Walgreen's and Wal Mart Coupon Shopping 8/20 and 8/22

I want to apologize as I didn't take photos of either of these shopping trips---I know the posts are quite as boring when you actually see what the person got for the said amount of money.

Let's start with my Walgreen's shopping today since I only bought 4 items.

I had a list in mind, but changed my mind on how much I wanted to spend once I got there.  I decided to use the majority of the $7 in RR's from last week to get us some much needed cat litter.
I ended up with:

Dial Nutriskin Body wash on sale for $3.99 with $3 back in RR's.
Sharpie pen .39 with Walgreen's coupon
Pencil Sharpener .39 with Walgreen's coupon
Scoopable cat litter $5.99
I used 3 RR's from last week totaling $7.  I paid $4.63 including .87 sales tax and came home with $3 in RR's.    Not the best trip, but less than the cat litter alone would have cost me and still $3 to spend towards next week's shopping.


Now on to Wal Mart where I bought what seemed like a ton of things!  Let's start with the items that I bought with coupons:

2 bags of Sour Patch candy, $1.97 each, used $1/2 coupon--not a real bargain at $1.47 a bag but treat for my teen.
3 packs of Trident gum at .96 each.  I used $2/3 coupon making them .28 and .29 each.
Tic Tacs at $1.04 using $1 coupon making them .04
3 regular size bags of m&m's at .74 each.  I used the $1.25/3 coupon making them .32  (couldn't help it, coupon was going to expire and I wanted a treat for myself.)
Carnation Instant Breakfast at $4.96, used $1 coupon making it $3.96
6 Travel size Garnier shampoos and conditioners at .97 each.  I used 6-$1 coupons leaving me with .18 overage.
Pert shampoo travel size for .97, used $1 coupon for .03 overage.
2 Degree travel size deoderants at .97 using 2-$1 coupons for .06 overage.
I then did also buy 2 more of the Degree using the .75 coupons making them .22 each (great stocking stuffers!)
Tide 1 load at .97, used $1 couopn for .03 overage.
3 Gain 40 ct fabric softner sheets at $1.77, used 3-$1 coupons making them .77 each.
Just for Men--used free coupon
Glade aerosol at .98 using $1 coupon for .02 overage.
2 Carefree pantyliners at .94 each, used 2-.50 coupons making them .44 each.
U by Kotex at $1.24, used $1 coupon making them .24
Bayer Advanced at $3.74 used $2 coupon making it $1.74.  Mailing in for $1.74 refund.
4 Whiskas wet cat food at .55 each, used 2- B1G1F coupons, making them .275 each.
Temptations cat treats at $1.74, used $1 coupon so .74.



Bought without coupons:
2 tee shirts on clearance for $1 each.
4 pack of Wal Mart canned cat food at $1.28
Wal Mart dry cat food at $1.50
Fabric at $1.25 for an order
Edwards 2 pack single serving pie slices at $2.38--I had a coupon for $1 off, not realizing it had expired.  I should have put these back but they sounded so good.
Deli sandwich at $2.50 (for Jasmine's lunch)
20 oz Mello Yellow at $1.48 (for Jasmine's lunch)

Here is the good news about this trip!  I spent $33.42 including sales tax but I saved $34.57 with coupons!!  That means that even with sales tax I saved over 50%.  I am very please with this!

Until next time, happy shopping and saving!

My own about.me Page!

Do you have an about.me page?  If so, I would love for you to share your link with me!  Just add your url to the comments on this post.

I signed up for the bzz campaign over at bzzagent.com some time ago.  Pretty much kicking myself for procrastinating so long on actually getting in and getting my page made. 

The process of signing up and making the splash page was so easy.  Now I can just promote the splash page and anyone who cares to follow me is ust a click away from finding me on lots of different websites on the internet.

Check out my about.me profile!

Mailbox Monday 8/22/11

Not a bad week here.
Magazines:  Ok!, Entertainment Weekly, Businessweek, Good Housekeeping, Sports Illustrated, People and Time.
Several other pieces of hausernet mail (they opened back up the account at my mom's address too so I could input what had come in)
Jerky Direct auto shipment (paid for by my downline)
Wags World magazine from Wal Mart with coupons
Book--The Elfin Child to read and review
Fresh Express salad kit from vocalpoint including coupon for a free bag.



