Freebies

Signing up for free stuff is like Christmas every day in the mail!

These are some of the things I’ve gotten in the mail in the past few weeks:

Free stuff is AWESOME!

Farm Fresh Triples

Farm Fresh was running a triple coupon sale Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of this week.  They would double up to .99 face value coupons, up to 20 coupons, and only two of the same coupon were allowed.

Here are the rewards of my shopping trip:

In case you can’t tell from the photo that is:

1 McCormick Perfect Pinch seasoning
2 Ortega Taco seasoning mixes
1 McCormick Grillmates marinade packet
2 Swanson stock
2 Betty Crocker Supreme Brownie Mixes
1 Betty Crocker cookie pouch
2 Suddenly Salad mixes
1 Texas Toast croutons
1 Betty Crocker chocolate frosting
2 Betty Crocker Warm Delites minis
1 Minute Rice Ready to Serve cups

My purchases rung up to $29 and some change.  So that is nearly a $30 value.  Then I handed the cashier my coupons.  I even got my green bag discount.  My new total was $6.05.  I also had a Kellog’s kickback coupon from my great purchases last week (which I have photos of and am planning on also sharing soon).  It was a coupon for $4 off of my next purchase, so that brought my total down to $2.05.

As my receipt says that is a savings of 94%!

Now you can probably  see why my husband felt a little bad spending $7 on the few items he brought home.  I didn’t mean for him to feel bad though!

I was asked today why I would purchase things  I don’t necessarily use regularly just because I have a coupon.  Well, the way I look at it is if I’m going to be able to get whatever that item is for free I don’t see what the problem is.  It also gives me the opportunity to try new products that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Since February coupons have completely transformed the way we look at our grocery budget.  It has also challenged us to eat more out of our pantry and be more creative with our meals.  It’s exciting!

Grocery Guilt

So, Friday we had some friends over for dinner which was a TON of fun.  We wanted to pick up a few things at the grocery store (some vegetables,  a lime, and we were out of ketchup).

I’ve been getting really good at using coupons to score great deals grocery shopping, so the husband went to pick up the minor things.  When he got home it was really funny because he looked at me sheepishly and said, “I’ve never felt so guilty about spending $6.50 at the store before.  I feel like I got so little.”

I guess that means as far as my deal shopping, I am doing my job!

Obviously we aren’t always going to have coupons for everything, but we are learning to stretch our dollars a LOT further.

Duke wins!

Did I mention….

Duke is the 2010 Men’s basketball national champions!

I won’t brag too much, but no one even gave them a chance.  I nearly had an opportunity to witness the final game myself, but I played adult and stayed home instead.  One of my college friends still went though, and I’m still a bit jealous.  (Hope you had a blast Beth!)  Regardless it was an awesome night, I got to watch the game with my parents, who are also SERIOUS Duke fans.  My mom actually had to leave the room towards the end of the game because she couldn’t handle it.

I miss being able to watch the games with my Dad.  We both yell at the TV and get into the game, and it’s just a lot of fun.  It was a nice treat to end the season watching Duke win it all together.

So, YAY DUKE!

In even better news, Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler are both coming back next year, not to mention the Plumlee brothers, so it should be another wild season!!

Bargains

So, amongst my long hiatus I have been making a focused effort to use coupons more effectively to help us save on our grocery bill.  We are just a few weeks away from completing Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University and we have learned quite a bit about budgeting and paying off of our debt.  That way we can start saving for the future.

I have had a lot of FANTASTIC blogs that I’ve been following that are a great help to me as far as finding coupons and finding deals at various stores.  I’ll be adding them to my blogroll soon.

Farm Fresh is one of the grocery stores that I go to, and they double all coupons up to .99 every day.  Then on Wednesdays they will also double coupons of $1.00.  By watching the circulars to see what items are on sale and using coupons you can get a LOT of great bargains!

I went to Farm Fresh on Wednesday and walked away with the products above for about $10.63 plus tax.  I say ‘about’ that much because there were some other things we needed to get that weren’t on sale which we had already been planning on purchasing, but it threw off the sale/coupon usage, so I wanted to show the coupon usage.

I am still new at using coupons and everything, but I’ll try to break down what i did as best as I can.

Puffs Plus Lotion .99 ea.
.50/1 coupon on each DOUBLED = FREE

Crispix – 2 for $6
$1.50/2 = 4.50  (not cheap, but I love Crispisx, and we were out of cereal)

Ballpark Franks – Sale BOGO
.75/1 coupon – DOUBLED = .50

Hot Dog Buns – on sale .99
No coupon – .99

Hormel Chili – on sale 1.69
No Coupon – 1.69

Welsh’s Juice – 2.98 ea
$1/1 coupon = .98 ea

V8 Fusion juice – 2.50 ea
$1/1 coupon = .50 ea

Lance Crackers – 2 for $4
$1/1 coupon = FREE

So all in all I thought it was a pretty good shopping trip!
So that’s about $32.64 for $10.64 plus tax.

I also made my first trip to the customer service desk on this trip.  I realized as I was walking out that some of the coupons for the Puffs didn’t double since the double price was more than the cost.  The cashier was really great about it though, she loves coupons too, and she even gave me back the tax!

I’m getting a little better at this coupon thing, and it’s actually pretty exciting too.