Coupon-less

For the past several years I have taken on the endeavor of clipping coupons every Sunday, driving to Publix and CVS and attempting to save lots of money. I felt like I had gotten pretty good at CVS because I just bought the same things over and over, Tide, Dawn, shampoo... the usual and saved a good bit every time!


In the past six months though, I have slowly stopped clipping coupons altogether and officially canceled my newspaper subscription last week. I'm officially out of the coupon cutting business. Food has always been a difficult one for me with coupons because I am so picky and in my attempt to eat healthy and fresh.... apples, salad, strawberries.... those items don't have coupons!

Also a frustration is looking at the southersavers publix ad each week and most coupons I'd want are from various magazines, inserts and separate booklets that I can't even find!! This week, publix has a great ad and a lot on sale, but I just spent $200 at publix. Yes.... $200 for TWO people!!! No coupons. Everything I bought was on sale, and I had a lot to buy, but I was not happy about that bill ONE bit! My plan is for that food to last us at least 3 weeks, but now looking at this week's ad I want to buy all of it too!

With a baby coming soon, I think it would be great to have coupons for the usual baby items, but would I save enough to make a year's Sunday subscription worth it?? I had always been a huge advocate for coupons, but lately, I've lost my passion.

I need a pantry.

While waiting for Ben to turn the power back on in our den, I thought I'd update with my LONG overdue trip to CVS & Publix this morning. It was reported that the Publix Penny item was hot chocolate, but when I got there it was Kraft BBQ sauce (that I already have 2 or 3 of in my 'pantry', ugh...) Which brings me to WHY I need a pantry.


I had not grocery shopped in 3 to 4 weeks, we were completely out of butter..... try planning dinner by starting with, "what doesn't need butter...." Ben was out of all his lunch supplies.... the poor guy has eaten turkey sandwiches and a yogurt every day for over 3 years and is still keeping on.... so I can't complain that all he asks for is some cheap-o turkey and a yogurt a day. Well, you'd think my shelves would be bare after that, but that is just the problem. I have no room!!!! My shelves are full. They're full of spices and cereal and sugar, flour, corn meal, cream of mushroom soup. So there is no room for the real food we actually eat daily


I thought about where this was all going to go on my way home from Publix and almost convinced myself that Ben needed to go out as soon as I got home to buy the 8' x 12" pantry cabinet at Lowe's. One look at the budget and that thought was squashed. Maybe I'll ask for it for Christmas. (I never dreamed the day would come that I would ask for a cabinet for Christmas)...

So the totals for today are.......
Spent: $172 - yikes... however I think I bought over a months worth of food, a ton of toiletries, Christmas wrapping supplies, candles and kitchen necessities.
Saved: $160 - wahoo! AND I still have $6 extra bucks to CVS. So I nearly spent as much as I saved, but if I didn't put off my shopping for over a month I should have done better.

Oh how I love my mailbox.

(This isn't really my mailbox, but I'd give anything to have it. You can learn how by clicking on the image.)

You probably know that I am checking my mailbox frequently in hopes of receiving the results from the National Counselor Exam, well I haven't heard yet. BUT! What HAS come in the mailbox this week has made the wait a little less unbearable.

I have received all these for FREE! Yes... free! :)

Are you wondering what the heck this is? An almond tin of course! You don't know what an almond tin is?! Okay... I'll tell you. It holds the 'perfect serving size of almonds'! (I should have read the packaging better, I think its like 23 almonds. Cute!

This is my favorite! I read a blog about a woman couponing to disney and she was writing all these companies for coupons (5 a day!). Well, I am not going that far but I have written a few companies telling them I like their products (when I really do) and Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner was one of them. They had a free Scrubbing Bubbles coupon in my mailbox in 2 days!!


I think this one came from becoming a fan on facebook. Not too shabby.


TONS of $1.00 off 1 Pantene item coupons.


This one was SUCH a surprise. This one came straight from L'oreal. A full-size L'oreal Telescopic Explosion Mascara! Who needs NCE results when you have this?!


Another full-size makeup item! $$$ :) This is Glo Mineral Eye Shadow, also a facebook promo.

Sunday Funday

I did some MUCH needed shopping today now that the NCE is semi-behind me. I took the exam yesterday, but won't know how I did for 6-8 weeks.... ugh... the wait. The exam was pretty hard and used much larger words in every question than necessary. Which to add that with my test anxiety made me have to break several questions down and rewrite them in simpler forms to understand what the heck they wanted me to answer. It took me 3.5 hours to take it with our limit at 4 hours.

To celebrate that the NCE was over for the meantime and that everyone passed their Comps exam this semester, a group some of my favorite people and I went to Jackson's in Soho for dinner. It was really good food and great company. But poor Ben. He only gets to eat redmeat/pork/seafood out since I don't eat it and it doesn't make much sense to cook it for one. So he ordered a Portabello Cheesesteak. I'm pretty sure he was 75% through with his meal before he realized there was no 'steak' on the sandwich and he had ordered a vegetarian meal. I think I'll have to take him out to sushi now to make up for it. He was a trooper none-the-less.

