More Than a Little

I headed out yesterday morning like I often do to get some shopping done while there’s still a small chance of there still being stuff left in stock.  (Yesterday, this was perhaps not successful, as I couldn’t find a single Contour now that they’re giving $10 RR each, but it’s a nice idea anyway.)  I went to Walgreens and then got stuck at Kroger for much too long, but ended up with an incredibly awesome haul that I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of. (It was somewhere between 75-80% savings, I am estimating, and I had a hard time keeping all of the groceries in the cart while walking around because it was overflowing… for less than $37.)  Anyway, my husband called while I was at Kroger and gave me the vague impression that I should come home, so I skipped the other two drugstores when I was finally done in there.  I was surprised because he never rushes me when I’m out shopping.  Anyway, I pulled into the driveway to see my parents car sitting there.  They arrived about twenty minutes after I left, but they didn’t want him to call and tell me they were there. They never come over on Sundays and they have almost never come over without warning.  (It’s a 90 minute drive from their house.) So that was fun! I would have come home if they’d called though! :)

Walgreens

Total Spent: $8.14 (4.38, 2.63, 1.13)
Total RR Used: $61 (10, 5, 5, 5, 3, 10, 6, 2, 8, 7)
Total OOP: $69.14
Total RR Received: $77 (5, 8, 10, 6, 7, 5, 5, 8, 7, 6, 10)
Total Cost: $7.86 profit

I missed one RR while compiling those numbers and couldn’t figure out how I could possibly have made $17.86 profit, but while I was searching for the missing $10 RR (it’s difficult to separate regular manufacturer coupons on the Walgreens receipts from RR coupons) I noticed that the cashier apparently scanned my $10 Aviva coupon and entered it as $14.99.  I would have stopped her if I’d noticed it yesterday.  But hey, an extra $5 is nice.

Would sure like to find some Contours in stock this week.

What do you do with this stuff? Might try the Joint Juice and I’ll probably keep the Advil–wish I didn’t ever need that. :)  I’ll probably sell the rest.  I am pretty sure that I will end up chucking the Scalpicin in the clearance bin of a yard sale before long though. ;)

I managed to get out of the house today! I have a serious attack of the homebody fever this winter.  Too cold to drag an unwilling child into store after store. I hit all three of the drugstores. CVS was really boring so I’m going to skip that part. I don’t want to write about it in detail and I certainly didn’t want to take a picture of it.  Eyeshadow plus six 12-packs of Pepsi.  The most interesting thing about that trip was the ladies in front of me in line who were angry at the cashier and really confused about things.  They kept talking about the Pepsi deal from last week, which was 6 for $11.  You know, because you buy 6 for $20 and get $10 ECB back, making it $11.  Because… $20 – $10 = $11.  IN CRAZY TOWN.  Actually, my husband inexplicably pointed out that it would be $11.20 with tax and maybe that’s what she was talking about.  I say inexplicably because my darling husband has many fine qualities, but his tendencies to assume the best about stupid people is really not one of them.

Rite Aid

At the beginning of the week, I made my shopping lists and actually did not find a single item to put on the Rite Aid list.  I think that’s the first time ever. If I take the time to make a list, I always find something that I could buy if I go.  I might decide that it’s not worth the time and effort when the deals are slim, but there’s always something.  But, then I decided to start working the $5/$20 coupons with the free glucose monitor coupons, so I went in today to pick up some toilet paper.  I did two identical transactions and they made me Happy.

Total Cost: $.72

Also, there was an extra M&Ms but it is no more.  The monitors were $19.99, so the $5/$20 essentially allows me to get five dollars worth of free stuff.  Bless Rite Aid’s little heart.  They didn’t even challenge my usage of the $5/$20 before coupons.  That’s new!  Now that I’m carrying a copy of their coupon policy, I haven’t had to use it.  Believe me, I am not complaining.  That store gives me high blood pressure sometime

Walgreens

I could have bought more Contours, but I refrained because I intend to go shopping on Sunday morning and if I wipe them out today, I can’t buy them on Sunday.  The diaper deal isn’t stellar, but it’s adequate for my purposes.  I resell at six bucks each.  These were 3 for $13, minus Caregiver’s Marketplace rebates, so $3.57 each. Theoretically.  I just now noticed that $2 went missing.  The Pull-ups didn’t work for the Walgreens Huggies coupon from the kids coloring activity book.  Oh well.  

I kind of don’t want to do a cost analysis. It’s going to be ugly, I think.

OOP: $7.79 (1.80, 4.03, 1.96)
RR Used: $58 (10, 10, 10, 10, 5, 5, 5, 3)
Total Spent: $65.79
RR Received: $30 (5, 5, 5, 2, 5, 5, 3)
Rebates (CGM): $2.25
Total Cost: $33.54

So, that makes them $3.72 per pack of diapers, after tax (and not counting the chicken stock and other stuff) which is pretty good.  I should get back about twice that in my yard sale. :)  I’ve never not sold out on diapers.  They’re one of my best sellers and one of the hardest to obtain at a resellable price.

