publix rocks

Lately Publix has been doing awesome sales with their BOGO deals. I've come to the conclusion that I can not buy anything from publix unless it is on BOGO sale AND with a coupon. This week I got 5 ranch dressings, 6 boxes of oatmeal, 6 boxes of cereal, and one box of dishwasher tabs. I spent $30.45 and saved $45.42! CHA CHING! I love saving more than I spend. I also have a goal not to spend more than 30 each "deal" buying, so going 45 cents above that 30 works for me. Yay publix! Thank you for continuing to stock that stockpile!

publix finds

This past week at publix was a pretty good deals. I got some frozen veggies (9 boxes) and salsa (4 jars) and ragu sauce (6 jars) and a couple other decent finds today. I have been very pleased with publix ads lately. I hope they keep it up. I spent $38 today on all deals and saved $42! Yay. I love when I save more than I spend! I didn't think to set it up and take a picture until after I had it put away, but that's alright. I'll try to remember next week-- which is also looking to be a great sale. Thank you publix!

YAY for peanut butter!

I love when Publix has awesome BOGO sales and I love it even more when there are rockin coupons to pair with the sales! This week at Publix Skippy Peanut Butter is on sale BOGO and with a the rockin $0.75/1 coupon in this past Sunday's paper, the final cost was $0.49 cents EACH! I bought four jars today, utilizing the four coupons I had. I have ordered ten more coupons from a clipping service for $1.99 total. (Hopefully they will come before the sale ends next week Wed so I can get ten more!) And, my mom and a friend from STL are sending me their lovely Skippy coupons, so that's another 5 more from them! I'm pumped. We go through the peanut butter in this house, that's for sure. All in all, I'm hoping to spend around $11.30 total for 19 jars of peanut butter! We'll see what happens next week when the coupons come in!

It's been a while since I've been active in the coupon using, deal scoring scene... and I can say that I'm HAPPY to be back in it!

Today at Kroger I also scored some pretty ding dong cheap Hamburger Helper--nine boxes to be exact and feel pretty stoked about replenishing my dwindled stockpile with some good go-to items.

You'll see more coupon posts coming week by week, because I'm back at it folks!

Nail polish score!!!

Normally, I completely overlook the beauty sales. I just don't even really go there. I am not a girly-girl. I rarely wear make up and don't "treat" my skin or anything like that, so I let those sales blow past me. However, my untrained beauty eyes sure spotted a ROCKIN' DEAL at CVS this week. Thank you so much to Jenny on Southernsavers for posting it as a beginner deal. I wouldn't have even noticed it otherwise. I paid total $2.80 for these 6 lovely nail polish bottles shown below. TOTAL! And it gets sweeter. Not only did I pay $2.80 total, I also have a $4.00ECB at the end of the day! SWEET DEAL.

I had five coupons and the deal was a limit of six bottles. So, I paid 1.29 on the first bottle. Got a 4ECB in exchange. Paid 30 cents on bottle number two. Got a 4ECB in exchange. Rinse and repeat all the way to bottle six. Total spent after 6 transactions $2.80. ECB left standing: $4.00. Total cost of all nail polish: -$1.20 SAY WHAT?!?!? How cool was that deal? I was playing a nice little game with the cashier-- who by the way was super nice about said game-- he scanned my card, scanned the next nail polish, scanned the coupon, scanned the ECB and chuckled as he said "that will be 30 cents" each time. Lovely. Lovely.

Which color should adorn my toes first?!



I also hit up Publix and Rite Aid but the deals weren't quite as colorful to post about. Spent 12, saved 17.50 at RA. Spent 74, saved 81 at Publix! (awesome coffee deal this week at publix I thought)

Friday Shopping at a glance

Here are my totals from shopping today.


CVS rocked this morning! Spent $13.80 with using 6 ECBs before the cash), SAVED $39.94 AND received 11 ECBs. ROCK ON. That is the last edition of the Mega awesome Wisk sale! So we are STOCKED on laundry soap for the house. I do want to find some killer deal on Dreft if it's possible before the baby comes and stock on that, be/c I am brand picky about newborn clothing laundry, but otherwise, we are golden in the laundry department.


