Monday, January 24, 2011

Today was a success!

     After being sick for a week I thought I would never get back out to hit the stores for deals. Today was the day, and what a great day it was! I really feel that today's shopping trip of a combination of 7 stores has boosted my confidence that shopping for free, or really cheap is possible! Not to say that it is easy in the slightest don't get me wrong. But the pros say it gets easier with time so lets all hope for that! I spent a total of 8 hours sick in bed yesterday with my laptop, a mound of coupons, and all my ads mapping out my plan of attack for today. A lot of my knowledge and success is credited to Kathy Spencer (my coupon queen and inspiration) and her loyal followers at www.howtoshopforfree.net. The people and information on that site, along with Kathy's book "how to shop for free" (an absolute must read!) are incredible at compiling the things you need to know to succeed. The website is my reliable source of coupons and current deals that I start my planning with. I made a list of every item I needed and how much to get for every store and separated my coupons according to store as well. This made the shopping go by very quickly. I am happy to announce that this was overall the best shopping trip I have had so far, with a success at every store. If I were not to have combined the stores sales with my coupons I would have spent $190.22, which for me in past years would have been a little more over my average cost for a grocery trip but sadly nothing shocking enough to refuse to fork over the debt card and pay. Thankfully I have learned the error of my ways and will never turn back. Today I am proud to say that I knocked 61% off my grocery bill (that's over half!) And with all my purchases today only spent $74.27!!!!! I am ecstatic! Yes i have been an Aldi shopper in the past and absolutely have nothing against them and yes i could bring home a cart full of grocery's from Aldi for that price as well I'm sure of it. But the items I cashed in on today are all name brand top of the line products for CHEAP! And yes I did pay full price for some things I did not have a coupon for but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. The greatest deals I found today were: GE reveal light bulbs-FREE, Reach floss-FREE, Tide detergent-FREE, pop-tarts-FREE, Cheerios-FREE, how does it get any better?!? Does your family use those items? Why are you paying for them? Couponing pays. Does it take time? Yes. Energy? Yes. But is it worth it? Absofreakinlutely! As you can tell I'm a little hyped up lol. Lets bring it down a few notches.
     If you haven't seen yet there's a great item to get you started with your ECBs this week at CVS. Crest mouth wash is on sale for $3.99 and at check out a $3.99 ECB prints out. Great deal! Now there is a limit of one per household so you can't roll the deal to keep coming back for more free mouth wash but we will be happy with what we can get right? Also at Walgreens they have a similar senario, buy one Nivea shave cream or after shave for $3.99 get $3 back in RRs. We took advantage of that yesterday and used an old $1 RR to break even, paying $3 and getting $3 back in RRs. They also are running the same Pantene special as last week: buy 2 shampoo, conditioner, or styling products for $7 get $2 RRs. So today we used our $3 RR from our Nivea purchase and I had a coupon for $3 off any 2 Pantene products making our total $1! Even with my fridge and pantry stocked and my freezer overflowing I can't wait to see the new grocery ads coming out on Thursday to see what other deals i can conjure up...guess I will have to wait.
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