Wade Jewett Look Away

My friend Corinne encouraged me to post my deals from tonight's insane "wagging" (That is what they call coupon-shopping at Walgreens).

So here it goes:

Transaction 1

Stayfree Maxipads (1) @ 2.99ea
3M Scotch Packaging tape (4) @ 3.49ea
Dried Apricots (1) @ 1.00ea
Skintimate Shave Cream (1) @ 2.99ea
Clio Hair Trimmer (1) @ 4.99 ea
Nail clippers (1) @0.69ea

used
$2/1 Stayfree coupon (1)
$1/1 Scotch coupon (4)
$2.50/1 Walgreens in-ad coupon for Scotch (3)

Total: 10.62
Paid with
$5 Register Reward (2)
$0.62 OUT OF POCKET
Received
$3 Register Reward from Skintimate
$3 Register Reward from Stayfree
$5 Register Reward from Clio


Transaction 2

Stayfree Maxipads (1) @ 2.99ea
Stride Gum (3) @ 1.00ea
Plackers Mint Flossers (1) @ 2.00ea
Skintimate Shave Cream (1) @ 2.99ea
Benedryl Allergy (1) @ 4.99 ea
Tylenol Sinus (1) @4.99ea

Used
$5/2 Allergy Medicine coupon
$1/1 Stayfree coupon
.50/1 Plackers coupon
B2G1 Stride gum coupon (took off $1.29, price before sale)
$1/2 Walgreens Stride coupon (took off $1.50/3)

Total:
$11.76
Paid with
$5 Register Reward (2)
$1.76 OUT OF POCKET
Received:
$2 Plackers Register Reward
$3 Skintimate Register Reward
$3 Stayfree Register Reward
$5 Allergy Register Reward

Transaction 3
*This transaction did not go so good. The cashier did not scan TWO of my coupons for the scotch tape, and I also gave one less $5 RR to pay with than I meant to so it ended up being high $$ out of pocket

3M Scotch Packaging tape (3) @ 3.49ea
Photo Albums (2) @ 0.85ea --> Going to use these to help organize my coupons
Skintimate Shave Cream (1) @ 2.99ea
Plackers flossing pirate swords (1) @ 2.00 ea
Tylenol Cold (2) @4.99ea
Schick Quatro Disposable Razors (1) @ 5.99ea
Hallmark Cards (8) @ 0.49ea

Used
$2/1 Schick razor coupon
$1/1 Scotch tape coupon (1) --> I gave him 3! But he only scanned one :(
$2.50/1 Walgreens scotch in-ad coupon (3)
$0.50/1 Plackers (1)
$5/2 Allergy coupon (2)

Total: $20.61
Paid with
$5 Register Reward (2) --> I was so flustered b/c he was having trouble scanning all the items that I didn't give him the 3rd $5 RR I had!
$2.50 Register Reward (1)
$8.11 OUT OF POCKET --> so frustrating, this should have been $1.11
Received:
$5 Hallmark Register Reward
$5 Allergy Register Reward
$3 Skintimate Register Reward
$2 Plackers Register Reward
$1 Schick Register Reward
$3 Phantom Register Reward triggered by Schick

Transaction 4
On this transaction, I was back on my game. No more messups. And this was an awesome store-- everything in stock except the stride gum.

Stayfree maxipads (1) @ 2.99ea
3M Scotch Packaging tape (5) @ 3.49ea
Weird candy (2) @ 0.12ea --> needed to round total up to over $20
Skintimate Shave Cream (1) @ 2.99ea
Plackers flossing pirate swords (1) @ 2.00 ea
Tylenol Cold (2) @4.99ea
Schick Quatro Disposable Razors (1) @ 5.99ea
Hallmark Cards (8) @ 0.49ea

Used
$2/1 Schick razor coupon
$1/1 Stayfree coupon
$1/1 Scotch tape coupon (5)
$2.50/1 Walgreens scotch in-ad coupon (5)
$5/2 Allergy coupon (2)

Total: $20.06
Paid with
$5 Register Reward (4)
$0.06 OUT OF POCKET
Received
$5 Hallmark Register Reward
$5 Allergy Register Reward
$3 Skintimate Register Reward
$3 Stayfree Register Reward
$2 Plackers Register Reward
$1 Schick Register Reward
$3 Phantom Register Reward triggered by Schick


Transaction 5

Stayfree Maxipads (1) @ 2.99ea
Stride gum (3) @ 1.00ea
Dried Mango (1) @ 3.00ea --> not pictured

Used
$1/1 Stayfree coupon
B2G1 Stride gum coupon
$0.50/1 Walgreens Stride coupon (3)

Total: $5.49
Paid with
$2 Register Reward from Plackers
$2.50 Register Reward
$0.99 OUT OF POCKET
Received
$3 Stayfree Register Reward

So I started with $47 in RR and ended with $58 (a difference of $11)

Total Paid OOP $11.54

The total shelf, retail price of all the products at Walgreens would have been $175.88, but you also have to take that with a grain of salt because Walgreens does have a very high mark-up (so I have been told, and it seems true to me). The prices I listed in the transactions were after sales or in-store mark-downs.

