More Than a Little

My husband and daughter stayed home and played in the snow while I drove  out of town to hit a few drugstores. I really meant to go to Rite Aid and it turns out to be the one drugstore I didn’t go to.  Ooops!  I had an pretty hot shopping day.  I was feeling so darned good about myself that I called on my way home and arranged for a date at Longhorn.  Expensive but delicious! 

Walgreens

(not pictured: two more Aquafina waters that had already been carried into the sunroom to be put away. Too heavy to lug them back just for the sake of a photo!)

Total OOP: $24.32 (2.74, 3.46, 3.96, 1.20, 1.20, 3.00, 7.74, 1.02)
Total RR Used: $43 (10, 5, 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 2, 2, 10, 3)
Total Spent: $67.32
Total RR Received: $119 (5, 5, 3, 3, 2, 3, 2, 5, 5, 3, 10, 5, 5, 3, 1, 1, 5, 5, 6, 1, 2, 2, 1, 5, 5, 6, 3, 5, 5, 6, 1)
Total Cost: $51.68 profit

This was the result of shopping at several stores, so no need to fear that I am roaming the countryside, demolishing the stock at all of your neighborhood Walgreens.  I even left sugar testing kits in stock at every single store!  ;)  Right now, if you buy one of each in a transaction, you get two $5 RRs and one extra $3 RR. Since I used coupons to make them all free–that makes it a pretty hot deal.  For some reason, I don’t even have to pay tax on them anymore. If you purchase another qualifying item, you get a $6 instead of a $3.  The last two stores I was in had the Bayer crystals above on clearance for $2.19. I didn’t have any coupons with me but it was still profitable to buy them.  If I had just bought those monitors and Bayer crystals, I would have had $80 of profit. :)

The other thing to mention about this picture is that you should never believe everything you read on the internet.  I am occasionally guilty of just compiling my shopping lists and not noticing if something corresponds with reality.  I had read somewhere that the Sensodyne was $3.49. After a $1 coupon and $2 ad coupon, that would make it $.49.  I rarely see this on a good sale, and people have asked me for it at my yard sales, so I figured I’d get it.  Turns out that they were $4.99, not $3.49, making those toothpastes $1.99 each.  Terrible!  I will live with the loss, though, especially considering that the day was very profitable anyway. I was planning on selling them for $2 each anyway, so at least I’ll get my money back, assuming they sell (and I think they will.)  I could return them but I don’t want to be obnoxious.

CVS

I also hit a CVS on impulse.  It was the nicest CVS I have ever been into!  Large and spacious and with actual merchandise on the shelves!  ;)   I have one tiny CVS in town and one in the next that I hit occasionally, and other than that I have only walked into maybe one or two others, so I don’t exactly have a lot of experience to draw from, but they’re all tiny little stores. By the way, if you’re in a nice store, complimenting it to the cashiers makes them much friendlier.  I never say it if it isn’t true, but I make a point of telling them if it is. 

Anyway!

Total Spent:$1.75 (1.75, 0)
Total ECB used: $23.49 (2.49, 4, 5, 12)
Total ECB received: $32 (2, 6, 12, 12)
Total Cost: $8.51 profit

My husband just groaned and said, "More Soy Joy?? Ugh!"  hehe  The Oust is a fantastic deal right now.  $3.99 each and you get $3 back per bottle–plus a B1G1 coupon came out in last week’s paper. 

It was a good day.

Do you ever feel like you are annoying the crap out of someone when you check out? That is pretty much what my shopping trip today felt like. It’s not that she was extremely rude, she was just completely blank. Ahh well.

Spent: $45.96 (33.72, 11.24, 1.00)
RR used: $8 (5, 3)
Total OOP: $53.96
RR Received: $47 (10, 4, 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 4, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 1)
Total Cost: $6.96

Have you ever been in a Walgreens? Picture all of that stuff heaped up in one of their tiny little buggies with a two-year-old in the front seat, plus two bulky jackets and my purse. I looked very comical. It was almost embarrassing.

I was very happy that they had four Aquafina in stock. This week, they’re on sale for $3.99 after the in-ad coupon. They’re $5.99 regular price. There’s a $10 when you buy $20 Pepsi product RR going on this month. So-$5.99*4=$15.96-$10 RR=$5.96 for four. $1.49 each! I am ashamed on an environmental and financial level to admit that we drink bottled water most of the time, and Aquafina is my favorite.

I still can’t believe that it’s possible to shop like this, and this isn’t even one of my better trips.

If you have receipts to submit for The Caregiver’s Marketplace, you need to get those in the mail soon! Receipts from 2009 must be postmarked by January 31.

I spent at least an hour working on mine tonight. I had a total of 29 receipts for 52 packages of diapers–should work out to $39! I can accept a pay rate of $39/hour. :)

I just placed another order with Magazines.com and that reminded me that I should write a few words about buying magazines cheaply through that site. They had lots of magazines for less than the normal retail prices, and they’re always running special promotions, so it’s a generally good place to buy your magazines from.  It’s also pretty convenient to see all of your subscriptions in one place.

