Tuesday, December 30, 2008

More free stuff!





When I find a good money making deal, I do it as much as I can while it's running.
I was able to print some more Robitussin and Dimetap coupons, and I had more Garnier coupons, so I headed out to Walgreens yesterday to get some more free stuff.


I did the robitussin deal 2 more times and this time I used the overage from the garnier to help pay for them. I also grabbed some pizza, tissue, a few more ornaments, dish soap ($.49 after coupons), a honey bear, and some hershey's kisses. The kisses were marked down to $.62 each and I used $1.50 on 3 coupons which made them $.12 a bag! I only paid tax again for all of this and I got $40 more in RR back again.

Not pictured is 11 more Garnier and 2 more of the disney storage cubes from another trip last night. (only paid $1 plus tax for those!)

Monday, December 29, 2008

More Christmas shopping?






Walgreens has their Christmas stuff on clearance for 75% off now! I went yesterday to see what they had and their was already a lot of people filling up their carts with all the Christmas stuff. I got some of the Christmas houses I had been wanting for $1.50 each! I also got another nativity scene since we couldn't find ours this year. I got some wrapping paper, bows, stockings, sticker books and tins. I didn't stock up on tins last year after Christmas. I did get them on sale this year, but I had to pay $1.29 each for @ 25 tins! Not again! I grabbed a bunch yesterday while they were $.33 each for the large ones and $.12 each for the small ones. We'll be ready for next year and for a lot less!


Thanks to some great posters at HCW, I also knew about the Robitussin and Garnier deals that would make me some money I could spend on all these Christmas goodies. The Robitussin and dimetaps ae $4 right now and when you spend $20, you get back a $10 RR. BUT, the machines are giving out 2-$5 RR and the $10 RR when you buy 5, so you are getting $20 back. Of course, using coupons makes this a money maker deal. There are $1 coupons in the Sunday inserts from a few weeks back and there are also $2 printables at wyethallbrands.com. I printed the $2 coupons for robitussin and dimetap (you can print 2 of each) on two different computers and cut out some of the $1 coupons. I was able to do this deal twice and spent @ $12 oop on each one with tax and got back $40 in RR!


The garnier is conditioner that is clearanced to $2.19. There is a coupon in the new walgreens rebate book (found in the front of the stores) for $2 off garnier hair products. You only need one of these coupons as it will take off $2 for each garnier you have in your order. This alone makes the conditioners $.19! But there are also $1 coupons in the inserts! You can use a manufacturers coupon with the walgreens coupon, so this is another money maker. Combining both coupons gave me $.81 overage on each conditioner. I only had 2 of the $1 coupons with me this time, so I grabbed 2. For these types of deals- I always hand the cashier the manufacturers coupons first, then I will point out the coupon in the walgreens book I want to use and she will scan it or type it in and it takes off for all of them. I rarely tear the coupon out as you can use it over again-they don't have to keep the walgreens coupons.


I went out again in the evening to do some more Christmas shopping after I had cut more garnier coupons. Here's what I got and I spent @ $4 oop which was all tax!




You can see at the back, I also picked up two cloth storage cubes- one is Disney princesses and one is Cars. These will be great for my little girls' room as they greatly need better storage options. (and one girl is a total "princess" while the other is a tomboy!) These were $5 each and I used the overage from the garnier and one $5 rr from the robitussin to pay for them. I plan on building them some shelves in their closet and getting more of these cubes (with RR or overage of course) to stack on the shelves. Hopefully this will help to keep the mess down at least a little.





I also stopped at the commissary yesterday to use up the rest of my KY coupons and beef coupons that expire 12/31. The KY's are making me $1.16 each, so I can use that overage on all my other groceries. I had $1 on any beef coupons, so I stocked up on ground beef and a lot of other beef. I looked mainly for packages that were $2 or less, so most of these I paid less than a dollar for after my beef coupons. (and nothing after my overage.) I grabbed a few other things- including two packs of denture cream. No, I don't have dentures, but I needed 2 more upcs to send off for a $10 restaurant gift card. My total for this order was a negative $.13, so I threw in a candy bar and paid $.38 oop. I am sad to see the KY coupons expire, though Lord knows I don't need any more KY. ;)


Friday, December 26, 2008

A Couponer's Christmas






Wow! December has been super busy and I haven't had time to post all the great deals I've been getting. But thanks to couponing and other types of "deals" I work, we had a great Christmas! This picture doesn't do justice to the tree and the pile of presents as there are many more under the tree and all the way around and behind it. You are only seeing what was in the front that couldn't fit underneath. In all we had just about 75 presents including one gift basket for my oldest DS with a lot of HBA and household products.


