Saved 64% at Homeland; 77% at CVS!

Yesterday, I went to Homeland. Homeland is a grocery store in the next town north of me that doubles coupons, up to and including $1 coupons. I had never been to Homeland before and wanted to check it out, so I went through my All You magazines and cut out all the coupons that were about to expire and just took those.

All in all, I was pretty impressed with Homeland and will probably start going there weekly. They were actually only about 10 miles away and probably a 12 minute drive? I have lived in Oklahoma a year and a half now and I guess I am still not used to that... I kept thinking it would take me AT LEAST 20 minutes to get there. It is a pretty drive, too.


Anyways, I had a bit of a tough time at Homeland. You see, ever since Jake learned to crawl, he refuses to sit still. He used to like riding around in shopping carts but not anymore. He would much rather be crawling around on the floor. So the entire time I was shopping and trying to figure out what to buy (I really didn't have a plan other than wanting to see if I could score some good deals with my about to expire coupons) Jake was trying to get out of the cart. At one point he was completely turned around (he was strapped in) and stuck. Another time he got both legs through one leg hole. So shopping with him is getting to be next to impossible again. I practically have to hold him down in the cart. The sling doesn't work anymore because he squirms right out of that too.

I ended up getting 6 cans of Manwhich, 5 Banquet pot pies, a box of KoolAid singles (thanks to the coupon fairy in the KoolAid aisle!) and a little over a pound of cubed steaks. I saved $16.04, paid $10.30 ($1.31 was tax).

The only coupon I used that actually doubled was the KoolAid one (that actually made the KoolAid free!). I had a $2 off coupon for the meat, and the coupons I used for the Manwhich and the Banquet said "do not double" on them. The Manwhich, Banquet, and meat coupons I printed off the internet, I did not use a single about to expire one! Oh well, guess they will expire.

I went to CVS last night. I actually bought everything in six transactions (the last two were done at a different store because the first one was out of Pepsi!?!?!?!) because I used both mine and Brian's CVS cards. They didn't care that I was doing a bunch of transactions. And they didn't care that I was using two different cards. CVS is AWESOME! At least the ones here are, anyways.

I got a 3 months supply of Prevacid, 4 things of Gillette men's bodywash, twelve 2-liters of Pepsi, and four 2-liters of Mountain Dew for $26.18. I saved $89.80! Here is how I did it (I am just going to list 3 transactions though because I did the exact same thing on the second card. So no sense repeating myself.):

Transaction #1

• Bought Prevacid 42 count on sale @ $23.99/ get back $5 ECB

- Used $4 off a $20 purchase (coupon CVS emailed to me when I registered my card on their site here)
- Used $10 off one manufacturer's coupon from Prevacid's website here
- Used $3 ECB from my last trip to CVS a couple weeks ago
Tax (8.517%) $1.71
Total out of pocket $8.70

Transaction #2

• Bought 2 men's Gillette body wash @ $4 each/ get back $4 ECB each (I actually didn't have coupons for these, but if I did, they would have made me some money! I still got them anyway, because Brian does use body wash and these were free)

- Used $5 ECB from Prevacid purchase
Tax (8.517%)  $ .68
Total out of pocket $3.68

Transaction #3

• Bought six 2-liters of Pepsi @ $ .99
• Bought two 2 liters of Mountain Dew @ $.99

- Used $8 ECB from the bodywash. They actually adjusted it down to $7.92 because you can't use ECBs to pay tax.
Tax (8.517%) $ .71
Total out of pocket $ .71

Then I repeated all 3 transactions on Brian's card. I did this because the Prevacid deal was limit 1, the bodywash was limit 2, and the Pepsi/Mountain Dew was limit 12.

Ok. That is all for tonight. And I am ALMOST done shopping for the week. Just gotta grab a couple of items at the local stores tomorrow and I am DONE. Until next week.