Ok I have spent all week obtaining coupons and scoping out sales ads and planning a couponing trip! I went on this shopping trip yesterday and I believe it paid off!!! :-) You really can save a lot of money if you learn how to work your coupons with your ads and take advantage of your store "perks". Here is a little summary of my adventure :-)
CVS TRIP
My biggest savings trip was CVS! I ended up getting $75.32 worth of items and only spending $15.36!!! Here are some of the savings I took advantage of!
I did this trip in two transactions so that I could use my earned ECBs for savings yesterday!
Transaction 1:
Gain Dishwashing Liquid -they had it on sale for $0.97 and I had two coupons of get $1/1. So I got two bottles FREE!!!
They were also doing a sale where if you spent $20 in purchases of selected items you get $10 ECB. I bought a Airwick Automatic starter - it was priced at $6 (normal price $12) and I had a $4/1 coupon. I bought a Airwick Compact starter - it was priced at $5 (normal price $10) and I had a $2/1 coupon. I bought a double refill for the warmer (that I bought elsewhere) for $5 and had a $1/1 coupon. I ended that $20 purchase with a $4 lysol disinfectant. So $20 worth of items - $7 in coupons which means I was out of pocket on this transaction $13 BUT I got $10 ECB!!! (Which is the same as paying $3 for all of these items!!!)
They had a special on their Special K bars - by 3 pkg and get $4 ECB. The say was 3/$10 and I had a $2/3 coupon. So I paid $8 and got $4 in ECB, so I really spent $4 for 3 boxes of Special K Bars!
I also had a coupon to get a full size Essence of Beauty item ($3.99 value) FREE!! (which by the way I got the Pomegranate Apple hand soap and it smells wonderful!!!)
I also had a $4 off a $20 purchase coupon (and it applies to the gross total, before coupons!)
So this first transaction I spent $15.36 and got $14 back in ECB!!!
Here is what I did on the 2nd transaction:
I got a 36 count bag of eggs for $2.99 (had to have them for our Easter party this morning)
They had Dove eggs candy 2/$6 and I had a $1/2 coupon so I got them 2/$5.
I bought a bag of Wonka sweetarts - on sale for $2.50 and I had a $0.55/1 coupon so got them for $1.95
I bought 2 Xtra Detergents. They had them on sale for $1.49 each. I had a $1/2 coupon so I paid $1.98 ($0.99 each)
The total for this transaction was $11.92 - I gave both my ECB to them, which was $14. So I was nothing out of pocket. (Hind sight though - I should have kept the $4 ECB for a later shopping trip because I only needed $1.92 from it and they applied that but I did not get the other $2.08 back...oh well, I'm learning!)
So in total I spent $15.36 for $75.32 (retail value) of items!! WHOO HOO!!
Target Trip!
Probably the 2nd biggest savings trip of the day was Target where I got $105.63 worth of items and only paid $48.86!!
The key to Target is to find the deals where you can stack Target coupons on top of MF coupons! And find the deals where you get back the gift cards!
I won't tell you every item I bought because I bought a lot of stuff!! But here are some of the best deals that I got!
They had Glade's new Spring Collection on sale. I got a room spray that was priced at $2.99. I had a $1/1 target coupon and a $1/1 MF coupon - which means I got the spray for $0.99
I had a Target coupon if you buy a Airwick warmer refill double pack ($4.89) you got the warmer free ($2.49). I had MF for $1 off warmer and MF coupon for $1 refill. So I got the warmer free and paid $2.89 for the refill!!
They were running a good sale on Green Works cleaning products. If you bought 3 cleaning items you got the dishwashing liquid (2.59) free. I bouth the glass cleaner (2.49), all purpose cleaner (2.49) and toilet bowl cleaner (2.39) and I had $2 in MF coupons towards this. So I paid $5.37 for $9.96 worth of cleaners.
I got me a couple of free candies :-) They had single serve bags of Skittle Blenders for $0.69 and I had a MF coupon $1.50/2 of ANY Skittles blenders - so they were FREE!
They had another deal if you bought 3 of selected Always and Tampax items you got a $5 gift card. I bought a box of Always pantyliners $5.49 (had $1 MF coupon), and two boxes of Tampax tampons ($5 each) and had 2 MF coupons - each were $1/1. So I paid $12.49 and got back $5 (which I used in a second transaction) so I really got all this for $7.49!
I did have some other items that I matched MF coupons with Target coupons for good savings but these were the big highlights!
Walgreens
I also found some good savings at Walgreens! They had a sale going - they had their small pkg of Carefree pantyliners on sale for $0.99 (reg $1.49) and you got back $0.99 in RR!! (so do the math - you get them free!!) They only allowed one per transaction - but I had two transactions so I made sure I had one in each!
They also had a deal if you bought two Got2B styling products you got $5 in RR. They had them on sale for $5 each and I had a coupon for $2/1 so I paid $8 and got $5 RR (which I used on the next transaction...so I really only paid $3)
On my second transaction they were out of all the products I was going to buy to take advantage of using my RR...but I found that they had Disney Princess balls (big balls) so I grabbed one for Alyssa's birthday and used my RR to pay for it!! :-)
That was my biggest savings! I did have a little bit of price matching and coupon use at Wal-Mart! But I need to figure out how to get hold of more grocery ads for price matching so I can do better there! I also took advantage of a few savings at HEB!
And I figured out I still need to work on my organization of my coupons and shopping lists and stuff! But I think I am going to like saving all this money!!
And it is a good thing I saved money! I came home to find out our toilet broke and flooded the bathroom hall and boys room! I came home to the carpet pulled up and carpet padding drying on the porch. We had to go last night and buy new toilet and vanity and I have got company coming TODAY for Alyssa's birthday party that is TOMORROW!! Crazy!
