More Than a Little

Since I have entered the frugal mindset, I have tried to make myself do those fiddly little tasks that I would otherwise blow off.  For example, yesterday I bought the wrong Colgate at Kroger, and my Cellfire e-coupon didn’t come off my total. I used a paper coupon so it was just fifty cents in the end, but still. I just don’t pay fifty cents for toothpaste these days!  So I have been much better about returning items instead of just shrugging it off and saying that oh well, it’s not worth the effort to fix.

Since we had a real heat wave today (ie, it was almost 45 degrees, woohoo!) I decided that it was the optimal time to get out and do some errands.   I take my little shopping buddy with me everywhere I go, and pulling a twenty-month-old in and out of the car fifteen times is a real pain, especially because she’s still rear-facing and in the middle seat.  Anyway, it’s exponentially more sucktastic when it’s below freezing, so I made myself tackle the fiddly return tasks I’ve been putting off lately.

First stop, Kroger, to return the previously mentioned Colgate.  The customer service girl looked at me like I was insane but I got my $1.59 back.   Then I took back a bottle of $1.99 Excedrin to Rite-Aid.  I bought it because it was free, but she didn’t scan my coupon so it wasn’t free after all.  I also exchanged a package of Huggies purchased last week for the correct size.  They were out at the time, so I just bought a placeholder package.  Then I went to Walgreens, where I exchanged three packs of diapers (purchased for nearly nothing during the last big B1G1 sale plus the pharmacy coupon) for the right size.  I have been dreading that because diapers are so big and bulky to cart around.

Anyway, I returned two items of less than two dollars each, and meanwhile, my daughter is wasting away of thirst. Apparently.  I had forgotten her sippy cup at home this time, and so when she broke down crying, saying “WA-BY!” over and over, I decided that perhaps I should do something.  I spent $1.59 (or, exactly the same amount as I returned the toothpaste for..) on a bottle of water for her, and then spent the remainder of my shopping trip carefully pouring water into her mouth from the oversized cap.

So.. all in all, I did not really add much to our economy by returning items this time, since I also incurred additional expenses of the same amount.  At least I tried…:)

I wish I had had time to take a picture of my shopping trip this morning, but I was in a major hurry and had to get the refrigerated and frozen things put away pronto.  Most everything else is still sitting around in the kitchen, awaiting my attention.  I thought I had enough time to get everything done and get home, but it took longer than I expected and I arrived home at 12:15, or over an hour past nap time.  Argh. I do not mess with naps lightly, so I was kicking myself all the way home.  I need to go wake her up now, which should be loads of fun. I never believed in waking a sleeping baby, but we finally figured out that it’s a necessary evil if we want her to go to bed reasonably well at night.

In any case, my receipt is a mile long, which is always the sign of a successful trip.  I spent $83.20 and saved $93.70, which includes $48.48 of manufacturer’s coupons and the doubling thereof.  That is a 53% savings, which I’m pretty happy with. Grocery shopping is still my weakest area as far as couponing goes, so I consider that a decent percentage.   I bought a couple of expensive items (like olive oil) which messed up my savings average, but what can I say? I needed it.

Highlights: seven free Cottonelle toilet papers, one free sour cream, one free Colgate… err, well, it should have been free with overage. Apparently the Cellfire coupon did not come off, and neither did the Shortcuts for the free-with-overage Yoplait, now that I think of it.  I will email them to see if I can get them to take care of that.  Six free Green Giant steamers, too.  I also bought a mountain of fresh fruit, because my daughter is absolutely crazy about fruit.  It wasn’t even on sale! Ahh, well. I knew having kids would be expensive. :)  If the worst expense I have is buying grapes at $2.09 a pound, then I think I’m doing okay!

