My Pantry Stock Up =]

Hey everyone!

I'm sorry for the slack this week! I've been really busy with Valentines Day, school, and organization! But the bright side is I have an amazing deal to share with all of you today. What I want to do this week is provide pictures of what I bought, along with the match-ups of sales and coupons I used. I can't stress enough how important it is to buy the Sunday paper if you expect to start saving money. A majority of the coupons I use come from those inserts, followed by internet printables. 

Yesterday, Fernando and I were really excited to go on our date to the movies! By the way, we saw Unknown which was an incredible movie. I highly recommend it! But because of this, my pictures are so sloppy and ugly! We went straight from the grocery store, rushed home, took a picture, then went to the movie. So sorry, but they will be alright for this week.

Haha I really enjoy posting pictures on this blog, and I feel like they make things more interesting. So this post is going to be full of pictures! By the way, if you want to view JUST this blog, apart from all the others, simply click on the title and it will redirect you to this individual posting. 

So here we go! My trip this week was to Publix. I knew this would be a helpful post to you beginners because up to this point I've focused my blog around the drug stores. While its nice to get free stuff from drug stores, shopping in these places is more for intermediate couponers who already have a food supply built up. The rest of you guys probably are much more interested in learning how to stock up your pantries! So that is what this post is for. Publix sales run from Thursday-Wednesday of the next week. So you guys have until Wednesday to take advantage of these deals.

Here is what I bought. This week I'm putting the product, coupon match up, and a picture of those items. But I did buy everything pictured in one transaction. I just thought breaking it up would make it easier for some of you to find the items by yourselves.

1/2 lb Deli Meat $4.56

2 Macaroni Grill Meals for 2 @ $7.99 B1G1 free

- (2) $1.50/1 internet printable here
=$2.50 each

4 Totinos Pizzas @ 4/$5
- (2) .75/2 internet printable here
=$. 88 each

2 Sargento shredded cheese @ 2/$4
- (2) $1.50/1 Publix coupon here
- (1) $.50/2 1/30 SS
=$.25 each

4 Progresso Bread Crumbs @ $1.95 B1G1 free

- (1) $1/4 Publix coupon 

Flyer in store

=$.73 each


16 Hunts tomato sauce @ 6/$2
- $5/20 Included products Publix coupon
(These 16 cans plus the 4 Totino's pizzas were included in this coupon)
= $.02 per can!


2 Sominex @ $3.19
- (1) $5/2 Publix Coupon in Green Flyer
- (2) $2/1 Manufacturer here
= - $2.62
This is overage that went towards paying for the other groceries!


2 Vivarin @ $3.19
- (1) $5/2 Publix Coupon in Green flyer
- (2) $2/1 Manufacturer here
= - $2.62 Overage


2 Phazyme @ $3.49
- (1) $5/2 Publix coupon in Green Flyer
- (2) $2/1 Manufacturer here
= -  $2.20 overage

2 Frosted Flakes @ $4.09 B1G1 Free
- (1) $1/2 Manufacturer here
= $1.55 each


2 Betty Crocker Brownies @ $1.99
- (2) $1/1 Publix Coupon on flyer in store
- (2) $.50/1 2/13 GM 
= $.49 each


4 Green Giant Vegetables @ $1.33 B1G1 Free
- (1) $1/4 Publix Coupon on flyer in store
=$. 42 each


4 Wishbone Ranch Dressing @ $2.97 B1G1 Free
- (2) $1.50/2 Target coupon here
- (2) $1/2 Manufacturer 1/30 RP
= $.24 EACH!

1 Bunch of Bananas @ $1.06
- (1) $1/1 Fruit when you buy 2 Frosted Flakes
Found the Coupon on Box
= $.06!


1 Cucumber @ $.85


2 French Bread Loaves @ $1.99
- (2) $1.50/1 Publix bread when you buy 6 hunts products
Publix coupon found on flyer
= $.49 each!

And my grand total? 
I spend $18.09
And I saved $88.84


That is $18 for over $105 of groceries
Or a savings of 84%


Considering that I was even able to get produce, deli meat and bread, which are things that are pretty difficult to save on, I did pretty amazing this week.


