Ashley experiences Harris Teeter Super Doubles!

Ashley was in town this weekend and when I told her about Super Doubles at Harris Teeter, she had to experience it for herself. So on Saturday night we picked up a newspaper for her and that night we clipped coupons together (we are very exciting, obviously). Surprisingly, there were a good number of coupons for items she used and needed so those combined with a few printables made for a pretty successful shopping trip for her. She got the following items for free: 2 boxes of Success Rice, 2000 Flushes, 2 whiteout products, and 2 candy bars. The toothpaste was $0.89. I don't remember what everything else cost but it all worked out to be a great deal.

Ashley's summary:

Total OOP: $24.11

Total value: $71.68

Total savings: 66.4%

Ashley was very impressed by the power of super doubles. We had a great time bargain shopping!

Grocery shopping, week of 7/26

It is still Super Doubles time at Harris Teeter so I picked up some deals and a couple of staples. I am pretty well stocked right now so I only grabbed a few things. The 2000 flushes was free which was cool. So were the 3 candy bars! I never buy candy bars so that will be a nice treat one day! I put them in the freezer. The whiteout was also free. I will probably put that in my school supply donation pack. The jello ended up being $0.67 for all 3 of them. The chicken was not on sale but it is the brand I like (I like to buy 'happy chickens') and since I have plenty of room in the gracery budget this month, I went ahead and grabbed some ($7.69).

Total OOP: 14.75 ($7.69 of which was the chicken)

Total value: 31.21

Total savings: 52.8%

Total savings without the chicken: 70%!

CVS, Week of 7/26

Another great week for school supplies at CVS! I've been poking in and out of various CVS stores this week to snag these great deals in 3 transactions.

I started with $1.98 ECBs.

Transaction 1:

2 post-it notes @ $0.99 each (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $3.98

Paid with ECBs, Total OOP: $0.10

ECBs earned: $1.98

Transaction 2:

2 packs of pens @$0.99 each (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $4.38

Paid with ECBs from transaction 1, Total OOP: $0.10

ECBs earned: $1.98

Transaction 3:

2 composition books @ $0.99 each (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $$5.98

Paid with ECBs from transaction 2, Total OOP: $0.10

ECBs earned: $1.98

Summary:

Total value before sales: $14.34

Total OOP: $0.30

Savings = 97.9%

Plus I have $1.98 in ECBs to roll into something next week!

Grocery shopping, Week of 7/19

Ok so technically I've already had my grocery shopping trip for the week but Harris Teeter is having SUPER DOUBLES this week and last time I waited too long and they were out of a lot of things (even though the week started today they were already out of some stuff). Plus I'm about $17 ahead in my grocery budget for the month so I figure I have a little room for stocking up on these great deals.

Anyway - it was an awesome trip. I am particularly pleased with the Kotex purchases - I got each of the packages for $0.50. Also notable - the rubber gloves were free, the shave gel was $0.50 each, and the air freshened was $0.79. The shampoo is for men - so I might end up smelling like a man but for $0.27 for shampoo I'll deal with it. The face wash was not cheap - $3.39 each but better than paying nearly $7 each. I now have 4 of those stockpiled so I should be good for a while. I can't seem to get them cheaper than $3 something so it was worth it to pick them up.

So here is the run down:

Total OOP: $12.37
Total Value: $41.96

Total Savings: 70.6%

Most of that OOP cost is for the face wash. If I eliminate that from the tally, I saved 81%! I am pretty happy though because I got all that useful stuff for the cost of what I would have paid for the 2 face washes alone. Not bad at all!

Making English Muffins!

I will never purchase English Muffins again! These are amazing! I was browsing the internet looking for a new muffin recipe to try when I stumbled upon this recipe. It was very easy to make and really they turned out better than I anticipated.


Here are some fun pictures of the process. I mixed all the ingredients into a fairly wet dough and let it rise covered for about an hour. Here is the pre-rising dough ball. I forgot to take a picture of the post-rising dough ball. It was MUCH bigger.