In my email an order for 4 dish scrubbies.

I am linking up with afrugalfriend:

New Limited Entry Gift Cards on Swagbucks

Swagbucks knows how valuable your reward points are to you, and they've introduced a line of Limited Entry Gift Card Swagstakes that give you a low price for entries, improved odds of winning, and a way for you to get free stuff without paying a high price. If you've never entered a Swagstakes before, they're drawings where you buy an entry/multiple entries for a relatively  small amount of Swag Bucks with the chance to win a larger prize.

They have a $25 Restaurant.com Giftcard - 25 Entries per giveaway, and each entry is only 40 Swagbucks. To celebrate these new cards, Swagbucks is going to be running a special promotion all next week - every day, they're rolling out an AWESOME Limited Entry Gift Card AND giving you the opportunity to help you build a GIGANTIC Swag Code to be released on the 29th. For more details tune in to the Swagbucks blog on Monday at 10am PDT, when they'll reveal the first card!

- We've created a series of new Gift Card Swagstakes (where you buy an entry/multiple entries for a relatively  small amount of Swag Bucks with the chance to win a larger prize). The first 7 launched today.

- Each Swagstakes has lower entry prices and amounts of entries than before, making them both cheaper and giving each entrant better chances of winning.
- Each day next week (starting Monday at 10am PDT) we're introducing a new Gift Card Swagstakes AND working with the community to build a gigantic Swag Code for August 29th, so people should check out the Swagstakes and come to our blog Monday at 10am for more info.

Shop Hop Saturday 8/20/11

Good Morning---it is still morning as I type this.
I woke up extra early to have a garage sale but found that it was raining.  I wanted to go back to bed but instead I decided I should get to work on my online business stuff.  


I went and added more items to my zibbet store.  It's slowly growing.  As a free member I can have up to 50 items listed.  I'm still debating on the paid membership, but that will come after I close in on the 50 items listed and see if I get sales as well.    While I was there I found some cool banners to help promote (like the one below).   I put the banner in reallysmartdeals and in easyhits4u.





Speaking of reallysmartdeals---all of my sites in rotation had ended so I spent a lot of time putting in products.  I put all of my zibbet, all of my etsy, all of mu zazzle and some of my blujay store items.  With my $1.99 a month membership I can have up to 125 items in rotation.  I got up to 91 put in today.   Reallysmartdeals offers something cool---a rotator link.  This link will randomly put up one of the items I have listed.  You can check it out here: http://reallysmartdeals.com/rotator/59846   
Now, where can I rotate this?  Most traffic exchanges don't allow the rotators since it does rotate urls and any of them could be a virus.  I have it rotating at easyhits4u.  I don't really do any other traffic exchanges anymore other than reallysmartdeals.  Any ideas?

I have work to do in blujay.  They are requiring that you now put in isbn numbers for books you have for sale.  For the books that I didn't put that in the description I will have to drag out the milk crates of books from the middle closet to get those.

I'm trying to decide what to do about homeschoolbuy.  Seems for whatever reason, there are over 1000 members but for the longest time I've been the only one listing anything.  I'm thinking of moving the books over to blujay.  That way they don't expire so I don't have to remember to go in and update them before they expire.  Good idea, just will take a lot of time.

That's my report for this week.   Click the button below and hop along with abitosunshine!

I just redeemed 1000 Superpoints for a $10 Cash in Paypal!

I just redeemed 1000 Superpoints for a $10 Cash in Paypal!

Frugal Friday Link Up 8/19/11

Good Friday to all.

I must get myself more in to the frugal mode. I'm still pondering and trying to work on the whole simple living concept.

I purchased binder pages for my coupons. Included in the package was a bonus of 22 past Sunday coupon inserts. I was able to pull coupons out of there that I will be using right away to almost cover the cost of the package. I'm heavily in the process of getting my coupon binder put together. It's going to take some time to get all my coupon organized in it, but it's moving along nicely.