First of all,  if you’re going to order from them, you should click through a shopping portal like Bing Cash Back, which currently gives a whopping 50% back on magazines.com orders. (Bing deserves its own post–I haven’t been using it long but when it is good, it is fabulous.) Anyway.  Percentages change rapidly, but right now, it’s also at 21% at Ebates and 30% at Mr. Rebates.  So if you find a $10 magazine subscription, you’ll get $5 back from Bing, or $2.10 from Ebates or $3 from Mr. Rebates. I usually just check around to see who has the highest percentage before I order.  Then you just click on their link and place your order. (Note: you can’t combine them and get percentages back from all of the sites, and you need to make sure you don’t click on any competitor links after you do your click-thru. Read my post about Ebates for more info on these types of sites–the other sites are fairly similar. )

So there you have a pretty cheap magazine subscription.  The best part, though, is that they occasionally send $5 gift cards in their email newsletter!  (Sign up on their website to start receiving the newsletter.)  I received one last week that I just now redeemed.  I ordered Family Fun magazine for $9.95.  After my gift card was applied, I paid $4.95 out of pocket, and I will receive $4.98 back from Bing.  A tiny bit better than free!  (Technically, I will also get 1% back from my credit card, so that’s what? Eight cents of profit total?  It won’t pay the bills but it’s better than a poke with a sharp stick.)  I used my last gift card code (a $10 one!)  last month to get Food Network magazine for a profit of $2.50… and I’ve been eyeing that one for ages. I was even considering paying for it!

Now I just need to find time to read all of these magazine subscriptions. :)

I’m no connoisseur of tools, but this seems like a pretty hot deal to me: Skil 18-Volt 4-Tool Ni-Cd Combo Kit for $39 at Lowe’s.  Sounds like a good gift for the DIYer in your life!

In other tool deals, Home Depot has a DeWalt 81-piece Drill/Drive Contractor Set on sale for $19. This deal is only good at the store, not online, so you can’t order through that link.  Looks to be a pretty good price though, if you have  a Home Depot in your area.  We lost our Home Depot a couple of years ago, sadly.

Amazon is giving away a free digital copy of Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooking: Recipes for Entertaining right now.

If you don’t have a Kindle to read it with, you can download a free application to read it on your PC. Kindle for Windows.   There are other free books available. Check the bestseller’s list, since many of those are free.

I love my crockpot so I was happy to see this freebie! It has some interesting recipes. I’m thinking of making the spinach dip first.

(Thanks to Moneywise Moms.)

Want to receive Weight Watchers magazine for free?

Sign up here.

These usually go pretty fast, so if you’re interested, act now!  I have subscriptions to several magazines from these free offers, so yes, it really does work.  Now if I could only subscribe to “more time” in order to read them all…

I stopped in at Walmart the other night and picked up some Mr. Potato Heads for a pretty decent price — $0.50!  Want some ultra-cheap toys to round out your Christmas list?

1. Go to coupons.com and print the $2 Mr. Potato Head coupon. Note that there are a couple of $5 coupons, but they are not for the basic Mr. Potato Head, so you can’t use those.  You can hit the back button after it prints and then print another one. (Hint: the second time, go directly to the last page, because that’s where just-printed coupons go.)

2. Stop in at Dollar General and pick up a sales flyer. It’s the Toy Book, not the regular sales ad.  IF your Dollar General accepts printable coupons, you could buy them there for this price, but the corporate policy is to not accept them.

3. Take the flyer to Walmart or Target.  Show them your ad and price-match their price to the Dollar General price. At Walmart, all you have to do is stop the cashier before they scan it and show them the ad.  I’ve never price-matched at Target myself, but I believe you have to go to the Customer Service desk to check out.

4. Enjoy your savings.

(Thanks to this deal goes to Money Saving Methods.)

Today is Free Shipping Day!

If you have any remaining gifts that need purchased, this is a good day to do it, because 722 merchants across the internets are offering free shipping today.   There’s a list of participating sites, sorted by those with no requirements and those with some minimum spending requirement.

Yesterday, I baked two lasagnas, because I am a good wife and my husband needed more frozen lunches for his stockpile.  I always freeze our leftovers into individual meals so he never has to take cardboard frozen food to work with him.  Anyway, they were ready to put in the oven, but my daughter, who is two and a half, was roaming around the kitchen underfoot, and I didn’t want to have her in the room while I had the hot oven open long enough to stick them both in.

And yet… anyone who has ever had a two year old knows that shutting them out of the action rarely goes well.  So I herded her into the living room and shut the kitchen gate and explained to her that she needed to stay right there just long enough for us to sing the ABC song and then she could come back in.  Now, I have tried putting her on the other side of the gate when she didn’t want to go before, and it usually prompts a fit.  Telling her that she could come back in a minute never worked because “a minute” is not really a construct she understands.  But, the length of the ABC song?  She knows that.   She was totally okay with standing there while I sang to her and she watched me put dinner in the oven.  Before the song was even over, I was back to her and opening the gate again.

(I also do this while brushing her teeth, and I think that there are probably a lot of other times it would be helpful.)

So.. next time you need to do help your small child be patient, try it and see if it works for you.