Tackle it Tuesday

Today I tackled a lot. First was my fear of new places and uncomfortable situations. I had to go to a tire and lube place to get an oil change and a tire fixed. I had never been there before so it made me very uncomfortable. Needless to say I took my devotional and Paul's small carry bible and sat in the waiting area until they were done. It wasn't too bad. I did think my heart would come out of my chest, but as I did my bible study my spirit calmed. I did find that the tire lining was ruined but thankfully they did prorate the tires so it was not as bad, still $83 though.
Then I hit Kroger, got some more tuna packets for the kids lunches, some more free milk by buying the Kellogg's 4 for $10- with coupons and then also got 4 things of blistex for free, 6 things of green giant veggies for free and some cookies- Oreo I might add for free off my free milk purchase, pretty nice. On the way in I found a $10 Catalina someone threw on the ground for Walgreen's, so I can use that with the $2 one I already had. I just need to find a great deal to spend the $12 on.
I also got paid for a set of Potholders I figured I was doing for free, that was a nice surprise. Made up for some of the free stuff I am donating for a Baking Basket for a grade that neither of my children are even in. The towels above are for that basket and that is the last of my tackle it Tuesday, which somewhere between oil/tires and groceries I ran home, unloaded the food, ran out the door hit McD's for a hamburger and coke, then to a PTO meeting, then home to help with homework and to do the towels. Hoping to still get dinner made, more homework done and a set of potholders before the night is through. Then just maybe some sleep :-)

Coupon Saturday

First we stopped at Food Basket twice this week and took advantage of the free 4 lb sugar coupon.. I love their free items every week and am very thankful to my friend Pam who always gives me hers, then my friend Diane does when she remembers. It really helps us out.
Tonight after church which was amazing- Rick Warren's music leader came and led worship tonight, pretty awesome, anyway we stopped at Kroger.
I had 4 coupons for Star Kist Tuna packets- at $1 and the sale of $1 all 4 were free
Carefree liners were also $1 and again I had a coupon for $1 so it was free
They had their Kelloggs/Keebler sale of 4 for $10 I had 1 coupon for Townhouse crackers $2/2
Then 2 coupons for $1/1 on another cracker they sale- so my $10 now becomes $6 and I got two free gallons of milk with the deal which rang up at $2.38 each. I felt really good about that. I will do it again on Tuesday - but with Kelloggs cereal instead
I also took advantage of the Prego Heart Smart 2 for $4, then a coupon for $1 each, so made them $1 each.

My Closeout Items were in the Female aisle
I was excited to have brought in my household binder-it is for soap, toothpaste etc.. I almost didn't because it was not on my list.
I got 8 various Kotex/Stayfree items. I had coupons for all of them and a thing of Monistat on clearance $10.79 with a $3 coupon...all for about $15- I was pretty excited, a couple of the bags of Kotex were on clearance for $1.97 and I had a $1 off for both of them. I wiped out all my coupons on the page with the closeouts they were having.

Another good find was Chewable Vitamin C, they were BOGO, I had 2 $1 off coupons, so for two bottles I paid $4
With the 10 for $10 I also had coupons for Knorr Pasta so I got 4 of those
A bottle of Ketchup for 1.59- I now have 4 so that will get us through a whole year stockpile wise.
I allowed each of the kids to get a pint of BlueBell Icecream since they were 10/$10
and I bought myself a Newspaper and a bottle of my favorite juice- Strawberry Cranberry- which only Kroger seems to make anymore.
Oh and we had to make an unexpected by of posterboard thankfully it was only. 52cents
I felt I did pretty good. With the Mega Sale find on female items a while ago, I think I am not set for a year, as long as our daughter does not start anytime soon.

So the real breakdown...
MFG CPN 25.70
Kroger Plus Savings 28.24
Total coming to 53.94
Then I spent 51.45.. I was pretty excited but 1.45 over what I wanted- granted the kids were not supposed to get the icecream- that was a DAD approved expense.

Kroger Deals for this week

There are not as many deals that I will use this week at Kroger this week, maybe it is more that we don't typically buy as many of the items on sale this week. There is one that I am very excited about. The StarKist Tuna packages. These are great for my daughters lunch, sometimes the boys take them. I found a way to print 4 coupons for $1 off then I just ordered 10 of the $1/2 from My Coupon Hunter. She is super quick at turning around orders so I will get them in plenty of time to shop before Tuesday when the sale is over. I will make two trips this week to ensure I get my free Tuna and Free Green Giant Veggies. Kelloggs Deal buy any 4 for $10 and get 2 free Gallon of milk, I will do this at least once but maybe twice, we easily go through 4 gallons of milk in a week.

