Found another Money-Maker at the Publix

Well, I was pretty sad after the vitamin deal that I was making money off of ended. I was thinking it was kind of a one time deal that I wouldn't be able to find again. Happily...I was wrong! Publix has a couple of products right now that allow you to make money off of them. I couldn't find everything I was looking for, but I did find 4 packs of the Phazyme (not even really sure what it is!). They are $3.49 each and there is a Publix coupon for $5 off 2 packs. That means for 2 packs it costs $1.98, but then I also had $2 off 1 coupons. I bought 4 packs and made $4, Love It! So for everything here is was a little under $25. I made about 50 cents buying the bic razors. I had a free jello temptations coupon so we used that. The texas toast was obviously a good deal! It was on sale for $1.74 a box and I had $1 off coupons and 80 cents coupons, so I got 2 boxes for 74 cents each and 2 boxes for 94 cents each. We have never tried the taco dinner kits, but they were bogo $2.99 and I found a $1/3 coupon in the store, so they were $1.16 each. Rotel was bogo $1.39, which is pretty cheap and we use a lot of. The lunch meat was on sale for $2.50 and I had $1 off coupons, so $1.50 each pack. We also got some stuff to make pizza and some corn, which was $3 for a dozen ears.

Our First Donation

So one of the things that I see a lot of couponers do that I really like is donating from their stockpile. It is something I have been wanting to do, but haven't had a chance yet. Well, we live in Alabama which was severely impacted by tornadoes yesterday, so what better time to give back a little. I have a friend who is collecting donations and this is what I am giving to her tomorrow. I estimate that retail this stuff would probably cost about $30, and what did all of this cost me? Absolutely nothing! So for the people who say couponing and stockpiling is the same thing is hording, here is just one reason why you are wrong. I buy enough for me and my husband and anything extra I can give to others who need it. This is something I would not have been able to do without coupons. I wish that other people would get past the hype (and frankly lunacy) of shows like extreme couponing and see that there are people out there who are doing a lot of good with their couponing, in addition to saving money for their family.

Easter Shopping

Well it was a sad day in couponing- no inserts because of Easter. But that didn't stop me from getting some awesome deals. The people at CVS have obviously lost their minds. They put a full size dove men + care deodorant on sale for 99cents! I got 2 free and bought 2 more because they were such an amazing deal.

We came back home and had a yummy breakfast (and maybe a little too much of it!). Later we went to see Water for Elephants, which was amazing! After we stopped at Walmart to grab some ink and I got these fun travel size Cascade dish detergent packs for free!

Finally we made a stop at Kroger. We have been boycotting lately because of their apparent hatred of coupons and because they really haven't had any good deals lately, but they had some good deals today.The toothpaste and soap bars were free. The humus was a great deal- on sale for $1 each and we had buy one get one free coupons, so 50 cents each. Everything else, except for my big bag of lettuce and tomato was less than one dollar each. Everything for $15!

Finally, we ended the day by watching Game of Thrones and having the always delicious Shrimp Remoulade!

Free Toothbrushes

So I am guessing that this was probably a typo in the CVS ad, but they have to honor it! Reach Total Care toothbrushes are advertised for $1 each (they are not priced correctly on the shelf, but if you check them on the price scanner they are). These are usually almost $5 each, and I had $1 off coupons, so we purchased these 3 for a grand total of 24 cents! These were the only 3 they had so we got a raincheck for 5 more!

We also had some good luck with mis-marked merchandise at Publix! That is a pack of chicken breasts that is supposed to be $1.79/lb and someone marked these 99 cents/lb!Most of this is some of the same stuff we got last week. The delights yogurt cost us 45 cents each when we used a Publix and a manufacturers coupon. I wasn't really thrilled by the flavor selection, but I think husband will like them. Everything here for about $14.

We also made a stop by Walmart. I refuse to take a picture because it would make me feel like we did not get our money's worth! We wound up spending almost $60 for not very much. It reminded me of our old Walmart trips and all of the money we have wasted there thinking we were getting a good deal- depressing! To be fair we spent probably about $25 on stuff to make a roast tomorrow. I am ok with that because we love roast and very rarely get to have it, and our roast is amazing! Most of the other stuff was things that you can't really use coupons on- milk, bacon, etc. I am hoping that we don't have to make that kind of Walmart trip again for a very long time!