Publix: Spent $11.63, SAVED $28.41 actually NOT as good as I was expecting. Some how I spent about 6 bucks more than I thought I would so I reviewed my receipt and the culprit is some how I picked up 4 of the 7 muffin mix I bought were not on the BOGO. or at least not listed as such. I still bought them with a coupon, so I'm pleased that I got a deal on them, but not as good as I thought. And I thought I was getting only BOGO items. If the cashier wouldn't have been a flighty clueless person, I would have stopped to look at this there, be/c I really was shocked at the price. Not that 11.63 is bad, but I was expecting between 7 and 8. ... I may go back tomorrow with the not BOGO boxes and my receipt and see what's what. ... is 6 dollars that worth it to me? that will be the question in the morning...

But, here's the pic from Publix today:


Pickles (nope, not for me. I do NOT crave pickles, I don't even like pickles) on sale and with coupon final price was $0.39 cents per jar.
Muffin mix: on sale and with coupon final price should have been $0.29 cents per box. Three of these were that and three were only $1.19 each
And the super winner: Olive oil. Normal price $6.99. Took each bottle home today for $1.99!!


Kroger: Spent $167.15, SAVED $73.24 ....more than I was expecting, but I bought our meat for the month and that always throws me off. I'm going to show you a picture of just the MEGA EVENT deal items. I was pretty pleased with this stuff. So you buy ten items, you get $5 off your total. I have thirty items here (so $15 off total and I paid these prices for them):


