Category Archives: CVS

Miscellaneous Monday

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  • Our menu plan is very simple for this week. Leftovers for Monday and Wednesday and Pulled Pork on Tuesday.  I want to try and clean out as much of the refrigerator as possible before our trip.
  • I am working hard to achieve a good work/life balance.  I am finding it impossible. Work is crazy busy and the kids are crazy busy as well.
  • I am really looking forward to this trip just to have some down time without feeling rushed or like I should be doing something else.
  • The weather is starting and predicted to start warming up, I still do not have a plan for the square foot garden so I need to get this down on paper soon.
  • The heat is back on in our house. I am hoping that once we leave on Thursday, that will be the end of the heat for the year.
  • I have given myself a goal to earn $200 from Swagbucks by December of this year. I am so close to cashing out my first $25 that it is tempting to purchase an item that is 100% back but I don’t want to spend any money. So I will patiently or not so patient wait till closer to the end of the month to achieve this.
  • Zach is continuing to make huge improvement in soccer. He was able to score 2 goals this weekend and made 2 stops as goalie.
  • Lily has found her backhand spring at cheerleading! It is so nice to watch her tumble!

January in Review 2015

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Personal-
1. Blogging– Post 20 per month. Fail. This is post number 19. I honestly had a post in my head for yesterday but just not the energy to get out.

2.Weight Loss– 175#.  I have used the treadmill on at least 2 a week but still. FAIL

3. Spiritual– Spend at least 5 days a week, reading and studying The Bible. Fail but improvement noted with 50% success for the month.

It would not appear that January has been a good month because I did not achieve any of these goals. One way to look at it is that I have lots of room for improvement.

Financial- 

1. Set aside money each month in every budget category. Fail-4 of the categories are without funding this month.

2. Establish and maintain Emergency Fund- Fail.
3. Groceries: Goal is for $700. SUCCES- Total spending for the month is $199! I am so excited and surprised at how easy it was. I am going to increase the goal to $400 for February but that still stays way below the goal amount.

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month- SUCCESS. We spent only $250 in gas this month!

5. Pay off all Credit Card debit by December 2016- I am not exactly sure how to report on this. Matt unfortunately did lose 2 accounts in the month of January so we are not going to make stellar progress but at this point any progress is a success. So I reduce our overall credit card debit and will count this as a success.

Financially, I am very proud of the month of January. We are making small  but steady progress and just need to keep things moving in the right direction.

 

Snow Sunday Savings!

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The sun came out today which began the melting process for us! Matt has worked most of the afternoon clearing our driveway so I can head to work tomorrow.  After he finished he asked if we wanted to venture out to CVS and Walmart.  Considering that I had already opened my last 2L of Diet Coke, I agreed. This was another excellent week at CVS.  I completed 3 transactions spending $1.92 and saving $27.16 or 93% I grabbed 8 bottles of Diet Coke and 3 tubes of free toothpaste. I should have grabbed another Diet Coke but my calculations were off.  Next stop was Walmart to grab a couple of items that we will run out of prior to the end of the month, I was able to use a calculate and list and stay on track spending $30.73 which puts me at $199.83 for the month.

Since we all have been at home since Thursday and the kids really have been at home for a week, we used some of the time to clean and re-organize. I was seriously thinking about needing to push some more storage containers on Thursday but instead, found and repurposed things we already had. We are in the process of reducing the playroom and I took the shelf from it and moved it to Zach room.

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The best part of this shelf is that it originally was a kitchen cabinet/bar in a house that my brother and sister in law purchased when they were first married. I was helping with some of the work and originally place this shelf in my  building. As you can tell it has been moved and reused but still is a large steady piece of furniture. I also reconfigured my closet and was able to place this smaller shelf in the playroom.

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Total spend on this project which ended up taking a full day Zero.

A final way we have saved money this weekend is cooking at home and using items that we already have. I am hoping to stick to a lower budget for at least February and most likely even March. I am realizing that we have a lot of food that I have purchased and by keeping a rolling stockpile, I should be able keep at least that line item lower for several month this year, therefore reducing our total expenses significantly even with resuming the $700 a month budget in April or May.

CVS Savings 01/17/2015

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I explain the saving in just a second but first my newspaper drama that continues to make life interesting. I live in a rural area, this is no secret. In fact the “local” newspaper does not offer a Sunday edition. Coupon inserts are with the Saturday paper and they do not offer a “Saturday” only subscription.  The bright side is that I do have the option of two different city newspapers that both are delivered. I have been attempting to get regular deliver of at least one of these papers for several years.  It is usually a 75% chance that I get the paper at all. I have spoken to both of the paper on many occasions and currently am boycotting the Greensboro News and Record due to the fact that after paying for 6 months I received a paper 1 out of 8 weeks.   The other paper is supposed to arrive prior to 8am on Sunday morning. I spoke with someone about 3 weeks ago on a Monday after not receiving a paper, I was promised that if I would contact on Sunday prior to noon they would make the carrier bring a paper. The problem I usually have is that we go to church around 8:30 and don’t get home before noon. Today, was different since we are taking a skip day. I called the paper office about 9:30 and did the usually leave a message. I had already talked about ‘needing” several coupons from this weeks insert for my CVS trip, so Matt volunteer to go purchase a paper. After returning home around 11am we noticed the paper person in our driveway. I am not sure why but instead of one paper they left 2. I was super excited because this allowed me to stock up on deodorant for Matt!  So I was able to use coupons for all three of the insert this week.