You can't beat free...

...actually you can, but free is still pretty awesome! The nivea body wash is $3 at Walmart and they put out $3 coupons this morning! They were supposed to come in the paper, but I didn't get any. Fortunately I was up super early enough to print some (they were gone by 9am!). So those came from Walmart and were all free! The other stuff is from Publix and we paid a little over $13 for it all. The chicken is a whole cut up chicken that will be awesome in the slow cooker tonight, and it was less than $4. They didn't have any of the touch of Philly cheese when we went Friday afternoon, but I knew they would probably be restocked this morning. They are on sale for $1.67 each and I have a ton of $1 off coupons (plus they had a $1 off coupon dispenser right in front of the cheese!), so while not quite as awesome as the free cheese we got a while ago, 67 cents a bag for Kraft cheese is a pretty great deal. The dip was bogo and I had coupons, so we got both containers for 9 cents. I hadn't planned on getting the pillsbury sweet moments (they are really good, but also really expensive for so little of them), but we were surprised by a bogo coupon in the paper this morning and fortunately I brought my coupon binder with me this morning and I had some high value coupons. So we got both bags for $1.44, which is pretty good considering they are regularly over $3 a bag. The birds eye veggies are 50% off right now and I had a decent coupon, but not good enough for me to get them, but they had a Publix coupon I could stack with it in the store today that made for a deal I could not pass up- we got them for 22 cents each! They are a rice/veggie mix and I think we are going to try it to make some kind of fried rice with them this week.

Short But Sweet Day at Publix

16 items for about $8! Publix has a huge sale ad this week, but unfortunately not a lot that I wanted or had coupons for. But I did find a couple of pretty awesome deals. The yogurt and mustard were free. The soap was about 30 cents. The brownie mixes are the premium kind, with chocolate chunks and frosting, and we got them for 35 cents each (they are normally almost $3 a box!). The chips were 45 cents, the dressing about 80 cents each and the PAM a little less than a dollar. The oil was a good deal- $2.79 for both bottles. Sadly I got one canola oil by mistake, but I will go exchange it on Sunday. We are going to go back when we go get our coupons to see if we can get some cheese. The touch of Philly cheese is on sale and with coupons I can get for about 67 cents a bag. They didn't have any in stock today, but we usually have pretty good luck early on Sunday morning. If not I will just grab a raincheck!

Lots of Stores, Lots of Savings!

We got all of this for about $20! Ok, that is a little misleading, it was more like $30, but we stopped at Hastings and sold some books there for $10, so I discounted that:) We started the day at CVS. The gain dish soap was on sale for 97 cents and I had $1 off coupons. I had them yesterday when we stopped at CVS, but since none of the sale signs were out I wasn't sure if they were on sale (I later felt very dumb since we price checked all of the stuff we bought at CVS yesterday!). Oh, well, it was on our way home from buying coupons. So 2 gain dish soaps= 10 cents (happy I was smart enough to bring a quarter in with me so I didn't have to put that on a debit card).

After coupon clipping in the morning and a delicious chicken skillet lunch that husband made cabin fever started to set in. So what better to do than go out and coupon shop! We started at Target. The deodorant and floss were free, the shampoo was 7 cents, we got 3 of the rice bags for 33 cents each and 2 for 50 cents each. Although the check out people did treat us a little bit like criminals, checking each of our items and telling us that we were trying to use coupons on 1 item (yes one is a target coupon and one is a manufacturer's coupon, ever read your store's coupon policy?) it was still a really good deal.

Then we stopped at Kroger. They have a deal this week for buy 4 participating cereals and get a $5 gift card back. In the ad it said the deal was for next week (which didn't make sense since it was in this week's ad!), but we called the store and they said it was a typo. So the cereal was $3 a box and I had 4 $1 off coupons, so we got 4 boxes of cereal for $8 plus a $5 gift card (makes it about 75 cents a box). We later used the $5 gift card at another Kroger when we bought all of that chef boyardee. It is on sale for $1 a can and I had lots of 50 cents off 3 cans coupons that doubled. So we got them for about 67 cents a can.

We also made a quick trip to Walmart just to grab some tomatoes and croutons for shrimp remoulade for dinner tomorrow- yum! While we were there we picked up some taco seasoning for free!