I received a huge coupon booklet in the mail today from Kroger! It was called “Big Game Party Plan”. I was pretty happy because I never get coupons from Kroger now that I am actually a coupon shopper, and also, I tried to convince myself to go grocery shopping today and failed, so getting the mail this evening and seeing a bunch of coupons made me feel like I made the right choice by procrastinating. :) $1 off Pepsi! (Of course, I have a stack of Pepsi a mile high from the Walgreens deal but still, you hardly ever see Pepsi coupons.) $1.25/2 select Lay’s chips! There were a bunch more, too. It was a nice surprise. :)

I headed over to CVS this afternoon to check out the week’s deals. My CVS is not conveniently located so I usually make an effort to only go once a week and I skip going some weeks altogether.  I was kind of excited about the greeting card deal, though I am apparently in an American Greetings, limit one, region, instead of the Hallmark, limit five.  I could only find .99 cards in the Valentine’s section so I bought three cards. Note that they are not well displayed in the picture, and that is because… my Valentine might read this. :) It’s unromantic enough that he knows I bought a card for free, let’s not compound the issue by taking a picture of it.

Purchased
3 American Greetings cards, 0.99 each
1 OneTouch Mini glucose meter (pink!), 19.99
2  CVS brand loratadine allergy meds, 3.79 each
1 bag Swedish Fish candy (for my own personal Swede, of course), .69 (clearance, 75%)
1 Lubriderm lotion, 2.00 (clearance, 75%)
7 12-packs of Diet Pepsi (not pictured due to being too lazy to get them out of the trunk), 3.00 each

Coupons
10/50 CVS coupon
1.00/2 Diet Pepsi product x 3 (peelies on the boxes)
1.00 Lubriderm

I hardly ever get X/X coupons, so I was really excited to see the 10/50 pop out today!  I didn’t really have a  $50 purchase planned but I couldn’t resist coming up with one. I bought the Diet Pepsi for my parents–with the three coupons I used, they work out to be $1.14 each!  You just can’t beat that.

ECBs
$10 for Pepsi
$7.58 for CVS brand laratadine allergy meds
$3 for American greetings cards

Summary
I paid $2.61 out of pocket and used $18 ECBs for a grand total of $20.61.
I earned $20.58 in ECBs.

That would mean that I spent only three cents on everything I bought, except my parents will pay me back for the Diet Pepsi, which will be about eight bucks pure profit. Not too shabby!

I have always had a frugal streak in me, though that streak has gotten wider as I’ve gotten older. Luckily, I married someone thrifty as well–that makes life easier!

Anyway, I have always had a ton of little things that I do to save money. Some of them I have laughed at even to myself because they’re such small things.  But of course, those tiny little things add up.  Here are five small things that will gradually save you money.  I’ll post more of them later.

1. Use less laundry detergent! You really need much less than they tell you–half the recommended amount is usually good. I have always done this, but after I started cloth diapering my daughter, it really brought it all home to me. You really have to use less detergent on diapers than anything else to avoid problems with your diapers.  If half a scoop takes care of poop, then I think it can also handle a little dirt in the rest of the laundry without a problem.
2. Speaking of which, cloth diapers saved us so much money! It’s not gross or hard, trust me, especially with an infant.
3. Go a day without makeup.  Or, if you’re like me, go every day without makeup unless you’re going somewhere.  The more you use, the more often you have to buy it.
4. Sign up for free samples. Not only is it fun to receive free stuff in the mail and try new brands, you save money. Even if it’s just one or two days of free shampoo, those are one or two days that you didn’t pay for.  I have been using a sample of Pantene all week and still have several days to go, and I wash my hair (which is fairly long) every day.
5. Reduce the number of paper towels you use! This has been a huge savings for us because I was a paper towel addict. We went through a roll every few days, at least.  We dried our hands on them and used them to wipe up messes and clean the mirrors and anything else that needed doing.  One day, my husband and I decided to just stop using so many for a month and see how we did. We were surprised to find that it wasn’t that hard.  We dry our hands on a dish towel and use rags to clean the counters with.  I also cut apart a few old ratty towels to make “unpaper towels” for messes, though we use them for napkins as much as anything else.  I still use them for seriously gross jobs–things I don’t want in my washing machine. (Considering that I do, as mentioned, use cloth diapers, my threshold for gross things I don’t want in the washer is pretty high, though.)  I also use them for any task involving oil, like draining bacon fat or wiping up spills, and I’ll use them for hand drying during particularly nasty illnesses so we’re not sharing too many germs.   Still, we probably don’t use more than a roll per month.  I haven’t bought any since at least August and I still have a huge stack in the closet that should carry us through until spring.  We were buying paper towels nearly every time we went to Walmart before! (And sadly, we were paying full price, too.  The shame!)

