi bottles
Shoppers Value potato chips
1 lb of bananas
1 bag of bakery chocolate chip cookies

2 Rump roasts

2 pre-seasoned chicken halves

chicken drumsticks

" thighs

total before Albertsons savings $184.08

Now down to the nitty gritty and how I saved 56%

Albertson's Box Tops for Education promotion:
Buy 10 items listed in the promotion save 5.00 and get 25 box tops ( I ended up getting 35 box tops for each set)
10 boxes of Hamburger Helper @ .50 each = 5.00
- (2) 1.00 off of 5 coupons (from paper) = 3.00 or .30 each!
** Catalina promotion!** buy 3 get 1.00...buy 4 get 1.50...buy 5 or more get 2.00 off of meat**
So I got 2.00 off of my next purchase of meat.

4 boxes Betty Crocker potatoes @ .50 each = 2.00
- 1.00 off of 2 (printable) = 1.00 or .25 each!

5 boxes of Totino's pizza rolls @ 1.00 each= 5.00
- 1.00 off of 2 ( printable) = 4.00 or .80 each

10 cans of Green Giant veggies @.50 each = 5.00 (great deal, no coupon)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Catalina promotion**
buy 4 jello products get a 3.00 off next purchase Catalina
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In ad coupon, 4.99 for Frito Lay multi packs (limit 2)

Bogo Rump Roast
Bogo seasoned Chicken

1.99 per lb chicken thighs
1.29 per lb chicken legs

oh yeah, and the free stuff!  Often at Albertsons you can get Catalina print outs for free stuff! I had 3 of them, 1 for free cookies, 1 for free bananas and 1 for free shopper's value potato chips!

Total after coupons and preferred savings = 86.08
(total saving on just this trip is 110.68)

It's September

Ok I have decided that being busy is no excuse to not post anything so (don't hold me to this) I am making a bigger effort into posting. What have I been up to? College, family and photography. I have been hard at work trying to keep my grades up and I really want to start my own photography business, so I have started playing around with that.

So, it's the beginning of the month. That means it is time to print out new coupons. I used to go to coupons.com, however I found out that through my points.com you can earn points every time you redeem your printable coupons.

For other coupons I go here Smart source and here coupon network .



Also I regularly check printable coupons and deals , where I found these coupons.

Family game night coupons

This sight has a lot of the family game night coupons available, and this year I have sworn (like I have other years before) that I am going to start my Christmas shopping this month. I have seen most of these games at Wal-Mart for $5.00 each and most of the coupons from this sight have been 3.00 and 4.00 off! If I don't buy them for my kids I will defiantly donate them to toys for tots (later on this year I will post my toys for tots story).

Also I will be updating my face book profile friend me on face book!

So, hope you all haven't forgotten me and i am vowing not to let you down!

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!

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!

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.