Anyways.... back to couponing today.
I went slightly over budget today, but bought A LOT. So hopefully I will be way under budget the next few weeks because I stocked up.

Publix:
Spent $88
Saved $78

CVS:
Spent $18
Saved $41
Left w/ $9.99 Extra Bucks so I really only spent $8?

Walmart:
Spent $1.33
Saved $3.00
(I usually have a rule to not step foot into Walmart for my sanity, but went today specifically to buy Sara Lee deli meat b/c I had a $3.00 off coupon and Ben was needing it for lunch.)

And now back to school work. I have a final and a paper due Tuesday, and it will be so good to finish this weekend class and have it 100% behind me!

Thrifty Monday

This blog is for you, Matt :) I hope you convince Emily to start cutting coupons when your Publix opens!

Today was a great day at Publix, I had a lot of stocking up to do. Ben has to fend for himself a good bit while I'm in school and I eat a lot of packed lunches and dinners. Unfortunately I couldn't show you what all I bought b/c a lot of it was cold and by the time I got home it needed to get in the fridge/freezer. But.... so you can imagine, here is my receipt. (Ben was cracking up when he saw how long my receipt was)

But here is my final tally!

My buget today was $80, so $9 over budget isn't bad. (I think I saved 56.7%) I now have a FULL kitchen! 6 boxes of green giant veggies, 3 boxes of toaster strudels (free!), 4 stouffer's pizzas, 6 healthy choice meals, 2 bags of Pillsbury biscuits, 2 loaves of bread, 2 bags of asian stir fry meals, 2 large bags of shred cheese, oranges, bananas, 8 yogurts, 2 butters, cream cheese, 2 taco dinner kits, 2 bags of chex mix, 2 bags of goldfish, 2 jars of pasta sauce, 6 cans of soup, 2 cans of almonds, 4 packs of ready serve brown rice, milk, ovaltine (no coupon) gatorade (penny item), 4 cans of shaving gel (the good kind!), toothpaste, tide, bounty, charmin, dog treats, raid, hand soap and 2 FREE publix green bags! So I bought 84 items for $89, like going to the dollar tree!

Is it bad that you can see the last 4 of my card? I hope not. :)

Back to critiquing tapes.... woo!

My couponing paying off

Over at Chicks with Cents, they are doing a blog hop on people's stockpiles. They've talked about organization too but without actually having a pantry, I have no organization other than just finding a spot! So just to show you what all my couponing has done (i'm pretty sure ben and i could eat for 2 months w/o going to the store) Here you go:

Not sure if you can tell but above my cabinets are 6 boxes of mac/cheese and there are more in the cabinet! (They were free after coupon at publix a couple months ago).

Here is my other cabinet: 4 things of mayonnaise, 6 dressings, 2 A1 sauce, 2 syrups, 2 crystal light, bbq sauce and enough hot chocolate for the winter. I need someone to come over to eat pancakes! It is a rarity that I cook them, but how can you pass up $.50 pancakes/syrup! (i'm just guessing that was how much it was awhile back because I wouldn't have bought it otherwise)


Here are my purchases today. I am not even close to being as good as the amazing girls at Chicks w/ Cents or Southern Savers, but I was pleased... Spent $31 and saved $50! The penny item was greenwise TP, hiding behind the potatoes. And there is my sweet Sierra dog poking her head up for some South Beach granola bars.

Lately

So, its been awhile, but I feel like I've been super busy w/o having anything important to write about. But...

I have exactly 14 days left to study for my comps which are July 8 @ 1pm, if you would like to pray for me to remember everything I've learned in the past 2 years... this is a major deal. Its 160-200 questions and I HAVE to pass it to start my internship in the fall.

I saved $24 at CVS today and spent $6! (Thanks to chicks w/ cents and southern savers and Jessica for introducing me to it all!) -- Ben would say I'm obsessive about saving money, but I'm working on perfecting my saving skills for next year when I have to intern and cannot get paid enough to live. (Yikes) I am hoping Ben and I can eat for free on Publix specials. :)

Ben and I have been stuck in a lot of traffic on interstates in the past few weeks...
And Ben has done what is necessary to get out of that traffic. Here my main concern was being one of those cars that gets stuck in the mud in the median and has to wait on the cop to come get them out and give them a ticket. Fortunatley the 100 degree weather had dried up any mud that may prevent the Vibe from going off road.

Doggies -- http://www.crossmyheartrescue.com/ -- I have spent a lot of time making the website and am pretty pleased w/ it. :) Sam and Sadie got adopted!!! Here Sam is getting ready to meet his new family:

Free Chocolate Friday!

Could Friday be any better?
Apparently Mars chocolate is proving their chocolate is better than other companies who put vegtable oil in their candy instead of real coco... so they're giving away free chocolate on Fridays until September! Here is the article.
Here's some for you, from me :)
https://aws.realchocolate.com/