We will be donating the tomato sauce.

Walgreens 2/13 Spent $2.25 Saved $20

Hey everyone! Sorry I'm a little behind on postings, but this week I was doing my student internship at an Elementary school and have been verrryyy busy!

This weeks deal that I did was at Walgreens. Now again, I used previous RR's to pay for the items pictured. Therefore my out of pocket expense was very small. So again I'll say that if you guys want to start saving at Walgreens or CVS, use my transaction examples [previous blog post] to start earning Register Rewards. Here we go!

Ask me any questions below using the comment tool!

This is what I bought:

1 Lysol No-touch Soap Dispenser Regular Price $14.99

On sale $11.99 get $7 RR's back

Used $3/1 Coupon from 2/13 SS

1 Reach Toothbrush $2.99 get $2 RR

No coupons

1 Tuf Paper Towels $.49

3 Panty Hose $.69 

1 Orbit gum $.69

Total = 

$18.23 before coupons

$15.23 after coupons

Paid with $5, $4, $3, $1 RR

Total paid including tax $2.25

Got back $7 and $2 RR!

So while this wasn't a HUGE deal, I've really wanted to try the Lysol Soap Dispenser. It's usually $15 so this week's deal was the best price for it!

So in total I saved about $20 using coupons and shopping sales prices. $2 bucks for $20 of stuff is pretty good in my book!

Walgreens Scenario for Beginners

Here is my example scenario for today that I recommend for those of you new to couponing. In this case, you will spend about $10 for merchandise originally worth... $30! This isn't necessarily an ideal scenario but you would be getting a nice razor, and the Lysol no touch system for only $10. That's a really great price considering the Lysol alone is usually about $14.00. Plus you will have 4 RR's to use next week!

Transaction 1 

Buy 1 reach total care toothbrush or floss $2.99 get $2 RR 

                -$1 reach dental floss or access flosser or toothbrush 10/10/10 rp

                Or

                -$1 reach floss on smartsource.com [printable]

= 1.99

Get 2 RR back

Transaction 2

Buy 1 Lysol healthy no- touch system $11.99 

Buy 1 cheap item, such as the tuf paper towels for .49 or pantyhose for .69

- $3/1 coupon from today's ss (2/13)

- $2 RR from transaction 1

= 7.50-7.70

Get 7 RR back

Transaction 3

Either buy something else such as the Venus or Gillette razor for $7.99

If so, use the 7 RR from transaction 2 and pay .99

Then get back 4 RR 

Or you can just use the 7 RR and buy some groceries or other needed items.

Organization Made Easy

Hey everybody!

I know that some of you have started to pick up and begin couponing. So I thought I should give you one really easy, yet important tip on how to organize your coupons. Now, I can't stress enough how important it is to buy the Sunday paper. Maybe you won't use any of the coupons from it that specific week, but some coupons last for months, and come in handy eventually. So its nice to have them there when the time comes. When I started couponing I tried EVERY method imaginable to stay organized. I bought 4 papers, cut out ALL the coupons, and filed them in tiny coupon holders to take to the store. But not only is this time consuming, its annoying. So now I have what I like to think of as the best method possible for beginners and even serious couponers like myself.

So here it goes! What I do now is look at Sundaycouponpreview.com every week before the paper comes out Sunday. If I know I'll be using multiples of certain couples, I'll buy multiple papers, always in even numbers. So some weeks I buy 8 while others I buy 4. Then, I bought a filing box system at Target for about $10. It holds letter and legal sizes hanging folders. I use the letter size. Here's a picture!

What I do next makes my life so much easier! I label the tabs with the date of the coupon insert, and by brand of insert. For example, since we moved to Miami, all my coupons from before January were left in Tampa! So I started fresh. The first tab says " 1/2 SS" this means January 2nd Smartsource Insert. 

Sometimes there is more than one insert of the same brand, such as RedPlum. So I will label them RP1 and RP2! Here's a closer look...

Next, I follow websites such as Iheartpublix.com and Totallytarget.com, and Iheartwags.com where they match up the sales with coupons. For example it might look like this:

Colgate toothpaste $2/5 at Walgreens

$1/1 Coupon in 1/16 SS

Now I now that if I'm buying Colgate toothpaste, I will be looking in the smartsource from January 16. Then I'll take it out, cut the coupon, and put the insert back in its place. It's really simple. 

