Some Non-Grocery Bargains

So, it has been a while since Black Friday! We haven't been buying a ton of groceries lately- sales have been a little lackluster and we have a ton of stuff at home (the purpose of having a stockpile after all!). We have picked up some things here and there, but nothing super exciting. In the time that we haven't been spending on couponing, we've been making some home improvements:) We live on campus, which means that our apartment is pretty small and also that we cannot make any permanent changes like painting. During my break from work during Thanksgiving I worked on cleaning and decluttering our house some and now we have been getting some things to spruce it up.

 

That is a picture of what our bedroom has looked like for a while. The apartment was built for and came with a queen size bed. The bed was super uncomfortable and husband's mom offered us this awesome king size bed. The only problem was that the bed is just about as big as the room:) I cannot tell you how much I hated having the bed shoved up against the wall and being unable to make the bed. A couple of weeks ago we decided to try moving the bed, and I can't tell you how happy I am about this:) Here is the after picture-




We finally got the bed away from the wall! We got this great comforter set and now I can make the bed every day. Since the bed is essentially the whole room, once the bed is made the whole room looks clean:) We also just went an got a shower curtain that pretty much matches this set and it looks great in our bathroom.



Lastly, we got this awesome table and chairs today. Our apartment originally came with a table and two chairs. It was nice, but it was pretty big, I'm not sure how it was supposed to fit in here. So, we have been living tables-less for almost four years. It really isn't that big of a deal, but we have been wanting a place to sit and eat lately- trying to cut up a pork chop on the couch isn't that easy:) I saw an ad on craigslist for a small restaurant table and two wood chairs for $35. I really wanted it- husband called, we emailed, we even stopped by the place, but nothing! We decided on our day off today to go check some of the local thrift stores, and success! They had some sets, but they were way too big for our tiny space. We got this small but adorable table and these two really nice chairs for only $45. It has some scratches on it, but we got some cheap placemats at Walmart so you can't even tell:)



Ok, one last non-grocery updated:) Check out all of the fabulous shoes we got- for $40!!! My three pairs were on sale for $10 each, husband's was $25 and I had a coupon for $15 off of $50, that is a great bargain:)

Black Friday Deals

I have been MIA for a little while. I went to visit my parents and when my car took a turn for the worse I wound up with my mom up here with me for a week. We did some shopping while she was here, and she walked away with way more than me, but pictures were not taken. But, I'm back in full shopping mode now! I really didn't do any Black Friday shopping, but I did make some time for CVS and their amazing deals this week. CVS did their ad in two parts- one that started Sunday and one that started Thursday. This is from the Sunday venture, that my mom was also a part of, we were able to double up on a couple of deals because she has a CVS card too. Everything here (with the exception of the gummy bears that my husband picked up) was free with ECBs! I paid about $8 for all of this and still walked out with close to $7 in ECBs.

This is from the deals that started Thursday, but we didn't go until Friday evening, I was shocked they still had many of these deals. It is hard to see what the little package is, but it is ear buds. They were $6.99 and I got $6.99 back on them, the CVS batteries were the same type of deal. The cereal was $2.87 with $2 ECB back and I had a 60 cent coupon, making it just 27 cents for a box of cereal- that is awesome! The best deal was the milky war bars. They were supposed to be 75 cents each with 75 cent ECB back. I also had a buy 2 get 1 free coupon, so that would have been a good deal. But, it got even better because for some reason they rang up for 50 cents each, and my coupon rang up the full redeemable value of $1.29, that means we paid $1.50 for 3 bars, got $1.29 off of that and then got $1.50 back. It is always nice to make money on candy:) I also bought husband a candy bar, but it didn't make it all the way home with us.

We also made a quick stop at Publix. I went to go get a cereal and milk deal, but they didn't have the kind of cereal I wanted, oh well. I got all of this for just under $20. The best deal was the toothpaste, I had a coupon from Kroger for a free Colgate toothpaste with no max value, so I got a $3.50 tube of toothpaste for free!!! The yakisoba noodles were also a good deal- they were on sale for 50 cents and I had a 50 cent coupon that double so moneymaker! The rice-a-roni was bogo making them about 80 cents each, and so were the old el paso dinner kits. We still have burrito kits left from when we bought a ton of them, but we picked up a couple of gordita kits. The finish dishwasher packs were bogo and with a coupon we got the box for $2.50, which is a good deal. The toaster strudel was also bogo, $2.89 and I had $1/2 coupons, making them a little less than a dollar a box. The lettuce is for dinner tonight (shrimp remoulade, yum!), and the flowers were bogo making them only $2 for the bunch.

