Almsot forgot the Gum!

I almost forgot the free gum at Fry's last night and I almost forgot to post it here! My daughter however did not forget and took her own picture of the gum. (The kids are all mesmerized by the gum!) I had found some tearpad coupons months ago for b1g1 gum and it included trident, dentyne, stride and a few more. I got some free stride a while back at Walgreens when they were on sale for b1g1 and I used this coupon. Fry's had these b1g1 last week too, and I still hadn't used my coupons when I went out last night. Luckily, we remembered and I let DD go in and get a bunch of free gum. SOmehow she counted wrong and came out with 33 packs (it should have been 34), but she still got it all for free. She laso thought she had enough for all the coupons, but had 2 coupons left. Unfortunately, the store was pretty much closed by then, so we went home. My coupons expire 9/30, so I doubt I'll come across another b1g1 sale before then, but we're set on gum for a while!


Here's my DD "artistic" version of the sea of powerades (taken with her new camera she got for her birthday:

Fry's awesome deals last week!

The Powerade deal was definitely my favorite! My kids have already gotten into these and drank about 10-15 bottles of what I got. For every 6 you bought, you'd get a $4 coupon on your next order. 6 powerades only cost $3, so you made $1 each time you did the deal. I did the deal 24 times over the last week and I rolled the coupons, getting items that were around $1 each time for free and only paying tax. I got ketchup, fresh peaches, can peaches, can dog food, eggs, and cake mix-all for free with the powerades! This deal would only be better if it lasted another week. :)





I also got 60 cans of chicken noodle and tomato soups for $.11 a can-some rolled with the powerade to make them free. My kids have also gotten into the chicken noodle soup as they love this for lunchtime.





I got about 27 packs of Betty Crocker potatoes for free!




And I got a lot of taco shells for $.30 a box and a lot of taco seasoning packets for free!

What a fun week! I also stocked up on Hot pockets and meat at Albertson's, and I'm still stocking up on Oreo's, mouthwash, and toothbrushes at Walgreen's this week. I'm also starting to throw in a Christmas present here and there when I have extra coupon $ to spend. Walgreens has a lot of fun toys and other cool items for gifts. I'm hoping to save myself from too much last minute shopping!

August savings

September has been busy and I haven't had a chance to post in a while. Now I have a little time, I want to post my totals for August. I was doing REALLY good, until the end of the month when I spent a little more than I had planned. I spent more at Walgreens using that $10/$40 coupon than I wanted to, but I still got some great deals. My OOP at Walgreens will be a lot lower for a while when I start using the rebate gift card from August's deals. I just got this in the mail recently and I got $92.13 in rebates! That should last me a couple of months! :) We also had a few "quick trips" to the store for items we needed when I didn't have time to get out and work the deals. These trips are usually at full price and put a dent in my savings. :(
These numbers include everything I bought at grocery or drug stores, including some birthday presents. I got a great deal on a digital camera for my DD birthday at Walgreens. It was originally $129.99 and was marked down to $65.99. I used the $10/$40 coupon and with tax, paid $60.92. And I got a $44 rebate on my gift card for this camera! That's $16.92 after rebate for a digital camera! (This is included in my grocery numbers since I used grocery money for it.)
So, here's how my numbers for August stack up for a family of 8 (one in pullups and several teen girls-high maintenance) and 3 dogs.
Total Retail value of all groceries/HBA, etc: $2775.36
Total store savings (sales prices): $1067.53
Total coupons savings (coupons used): $1258.53
Total spent using gift cards (free gift cards):$33.66
Total spent oop: $395.64
Percent saved: 86%
I also sent in for rebates: $128.92
After rebates will have paid: $266.72
After rebates saved: 90%

Some of the rebates will be on a gift card that I will use in following months to bring my oop totals down. So I count rebates separate here just so I can see what I sent off for. But I will really count those in my totals when I spend them later.
I'm hoping to spend no more than $200 in September, but we'll see how the deals go. :)

Our Couponing Videos

We Made these videos for a contest at Hot Coupon World a while back. The contest is over, but we wanted to still share out videos. So you can watch them here!