I am still participating in the January Money Diet, one of the major things I am realizing is that I often buy food for the sake of convenience or because I know we will need it before long instead of waiting til I can find it on sale or we actually need it. One of the things I have been doing this month is making a list of items that we are low on as well as things we are in need to purchase. Matt is down to one stick of deodorant and one bottle of body wash so I placed these on the list and decide unless he ran out, I was going to wait for a sale. The sale happened this week!

It was Kendall’s turn to help me shop this week. I ended up completing 3 transactions, one on my card and two on Matt’s card. Total spent $12.52, total saved $41.70 or 77%.

Transaction #1- Matt’s card
2 bottle of Pantene shampoo  2 for $8.00
Coupon from 12/27 $3 off 2
5 ECB from last week
Paid $.56 ( tax) and received 4 ECB

Transaction #2- Matt’s Card
2 bottles of Irish spring body wash 2 for $7.00
2 coupons from today’s insert $1.00
2 sticks of Right Gear deodorant 2 for $7
BOGO coupon from today (subtracted 3.50)
4 ECB from first transaction and $.75 ECB from last week
Paid $4.73 and received 6 ECB

Transaction #3- My card
4 sticks of Right Gear Deodorant 2 for $7
2 BOGO coupons from today’s insert
$0.75 ECB from last week
Paid $7.23 and received 6 ECB

 

I count it a success any time I leave with more ECB than actual money I spent!

Extreme Couponing

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I was really surprised to discover that I had not been to CVS since before Christmas, in fact, my ECBs expire this week. The reason behind my long absence has been simple, no really deals that I wanted/needed to grab.  This week was a huge change. I started the trip with 2 $0.89 ECB. I also received $2 ECB for winter spending on Matt’s card.

Here is a breakdown by the numbers
5 total transactions,( one of my card and four on Matt’s).
$7.88 total spent
$84.72 total saved of 91% with taxes included and 95% taking out the $3.68 of sales tax
$6.50 in ECB left.

I purchased:
6 12 pack of Coke (Used 6 free 12 pack coupons from my Coke rewards)
4 packs of M&M ( used 2 Buy One Get One Free coupons)
2 2L Liters (used a 0.24 coupon that printed from red machine)
4 Bottles so L’Oreal Shampoo ( used 2- $4/2 from 01/03)
2  Packages of Crest Sensi strips.

 

This is one for the record books!  My total grocery spending is less than $12 for the month so far!  I did make a trip to the building today to check out what we have in the freezers and did a little bit of organizing so we can get our pork order from Zaycon tomorrow. We have enough of a variety with the pork order that I am going to say we are going to plan on coming in under goal for this month of $200 and reduce the grocery spending in February to $500. That will get us totally on the right foot with groceries and may in fact help to control/reduce grocery spending for the year!

Food For Thought-

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Today is my Mom’s birthday, which means we are fast approaching the end of the year. I am already in the process of looking and working on a budget for 2016. I will do a final update and set new goals hopefully this week but today I want to focus on Food.

  • Menu planning is still happening although I have not been posting the last couple of weeks have been about a couple of special meals and using up leftovers. This week we have already had a meal using meatballs my sister in law brought, tonight we made a roast and used some the sides we had left-over and tomorrow the plan is to use and make pork fried rice from leftover Christmas Eve shoulder. I am also adding some “convenient” meals to the freeze with the extra time we have this week.
  • Our grocery spending for the month is close to $900 which is way over budget. I have been taking advantage of some sells and stocking up, in addition to some extra meals and appetizers.
  • Our average monthly grocery spending for the year is at $691.59. I am totally amazed and excited for this number as it is under my $700 a month that I started in July.
  • I have been looking into some “average” numbers for grocery spending for our size family a “thrifty” plan is $770 and a “Low” plan is $1028 per month.
  • After finding these numbers I am very comfortable with maintaining our grocery spending to $700 a month. I am going to continue to focus on each month but not beat myself up for spending over now that I know it averages out within the year!
  • I was also able to find that the “average” family spends about $200 a month on eating out. In the past, I have not budgeted anything for eating out but this will become a regular expense in the year 2016.
  • We are starting the year with lots of meat in the freezer. I have already paid for 80# of pork that Matt will pick up the first week of January. We also just recently purchased chicken and a large order of ground beef. I am hopefully to not purchase any additional meat until March.
  • Our garden this year did well and we have been enjoying a variety of things. We have enlarged the garden to it’s capacity and hopefully will be able to multiply our freezing stock for the year.
  • I did not even attempt to lose weight with our trip to Disney and the holidays so I will back on track with eating healthier again in January.
  • Total random thought but at least it is food related. I just received in the mail a total of 6 free 12 packs expiring March 31. I will hold on till CVS offers ECBs or I just need them.

