A price book

I have been sitting here this morning looking up coupons and deals at Giant Eagle, CVS, Target and Kroger. I have CVS ecb's (extra care bucks) that are going to expire tomorrow so I need to get over there to use them.

I have never been much of a Giant Eagle shopper but I'm making an attempt to buy only from their sales and use as many coupons as possible. I have a large list of items that I am going to buy and I'm excited to see how much I save today.

But as I sit and do all of this work I am reminded again of how much a price book would help me out. If you don't know a price book is a handmade book of items that you use regularly for all of the different stores you shop. You record in it the sales of the items and over time you begin to learn when and where the sales are.

So I'm making a conscious effort to put together a price book for myself and you get to see just how badly (or well hopefully) I do at it as I am learning.

My first entry I am going to do is for Pull-ups. Today or tomorrow I am going to go to CVS and do the Huggies deal that is going on right now, which is 2 packs per diapers/pull ups for $20 with $5 in ecb's back. I'm going to post tomorrow after I buy them how much the Pull-ups were per unit.

A good article to read about price books is from www.stretcher.com

Happy New Year!

Well I can't believe that 2010 is here. Where did 2009 go? I remember being a teenager and thinking that the year 2000 was so far away and I would be so old (24) and now here we are ten years later.

Like most people I came up with a list of resolutions for myself this year.

- Get on a written monthly budget. Dh and I have been talking about this a lot lately and we are aiming to have one done for February.
- Exercise more (when I don't have a sprained ankle like I do now)
- Eat better so I can become a more healthy person.
- Keep track of all the books I read this year to see just how many books I get finished.
- Continue finding money saving deals and I will try to keep track of them just to see how much I save.
- and finally post here more often :)

In the spirit of posting to my blog more often I'm going to try to post at least twice a week, with one post being about money saving and the other about anything happening in my life.

So here's to a wonderful 2010 for everyone!

Shame on me

I must apologize for my lack of posting. It's amazing how life gets away from you.

More deals coming soon!

Publish Post

I love great sales!

I went to Kroger this week to pick up a few things. I managed to remember my big binder of coupons and was so excited to see how much I got for $22!

Recently there was a 75 cents off of any Eggo product in the paper. I had six of these and Kroger had the waffles on sale for $1.59. I paid nine cents each for six boxes of waffles. My kids love, love, love their strawberry flavored ones. Looking through my coupons I found three $1.50 off Kraft dressing coupons that were about to expire and they were on sale for $1.69 so I paid .19 cents for each three bottles. Those nine items cost me a little over a dollar.

Here is a coupon tip:

I got those three $1.50 off Kraft dressing coupons at Meijer. They were on a dressing display they had in the center aisle. I always grab three or four of the coupons that I find on displays or attached to the shelf at the store now and save them because you never know where they will come in handy. There is a good chance that if you hold on to it for a bit you'll find an even better sale at another store to use them at.

March 29th CVS

I went to CVS this morning and got a few things for Easter coming up soon.

.50 Jelly Beans
2.99 Scrubbing Bubbles Action Scrubber (I got two of these)
.96 peeps
.75 peeps
1.99 Paas egg kits (two)
Total: 12.17

Coupons:
2.75 scrubbing bubbles (x2)
Total: 5.50

ECB's earned:
3.98

Total OOP: $2.69

Plus I got another $5 off of $25 coupon to use later. Not a bad visit.

More CVS savings

I forgot about this receipt. It's from March 15th.

I bought:
Two Baked Lays $3 each
Three bags True North nuts $3 each
Irish Spring Shampoo $4.99
Colgate Max $2.99
Total: $22.98

Coupons:
.50 Colgate
.55 Baked lays
.55 Baked Lays
$1 nuts
$1 nuts
$1 nuts
$ 2 Irish Spring
Total: $6.60

ECB's earned:
$5 for the snacks (chips and nuts)
$2.99 Colgate
$4.99 Irish Spring
Total: 12.98

Total OOP: $3.40

March 22nd CVS savings

I do my running to CVS every Sunday morning to pick up the good deals for the week.



Last week I got:

1 Crest Pro Health toothpaste $3.49
2 six packs of Motts applesauce $1.25 each

Total: $5.99

Coupons:
.55 Motts
.55 Motts
$1 Crest

Received:
$3.49 ECB for the Crest

OOP: .40 cents

Swagbucks

I love Swagbucks!!!

It is a search engine that randomly awards you Swagbucks for your web searches you make. Since January I have earned $15 worth of Amazon gift cards from them. You are pretty much guaranteed at least one SB per day that you use the search engine.

If you are looking to sign up use this link:

CVS Deals week of March 8th

I made a couple of trips to CVS this week and got a few things for a decent price.

The first trip I got 3 Garnier Fructis shampoo/conditioners and a tube of Crest Pro Health.

3 Shampoos: 3/$10 with $5 back in ECB's
Crest: $2.99 with $2 back in ECB's
I used four $1 coupons, one for each item.

Total before coupons: $12.99
Coupons: $4
OOP: $8.99
ECB earned: $7


The second trip I got 3 GF shampoo/conditioners, 3 Listerine Smart Rinse and the Vitamin D.

3 GF: 3/$10 with $5 back in ECB's
3 Listerine Smart Rinse on clearance: $2.15 each or $6.45 total
1 CVS Vitamin D: $2.99 with $2.99 ECB's

I had 3 $1 coupons for the GF items and 3 $1 coupons for the Smart Rinse. The cashier also let me use two $5 off CVS coupons.

Total before coupons: $19.44
Coupons: $16
OOP: $3.44
ECB earned: $7.99

After both of these trips I have $14.99 in ECB's to use for the future.

As an an added bonus the coupon printer printed me out another $5 off of $25 coupon for me to use!

Cheap kids meals at Friendly's

http://www.friendlys.com/events

From March 16th through the 19th (4pm - 7pm) Friendly's is doing $1.99 to $3.99 kids meals as a special promotion. You know you need to go just for the awesome ice cream!