I'm also a pretty organized person so I have a lot of fun with this! I buy the colorful-pretty tabs and my coupons are so organized!

And this method is really not very expensive. Yesterday I found a 25 pack of the green hanging folders plus 50 regular manila folders for only $2.48 at Target. 

So far I have everything from January through the first weekend of February. I even have enough room for probably all the inserts through March. At that point, many of the January ones will be expired and get thrown away.

Walgreens 2/6 Best trip yet! $100 worth for $6!

I must admit, this photo makes me laugh. The trip results were so big I had to transfer the photo session from my little laptop table to the bed. So excuse the sloppy pictures but I did my best! As you can see, I got a lot of stuff today. Before I write about the "how"... here's the results. Remember "RR" means Register Rewards which are the printed coupons Walgreens prints out for you when you buy certain items. You can use these on future purchases as a form of payment.


[Please feel free to ask any questions in the comment box below!]


Total Value of trip: $107.92
Paid: $5.85 INCLUDING $3.22 of tax.
WOW!
I'm amazed with even myself. But it shows what a little bit of planning and preparation can do!

Here is what I got:
1 Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice $2.99 and get $2 RR back
4 Kotex Pads 3/$9 and get $3 RR back
1 Veripur Hand Sanitizer $3.99 get $4 RR back
4 Ragu Pasta Sauce 2/$3 [Buy $15 worth and get $5 RR]
4 Lipton tea 100 count 2/$5 [Buy $15 worth and get $5 RR]
2 Colgate toothpaste 2/$5 and get $3 RR back
5 Gain dish soap 5/$5 and get $1 RR back
3 Garnier Herbashine hair dye $5 each : Buy $15 and get $5 RR back.
5 Valentine's Day Pencils 5/$1 with the in-ad coupon from this week's Walgreen's Ad.


As you can see, the total for all of this was really high before coupons. I believe it was $60. So I already saved $40 just buy purchasing the sale prices instead of buying them at regular price. Now for the coupons!


I used:
5: $.25/1 Gain dish soap from 1/16 P&G
4: $.60/1 Lipton tea from 1/30 Redplum
2: $.60/2 Ragu sauces from 1/30 Redplum
3: $3.00/1 Garnier Herbashine Hair product from 1/9 Smartsource. This one is also available on coupons.com if you are interested! It is an amazing deal for hair coloring!
2: $2/2 Kotex product from 1/16 Smartsource
2: $.75/1 Colgate from 1/30 Smartsource


This brought my total down to about $40. So while this is nice and all because you would be getting back $23 rewards for purchasing all of this, I was able to bring it down much further by using my previous register rewards from last week and the week before. So my results on this trip aren't typical savings that you would get if you bought the same stuff unless you have a lot of rewards to start with. 


So then I paid with:
$2 RR
$2 RR
$3 RR
$3 RR
$4 RR
$6 RR
$8 RR
$10 RR


Therefore my total out of pocket expense was only $2.65
Plus tax, it was $5.85.
According to my reciept, I saved $47.07 by shopping the sales prices, and I saved $59.35 by using coupons and register rewards.
So thats a savings of $107.92! That is amazing!!


What I recommend for you all is to check my HOW TO BEGIN section if you are interested in starting shopping at Walgreens. Let me give you a brief scenario if you were to want to try and spend, lets say $10 Out of pocket and still have some rewards to use next week. I'll write it as if you have NO coupons to begin with.
So this week buy this:


Transaction 1:
Buy 1 Veripur Hand Sanitizer $3.99 get $4 RR
Pay $3.99 get $4 Rewards back


Transaction 2:
Buy 3 Herbashine Hair Colors @ $5 Each.
$15
-3 : $3/1 coupons from the internet (www.coupons.com,) which anyone can get!
Buy 1 really cheap item like a candy bar for $.49
=$6.49
Use the reward from transaction 1= -$4
=$2.49 out of pocket and get $5 Rewards back


Transaction 3:
Buy 2 Colgate toothpaste $2/5
Use $5 RR from trans. 2
=pay nothing
Get $3 Rewards back


Transaction 4:
Buy 5 gain dish soap
$5
Use $3 RR from Transaction 3
Pay $2 out of pocket


Get $1 RR back. You could use this for something else or save it for next week. 


