Category Archives: Budgeting

Triples….

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So I made it back from Harris Teeter triples. I ended up spending around an hour actually shopping. I went to my favorite store in Salisbury and it was the busiest that I have ever seen it. And for the first time ever at a Harris Teeter, I loaded my own groceries in the car. But I am still going to return again the next time they have either a triples or super doubles. I was not impressed yesterday as I got my list together and was even less thrilled when I arrived and found that 4 of my 12 free items were either not carried at the store or already out of stock. My initial plan was for 2 trips this week but after today, I have no need to return. I did load my car and go back inside to claim my free loaf of bread and $1.00 off meat.

The details, I spent 32 and saved $66 for a total saving of 67%. Not to bad especially considering that I have 7 coupons that did not triple, four were for a $1.00 each and 2 additional Harris Teeter coupons that don’t triple as well as a free item that did not triple.

Highlights- Earth’s Best Baby food was on sale BOGO, this is regular priced at 0.89 a jar, I had in my binder 2 coupons for $1.00 off 10 jars so that bought the actual price to around 0.35 a jar. I also purchased boxes of Baby cereal for 0.99 each using both manufacturers and HT coupons. Matt really liked the fried cheese sticks that I purchased 3 packs of for FREE!!

Harris Teeter usually has a “Theme” to their sales. This week it was Mexican I ended up buy chips, salsa, taco sauce and meat today so I am going to change my menu plan and have Mexican instead of steaks.

Budget wise for the month I am currently $60 UNDER budget!!!! YAY!!! This includes a huge stash of diapers and some baby food!! I am excited!

Monthly Update (April)

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I am really excited about how this month is going that I am going to update in the middle and again at the end of the month!

So far this month we have had 4 “official ” preschool days and at least that many if not more of days where I am working with Lily on Reading and Math on the computer or in the van. So this is a definite improvement over the last several months.

In the area of budgeting we are making progress. This month our grocery bills have been WAY down. It is around half of previous months and I dont plan to spend more than another 200 for the month which would be under still! We also got our electricity bill for this month today. It is down by $100!! That is awesome. I am hoping to get it down another 50 and keep it this low for at least 3 months but we will see. Hanging clothes out seems to make a HUGE difference as well as washing less!

We hope to plant next weekend! I am busy reading and figuring out which plants need to go where! The side flower bed is mulched and looks cool!

Successful Shopping Sunday

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This is the picture of my “nap” trip to CVS on Sunday. I spent $23 and saved $71, 75% savings. I did split this up into 3 separate transactions. ECB were only given on the first purchase of diapers but because of the coupons I had ($3/1) and with rolling ECB. I decided to stock up. I only counted the drinks and diapers in when calculating prices because these are the items I would “normally” buy. The cost of diapers was at $0.08 each for all 5 packs.

My 3rd and final trip to Harris Teeter for Triples was this afternoon also. Matt decided that he and the little kids would go with me. He admitted he wanted to see how this was done. I was not expecting this to be as profitable as it was. I had a $4./ off shopping order from my second trip and was able to earn another $4 off by separating this into two transactions. I spent $26 and saved $56 for 69% savings.

For the day I spent $49 and saved $127, 72% overall savings.

At Harris Teeter this week I have spent a total of $95 and saved $172 or a total of 64%. I am very excited that the currently plan for April is only to buy Angel Food and things we run out of like Laundry Powder. This should let us reduce the grocery budget by $300 for the month!

Adventures in Couponing

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I have been debating how much information to put in this one post.. but think I have decided to keep this a general post of all things related to coupons and not include my actual trips today. I saved a ton at both CVS and Harris Teeter! I will share about these in a separate post so I can “link up ” on several of the blog I read! So this is a tidbit post!

Since posting pictures of my Harris Teeter trip on Wednesday, Lily has asked several times to see the picture. After the second time, I started wondering why…. So she looks at the picture and says “Mommy, where is THAT gum?” Since gum is a treat around here, I gave Matt a pack and hide the others. Lily has figured this out and since she didn’t know the name of the game to ask for, she figured out that she can look at the picture and ask where certain things are since she has proof I have bought them.