I have got to stop staying up so late.

This post is brought to you by my dad, who is a follower of this blog.  He reminded me a while back that you can save a lot of money just by using less of the things you already use.  It’s great that you can get shampoo for pennies using coupons, but the longer you use that same bottle of shampoo, the less you spend overall.  The classic example is the “lather, rinse, repeat” slogan on shampoo, and how it was added as a marketing ploy to sell twice as much rather than because you actually need to wash your hair twice.

Laundry detergent is something that I personally always use less of than I’m supposed to.  I used to use cloth diapers for my daughter, and one of the ‘rules’ of using cloth is that you cannot under any circumstances use as much detergent as recommended.  Soap residue  affects how well the diapers work.  When you see half the recommended amount remove poop from the diapers with no trouble, it’s hard to justify using the full amount to clean clothes that aren’t as dirty.

This attitude will save you a lot of money in the long run.  It won’t seem like much, but when you apply it to ziplock bags and paper towels and toilet paper and body wash and toothpaste and dishwashing detergent and milk for your cereal and paper and everything else, it will save you tons.

What do you use less of? What do you think is going “too far”?  I have seen frugal internet communities speaking seriously about using less water and therefore saving money by not showering very often.  I personally think that is going TOO FAR.  ;)

Now that I think about it, this post is totally an endorsement for not cleaning your house very often. Save on cleaning supplies! :) Do it for your wallet.

Sign up at Gluten Free Circle to receive free gluten-free product samples and coupons mailed to you.

As much as I like getting free samples, especially with only a small amount of initial time invested, I’ll leave this one for the people who need it. :)

Enjoy!

Advance has an interesting deal right now, 1/25 – 127.  If you spend $100 (online), you’ll get a coupon by email for $50 off your next purchase of $50 or more.  Free shipping applies to all orders $75 or more.

I think the beauty of this one is that theoretically, you’d be getting free stuff if you buy something you’d have to buy anyway.  If you don’t happen to have a large expensive car part that you need right now, then you can consider it 33% off if you want to take the opportunity to stock up on car supplies–that may or may not be worth it to you.

Advance Auto Parts – spend $100, save $50.

Big Lots has a 20% off coupon available right now.  It’s good through January 31.

Get the coupon!

Big Lots sells furniture, and we have been sorely tempted to buy a new couch there when these coupons have been released in the past.  It’s probably good that we don’t have a truck to get one home. :)

Last night, we went out to dinner at Chili’s.  We hardly ever go there but I had read at slickdeals that they’re doing a promotion for two meals, an appetizer and dessert for $20. That’s a pretty good price for a meal like that, so we thought we’d go.  Once we got in there, though, there was absolutely nothing about it on the menu.  We started looking at other options on the menu since it wasn’t available.

When the waitress (finally) arrived to ask for drink orders, I asked her about the promotion.  She said that she thought it had already ended, but it was still in the computer so she’d bring me a menu of the eligible items.  So she did, and we ordered food (which turned out to be quite good!) and we had a lovely lovely evening.

Also, before this dinner event, I sent my husband to CVS to pick up Pepsi while I went to Walgreens with the baby, and I actually combined this lovely evening with drugstore shopping. How much better does it get?  I’m too embarrassed to post a picture of the heaping pile of stuff we bought at Walgreens, though. I had a LOT of RRs from the Bayer monitors to use.  It mainly went for Pepsi products (we are stocked up through approximately August, and we drink quite a lot of it..if that tells you anything) and a humidifier.

Anyway, my point is–it doesn’t hurt to ask, in situations like this.  The worst they’re going to say is no, and you just might get what you want.  And for the record, this was just posted about at slickdeals so I don’t think that it’s an ended promotion, regardless of what our waitress said.  Feel free to try it out in your area.  I was pleased to see that the options on the menu were actually good ones–it usually feels like those special menus have less appealing entrees than the real menu.

I have officially lost my mind, thanks to Ana at Knock Off Wood. Apparently, I believe that I should begin building furniture.  Look how gorgeous that furniture is!  She posts free plans for ‘knock off’ furniture from Pottery Barn and West Elm and a bunch of other places.   She makes it look so easy!  As it happens, we are short on good furniture in this household but we promised we wouldn’t buy anymore junky particleboard stuff, and that means that we don’t buy anything because it costs too much.

I have a starter project in progress, which is the first step in re-doing my daughter’s bedroom–it’s more of an art/craft project than a furniture project, but I did use the bandsaw all by myself so I think it counts.  (I have a bit of an advantage over many people who get the odd hankering to do something like this–I’m married to a luthier–which is a fancy name for someone who builds instruments. He has lots of big tools.) I’m still working on the finishing stage so I won’t post any more details until it’s done but it’s looking so cute and I wouldn’t have done it if not for this site.