For my shopping this year, I used Walgreens RR, CVS ECB, and gift cards and did a lot of sale shopping. I got gift cards from MYpoints, prescription coupons (CVS gift card), and I got 3 $50 walmart gift cards from opening bank accounts last month. I had some Amazon gift cards too, but we didn't get around to ordering early enough to be able to use them, which means we went over my $0 budget because we had to pay cash for some presents I had planned to order through Amazon. In all, we spent about $100 cash oop. (NO credit cards-so no extra January bills showing up!)
This amount also includes all the gift wrapping since I stocked up last year after Christmas for paper, tags, and bows and used ECB to pay for it all. (Will be shopping for this again in the next few days.)
The kids all got some of the stuff they asked for and they all got to shop for each other and mom & dad too! (yep-all with coupons and gift cards) The only exception was my oldest DD who used her own money this year for her shopping. (hey, she has a job.) And my oldest DS helped with all the candy for the stockings as his contribution.

I bought his gift basket at Michael's with a coupon for $2 and filled it with anything I thought he could use: dish soap, laundry soap, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, mouth wash, floss, a toothbrush, razors, deodorant, cologne, shaving gel, towels, a dvd, boxers and more. He seemed very happy with it, especially since it meant he didn't have to go without some of those items because he couldn't buy it himself. ;)










Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Walgreens $5 RR when you buy $25





Starting today Walgreens has a 3-day ad out. Some of the stuff is the same as the regular weekly ad, and then there's a few different deals. The most exciting part of this ad is the $5 RR you get for buying $25 of almost anything in the store! After testing it, I found your total has to be $25 before tax and before all coupons- including walgreens, RR, and manufacturers coupons! This is exciting because I can get $25 worth of stuff and use coupons to bring the oop down pretty low and get the $5 RR.
I figured today would be a good day to take the kids for some Christmas shopping. I took them one at a time (I took 4 of them today) so I had plenty of chances to do a lot of shopping. :)
In all, we did 21 transactions today at 3 different stores. I spent $44.21 cash oop for $624.20 worth of merchandise. That is a 93% savings! I got all the items you see in the picture and more. Not shown is the 2 pizzas we had for lunch (on sale 2/$5) and all the Christmas presents that were bought and wrapped. (26 presents total were bought today.) After all that, I still have $49 in RR left to spend, and I will get $5.50 back in rebates.
It was a great shopping day and I'll be back for more tomorrow. :)


Monday, December 1, 2008

How to make money shopping







This is how I make money when I am shopping. This is a new Walgreens deal that started yesterday and continues through Saturday. For every 2 Reach Ultraclean toothbrushes or floss you buy, you get a $6 RR. The tb's and floss are 2/$6, so they are essentially free. BUT, of course, I also have coupons for these items. In the 10/12 RP inserts, there are $1 off coupons for the floss and a b1g1 free coupons for the toothbrushes. This means that for every two flosses I buy, I would pay $4 (using 2-$1 coupons) and get back the $6 RR or for every two toothbrushes I buy, I would pay $3 (using 1-b1g1 coupon) and get back the $6 RR.
So, yesterday, I went to 3 different Walgreens and got 24 toothbrushes. Now, I had some RR from last weeks deals to start with, so i didn't spend as much on the first 2 orders. Each order after that was $3 plus tax. In all, I spent about $39 with tax and I have $72 in RR to spend. I pretty much doubled my money! And I am not done shopping as I have more coupons for the toothbrushes and the floss.
I normally would not spend this much money oop, even for a great money maker like this, but these RR are going to be a big part of my Christmas money, so I am basically doubling my money to spend on Christmas gifts. Yes, Walgreens actually does have a lot of items I can buy for Christmas presents. I will likely give these to my children so they can go shopping for each other here.
One important thing to remember, you cannot use the RR from the same deal to do the deal again, or you will not get a new RR. So, I could use my RR's from last week for this deal or from another deal this week (if there were any I wanted to do), but I cannot use the $6 RR again on the reach items as it will prevent me from getting another $6 RR on the new order. That is why I am paying cash on all these. (and my gift card is now empty.)
So, when you hear a couponer say they made money or "got paid" to shop, this is one way we do it. There are deals like this at many different stores. You just have to know how to find them. :)