Don’t you love going to the mailbox when you get a pile of fun stuff?

Bilingual Baby (Swedish) DVD — not a freebie, just an eBay delivery, but still fun.
Free Cheerios product  coupon, ordered from Pampers Gift to Grow program.
Juicy Juice sippy cup, free for signing up on the Juicy Juice site
Rite Aid Single Check Rebate check

I wish every day was like this!

I stopped in at Walgreens on my way home from shopping with my parents and niece on January 2.  I actually had a horrible cough and requested that they stop in at Walgreens for some Robitussin. It’s hard to believe, but I was actually out. I was sure that the bottles I had purchased a few months ago would expire before I needed more but I guess that’s the good news of being sick repeatedly.  (Looking on the bright side here!) I meant to just grab the Robitussin and run but my parents got into looking at the Christmas clearance and I found a few more bargains.

After all Register Rewards and coupons (I had one coupon for $1/3 chocolate chips but sadly, they only had two, marked at $1/each. What a waste!), I spent a little less than five dollars on the whole lot.

5 Robitussins, 3.99/ea (used two $2 coupons–this would have been much better if I had had more than two!) with $15 RR
1 Karo syrup (used .40 coupon)
2 Nestle chocolate chips
1 Musselman’s apple pie filling
1 Crisco (used .55 coupon)

I think I need to bake some cookies this afternoon.

Today (1/14) only, sign up at Suave to get a coupon for a free product mailed to you!

We drink a lot of Pepsi in this house, though not as much as we used to since my husband is trying to cut back on both calories and caffeine, and I am nursing and limit my caffeine.  It’s so frustrating that you can never find coupons for it, so I always have to watch the sales prices and stock up when it goes on sale.

I am super excited about this week’s sale on Pepsi products at Walgreen’s! It’s in the ad as 5 for $10 after a $5 Register Reward, which would make it $2 each–a really good price in itself.  However, you get $10 off if you buy $20 worth of products! So, if you buy 7 12-packs, you only pay $1.57 after Register Rewards!  That is an excellent price!

Now to send my husband to stock up so I don’t have to drag that many cases out to the car again.

Valid through 1/17.

When I first got into couponing, I think my husband thought it was a waste of my time and energy.  I came home with an interesting assortment of items for free, but none of it happened to be stuff that we really needed or even wanted. I saved a couple of dollars at the store with random coupons on body products or groceries, but I didn’t really change our financial situation for the better right away.

Within a couple of months, though, things had changed. I think his first realization that I was on to something was when I used a $10/$40 coupon at Walgreen’s and brought home super-cheap Pepsi and a pile of random useful stuff–including a free package of diapers. We use mostly cloth diapers with our daughter (nineteen months) but she’s currently in disposables at night and when we’re away from home.  Since we never really had a consistent disposable diaper expense (we would go through maybe a pack every couple of months when she was little) it really hurt to pay those outrageous retail prices.

Now, I can hardly imagine paying actual money for certain products, like toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, razors, etc.  Last night I bought a bottle of shampoo for $0.75 after coupon, and that same husband looked shocked when I was unloading my purchases.  ”You paid that much for shampoo? Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve PAID for shampoo?”  Of course, I also had a $3/$15 coupon to take care of the leftovers, but I hadn’t had a chance to mention that part yet! ;)

Isn’t it funny how quickly his tune changed?  I think that the savings makes a convert out of anyone!