Kleenex at $0.66 per box
Goldfish at -$0.01 per box (yup, I got paid a penny to buy goldfish today)
Kens Salad dressing: $0.69 each
Ritz: $1.99
Ketchup: 1.99
apple juice: 1.99 each
pudding mix: $0.59 each
desitin: 1.50 each
Listerine 1.50 each
popcorn: 1.24

~~~~~

All in all, not a bad day!

Total spent: $192.58
Total saved: $141.59
Earned: 11 ECBs from CVS AND $1.50 off next purchase from Kroger.

I'm over budget, but I had babysitting money, so I'm cool with it. Unless there are just some seriously super nearly free or free deals next week, I wont be buying anything thanks to menu planning and our stockpile. YAY!

Friday shopping...ROCKS!

As much as I don't like lugging the kids around with me from store to store, we did awesome today on the deals! AWESOME!

First stop was Publix.

Here's a picture of what was purchased. Let me tell you... Even though I had done the math last night and knew what I thought I would be spending... I wasn't so sure as it was all being scanned. However I should trust what I plan. It is so awesome to see the little savings amount go UP and the total go DOWN as they scan each and every coupon! I had planned to spend about $15.05. On all of that. Seriously! Let me break down what you see:

8 four-packs of yogurt
6 boxes of instant oatmeal
4 packs of kraft homestyle mac and cheese
4 bottles of veg oil
4 travel packs of band-aids
3 cans of hunts tomatoes
2 tubs of butter
2 baby jar foods
1 box of cake mix
1 box of baby cereal
(and a partridge in a pear tree)

The honest truth: I got ONLY what was on my list. Nothing jumped in the cart miraculously. I LOVE STICKING TO THE LIST and knowing what to expect! ... back to the totals: I wanted to spend 15.05 for all that.

I'm going to repeat that list and break it down:
8 four-packs of yogurt-- FREE
6 boxes of instant oatmeal --$0.84 each
4 packs of kraft homestyle mac and cheese --$0.24 each
4 bottles of veg oil --$1.29 each
4 travel packs of band-aids --FREE
3 cans of hunts tomatoes --$0.26 each
2 tubs of butter --$0.14 each
2 baby jar foods-- FREE
1 box of cake mix --$0.87
1 box of baby cereal -- FREE

Some how... my total ended up being $12.03 with a savings of $64.80! I spent three dollars less than I thought I would. Which means somewhere in my calculations from the sales ad, there was something marked higher than what they'd actually marked it for at the store! I CAN NOT believe I got all that stuff for TWELVE BUCKS!

The second stop was CVS.

Last week or the week before, I forget now, they had this crazy deal where you buy $25 dollars worth of marked products you get 10ECBs back. Well Wisk was on this list. Wisk was also on sale for $5.00 instead of normal price of $8.99. AND there were $2.00 off coupons in the paper for Wisk the same week... SCORE. However... at my CVS and the one down the road and the one in loganville and the two others I called... this was GOBBLED up the first day and no Wisk was left to be had. I went in and got TWO rainchecks to do this deal. So 6 bottles on each rain check.

I went to try to do my deals today and there wasn't enough Wisk on the shelf to do both. I left four bottles there and got my six. I'll be going back next week to get the other deal. SO... I paid $19.80 on SIX bottles. A savings of $34.14 AND got back the 10ECBs.

Next week I'll do it again... spending $9.80 be/c I can use the ECBs on that purchase. So I'll spend $9.80 and then ALSO get another 10ECBs back, making those six bottles basically free! WHAT?! LOVE IT. LOVE IT! ... I don't normally use Wisk, but um. yah, we will now. LOVE IT!

The third stop was Kroger.

There is no picture for this stop. It was mostly ingredients needed for meals I'm making this weekend. I am cooking for three families this weekend in addition to my own. I got the normal fruit/milk/eggs purchases and we also scored some FREE OJ, FREE soda, and TEN more FREE toothpastes! I think we're SET on toothpaste for the rest of 2011. Overall, I spent $45.95 and saved $34.05. So not bad really, considering that I had to get a lot without coupons for the meals I want to make.


~~Daily totals~~
Spent: $77.78
Saved: $132.99 (63% savings for the day)
Earned: 10 ECBs (if you aren't familiar with that, it's like ten bucks to spend only in a CVS store)

WAH CHA!

I'm WELL within my grocery budget and eager to see what the sales are next week. I love stocking up. Love it! I love FREE. Say it with me... FR-EE! FREEEEEEEEE!

coupon score

Publix had a good sale going this week.

I'm SO pleased I got to get out of the house to do the sale! I didn't venture very far, but it was nice to leave the house and be by myself for a few minutes. The roads aren't great, I was sliding in a few shady still solid icy places and the stores are BARE! It was crazy. But I made it there and back... Here's what I got...