My First Real CVS Trip

I haven't really done a lot with CVS and Walgreens in my couponing adventures, although I see people online all of the time who save ridiculous amounts at these places. I have wanted to try it but I wasn't real sure how to go about it. However, this week I saw a deal at CVS that I thought would be really great. The deal is supposed to start with the Sunday ad, but I saw people online talking about how sometimes CVS will honor their prices on Saturday. Husband called one of our local CVS stores and they said that sale prices for Sunday's ad start at 4pm on Saturday, so we decided to venture out.

They have a deal for buy $20 worth of lysol products and get $10 extra care bucks. The airwick freshmatic starter kits are regular price $13.29. They are on sale starting Sunday (or today!) for $6 each. They also have $4 off printable coupons, making them $2 each. The lysol neutra air freshener was on sale for $2.50 and I had a $1.50 off coupon. I also had a $2 ECB to use from a previous purchase. So with tax we paid $6.64 for $44.26 worth of stuff and got $10 ECB to spend on a future purchase, its like getting it all for nothing, plus a little extra back!

We also made a quick trip back to Publix. It cost is almost $20 (we saved about 50% which is really low percentage wise for me at Publix), but $4 each is a really good price for the toilet paper packs. Also, the jello temptations are just fantastic, so we printed out some more $1 off coupons. The kosher salt was free. I wasn't going to buy the regular salt but it had a thing on the top that said it had a coupon inside, so I opened that only to realize that it was a coupon for some type of seasoning salt with a tiny free sample. Then I felt bad for opening it so we bought it, oh well it was only 69 cents:)

Oh How Publix Spoils Me

Total for today's shopping trip: $27 for 31 items including a 12 double roll pack of toilet paper! We are already planning on going back on Sunday to get a couple of more of these deals. This was one of our more expensive shopping trips at Publix. I love that now less than $30 is "expensive", which used to be super cheap for us shopping at Walmart.

In case you haven't tried them the Jello Temptations are amazing! Double chocolate pie and strawberry cheesecake are fantastic, I have french silk pie in the fridge but haven't tried it yet. These are $2 each at Publix this week and they have $1 printable coupons for them this week, making them $1 for the 3 packs (also I found some packs that had a 75 cent coupon in the pack!).

The toilet paper is on sale for $5 this week, which is already a pretty good deal, but right before I went to the store I found a printable coupon that doubled to $1= even better deal! (always checking the www.livingrichwithcoupons.com database before shopping- it often has more coupons listed than the ones in the coupon match-up site)

Husband loves the milano cookies but they are usually way to expensive. They are bogo this week for $3.39 and I had some good coupons, so I got them for 90 cents each. The tissues were free. The almond accents (they are a super good salad topping if you have never had them) were bogo for $2.99 and I had $1/1 coupons, so I got them for 50 cents each. The pasta and the toothpaste were moneymakers for me:)

A few more good Publix finds

We were able to get a few good things at Publix this morning. There is a promotion going on with the Chef Boyardee (and other ConAgra products I think). The cans have a code on them and you can go to a website and enter the code- this supposedly donates food to feed kids and you can also print out coupons for other ConAgra products. So I was able to get some 50 cents off of 3 cans, they are on sale for $1 each. I was able to get 9 cans for about $6, and then I came home and printed out a bunch more coupons! They also had a coupon for goldfish grahms, I've never heard of them before, but I got them for only 30 cents a bag so we decided to give them a try. I got the Scotties tissue for free, and those 2 small things are cover girl eyeshadow, I combined a Publix coupon with a manufacturer coupon and got them for 50 cents each. Plus they have a coupon for buy 2 P&G products (cover girl is included) and get a free Publix reusable bag. I had limited time to find one and the only one I could find for 99 cents (the coupon limit) was this easter chick bag, I don't think husband will be very willing to carry it around, but whatever it was free. Paid about $13 total for everything.

We also went to Kroger this morning to get some essentials, but I wasn't able to use any coupons:( I am so disenchanted with Kroger lately. No good sales in the last couple of weeks. Plus, when we went this morning they only had one lane open. I know it was like 7:30 in the morning, but there were plenty of people just standing around looking at everyone in line, they could have opened another lane- like Publix does, just saying.