Shopping This Week

I have really been enjoying Money Saving Mom's Super Saving Saturday Series. There is something encouraging about having found a deal good enough to share, and to read other's stories as well! It is nice to learn from others and know that there are days you are not the only one struggling to do a better job with the funds of your household!

One thing I love to help me is stacking great coupons with sales. I was thrilled to realize that Vons/Pavilions/Safeways that are doubling coupons are actually now doubling everything, even if says do not double, up to $1! So we had some great savings there this week!

1. AquaFresh Toothpaste $1 minus $0.75 coupon, which is then doubled = profit of $0.50
2. Totinos Pizza Rolls 4 for $5 minus 3 x $0.50 coupons and 1 x $o.55 coupon which were all doubled so the final cost for 4 = $0.90
3. Alka-Seltzer Plus Congestion and Mucus cold medication was $3.99 - $3 coupon doubled up to 0.99 = free
4. Danon All Natural Yogurt 4 packs were $1.99 minus $1 doubled couponn = free
5. Doritos were the best price they ever get which is 3 for $4.98

Plus a lot of produce was on the 10 for $10 sale! Butternut squash was $1 a lb, so that was great. Oh, and we shopped on Tuesday, so I guess these were technically last week's sales.


A second place I love is CVS! I have been working at building up my extracare bucks to cover other stuff too, not just the extrabuck sales! This works great because occasionally you need something that is not on sale, but you need it NOW! That was the situation we found ourselves in. Miss Pear always has sensitive skin, but with her allergic reaction last week it is extra sensitive, so we are doing lots of oatmeal baths, and we were out and needed more! Thanks to our ExtraBuck savings, it was not a problem!

I had an ECB of $6.58 I had to use or it would expire, and a stack of others, so here is what we did:

4 x Soy Joy bars 4 for $4 minus 4 x $1 off coupons = free ($4 in ECB's)
2 x Colgate toothpaste 2 for $4.98 minus 2 x $1.50 coupons = $1.98 ($2 ECB's)
2 x Softsoap Body Gel 2 for $6.98 minus $1 coupon = 5.98 ($2 ECB)
2 x Aveeno Baby Soothing Oatmeal Bath for $10.58 minus $1.50 coupon = $9.08
2 x chocolate bars for filler = $1

Subtotal (after sales and coupons) = $18.04
Minus $4 off $20 coupon (it was before the coupons) = 14.04
Minus $2 off $10 coupon = 12.04
Minus $6.58 ECB that was expiring in 2 days = $5.46
Minus $5 ECB (Reason I needed filler) = $0.46

What messed up my planning is that my coupons would not scan, so they entered in all by 1 manually, and they showed up as CVS money, and therefore not taxable, whereas I had counted them as taxable, so I had to quickly buy 2 chocolate bars or be paying $4.50ish.

Oh, and I have $40 in ECB's left over from previous shops, and from this shop for future purchases. I am hoping to get a large bottle of the shampoo my husband loves there as we have a $4 of $20 for hair care, and now I can do it without taking a big hit on my ECB's to keep rolling. (I try not to drop below $15, but don't feel the need to use all of them every week, but I also don't let them expire).


A third place we stopped this week, today actually, was Costco. The gas there today was $0.21 cheaper a gallon than most other gas stations, the cheapest we saw other places was $0.15 more expensive a gallon. Seeing we were there it made sense to get gas too! :-)

I get a lot of my baking supplies there as their regular price for flour, sugar, brown sugar and yeast is better than any store sale, plus I get 2 gallons of milk for just slightly more than I would pay for one gallon of milk anywhere else! I also do better on meat there, but then again, this is California, so it is harder to get some of the good prices on stuff that is not nationally branded (plus I just get jealous I hear the national average on gas because we cannot even get within $0.50 of that price, usually it is almost $1 off. (We paid $3.09 a gallon this morning)

But the reason I bring up Costco is we found a terrific gift there! The COMPLETE set of Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit was $27.99! We were thrilled!

P.S. If you not a regular reader to my blog, please click here for an inexpensive, easy way to provide comfort to those who lost their homes in the Southern California Wild Fires.