24 boxes (yes, twenty four) of cereal (all BOGO) for around 37 bucks, divided by 24 is around 1.50 a box. That's not super great, (not when I can get some deals for 1.24 or 1.15 a box) but VERY nice when the cost of a box of cereal is $3.99, so I ran with it. ... I will say the selection of cereal options were SLIM. Very slim. It was nuts, I had to really hunt the shelves to make my deal work out right be/c there were giant holes all along the shelves where certain kinds were bought out.

8 packs of rice for less than 4 bucks

2 packs of popcorn for free

1 32 oz bottle of olive oil for super cheap

1 pack of hot cocoa for super cheap

6 bottles of baby soap for SUPER CHEAP! roughly 7 bucks spent on SIX 15 oz bottles of Johnson and Johnson baby soap was totally worth sliding on the ice for! This is a big deal when they are normally $3.15 each.


All in all at Publix today I spent $63.42 and saved $91.15 .... YES! I love deals. I love going into Publix with my little list of BOGO deals and killing it!

Cereal shelf (first time it's touched the top of the next shelf, haha!)

Other goods shelf (... note the soap is not pictured be/c it's not stored out there)

***Also, I just did some math and I'm at 34.42 pounds of grains out in storage. Including pasta, rice, potatoes, flour and popcorn.... anyone keeping track of how many more pounds of grains I'd need out there for a 6 month supply?

Food storage thoughts

Jamie and I have been watching a lot of Glenn Beck recently. Not a lot as we'd like to, as he airs every day and we don't find ourselves able to catch each show, but a lot more than we watch anything else. More and more I'm getting on board with the food storage idea. I joked in my last coupon post that our storage shelving is starting to look like a bomb shelter center.... well... yah. I guess it is. And I'm really okay with it. It might be a little embarrassing sometimes to have your cart loaded down at the store (like today, with 15 bags of chocolate chips and 4 bags of instant potatoes) but who cares? (more on that later).

I was given a big compliment by my husband yesterday and I'm really pleased with myself about it. He said that I was doing a good job with the food storage stuff. And when I stand back and look at it, I really like what I see. I need to do more with the long term storage, not just bulk storing. I need to start acquiring things like rice, beans, canned veggies, flour, sugar, salt (think Oregon trail-- haha) to stay outside and not go into our food consumption rotation. I've been able to replace my peanut butter stockpile recently and that was neat. I now have 6 jars outside and 3 inside. We know we'll eat them up, but it's nice to have them in reserve. I also recently got 8 boxes of cookie and corn muffin mix for FREE. Do we neeeeeed cookie mix boxes? Eh, probably not. But they really were FREE so I don't think it matters that they are out there. We still have a decent pile of pasta going on. I love reaching there for a pasta meal instead of paying full price at the store! We also recently stocked big time on crackers. Right now there are 4 boxes of saltines and two boxes of ritz. But they'll eventually be eaten up. Kroger Mega Event deals have been awesome.

Next harvest season, I'd like to look into seriously giving canning an attempt. That would be a huge addition to our food storage efforts. The other thing I want to start doing is WATER saving. I'm going to plan on buying my friend Nancy's (who's here weekly) favorite drink in 2 liters so I can keep the bottles after she uses them, rinse them and fill with good drinking water for storage. Glenn Beck's website advices a gal of water per person per day of storage goal--- the long term goal is to have enough food stored for a year... oh, ha, I hadn't mentioned that yet had I? well, um there it is. And anyhow, that's a lot of water, huh?! The short term goal would be a week. and then the next goal would be a month, then three months and then built up to 6 months and then the year's worth. THEN comes cycling. Be/c obviously you can't just leave a year's worth of food items in a room and call it a day. Things will expire. So we'd have to start buying for the house, and putting the new items outside and putting the older items inside, but we aren't there yet. *wink* not by a long shot. Are we becoming one of the crazy American families who think the government is bound for complete corruption (if it isn't already) and total failure and complete crash of the economy? Perhaps. If it doesn't though, and we have all this food stored, think about the money we're saving in the process since I'm coupon obsessed now...

Oh back to the chocolate chip news... Publix BOGO deals ROCK! Today I spent

$16.12, savings: $33.81. WOOOOT! Saving money rocks!

Planning for uncertainty also rocks. Even if I'm now labeled as extra crazy.... since I was well, crazy already. HA!

My chocolate chip pile... it needs a little tidying up, but shhh! (and then you also see the pringles pile from the Kroger Mega Event a few weeks ago)

condiments section: mayo, mustard, salsa, BBQ sauce, rotel, coffeemate, salad dressings, syrup, red sauce, peanuts, instant potato bags, peanut butter, crackers, baking mixes, rice packets, pasta boxes....

Mega Event again