Saving on Sunday 11/15/2015

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Lily and I made a quick before church trip to CVS this morning. I said it was my practice trip for next Sunday, when CVS “Black Friday” ad will start. Check out what we scored.

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Total Spent was $4.84 with a total saving of $15 or 75%. I will also receive 5 ECB for Beauty club purchases next week as well. I LOVE rain checks and today demonstrates why. I used one from several weeks ago to grab the 2L Diet Coke which were paid for by the 4 ECB I received after purchasing the shampoo and conditioner. My only regret from today is that I did not have but one set of coupons because of a problem with paper delivery for the past two weeks.

Other ways that I have been saving this week  is my using my Amazon prime membership. I have purchased several items and most of my Christmas gifts on line this year. One option that is appearing is to receive a credit to either the “pantry” or movies if you chose the no rush shipping. We have chose this option each time it has been offered because we are really not in a hurry for the purchase.  Friday night we decided to use one of our movie credit to watch the movie “Home” it was so fun and the kids enjoyed at well. So money saved all around!

Saving at CVS

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After several weeks of no really good reason to shop at CVS on Sunday, I was excited to go in today.  I will start with the explanation that Matt actually made a quick stop at CVS on Thursday to purchase some deodorant. He ended up receiving both a $1 ECB for the last quarter and $5 ECB for beauty club spending.

By the numbers:
5 transactions (3 on Matt’s card and 2 on my card)
2 bag of candy corn. These are at the request of Zach’s teacher so even on sale they are not items we would normally purchase.
3 bottles of shampoo
1 bottle of conditioner
10 2L of soda (8 of which were Diet Coke)
1 piece of caramel- (Need to use my ECB)

Total spent $12.69
Total saved $37 or 75%
ECB remaining 1

By far the best deal of the day was Treseme’ Shampoo and Conditioner.  I purchased 3 bottles of Shampoo and 1 bottle of Conditioner, used 2- $5/2 coupons that expired today 10/11 and my 5 ECB from Beauty club. Total out of pocket including tax was $1.77 or   44 cent each!

Saving on Saturday August 8th

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These are the items that I was able to purchase last week at CVS. My favorite deal was purchasing 2 boxes of cereal, 2 shampoos and a bottle of hand soap for $0.40. The reason this was possible was that I received an “extra” 5 ECB for reaching $50 in beauty care spending. I used that in conjunction with the 5 ECB for purchasing $20 in P&G products from last week.  When you combine all the transactions 5 in total I spent around $8 and saved 81%.  The sharpies are going to finish up Zach birthday gift (autograph books for Disney). All the other items when in my beach stock.(More details on these hopefully later in the week.

I made several additional shopping trips this week to grab up “Lunchables” which we will use at the beach for lunches and for easy school lunches to get us back in the swing in a couple of weeks.  My best grocery deal this week came at Food Lion. I had to make a shopping trip to purchase baby food to use at work, I did use a $1.50 coupon that printed at the machine, At the end of the transaction, the regrister also printed a $3.00 catalina. I used this to purchase bread flour for $.25.

I have also started to play around and use the ibotta and checkout 51 apps. So far that have been fairly simple to use and I am not purchasing items that are not already on my list, so ever little bit helps. This week alone I earned $0.75 at Checkout 51 and 5.35 at Ibbota,

What have you been doing to save money?

Saving on Sunday

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sosOpps!  You are right today is Sunday. I did not get much saving done yesterday because we spent most of the day enjoying the pool.  Kendall had a friend in addition to Lily having a friend spend the night so I got not a lot accomplished except for spending time with the kids. I am starting to realize and trying to enjoy more time just hanging out with the little kids, I know in a flash they will be too busy to hang out! Now back to saving. I did do some shopping today, even with all three little kids in tow. Matt is working for cheerleading so I decided the sales were good enough and we needed most items.

First stop today was CVS. It has been 3 weeks since I last went to CVS, I hope they will not be having another test market of no sales ad in the near future. Today I purchased 7 bottles of shampoo, a bottle of detangle, 2 bottles of Tide free and clear, 4 bottles of body wash,2 sticks of deodorant and a battery powered toothbrush for $36 with a 65% saving, I also have 10 ECB to use in the future.

We also stopped by Aldi to grab fresh produce including cantaloupe, watermelon, grapes and cottage cheese that I need for a recipe. Total spent at Aldi was 18.47

We are continuing to get lots of tomatoes from the garden. I have managed to replenish the shelf of stewed tomatoes and discovered an awesome recipe for spaghetti sauce. I adapted it to the crockpot and hopefully will make at least a batch a week for the month of August. Currently, I am freezing in containers to make Baked Ziti with. My plan is to make 12 of these  and then just freeze spaghetti sauce, even the kids say this is the best sauce they have eaten.

How did you save this month?