Yesterday on our way home from the Easter Egg hunt, which was awesome! I reminded Matt that I wanted to get a paper with 3 coupon inserts this week. We literally checked 10 different paper boxes before locating a single local paper at 4pm in the afternoon. I was totally shocked but guess that someone has figured out that $.50 for the Saturday paper with coupons is better than $1.50 for the Sunday “big city” paper!
Speaking of papers, I am still currently only buying one paper but usually I get the majority of coupons each week from my mother and several of the ladies at church have started bringing me coupons as well. On Wednesday I received a whole envelope full, this lady sent them on Wednesday instead of Sunday because she knew I wanted to go to triples. Today I had someone else bring me diaper coupons! I am definitely becoming known as the coupon lady or as the lady who used ALOT of coupons!

Matt and the little kids all went to Harris Teeter with me this afternoon. He told me last night he thought it would be fun to go as a family. He actually wanted to see what I was buying and saving! I think he was impressed! He did say that his favorite part was watching the amount of tax go down with each coupon!

I am done shopping for the week and actually think that I may skip the Costco trip in April because of the stockpile we have now! I am excited! I do plan to go to CVS weekly depending on the deals but no more trip to Harris Teeter until Supers!


82% Savings at CVS and Harris Teeter

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Yesterday was the first day of Triple coupons at Harris Teeter. I have been working and planning for this for the past couple of day. I would estimate a total of 2 uninterrupted hours but it ended up beginning 4 for me. My plan is this I will shop 3 times. Yesterday the trip focused on “free items” but I also picked up 10 packs of baby food because they were on “sale” and I had store coupons which did not double. I spent a total of 30 minutes in the store because I had a list printed and my coupons were sorted by “free”, “good deals” and “check”. On my first time through the store, I picked up the wrong band of taco seasoning so I went back and got just the two packs that I needed. The coupon for 0.75 off 2 would not go through so she had to call a manager to put it in. So it tripled and the register showed I owed 0.26. She looks at me and says “I guess you get it free.”

I spent $14.45 and saved $60.15.

After Harris Teeter I made a quick trip to CVS, unfortunately somewhere in the store, I lost my card so now I have to call to get my new and old card linked. I want to be sure and get my quarterly ECB in April. I bought 1 pk of Pampers size 5 and 2 packs of skittles and 2 packs of Starburst. I had a BOGO coupon from facebook for each so I used a filler to reach my $10 because of a 3 off 10 from Walgreens. So OOP I spent $1.73 and walked out with 3 ECB!

Total savings was $75 and OOP was 17.22 for 82% saving! I will be heading back to Harris Teeter tonight for my second trip!

CVS ROCKS!

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I made my “trip at nap” to CVS on Sunday. I ended up with 2 rainchecks from last week after 3 trips to find the “Princess and the Frog” DVD for Easter. So I decided to check once again to see if they got any in. They did !!! So I spent OOP $24 and saved $58 with 6 ECB to use next week on the Huggies diaper deal that I hear they are having. I had a savings of 71%, my personnel highest this year!
I wanted to highlight a couple of things I bought. The DVD on raincheck was $19.99 with 3 ECB back with purchase. I ended up paying $10.85 for this as my first transaction. My second transaction included both soap and toothpaste to donate as well as a couple of bags of candy to donate as well. My third transaction was the best. I purchased 2 bags of diapers, total OOP was $5.84 and I earned 6ECB back. I was so excited, by the math I paid $0.08 per diaper!!!!!

I also had to go to Food Lion to purchase some baby food. Zach is eating 6 jars a day and I am trying to only buy with coupons and when on sale.

Future deals this week should also help manage the budget this month. Harris Teeter is having a triple coupon event and I have already started my list which will entail at least 2 trips depending on the sales this week, which will post later today. CVS is scheduled to have Huggies diapers on sale next week and I have recently printed 4 $3 off coupons. I should be able to get at least one free pack of diapers !!!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

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9 Diet Cokes 2 liters
4 12 packs
3 packs of Diapers
1 tub of toothpaste

Total Spent $27.57 Total Saved $57.77 or 68%

I did a total of 3 transactions rolling the ECB each time and started with 10 ECBs from last week. I also got a rain check for Men’s Dove body wash which as a money maker this week!