Lastly, I will leave you with a look at our Thanksgiving dinner. Shocker- I got this on sale too!!! Husband and I love roast, but it is usually so expensive. We were just going to suck it up and go to Walmart and grab a roast since we only make it once a year for Thanksgiving. But, before we went I noticed that Winn Dixie had some kind of roast on sale bogo. We went to look at it and it seemed like a good deal, but was not the cut of meat we usually buy. My thrifty nature told me to give it a try and I am so happy I did! Now, since it was Winn Dixie, where they have true bogo instead of half-price bogo like Publix, we did have to buy two roasts. We found two that were pretty close to the same price and got two roasts, which were each almost 4 pounds each, for just $20!!! I was a little worried that the roast wasn't going to fall apart like our other cut of meat, but as you can see I was wrong. We ate this for dinner, I had it for lunch yesterday, and we still have plenty of leftovers, plus I still have another roast in the freezer. I am going to take it out next week to defrost and see how it does. I think we can have roast a little more often now:)

Love to Shop Here, Love to Save Here

That is the title of the Publix button that husband was kind enough to get me and is showing off here in the picture. It's the Publix slogan and it is so true:) Here is our shopping trip for today, which cost about $43 total. It is hard to see but those bags in the front are frozen cheesesticks and they are so good! I had a raincheck for them from a couple of weeks ago when they were on sale and they were out. These are usually pretty expensive, but my raincheck made them bogo and I had $3/2 coupons, making them $1.50 each. I also had a raincheck for the campbell's bowls. I was kind of annoyed that they were out when we bought all of our other soup, but I'm actually happy I had to wait. Publix put out a $2/3 chunky soups coupon, I had two of those, plus five $1/2 manufacturer's coupons; that made each bowl about 35 cents each, that is crazy good! I also got some Progresso soup, which was bogo and I had some coupons that made them a little less than $1 each. The little pizzas were $1.25 each, but I had a $1/3 coupon and a b3g1 free coupon, making them about 68 cents each. The salad dressings were about 30 cents each and the cereal was about 90 cents each after coupons. Some of the shampoo is for me and some for my mom, and after coupons they worked out to about $1 each, which is pretty good because the bottles are huge and the Tresemme is generally pretty expensive. Finally, the toilet paper and paper towels were a decent deal, I got both for $8.50, which isn't fantastic, but is pretty good.

Soup!

I love fall for so many reasons, mainly for the cooler weather; but it is also a good time to stock up on soup! Publix had the Campbell's Chunky soup on sale this week and there were some amazing coupons to pair with the sale. They were bogo $2.49 and there were coupons out for $1/2 and $1/3, making them between 75 and 92 cents a can, which is an amazing deal! Also, I had some $2/3 cans Publix coupons, which made for an even better deal- paired with my manufacturer's coupons that made some of them 25 cents a can! I actually got more than this, but didn't take a picture. I had a little trouble this week in buying it all, because one of my Publix stores is now limiting you to 10 of the items that are bogo. I knew this, but had been told that it was 10 items of each type, so I thought if I bought different types of soup that would be ok, but apparently not. Fortunately, the cashier was nice enough to ring me up in separate transactions. I wound up getting a rain check for the bowls because they didn't have very many at the store, so husband and I will be eating soup for a while:)

I was able to get some other good deals in the past couple of weeks, but neglected to take pictures. One of my favorites was the Jennie O Turkey sausage, it was on sale for $1.99 this week and there were $1 off coupons, I think $1 for meat is always a good deal. Here are a couple of other good deals I got today. We use mayonnaise to make our dressing for shrimp remoulade, so this should last us a while. They were bogo $4.99, and I got some coupons from recycle bank (you take quizzes and answer questions for points that you can redeem) for $2 off two Hellman's products, making them $1.50 each. There were also a combination of Publix and manufacturer's coupons for the laundry detergents. The Surf is a huge bottle and after coupons we got them for $1.99 each, and the All is about half the size of the Surf and we got those for $1 each after coupons. Laundry detergent is sometimes hard to get cheap, so I try to grab a few bottles when they are cheap and this will last us a long time.

Shopping Update

This is kind of a random post. We have gotten some super good deals lately, but just haven't had the time to post them. So here are some of the highlights from the past couple of weeks. Now, where to start? Ah, how about the massive amount of Mountain Dew husband got?

So, that is 36 12-packs of Mountain Dew, which is a Pepsi product. Publix had Pepsi products on sale buy-two-get-two free. For about two days that sale coincided with a yellow flyer coupon for buy two get one free. They were $5.49 each, so buy getting them in multiples of 12 husband was able to do the following:

12 packs @ $5.49 each= $65.88

6 packs are deducted immediately (b2g2)= $32.94

4 packs are deducted by coupon (b2g1)= $10.98

12 packs for $10.98= 92 cents per 12 pack OR 8 cents per can!

That is definitely a stock up price, so stock up we did:) Here is what our soft drink stock pile looked like after we added our Mountain Dew to our Dr. Pepper:

 That should last us a while:) Now, how about some amazingly cheap lunch meat for sandwiches? These 10 containers of lunch meat (9oz each) cost us 77 cents a pack!