Speaking of coupons, I did a few small coupon trips this past week. The post will be in the linky below. I can't wait to get paid some more paypal from other websites so that I can go do more shopping! I have a whole stack of coupons just waiting for Wal Mart.

I'm also linking up a post about one of my granddaughter's birthday gifts that I made. It's better to make home made gifts anyway. These gifts are what I came up with on the fly when it was birthday time and no money to go out and buy gifts. I have 2 more posts to get in on the 2 other girls' gifts. They are the same things, but different.

Here are the tips to share for today from the 99 Cent Solutions book. We are still on baking soda. Who knew that baking soda had so many useful uses?

1. Clean a glass front fireplace. If the glass in front of your fireplace or woodstove is blackened with soot and smoke, it's time for baking soda. Crumple a sheet of newspaper, wet it in water, and dip it in baking soda. Scrub the glass, the black stuff will come right off. Wipe with a damp cloth. You can use the same technique to get soot off the glazed bricks lining the fireplace.

2. Stop a mosquito bite in its tracks. Pour a tablespoon of baking soda in your palm, wet it with a few drops of water to make a paste, then smear it on the bite area. Let it dry and flake off. If you treat the mark this was as soon as you can, there will be no red welt from the bite, and the itching will subside almost instantly. The same treatment works for bee stings, assuming you have carefully removed any sign of the stinger.

3. Control cradle cap. The flaky scalp on infants knows as cradle cap is harmless and will usually go away on its own, but most moms can't stand to look at it on the baby's head without trying to rub it away. Make a paste in your palm of a couple tablespoons baking soda and a teaspoon of water. Rub gently on the affected area, being careful not to get near the eyes, and then wipe off with a damp washcloth, using no soap or baby shampoo. Repeat for 2 or 3 days until the flakiness lessens. (if the baking soda causes the baby's head to become red, the soda may be too abrasive, so try baby oil instead.)(I wish I had known about this. I would have tried it before the baby oil that is so hard to get washed back out of their hair.)

Until next week, I hope to see lots of inspiration linked up for the week. Remember, the linky remains open for the entire week so you don't have to link up just on Friday.

Squidoo Hopping 8/18/11--Linky

Happy Thursday.  I'm a bit late this morning posting as we had somewhere to be as soon as I got out of bed this morning.

I've not accomplished a thing again with Squidoo over this past week!  I'm having a hard time adjusting to a new schedule.  We started in with our homeschooling this week.  That reminds me that I need to finish up my lens on our journey last school year as well as start a new one for this year.  I'm thinking of doing it differently and still thinking on just how I want to do it.

I apologize to Ruthi who sent me some great suggestions last week on improving the lenses that I shared.  I printed out her suggestions but haven't followed through yet on the changes.

I only have 2 lenses in the pink this week, which is good.  One of them is Our Garden 2010, which needs an update on what we took out of the garden that year.  Unfortunately in the move I somehow managed to lose my little notebook that I had kept notes in.  I need to wing it and estimate.
The other is

Superdove Book Review 

This is one of my early book review lenses, and also one of the first books I had rec'd from gather to read and review.

Wish me luck that I get my act together on a good schedule all the way around and find the time I need to "do it all"

P.S.  I am a squidoo angel in the area of books.  I can, however, also bless other lenses, but I am to mainly focus on book lenses. 

Some Small Coupon Shopping Trips

Armed with a little money I was able to do some coupon shopping this week.

First stop was Wal Mart.  I only bought 2 items, and used 2 coupons.  I used my free coupon for Jif on The Go and a $1 coupon off U by Kotex pantyliners (this made them .24).  I went with .52 change in my wallet and spent .51 of it.