Wednesday

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Yesterday I decided at nap-time to leave Haley(school was out)at home with everyone asleep to run to CVS to pick up 2 prescriptions. I figured I would be gone only about 45 minutes tops. We were also waiting on the TW cable guy to come between 1:30 and 3:30 but I again didn’t think I would be gone that long. It took an hour and 15 minutes and me making 3 request to finally get his prescription ready. But let me tell you that so far I *think* it has made a HUGE difference. He is spitting up but about 1/4 of what he was and today, he has only spit up when he was being burbed. The first 45 minutes didn’t bother me as I was canvasing the store and purchasing more Pepsi products to get my $10 ECB. I did find a FREEBIE; I had a coupon for $2.00 off Loreal eye products and found a tube of mascara marked down 75% to 1.87! I was so excited!! I got FREE make-up! Total spent for 5-12 pack cans, 2 bottles of Gatorade and a tube of mascara for $15.80 total saved 22.05! Between my trips yesterday and Sunday, I have 59% this week which is the highest yet! This is now becoming as Matt called it a “game” with me. I just have to now get organized so I don’t buy stuff that is not going to be used in a timely manner and arrange more storage! Although my budget for this month is shot I know that it will drop next month!

Friday Final 1/21/2010

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I am starting to add somethings to the blog. Hopefully this weekend Matt will help me “pimp my blog”. I added the list of the blogs I regularly (several times a day) check for great deals.

Yesterday, I had a chance to go out shopping ALONE! Haley watched the babies while I did this and also worked. I decided since I was over half way to Winston, then I would go to Harris Teeter. I spent at least an hour or more going over the sales that had been posted on other blogs as well as pulling out coupons I knew I needed for this trip. Harris Teeter will double up to 20 coupons of 0.99 or less a day. One tip is to always place your “store coupons” as well as “free” coupons last so that they don’t get included in the 20. I was really happy with what I was able to purchase although I forgot to buy soup! I spent 32.23 and saved 86.05 or 73%!!!

Prior to going to work I stopped by Food Lion for diapers and brown sugar. I actually made a second trip into Food Lion because a $2.00 off coupon printed at the register and with Diapers already on sale I wanted to use it! I also went to CVS prior to going to work. I did EXCELLENT there, at this store I had 2 separate transactions and I had a third transaction at a CVS next to Harris Teeter. In total out of pocket at CVS was $26.00 saving $39.09 a 60% savings. In addition, I have 10 ECB for next week, a pespi rebate of 7.50 and 2 rain checks to use for the future!I am already making plans for a CVS trip on Sunday with lots of free stuff.

Although I have definitely gone over budget this month with groceries, I am on the right track and should at least come in under next month!

Week in Review

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Since I didn’t get to post about several of the great deals I got last week and my one not so good shopping trip I am going to update today. I also have a post planned about ebay. Matt and I have decided to try and loss some weight. We are going to use the Atkins method at least this first week to see how things go. He will have an easier time than me but my thought is that I will do my best and not stress over it because when I stress, I eat! Now on to the deals…

On Thursday, the kids and I went to “Goodwill” we were able to find 3 dresses and a shirt for 17.50. We also went over to “Walmart” and purchased 3 pair of tights and both the older girls got tights but $27. and some change. So for $50 we got 3 complete new outfits.

Friday, my friend was helping figure out the decorations for the FLC and we decided that we needed 2 black and white 8x10s of Zach. I uploaded the picture and picked them up from CVS an hour later. I had 8 ECB so the cost of these pictures were $.23!

Saturday’s grocery trip to pick up salad items was not a good. We needed to buy most of the ingredients for both the salads. Food Lion was the closest store but we ended up spending $28.00 on these ingredients.

Yesterday(Wednesday) we made a quick trip to Costco for some basics. I don’t think we did too bad in comparison to our usual trip. We spent $136 compared to our usual $250. But with the extra food we have purchased this month our total grocery bill is almost $700 for the month.