So, my recommendation for today is to go check out her blog–Knock Off Wood. Parents of young children, I particularly enjoyed the posts about Grace’s Town. Now THERE is a fun-looking toy. :)

Big Lots has Surf and All on sale this week for 2/$5. (All 2X, 50 oz or All 3X, 32 oz or Surf 3 lbs 12 oz.)  That’s actually a pretty decent price on its own.

But! Take the Big Lots sale paper to Wal-Mart or Target and price-match the Big Lots sale, and then you can use coupons to make it an even bigger savings!   (Big Lots doesn’t accept coupons.)  There were $1/1 All, $1/1 Surf and $3/2 All coupons in a recent insert–probably the 1/3/10.

Buy 2 All, use one $3/2 coupon = $1 each.

Buy 1 All or Surf, use one $1/1 coupon = $1.50 each.

Remembering that $3/1 Surf coupon fondly right now… it’d be lovely to make this a MM, wouldn’t it? Still–good price on detergent.

(I have ten copies of each coupon, which would be a total of forty bottles/boxes of detergent.  That would be a bit of overkill, I think, but it’s nice to be well-supplied, right?  hehe.  Don’t worry, I won’t be buying that many!)

I have a confession to make.

I don’t track any sort of financial savings/earnings.

I used to. I used to have this super-complicated budget spreadsheet that I maintained for a couple of years.  I split up every dime we earned and logged it into this spreadsheet by date and category.  I was splitting up every receipt into about ten different categories… and calculating tax for each one. It was super-cool and also a lot of work.  The reason I quit doing it is that I kept falling behind.  I was still doing it when I started couponing, and splitting up those receipts became absolutely impossible. I mean, I’d have a receipt that said that I paid $46.23.  Then I would have to remember that I was getting $35 in rebates, $2 in Register Rewards and I paid using a gift card that I had earned from the previous month’s rebates, so my out-of-pocket was sort of zero, but sort of $7.23.  Then I would have twelve different items in that order, and how could I easily say what each one really cost?

I’ve thought for a long time about how I could come up with any sort of useful statistics about this hobby. I’ve tried using several of the spreadsheets that other deal bloggers use.  None of them make sense for my particular situation–namely, I don’t buy this stuff just for myself. I am still planning on doing my yard sales this year.  Most of the time, I don’t even know when I bring something home if I’ll keep it or if I’ll sell it or give it away.  Plus, I buy a lot of stuff that would artificially  inflate my numbers.  For example, the regular price on a diabetes monitor is like $80.  My receipts will tell me that I have saved $129.98 or something silly, when in fact, I haven’t really saved anything.  I wouldn’t buy that item if it didn’t give me some sort of special benefit, and I’d never pay that much for one even if I did buy one.

And yet, I think I’m missing out by not tracking more of my expenditures and incomes.  If you don’t have a goal or a way of measuring a goal, then you’re not going to give it everything you’ve got, right? So, my new goal is to break even, so to speak.  My plan is pretty simple–I want the things that I buy (groceries, toiletries, household supplies, etc) for both myself and for the purpose of reselling to balance out against the income that I generate.  I’m going to count most things that I would buy at a drugstore or Wal-Mart or grocery store, excluding say, appliances or electronics or car maintenance supplies  or  maybe gifts.  For drustore shopping, I will count out of pocket expenses only–thus increasing the likelihood that I will actually keep up with this.  The Register Rewards and Extra Care Bucks will be discounted from the calculations–I mean, I’ll use them in future transactions, thereby bringing the cost down, so it evens out in the end.  Rebates I will add back into my pool of available money as income, just because it will be simpler that way.  Other income will include things like online offers, credit card dividends, yard sales, eBay sales, freelance work, etc.

This method clearly wouldn’t work for someone dedicated to a firm monthly budget, or who uses the envelope system.  In our house, though, it’s just not as set in stone that we will spend a certain amount on groceries in one week or month anymore.  We used to have $300 as our food budget, but that was before coupons.

I’ll be honest with you. I have no idea if this will work, if it’s far from obtainable or if it’s way too easy.  Judging from the last working budget that we had (before couponing), this should be quite easy to accomplish, and I’ll need to adjust it to make it more challenging.  I hope!   If that happens, I’ll add categories of spendings to be included (say, restaurants) in order to make it a little more difficult.  In a way, I’d rather fail the challenge than make it too easy–at least that way, I’d still be striving to meet my goal.

I think that the benefits of this method will be that it will inspire me to work harder to both save more and earn more, and it will also allow me to track my shopping trips quickly and with a minimum of fuss.  It also makes sense, in a way, to consider all of my income-earning activities, as a stay-at-home-mom, as part of my household budget.  At the end of the day, money in and money out data should be more useful than a somewhat arbitrary number representing my savings.

I’m going to try this for a month or two and then re-evaluate, and fine-tune the goals then.  I’ll post my progress as I go.