just saying....

Hey everyone, thanks for bearing with me. I got a visit from the overdue fairy and they turned off my Internet (thus the reason why I am writing this quick blog from a school computer...got to love college!) but it should be on again soon. Thank you everyone for still reading I have still so much to share and am thinking about doing a Wednesday Wellness post to blog my healthy couponing/life choice for the week. I will post a lot when I get back up and running. Again thank you everyone!

Being fair!

Day 9
Maybe it comes down to morals, or maybe I have just been paying too much attention to my law and ethics class this term, but some people are down right mean!

So as I have said I have been couponing for a little over a month before I started this blog. One thing I found out quickly is that there are mean shelf clearers in my area.

A shelf clearer is someone who just because they have the coupon capacity for it will take everything off the shelf. No one else can get this deal after they have done this! At my Walgreens the store has even gone as far to put little notes out saying they are sorry that these items are out of stock and they will not be offering rain checks! Last night I went to Wal-mart to get in on a great deal. Use the $2.00 off Dial body wash coupons from this Sundays insert and buy a travel size body wash...by doing that you get 1.03 overage you can use on other products you do not have coupons for. When I got there I only found 1. The one I found I had to dig for so whoever grabbed the others didn't know they forgot one, yeah! But I still have 3 of those coupons I would like to use!

Another thing I have noticed is that some people like to take peelies. Now if there is a tear pad on a display I will take a couple of those coupons but peelies are stuck right on the product. like this...

That I feel is not right! If you have a coupon for the product and you want to combine it with a peelie buy the product, don't take the peelie off a product you are not buying just because you like the savings!

Well here is my last pet peeve. I decided because of people like these I would wake up early yesterday and get the garnier deal at Albertsons (buy 2 garnier shampoo or conditioners - makes them 2.50 each. use 2 printable 1.00 off garnier coupon and the Albertsons twice the value coupon makes the final price .50 cents each). So I walked down to the store at 7 am. I bought 2 local papers from the cashier and went to look for my twice the value coupons. I had planned on buying the shampoo and conditioner and some cat food. I had no problem finding the albertsons ad so I grabbed the shampoo and conditioner but when I headed down the pet isle I realized that I still couldn't afford the cat food I had a coupon for so I went to look through my papers I realized that someone had taken the smart source and red plum coupons! Pouting I walked up to the cashier who was looking at a paper himself when I walked up and began my transaction. 

"Really quick, can you check that paper and see if there are any red plum and smart source coupons in there, mine didn't have any." I said
" I was just wondering about that myself, " he said. "Another lady was looking at the papers for a bit before she bought hers and I think she took a lot of the adds out."

We confirmed that my paper had been rummaged through and the inserts had been taken so he went to a just opened bundle of papers and grabbed me 2 more. When I got home I realized that these two had been gone through but I at least had the red plum inserts.Worried that I wouldn't get the coupons I needed I later sent my husband back to the store to get a Portland based paper.

But why if your going to buy a paper anyway, why not buy 2 or 3, not steal from other people buying the paper! Be fair!

there that's my little soap box for the day. Hope you all have a good day.

Some hits and misses

Day 7
During the week it's a bit hard for me to post but I will get better.
I do check facebook and my blogs every day. I have even created a facebook for this page here. When I find out deals via facebook or the blogs I usually share them on Face Book.

I did do a couple attempts at shopping this week. 1 was really successful, the other to not so bad. I have an hour long break during school on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I rushed over to Shopko. For thise of you who know Shopko ( they do not have meny locations). I love the place because of thier great clearnace deals. I was able to get a set of 4 glasses for a friends bridal shower tomorrow for only $4.99. The sad part is that they have a really great deal on Pringles ($1.00 each) but they do not accept the food stamp card. (Yes I am on food stamps, no I don't plan to stay that way thus part of this whole couponing craze). Didn't need them anyway :)

On the way home from school that night I decided run to Wal-Mart and give in to my idea that carrying around a coupon binder would make me look silly. I already had a zipper binder that I was using for school, so I was able to grad some baseball card holders for about $5. 