I just got back from running my errands tonight. I stopped in Kohls and used their ten dollar gift card that came in the mail. LOVE IT! Thank you Kohls. I paid 3 bucks there and got four items, NONE are for me! Love love love it!

After Kohls then it was down to business... serious coupon shopping, folks... Honestly, I should take pictures, but Jamie is a little afraid that we're starting to look like a bomb shelter center or something... so I wont ... this time... Hello stocking up! Kroger rocked this week with the Mega Event Deals! Allow me to break down some of the highlights from today:

8 four packs of stick butter
6 cans of evaporated milk
2 cans of Swanson broth
2 boxes of Bisquick (i wish I would have had more coupons, this is such a staple here)
4 more boxes of cereal
2 FREE sour creams
FREE Advil
2 boxes of nearly free cake mix with frosting (who can say, more cake balls?)
almost free shredded cheese
5 shampoos for under 5 bucks
5 bags of chocolate chips
baby jar food for 12 cents each (I wont say how many, I'm actually embarrassed about that one, but seriously the stuff doesn't go bad until Feb of 2013 and when it's normally 87 cents each.... cough)

I went to two stores:
The first was Publix and the totals there were
$19.37 SPENT and $36.20 SAVED! (65% savings!)
The second was Kroger and the totals there were
$144.42 SPENT with $72.12 SAVED! (33% savings)

All in all I'm very pleased! Over all total was $163 at both stores (which is pretty much where I was two weeks ago! Last week spent the same amount but saved $99, this week saved $108!)

coupon score today

Publix has some nice BOGO deals going on and with the $5.00 off Kraft items coupon, their dairy sales are major scores right now!

10(yes TEN!) four packs of yogurt cups (normally $2.50 each on sale BOGO) (coupon makes it 0.25 each)
one mustard (BOGO) (with coupon makes free)
one bbq sauce (BOGO) (with coupon makes .60 cents)
4 american cheese packs (on sale 2 for $4) (coupon takes $5 off Kraft)
2 sour cream (on sale $1)
one pack of animal crackers (coupon for it free)

18 items

TOTAL COST: under $8.00 !!! FOR REAL! I should have lined it all up on the table and taken a picture be/c seriously all that for less than 8 dollars is unreal!

Yogurt update: so the last time I did a major yogurt score was on 7/9. It's now 9/4. We didn't make it all the way until this sale came back without running out of yogurt, but not too bad. I think we bought one, maybe two tubs to cover the last couple weeks in between. I'm hoping for a few more from this sale. I have 3 coupons left, but they were out of vanilla which is what Matthew will eat, so I'm going to go back for some more.

When I went to the couponing workshop a month or so again, the author of the Southern savers site said that most deals cycle every 6-8 weeks. Nice to see this is the case here. I'm hoping if I can gain a few more coupons and get some more, we can really make it between now and the next deal without ever having to buy yogurt again at regular price. or even half price.

I love coupons!

Hello Yogurt take two!

In my first yogurt score, I think it was 8 of the four packs. Well I'm super excited to say that today I got 10 of the four packs. TEN! And not just the little cups, I'm talking the bigger, double the calories cups! Ten four packs... that's 25 dollars worth of yogurt! I got it for around 3 dollars!!!

Today I bought Listerine, Sunblock, two boxes of cereal(BOGO), and 10 4packs of yogurt(BOGO) from Publix, all for $15.52, a total savings of $33.93 !!

That's DOUBLE WHAT I SPENT!!!!

Holy Peanut Butter!

Peter Pan Peanut Butter was on sale at Publix this week BOGO (Buy One Get One) ... There was also a printable coupon to save $1.50 on four items ... So, if you bought the peanut butter in quantities of four, it makes the jars only $0.87 or $0.88 each. I got 8 jars of peanut butter. We already had one in storage, so that is 9 (yes NINE) jars of peanut butter out in storage currently. It's stacked up nicely with our nearly free pasta boxes, condiments, and cans... the two tubs of frosting you see in the corner, those were those were free. Uh-huh. I love free... Anyhow, the Peanut Butter, the expiration ((Mom... I checked)) is August of 2011 on all of them. So let's see what comes faster, August of next summer or us eating through 9 jars of peanut butter. Since this is a staple for Matthew-- typically 2-5 peanut butter crackers for lunch most days, sometimes another 2 or 3 with dinner, I'm not sure the calendar is going to beat us here. But we'll see. Whatever comes first, I'll update with the winner! If I had another $1.50 off coupon, I'd have gotten 12.... who gets Name Brand Peanut Butter at 88 cents a jar??? (((Sorry it's not Skippy, Dad)))



Super cheap Peanut Butter--- SCORE!

HelloYogurt! (and more)

Today's coupon deals were AWESOME!!!! I'll start with Publix:

My goal was to get 2 boxes cereal at 99 cents each, 3 16 oz coffee mate at 16 cents each, 2 steamer frozen veggies free, and 8 4-packs of yogurt cups at 25 cents each. Goal was to spend around $4.50