This is pretty good, because if I had not messed up a bunch with that one transcation, I would have come out ahead. Essentially, the money I paid out I earned back in rewards for next time, though.

It's exhasting to type all this up, but I wanted to give some of you a good idea of what I'm learning to do with couponing.

Three times while I was checking out, random strangers (all men) made comments to me about how much my husband must love me and be proud of me for how much I am saving. I appreciated the compliments very much but also thought it was kind of strange that they were thinking about it only from my husbands point of view rather than my own. :)

A few girlfriends have told me that they want to start couponing with me this summer, so I'm excited to see how that will go. I think Corinne and I are going to start a club. Corinne, if you are reading this, I also wanted to tell you that I think someone from the seminary probably does coupons at Walgreens a lot too, because that 2nd transation I did at the Wags at Olive and Mason and they were cleaned out of all the Free-After-Register-Rewards items (that is the closest one to the seminary).

Goodnight everyone!

This is why I coupon

I did my first hard-core Shop N Save coupon/sale/10-50 thursday extravaganza today. For those of you outside of St. Louis or who don't know, that means I collected the coupon matchups for the sales at Shop n Save this week, collected my coupons, and shopped on Thursday, when they do a $10 off $50 purchase BEFORE coupons. Here was the result

4 Banquet frozen meals (for school lunches)

5 green giant steamers

2 coffee mate creamers

4 boxes of kashi cereal

2 4-packs Yoplait Yoplus yogurt

3 boxes Quaker granola bars

2 boxes of Quaker Life cereal

Oreo cakesters (free item)

2 20 count Cottonelle double rolls

On my receipt it says:

Total after tax $24.79

Advertised savings $10

Manufacturer Coupons $17.77

Red Tag Savings (Sales) $28.48

YOU SAVED A GRAND TOTAL OF..............$56.25

THAT IS A SAVINGS OF..................................70%

I haven't analyzed too closely this feeling I had coming out of the store. It's like the feeling when you win a game of Agricola against Doug Serven. Triumph. All went according to plan. Only with couponing I saved us $50.

My New Hobby: Coupons, Promotions, and Free Stuff

I am bursting with awesomeness over some recent savvy shopping I have recently accomplishments. Here I share them with you. (If you decide to get in on any of these sweet offers, please refer me so I can get rewards for recruiting you!)

1. I am in Ellen’s wedding this coming January. She wants us to wear gold, closed toed or peep-toed shoes. She send us some beautiful choices from various places, but shucks they were all $60 or $70 bucks each. Every week I receive an email from Shop It To Me, a site that shops your favorite online retailers for sales in clothing/shoes in your specific sizes. I get sale items from JCrew, Ann Taylor Loft, Banana Republic, etc. sent right to my email. I hadn’t bought anything that I’d seen on there yet, but that exact week Ellen emailed us about the shoes, what was on sale at Old Navy but gold high heels at only $10! Score! I ordered them along with a few other cheap tops since I was already paying the flat rate shipping. Got the package today, tried them on and they fit great! My smaller right foot slips out just a bit, but I’ll put some kind of pad in there to fix it.

2. My sweet friend Charissa told me about MyPoints which everyone should do if you like free giftcards in the mail. The basics of it are that you get points for reading advertising emails they send to you – you really don’t even have to read them, just click through to the site and then delete them. Also you get points for clicking through their site before you go to an online merchant to make a purchase. For example, before I made my sweet Old Navy purchase, I went to the MyPoints site, searched for the Old Navy link, and clicked through to the website from the MyPoints link. The promo for Old Navy was something like 3 or 4 points per dollar spent. So not only did I get my cool gold heels (+ extras), I also got 91 points towards a gift card redemption. (Giftcard redemptions run ~3500 points = $25 gift card).

3. I do the office supply ordering at work. MyPoints has a great deal for Office Depot, which is what we already use to order our supplies online. I asked to be in charge of the ordering, so I could clickthru MyPoints before and rack up the points. So far it has been great – I have already gotten a free gift card out of it. We order so much paper, I usually get either 500, 1000 or even 2000 points per order!

4. Also, I have been scouting the web for promo codes for Office Depot after seeing an advertisement for a free gift with purchase. So far I have received (with $100 or $75 purchases) the following: A free picnic coffee tote bag with stainless steel coffee mugs and vacuum flask ($60 value), A free red tote bag which I used this past weekend on our trip to Jeff’s Graduation ($40 value). Coming in the mail is a free 2GB mp3/4 player, which looks like a shuffle knockoff in the picture ($70 value). And while placing all these orders, I am still racking up the MyPoints to get free giftcards.

Maybe some of you think this is nuts but I am flipping out with delight. I also started clipping coupons and scanning all the weekly Wal-Greens, Target, and local grocery adds for deals to match up with the coupons. When we move in June, I am going to ask if Bill and Sally will give us their coupon section of the Sunday paper every week, so I won’t even be paying the $1.50 for the paper. For some reason, CVS only has locations east of the river, which sucks because they have a cool coupon program I wish I could get in on.