They were part of the Kroger mega sale and after mega savings they were $2.77 each. A coupon came out for $1 off each pack and there is also a Catalina deal for buy 10 participating Kraft items and get $10 off you next purchase. In essence we paid $1.77 per pack, but got a $10 coupon back that we used on other items. I am super shocked that Kroger turned right back around and is doing another mega sale with this exact same item, pricing and the Catalina is still valid. We will be eating sandwiches for lunch for quite some time:)

 Finally, this was a Publix trip that husband made today. All of this, including tax, was only $30! That is pretty excellent considering this is going to pretty much make 20 meals for us:) It is hard to see but that is 12 packs of the Kraft Fresh Take, we actually have a few more coupons but are saving those to use on a new variety of Fresh Take- Smokehouse BBQ, which we have only seen at Walmart so far. These were $2 and we had $1 off coupons. We also got 8 of the burrito kits, which are pretty much a whole meal since they come with rice and beans. They were b1g1 $3.19, making them $1.60 each, and we had coupons that doubled to $1, making each kit only 60 cents each! The Magnum ice cream bars were also a great deal. They are really expensive normally, so we only buy them when on sale. Today they were b1g1 $3.99 and we had $1 off coupons, making each box only $1. Now you only get three bars per box, but they are pretty delicious, so 33 cents each is fine by me:)

Finally a Great Sale at Kroger

For the past few months sales at Kroger have just been really blah, maybe a good price on milk or chicken, but nothing super exciting. However, this is the second week of a great mega sale! The mega sale is buy 10 participating items and get $5 off instantly, this also coincides with some great coupons and catalinas (buy a certain number of products and get a coupon for an amount off of your next purchase). I had to do this shopping trip in 3 transactions to get the most out of the catalina offers, but it was worth it. We got all of this for about $40 total. The pup-peroni is for my mom and was a really good deal. They are part of the mega sale for $1.99 and I had a couple of coupons for $1.50 off one and $1.25 off one. Right now if you buy 3 or more you get a catalina for $2 off. This is why I had to break up my items, if I would have bought all 7 in one transaction I still would have only gotten $2, but since I put them in two transactions I got another $2 off coupon. I didn't know it but there is also a catalina when you buy Kraft products and that includes the lunch meat and hot dogs, I was surprised when it printed a $2 off coupon. I was already planning on sending husband back later in the week to get some more stuff, but I was really excited when we got home and found that there is a $1 off of lunch meat coupon available to pair with the sale and catalina, I am already formulating a plan:) Those glade misters were also a good deal, they are $3.45 as part of the mega sale and I had $3 off coupons, plus for every one I bought I got $1 back (also part of why I had to do three transactions, I was only about to get $3 back, but that still makes them free). The Dole smoothie shakers were supposed to print a catalina for 75 cents, but it isn't always a guarantee and I was not going to fight for 75 cents.

And of course, everyday at Publix is a great day! That Mott's applesauce to go stuff is great for husband, he works with the mail, so it is nice to have a snack that you don't have to eat with your hands. They are on sale for $2 each right now and I had $1 off coupons. When we got home we found that they have now also put up a bogo coupon, so we will be getting some more:) There are 4 in a pack, so 25 cents is pretty good for a snack. The grits were also a great buy, quaker products are 50% off this weekend and I had a coupons that made each box about $1 each. I thought I had a coupon for the waffles also, but apparently I dreamed that, but I decided to get them anyway, they were only $1.25 per box. The green giant veggies were a good deal, they are bogo right now and with coupons I got each one for 30 cents each. I am not sure what the Jingos are, I am guessing a new product, they look like snack crackers, with coupon they were only 50 cents for the box, so we will give them a try!

Thanks Publix- We Love the Dr. Pepper Sale!

A few months back husband found a great sale on Dr. Pepper. I thought at the time it was a fluke and wouldn't happen again, but happily I appear to be wrong! In our area Dr. Pepper is bottled by Coke and right now Coke products are on sale buy two get one free. In the new yellow flyer there is a coupon for buy two get one free. Apparently you can combine both of these, basically meaning you buy one and get two free! They are $5.29, which means that each pack is $1.75!

We also picked up a few other things while at the Publix. The cereal was about $1.20 each after sale and coupons. The soup wasn't a great deal, but was on sale for $1.50 a can. Those bags are cat treats, no I do not have a cat, but I made $1 buy buying them and my mom has a cat back home.

We also made a stop at Kroger today. They finally had a decent sale and we got all of this for less that $50. They have a mega sale where when you buy 10 participating items you get $5 off, basically meaning each item is 50 cents off. The laundry detergent was $2.49 and I had a 75 cents/2 coupon. The dishwashing gelpacs were $2 each after coupon. The lunch meat was a good deal- $2.77 each. The chex mix was also a good deal, 50 cents each after coupons. The mashed potatoes were also about 50 cents a box and there are two pouches in each box. I have some more coupons for chex mix and potatoes, but wanted to hold on to see what else is included in the sale. Sadly Kroger won't just tell you all of the included products, but fortunately there are couponing blogs out there that will go to the store and find all of the participating items.