Starkist Tuna Pouch from there site here 10/$10
Coupon from My Coupon Hunter Here
Green Giant Veggies 10/$10
Blistex 35 cents off 1 from My Coupon Hunter Here
BlueBell Pint IceCream 10/$10
Louisianna Fish Fry also from My Coupon Hunter- will be in this weeks paper in SS
Kelloggs Items- Coupons.com, ss various weeks, also this week they have some kind of snack in the ss, and I got some free from the store from their SS box
Redplum also has one you can print here
(this included 2 dif cereal coupons, Keebler cracker coupon and a Kelloggs snack coupon- all in the 4/$10 sale)

I might purchase some Totinos Pizzas, Pace Salsa, Pepperridge Farm Garlic Bread and Prego Spaghetti Sauce, it depends I have coupons for everything but the Pizza, but we only have $50 to work with this week. Just depends on how well my other savings are I guess.

Happy Shopping and Deals.. Really do give My Coupon Hunter a look - esp if you are specific to your items. Depending on the coupon savings depends on the handling fee of the coupon, then it is just 45 cents to ship first class. I spent less then $2 this week and got at least $12 in savings (off sale prices)

Shopping Day Saturday

I think Saturdays may become my normal shopping day. The store is a little more crowded but it just seems to fit in my schedule better for now. This week I just went to Kroger. I did not find that I needed anything at Walmart this week. Kroger's had a Mega Sale and it was full of really good deals, even if you did not have coupons for some of the items. Like Rotel- at 40 cents a can. You just can't beat that. We eat a lot of queso around here and love Rotel for things like enchiladas so I stocked up. Another item I stocked up on was Kraft cheese. I had 5 coupons for $1 off 2. That meant I got 10 bags for $1 each. Great deal. I had a BOGO for Always products- 2 of those. What was nice was she gave me the org price of $3+ for the second one so instead of the sale price of $2.49 for each first product I got them for an additional $1 off. Making 4 Always products $1.49 each. I was highly impressed. Another item I did really well on was I can't believe its not butter. I must admit I tend to be pretty loyal to brand. This is not one I would generally buy. However, it is really hard to pass up a sale for 99 cents on the two pack when you have a $1 off coupon.
I feel I did pretty good. I do not have pictures this week as honestly all but the cold food is still in the bags. We still do not have our side room finished so I can't even put all the food away. The table from last week still has last weeks food on it. I think we might try to just put it all in containers for now since my husband will probably have overtime all week and not get to it until next weekend. It is a pretty funny site to start a stockpile and have so much food and no where for it to all go. I miss the old days of having a pantry in my kitchen.
So the breakdown
I paid 105.27- included 2 papers
MFG savings 43.82
Bonus Coupons 4.00
Kroger Plus $85.05
Total Savings $132.87

Not too bad. I must admit my cashier was the best yet. I handed her this forever stack of coupons and she laid them in two piles and pulled them one at a time. She would even print the receipt- which she did three times to make sure coupons scanned. She was so highly impressed. However the very nice but young bagging person said even though I saved so much she would rather not go to all the work. I'd like to see her unemployed and with three kids then see how she feels :-) For me it is worth every penny we saved. I just hope I can get even better at it because I only had the $100 to play with this week due to a quilt sale. Normally our weekly budget for food is more like $20-40. Pretty hard to feed a family of five on that.

Oh and we bought $10 in rotel items so I will submit my receipt to get $25 in savings back from ConAgra Foods.

Kroger's Shopping Trip

I started with Kroger's this week because I had some coupons that worked with the 10 for $10 sale they were hosting this week. I also saw a couple things in the ad that I was interested such as Stayfree/Carefree for $2.49 and then I had a coupon for $1 off. I also had a couple coupons for Wheaties Cereal- the new one called Fuel, and they had it on sale. I am thankful to my friend Pam who gave me a couple of Pillsbury coupons. It helped me get 9 for less than I would have spent, as the only 10 for $10 this week were the smaller ones and I didn't have 3 coupons total for that. I took advantage of a couple of sales in addition to coupons and the 10 for $10 and did really well this week, not as good as a month ago though, I had so many more coupons on that trip.
Breakdown of how I did
MFG Cpn $14.05
Bonus Cpn $1.95
Kroger plus savings 26.41
Total coupons $42.36
I spent $62.86 more than i wanted to but I stocked up on some can soup and pineapple. Neither of which I had coupons for. Bummer as I did have Campbell's coupons a month ago, but they are now expired. :-( I was still pleased. I got one of the packages of Carefree for .19 plus tax...I had a coupon for $1 off a package I was buying that I already had a coupon for $1 for.. I just simply peeled it off that package, picked up a different one that was for $1.19 and then it came to .19 cents. A great find... one side note I did have to pay full price for two items- the cranberry juice. I didn't have juice coupons and I really do like the Cran-Straw that Kroger's sells- they are the only place I can ever find it. So for me I am willing to fork over the 1.99 each. Then I also did pick up a Sunday Paper so that was an additional $2. I need to look into getting that cheaper somewhere.