With this scenario [which is just an example], You would pay about $8.50 for what would have cost you $40 on regular price.


Get it?? I hope this all makes sense! The trick to Walgreens is earning a lot of register rewards. I personally have at least $20 worth at one time. That way I buy items, pay with rewards, and get rewards BACK. They're sort of rolling over and over again and I never have to pay very much! It's a blessing.

We will be donating the pads and giving the soap and tomato sauces to family. 

Quick Walgreens trip 2/5 100% FREE

[Remember, you can leave me comments about ANYTHING at the bottom of this blog post or any of the other posts].

Here's just a quick blog post for today. I was able to pick up all 8 of these Vicks cough drops for.... FREE! 

That's right, there wasn't even tax. It was 100% free to take all of these home today. What's even better is they don't expire until September 2012. So even if I kept them for myself, I won't need cough drops for another 2 years! But of course, I'll be giving pretty much all of them away since cough drops are very often free with coupons.

Now I want to help you guys get some of the easiest deals out there- so this one is a good start. It's very very simple. 

This specific brand and size of cough drops can most likely be found at the front of your store next to the register. You know where they keep all of the candy and random small things like lighters? Yup. Right there. =] 

If not, then maybe check another store. I know only one store in my area happens to carry these. But its an amazing deal.

You can get the $1 off of 1 Vicks product coupon from two different places. The first is the P&G Coupon savings in the newspaper on Sunday, January 16. The other is also in the P&G but this was in the paper for Sunday, January 30. So between these two weeks I had about 12 different Vicks coupons to get the drops for free. I've done this deal twice already and the coupons go through without a problem.

To help you, this is what the coupon looks like.

Now technically according to the fine print, you are only allowed to use 4 of the same coupon in one shopping trip. But I had Hubby with me, so we each were able to get 4..

Here is how it went!

8 Vicks VapoDrops 20 count.

 $1.29 for one OR $1 each when you buy 2.

So I bought 8 VapoDrops 

=$8

-(8) $1/1 Vicks Product from 1/30 P&G

= FREE!

Publix 2/3 Savings of 68% and 60%

Hey everyone! There were some really good deals this week at Publix. If you haven't already read my "How to Begin" section, than you should really do so. Visit Iheartpublix.com to see the coupon match-ups along with the Buy 1 get 1 Free deals for this week at Publix. 

Now what you see above was an amazing deal I found on pads and tampons. No need to be shy ladies, we all use them. =]

The deal that I got above was completely using coupons alone. No sales prices were applicable. 

One of the basic rules of couponing is that you can use 1 store coupon AND 1 manufacturer coupon on the SAME item! This maximizes your savings!

So for this trip, I used a $2.50/2 manufacturer coupon I printed it off of Coupons.com. You can visit there and get the same coupon in case you're interested!! It looks like this ...

I also used a $2/1 U by Kotex product Publix STORE coupon from a recent coupon booklet they had available in stores. This booklet looks likes this...

If you cannot find the booklet, there is also a $2/1 Kotex publix store coupon in the Green Advantage Flyer at the front of the store. It looks like this:

So the deal worked as follows.

2 U by Kotex Pads or Tampons $4.79

- 2 $2/1 Store coupon

-1 $2.50/2 manufacturer coupon

= $3.08 for both!

That means it was only $1.54 for one box of Kotex Pads/Tampons!

Now to put this into perspective, I looked for the cheap store brand of the same size of pads/ tampons and the cost was $2.29! So by couponing, you are getting better quality for LESS money than the store brand. Isn't that awesome?

So in this case, I bought 4 boxes of pads and 2 boxes of tampons. Not all for myself of course! We all have plenty of family members who would appreciate receiving these for free!

Total before coupons=

$28.74

My total cost =

$9.24

My savings= 

$19.50

That is a savings of 68%. That's amazing for pads- especially for a brand I love, and am not settling on for a better price.