Yesterday (even though it still feels like today for me) I decided to put all of my cut out manufacturers coupons into the binder. Would you believe it took me almost 4 hours??? But I felt so much better ater I did it. Now I shouldn't have an excuse for missing any coupons as long as I have my binder with me. I don't have to shuffle through my small cardboard organizer as much. I did decide to put all of my printable coupons back into my cardboard organizer though, they didn't fit nicely into the baseball card pockets. Plus I have made a conscious decision to keep coupon books I get from say, Albertsons or Walgreens,I can put them in the little file folder part of my binder :)

My really successful trip (yesterday) was at Safeway (known by different names in different places.) Right now they are running a sale when you buy 8 participating items they take off an extra .50 cents. Here is what I bought.

Each of these I had a coupon for.

Original price was $2.49 when you use it as part of the sale it goes down to 1.99 each
- $1.00 off of 2 = 2.98 total

(actual picture from the Safeway ad)
as you can see, these are also 1.99 each using the Mix and Match sale.
-$1.00 off of 2= 2.98

(again another ad picture)
2 = 1.58
- .50 off of 2 = 1.08

on sale these were 1.69 each, I bought 2
-1.00 off of 2 coupon = 2.38

So my grand total for all 8 items = $9.42
Total year to date savings = 25.38

One more blog for the night before I try to go to sleep.

I wanted to share these articles that were recently in my local paper, they have really good advice in them and are pretty interesting reading. Enjoy!
The joy of clipping, Eugene Register Guard
&
Couponer etiquette, Eugene Register Guard

A blog about coupon blogs

Ok, I should really say this now before I get too far into this expierement. I learned a lot from watching Extreme Couponing but I also owe a lot of my education on the topic to the various blogs I read daily. So I want to give credit to them, as they do deserve it! Here is a list of all the blogs I currently follow.














And these are just some of them. (some buttons wouldn't loan and others didn't have buttons.) So I would also recomend you look up:

Loaded Coupon Book
I Heart The Mart
Printable Coupons and Deals
Cut, Clip, Save!
and as of tonight.... Stockpiling Mom.

I could not learn as much as I have so far without reading these blogs, so if any of these blog auther's are reading this, Thank you so much.
Check them out, tell them Jo sent you.

Day 4

A Trip to Walgreen's
It has been a long day. I got some alone time when I went to my doctors appointment today so after the appointment I headed to Walgreen's.

Each store has unique specials/ savings that really make couponing worth while. For Walgreen's, it is their Register Rewards. I am still learning about everything I can do with these so I will share with you what I know. You get Register Rewards by buying participating items. These rewards are like cash back that you can use only at Walgreen's. In the ad you can scope out what sale items will get Register Rewards. You really have to read the fine print though because some Walgreen's have restrictions that limit how many Register Rewards you can get per transaction.

You can use manufactures coupons to get the Register Rewards which = big savings and sometimes even freebies! See the example I posted? This is what you will see in your local Walgreen's ad. Note the total is "like paying" and not your actual total.

I did my first transaction actually on the other side of town. The great thing about Walgreen's is that when they decide to build one in your area, they can not stop at just one! My town has a population of about 57,000 people and is 8 miles east to west. In my town we now have 3 Walgreen's! Anyway I started at the one near my bank. This is where I decided to make my initial transaction and get my Register Rewards.

It was on sale for $9.89
I used 1 manufacturers coupon for $4.00 off
I paid 5.89 and got a $5.00 Register Reward back!
So it was like paying .89 cents!

The cashier at this store was really nice, so I decided to ask her, how many Register Rewards can you get per transaction? She was able to tell me that you can get 1 Register Reward for every item that offers it. This means that even if you have say 10 of these razors, you will still get only one $5.00 register reward for it. However, if you got this deal and say got one of the Sobe's that are on sale for $1 that offers a $1 Register Reward (making it free). Then you would get the $5 from the razor and $1 from the Sobe :)

Also before I left, she said "You better take one of these" and handed my their June 2011 coupon book! I don't remember seeing this on any of the blogs I follow. ( blog about blogs coming up shortly). It was like giving a little kid a piece of candy! I was so happy :)

So then I headed to my side of town to pick up my mom's prescription and take advantage of my new $5 Register Rewards. I thought I could be crafty and use this purchase to get another Register Reward. Nope. (If you know different please tell me.) I needed toilet paper anyway, so I grabbed a 12 pack of Angel soft . I could have sworn the tag said that I would get a $3 Register Reward and pay 3.50 for it but either the tag was wrong or it was actually on sale. Thinking that I would have gotten another Register Reward I went and grabbed two 9 oz Johnson and Johnson baby lotions ( 2 of my friends are expecting babies, so I have been slowly getting stuff together to give to them.) It was a fairly slow day so I asked this cashier if I could do two transactions. He said not a problem. Here is how this played out.