After punching down the dough, I rolled it out using a drinking glass (note to self - buy a rolling pin!) and used the same glass to cut out circular muffins. Then I let the dough rise for another 30 minutes.
The weirdest part of the recipe is that you bake them on the stove top. The recipe says to use a gridle, but I used a large frying pan instead. I just sprayed it with PAM and that was enough to keep it from burning.



And here are my beautiful finished English Mufins!!! :)

More CVS deals, Week of 7/19

Yay for continued great deals from CVS this week! The CVS next to my office is too hard to pass up when I know I can get basically free items! So I grabbed 2 packages of notebook paper, a pack of pencils, and 2 small notebooks in 4 separate transactions (spread over 2 days - don't worry I didn't stalk the CVS people). I won't go into the details because frankly I am pretty sure no one cares that much...but here is the summary:

Total OOP: $0.48
Total Value: $8.65

Total Savings: 94.5%

Plus I have $1.98 in ECBs to put towards something next week!

Grocery shopping, Week of 7/19

Not a great week for me with grocery shopping because I was rushed and didn't go to my usual grocery store. I usually shop at Harris Teeter but was out running errands in a different part of town and ran into Safeway to pick up some fresh produce. They were running a good promotion on the freezer bags ($1.50 each) and my favorite bread was 2/$5, a decent deal considering it is usually $3.99/loaf. I have very few brand loyalties, but I don't mess around with my bread.

Anyway, here are the numbers:

Total OOP: $26.06
Total Value: $37.20

Total Savings: 30%

Not too bad considering I wasn't trying hard :)

CVS, Week of 7/19

Another awesome week at CVS for school supplies if you can find anything left on the shelves! I ran errands today and stopped by 2 CVSs to see about grabbing some stuff. The first CVS had absolutely none of the free after ECB deals left but the second one had the pens left.

Here is how is went down:

I started with $1.98 in ECBs from last week. The pens were on sale for $0.99 each for a total of $1.98. So my out of pocket total was $0.00 AND I got $1.98 back in ECBs. Woo! I may check out the CVS next to my office at some point this week to see if I can roll those into another free item.

Original price: $1.99 for one

Savings: 100%

CVS, Week of 7/12

I've been looking for a good opportunity to build up some ECBs at CVS and this was definitely a good week for it. I have a CVS next to my office so it was easy to run in real quick today after work. I thought most of the 'free after ECB' deals would be gone by now since they expire tonight but for some reason the sales weren't marked at this CVS so there was plenty of everything. I don't particularly need school supplies so I will probably keep a package of pens and then donate the rest to a local shelter. The only thing they did not have that I actually wanted was the scissors. I may try to hit up another CVS tonight for those.

Anyway, I did this in 3 transactions with no ECBs to start.

Transaction 1:

1 CVS notebook @ $0.99 (on sale)

1 CVS notebook @ $0.99 (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $5.58

Total OOP: $2.09

ECBs earned: $1.98

Transaction 2:

1 package pens @ $0.99 (on sale)

1 glue @ $0.99

Total value before coupons and sales: $3.18

Paid with $1.98 ECBs from transaction 1 Total OOP = $0.00

ECBs earned: $1.98

Transaction 3:

1 package pens @ $0.99 (on sale)

1 package pens @ $0.99 (on sale)

Total value before coupons and sales: $4.38

Paid with $1.98 ECBs from transaction 2 Total OOP = $0.00

ECBs earned: $1.98

Summary:

Total value before sales: $13.52

Total OOP: $2.09

Savings = 84.5%

Plus I've got $1.98 in ECBs to use on something else. WOO!

Why am I starting this blog?

Why am I starting this blog? To be honest, I'm not completely sure. I read money saving blogs and never thought I'd end up being someone at all interested in sharing my money saving adventures with the anonymous people of the internet, but here I am! I plan on using this space to chronicle my successful (and probably not so successful) attempts at saving some money, accomplishing my goals, and setting myself up for a financially stable future.