And that's exactly what I did!!!!! WOOOT~


I was slightly bummed be/c I wanted to get powder creamer and the sale was only for liquid kind but that's okay. I already gave one away to a friend. .16 cents for a 16 oz creamer is insane! SCORE!

Free veggies is a SCORE!

8 times 4 yogurts is 32 cups of yogurt in my house currently for only $2.00. SCORE! The boys go through some yogurt! It's a staple in Matthew's diet and very handy to give Mark.

Jamie's favorite cereal for seriously less than half the cost rocks my world. Score!

Look at that picture, everything is name brand. I got 15 items for the grand total of $5.78. I was expecting to pay around $4.46, so a dollar or so more than I thought, but um. Hello! Okay! I saved $31.77 and spent $5.78.


The other store I went to today was Ingles. I did NOT need anymore pasta, but they were having a rocking deal too, so I got 2 boxes of 16 cents pasta. (a different kind of noodle) haha. I didn't go crazy. I just got two boxes. (that's all the computer would print off anyhow.)

The reason for going to Ingles though was NOT the pasta.... it was FREE... I say again... FREE batteries. I got two packs, one AA and one AAA of Rayovac batteries for FREE! SCORE!

Today I left Ingles with 4 items, two for free and my total was $.44 cents (that's including tax).

Two weeks ago at Ingles I got free cake mix and seriously crazy almost free frosting. I'm finding little nuggets of greatness at Ingles these days.


.....anyone else like how Matthew thinks he needs to be IN my coupon deal pictures? Check out the other one he's in here with the first major pasta score.

Holy Pasta! (and more)

Publix this week ROCKS.

Score for five bags of frozen chicken nuggets for the price of two.

Fast Fixin’ Chicken Nuggets, Tenders, Popcorn, or Fries, 23-26 oz, at $5.99 ($2.99)
With $1.00/1 printable = 1.99 times 5 bags = 9.95 total. (I am going to run out of freezer room if I keep up deals like this!)



Score for free yogurt, free sinus/cold spray, free vinegar, $0.49 sour cream and more...


Score for nearly free pasta.

Mueller’s Pasta, including Whole Wheat Pasta, 12-16 oz, at $1.39 (69¢)
With a $0.55/1 printable = $0.14 PER box. .... WHAT?! I got twenty-five (25) boxes of pasta for get this... a whopping $2.38. Basically 25 boxes for the price of ONE normally! Who can resist!? My storage rack is now stocked with an seemingly endless pasta supply! I'm betting we don't have to buy noodles for the next six months!


I spent a total today of $24.85 and saved a total of $78.44. Can you believe that? If I wasn't looking at the receipt currently, I might not myself!

Cha-Ching at Publix

After getting our double coupon paper today I was able to go through the coupons during Mark's nap. I decided I'd try to tackle one store tonight. Since they have a penny deal (more on that in a bit) that's only good Sundays and Mondays... AND as it was pouring down rain and expecting to rain tomorrow, I didn't want to drag the boys out in the rain for deals. I'm not that bad,.... yet. hehe.

Anyhow, I did two separate purchases since I had two of the penny coupons. Basically if you buy over a ten dollar purchase, then you get the decided upon item for a penny. Each week it's a different item. Sometimes it's a 2 liter soda or a 64 oz juice.... this week it was salad dressings. So I was able to get two salad dressings for a penny each. That alone is hysterical to me. A penny each. Amazing.

Okay, then the sale deals...
Lets start with cereal. (Select) General Mills cereals were on sale BOGO (buy one get one) and I had 2 coupons for $1 off 3. Sooo, I got 6 boxes for the price of 3 boxes, with 2 dollars off that! $9.97 OOP (out of pocket) for 6 boxes of cereal.
Lysol was a pretty nice deal too... Spray was on sale for 3.99, 2.30 off the regular price and I had 2 1.00 off coupons. And the wipes were on sale BOGO and I had a .50 coupon (which gets doubled)... So I got two sprays, and two wipes all for $11.97. Normal price would have been $22.26
Okay yogurt and bar deal:
I had a .70 cents off 2 Nature Valley Trail Mix bars coupon. Not a great coupon, but not bad either on bars that we regularly give to Matthew, so I got both boxes. Then there was an add for $1 off Yo plait if you bought Nature Valley Trail Mix! Yogurt is a staple here, so that made for a good deal, AND I had a .50 cents coupon off 32 oz of Yo plait (doubled) so that was a great deal ! I paid $6.79 for what regularly would have been 9.27... I find a discount on things we'd buy any how really really rewarding!
I got an olive oil at half price since it was BOGO, same for a cake box mix... if I had coupons for either I would have gotten more, but I couldn't find coupons and I knew they were both things that we will use, so it was just nice to get those things on mega sale.
I had a $1 off 2 Mueller pasta noodles, so I got two of those and they were BOGO, LOVE IT!

All in all I spent 30.61 OOP
Saved 42.04

AMAZING. Amazing.

(let me tell you how stocked up on cereal we are currently, but it's a really nice feeling.)