Next I was off to Walgreen's.  I had $7 in RR's from a previous trip that I didn't post about to use before they expired.
I bought:
Revlon Nail polish for $3.99--rec'd back $3 in RR's
2-Sure deoderants, on sale for 2 for $3 with Walgreen's coupon and I used 2-$1 coupons making them .50 each.
Pert Plus 24.5 oz shampoo on sale for $3.99--used $1 coupon and got back $3 in RR's.
2-Brach's Mellowcreme candy on sale 2 for $3--I had one .50 coupon to use and got back $1 in RR's  making them $1.25 per bag
I used my 2 previous RR's since I didn't have a coupon for the 2nd bag of Brach's or the nail polish.
I paid $4.61 OOP with $1.13 of that being sales tax.  I walked out with $7 in RR's to spend later.  I saved a total of $12.50 with coupons and Walgreen's coupon.
Please note:  I do not count what I get back in RR's off the price since I use them as coupons on future purchases.




Next I was off to the grocery store (Dillon's) for a few items.
I bought:
3 boxes of Hamburger Helper on sale for $1 each.  I used .75/3 coupon (doubled to $1) making them 3 boxes for $2.
2- Suave deoderant at $1.06 each.  I used 2- .50 coupons (doubled) making them .06 each.
1-Idahoan boxed potatoes--used free coupon that had previously printed out at the register.
I spent $2.51 including .39 sales tax.  I saved $4 with coupons for a savings of 75% including sales.

I also want to mention a previous trip to Wal Mart as well.  I've sent my receipt off in a refund but want to talk about my good deals.


I used my free Pantene coupon for a full size conditioner.
I used 2-$2/2 any Pantane coupons to get 2 shampoo and 2 conditioner in the travel sizes.  This left me with .12 total in overage.
I bought my Carnation Instant Breakfast with a $1 coupon making it $3.96
I bought 3 canisters of Scotch Brite Botanical disenfecting wipes at $1.62 each.  I used 3-.50 coupons making them just $1.12 each.  I then sent for the buy 3 get 1 free refund check.  Taking away the .44 spent on the stamp I will net $1.18 (assuming they send the $1.62 price pre-coupon).  This makes each one of them just over .72 each!
Pull-Ups Flushable wipes using $1 coupon making them .64
This is where my memory fails me and I am kicking myself for not making notes before sending off the receipt.  I only wrote down that I saved $15.28 with coupons.  The above items total $11.28 in coupons so I'm not recalling $4 in coupons somewhere.
Anyway, I spent $25.22 and saved $15.28 in coupons so I was quite happy with my shopping.  I bought things like cat food without any coupons at all.


I plan on getting right in to my coupon shopping.  In fact, I got in 60 coupon binder pages with a bonus of 22 coupon inserts today that I bought from  http://www.momsaves.com   I'm currently going through the inserts --they are older and many of the coupons have already expired--but I'm excited to start putting my binder together.

WIP Wednesday 8/17/11

This week I did work  on some things at home.  Mostly birthday gifts for my 3 granddaughters that all have birthday's this month.  Today I made the last of the jewelry for Araya.  I still have her doll blanket to put together.
I did a post with pics of Ariel's gifts if you are interested, you can check it out here: 

Handmade Gifts for Ariel

Otherwise, it's still working for church.  I didn't take a photo this week, but I did get started on putting the gingham strips together for a jelly roll quilt.

We met for a second time this month yesterday.  We are working on a quilt that will go to Global Missions.  It's a group effort.

Here is the jelly roll top that I made and showed in a previous WIP post.  The gal on the right put on the edging and added the happy face to it.  The gal on the left and a couple of the other gals will now put the middle and backing on.

This is the quilt we are working on for Global Missions.  This is also a group effort on the cutting, ironing, sewing together of squares.  I will have another picture when we complete it.  After we got this far we decided we needed another row on the bottom.  I've brought it home along with strips.  My homework is to finish this part of the top by Sunday.

Here is Marilyn sewing on the edging of the strip quilt top that I made.  I like to do the tops and let the others do the finishing....which why it might explain why I don't do the greatest job finishing.  A couple other gals usually do the pinning and tieing.  Below that is the finished product.  The brown backing and brown ties look great with it.  It's now ready to be donated to the Domestic Violence Center.

Until next week---please click the buttons below and follow along with the blogs that I link up with.