Monopoly Money

I'm sitting here waiting for Jonathan to wake up so that I can feed him lunch and go vote, so I thought I'd do a post about the great deals I'm getting with coupons. Almost everything I do, I get the information from http://www.southernsavers.com/. You can still find good stuff on it even if you don't live in the South. On the website, I can find out the good deals and even link to the coupons to print out. My favorite stores are Rite Aid and Publix. I used to think it was weird that all of these bloggers would post pictures of the stuff they bought, but after a few months of couponing I totally get it. Here is my example. I got all of this stuff at Rite Aid for $13.84.

If the store isn't busy I'll do two or three separate transactions, which is what I did here. I think I was the only one in the store, so I didn't hold up the line and the cashiers are always happy to let me. This is how I did it:

First transaction

3 boxes of Kleenex, $.99 each

1 box of Huggies size 5 diapers, $19.99

1 Crest Pro Health Clinical $3.99

Coupons used:

$5 off $25 purchase

$3 off Huggies manufacturer coupon

$2 off Huggies Rite Aid store coupon (you can use both on the same item)

$1 off Crest manufacturer coupon

$1 off Crest Rite Aid store coupon

$.50 off Kleenex manu. coupon

$1.00 off Kleenex store coupon

2-$1 off Rite Aid coupons on any non-prescription purchase

The total after all of the coupons was $13.25, and I used a $10 Rite Aid gift card that I got from a rebate on some good deals I got in the past. My total paid was $3.25.

I also got back $6 in +UP coupons, that are good on my next purchase.

Second transaction:

3 Kleenex $.99 each

2 Nestle Crunch Fun Size bags $2.50 each

Venus Breeze razors $5.99 (these are usually $9 or more)

Thermacare $2.99

2-Little Critter Gummy vitamins $6.79, $3.39 (buy one, get one 50% off)

I used these coupons:

$5 off $25 purchase

$1 off Thermacare manu. coupon

$1 off Kleenex manu. coupon

$.50 off Kleenex store coupon

$2.00 off Venus Breeze

2-$1 off Nestle candy

2-$1 off Rite Aid coupons on non-prescription purchases

$6 +UP reward from last transaction

Total: $9.44. I also got $2 more in +UP rewards

Third transaction:

2 boxes of Ziploc bags, $2 each

Used:

$1.25 Ziploc coupon

$2 +UP rewards

Total: $1.15, with $1 +UP for next time

Whew, it takes a while to type all of that up. It does take some time to get everything organized for a shopping trip, but now that I've been doing it for a while it is much easier and totally worth it. I only buy the stuff we can actually use, but I sometimes stock up on free stuff that I can donate. For example, I have about 12 tubes of toothpaste that I got for free or for pennies, and I'll donate what we don't need.

Let me know if you want to try this and you need help. I've decided that coupons are like Monopoly money that you can actually spend. I have been able to reduce my budget and actually stick to it. Yay!

Baby's up. Perfect timing. :-)