I wanted to get the toilet paper with my Register Rewards from the other store. I also had a .50 cent printable coupon that I tried to apply, but the register wouldn't except it :/ However, the Angel Soft ended up being on sale for $6.00 so after my Register Reward, I paid $1.00 for that transaction.

Then it was time for my baby lotion. These were on sale buy 1 get 1 half off. The first one was $2.99 and the second one was $1.49. I had 2 coupons for $1.00 off ( also printable) bringing my total for this transaction $2.48

Here is my little man, showing off my haul!

So retail price for all three transactions (assuming that the toilet paper is on sale and I had no coupons.)
$ 20.37
 Actual price that I paid today = $9.37
A savings of $11.00......total saving for the year thus far = $17.28

day 3 (read day 2 first ) :)

Target has become one of my favorite stores! You can really get some great deals there. For one, they have a savings card. For those who have good credit (not me!) it can be a credit card used only at Target . Option 2 is a debit card that is directly attached to your bank account, all you need is a blank check. Both of these cards takes 5% off of your entire purchase, even clearance items!

Another little snippet of info that is good to know... Target offers printable coupons that can be used in combination with manufactures coupons. Get coupons here! In the past month that I have been collecting coupons I have been printing these coupons as well. I used to think that shopping at Target was only for Christmas and when you have extra money but lately I have walked out of the store paying less then $20 and having more then one item in my bag.

Here is what I did today.

From Target.com

I had 2 coupons I printed out a couple of weeks ago for $2 off of a women's top. These Merona tops are on sale this week for $6, with my coupon that made them only $4 each. I ran into a little snag at the register though. Apparently the coupon I had limited the coupon 1 per transaction. (always read the small print!) thankfully the cashier was nice about it and let us do three separate transactions. I will explain how that works in a bit.

Here is my third transaction

Here is how it worked out.
The Pampers sensitive wipes are 1.97 right now. Pampers sends you coupons if you sign up on their website here . My coupon was for $1.50 - final cost= .47 cents. Pocket change hehe :)

Up and Up is Target's store brand.
I had a 10% off 2 office supplies Target coupon.
Binder clips original price $1.49 - 10% = 1.34
Paper clips original price $1.29 - 10% = 1.16

I also had .50 cents off up and up beauty supply.
Small bag of cotton balls, original cost .97 cents - coupon = .47 cents

In today's paper was the Crest Pro health for me (the kids toothpaste I mentioned in day 2)
original price $2.79 each which means it would be $5.58 if I paid full price for both. I paid $3.58

I printed out an Aleve coupon a while back but I can't remember where I got it from. A good resource for coupons you need that you can't find is a coupon data base. The one I use most often is a full cup.com . You can search for lots of different coupons here. Anyways...
Aleve 50 ct, original price $5.39 - 2.00 printable coupon = $3.39

My total for all of the items in my third transaction if I didn't use coupons would have been $16.69. With coupons we paid only $10.41. Not bad that means I saved $6.28. See I am learning.

Back to the idea of doing multiple transactions. Usually it isn't much hassle, however a word of advice ( this comes from many sources) if your multiple transactions are going to be large, let people with smaller items go after you have made your first transaction. After all, everyone hates long lines and I for one do not like to keep people waiting. My transactions were small. Usually Target has deals where you buy a certain amount of a product ( like 3 packages of Huggies Diapers) and get a $5.00 gift card. It is a good idea if you plan to make a purchase to get the $5 card to have your first transaction be the things you are purchasing for said card. Then take the card and use it towards another transaction. If it is slow, most cashiers will not mind doing the transactions back to back but please keep other customers in mind.

well that's my day/ days thus far. running total of saving starting today $6.28
later 'today' after a doctors appointment I am going to go to Walgreens. My second favorite store :)