Somewhat of a recap...

I am a horrible blogger. My busy life as a stay at home mom always seems to have a habit of getting in the way of new blog posts. Here is a little recap of what has been keeping me too busy to blog lately: 

In August, we had a barbecue at our house to which our whole neighborhood was invited. Several families from our church helped us out with this event by providing food and coming to help out. I cooked most of the 40 POUNDS of beef and pork myself (with the help of a whole bunch of crockpots!). I have to say, it turned out really, really awesome. One of these days I will have to share the bbq beef recipe with all of you, it is so so so good. But that is another post for another time.

I think the barbecue was a success. Although, we did not have a huge turnout like we expected, we did get to know some really nice families and found out that they are also excited to do something like this in the future. We will definitely host another one of these next year, but it will NOT be in August. I am pretty sure it was over 100 degrees that day. I am positive that is the reason we did not have a better turnout.  I can't really blame anyone who didn't want to sit outside in that heat and eat hot food. I think October will definitely be a much better month for something like this.

In September, Brian's parents came to visit (twice) and Jake turned ONE. We had a small birthday party for him at a local park. I made cake pops,

we ordered a doughnut cake,

and we also had a small store-bought cake and cupcakes for the occasion.

I can't believe my baby is one. He is almost walking now and into EVERYTHING. He is a super fast crawler, too. It is alot of work just keeping up with him everyday. C-A-T says it is alot of work just keeping away from him everyday.

I really can't believe that this was Jake a year ago:

Now it is October. I am excited that my mom is coming to visit next week. The last time I saw my mom was when she came out here last year when Jake was born. She will be here for 5 days. On the 17th, our church is having a fall festival and chili cook-off. I am definitely entering that. It should be fun.

I can't wait for Halloween. While it is definitely NOT my favorite holiday, we are planning to do something really cool this year. Our neighborhood gets ALOT of trick or treaters. It should also be cold(er) on Halloween. At least it seemed cold to me last year (I am a Floridian, after all). We are going to open our garage and have a "warming station" - a place where trick-or-treaters and their parents can come in, get some hot cocoa/cider/tea/coffee and even sit down for a little bit. Of course, we will also have candy!

This is something Brian grew up with in Detroit. I have never heard of such a thing in Florida (where a "cooling station" would probably be more appropriate) but I think it is a fantastic idea and another great way to get to know our neighbors and get involved in the community/neighborhood.

I am not sure how "successful" this will be this year, because one thing we noticed last year was that ALOT of people (ok, most people) now DRIVE their kids around trick-or-treating. Now, I do realize that there are SOME (but I have a hard time believing this about everybody) people who cannot walk long distances. But unless you are disabled in some way and it is not possible for you or kids to walk or if the houses are just SOOO spread apart that driving makes more sense, I just don't get it. A car would literally pull up to our house, kids would jump out and run up our driveway, then jump back in the car to go to the next house. And we live in a residential neighborhood where the houses are really close together. We even have sidewalks.

We are hoping that other families in the neighborhood will like this warming station idea (especially now that we have gotten to know some of them) and maybe next year, we can get one or two more houses (in various parts of the neighborhood) to do the same thing. Maybe this will encourage more community and people to get out of their cars to go trick-or-treating!

I can't believe November is next month! Brian has the week of Thanksgiving off. We are not planning to go anywhere but we have not decided what we are doing yet. Last year, we invited another family from church over that does not have any family nearby, either. We have not decided if we are going to do something similar this year or just take it easy. I also can't believe that as of Thanksgiving, we will have been living in Oklahoma for TWO YEARS.

We have big plans for December. but you already know about that if you read my last blog post. I can't believe it has been almost two years since we have seen so many of you. It will be great to be able to see everybody! I do have to say though, that while I DO MISS EVERYONE I do NOT miss Florida. At all. I really am looking forward to seeing everyone. I am not really too ecstatic to be visiting Florida though. I am actually kind of afraid. lol. Afraid of the humidity (we will see if I still think OK is humid). Afraid of the people who are NOT my family and friends. Afraid of I-4. and the Florida Turnpike and the 408 and whatever other roads we may need to travel on. I think I may have forgotten what a real traffic jam looks like. And you know what? I am completely okay with that. Really.

But I really can't wait to see everyone! And I REALLY can't wait for Jake to meet everyone! especially Sean, Charlie, Eli, Joshua, and Little! They are all going to have so much fun together! I just know it!

That is all for now, until I have time to blog again!

Guess what's cookin' at the Kilroy house?

I guess it is time to finally let the cat out of the bag. The Kilroys have an announcement and we hope it will be a huge surprise to all of you. I know alot of you have been wondering when you will get a chance to meet the one and only, Jacob Lee Kilroy, live and in person.

Well, we have been cookin' up some plans to make that a reality for you. That's right,  Jake will be going on a tour of Florida in December!!!!! Brian and I will be staying home, since we know you all really only want to see Jake. Lol. Please understand that while Jake would LOVE to meet each and every one of you, his time in Florida is very limited.

We will all be driving down to Florida and we will be doing lots and lots and lots of driving while in Florida. We will then have to drive home to Oklahoma. Did I mention we will be spending alot of our precious time in Florida driving?

If you would like to meet Jake, please take note of the date he will be in a city near you and contact us for more detailed information.

Cities and dates of Jake's Florida tour 2010 are as follows:

• Atlanta, Georgia                    Thursday, December 16
• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida          Friday December 17
• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida          Saturday, December 18 (Hammond Christmas party)
• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida          Sunday, December 19 (a.m. only, for church)
• Clermont, Florida                   Sunday, December 19 (evening)
• Clermont, Florida                   Monday, December 20
• Orlando, Florida                     Tuesday, December 21
• Crystal River, Florida             Wednesday, December 22
• Crystal River, Florida             Thursday, December 23
• Atlanta, Georgia                      Friday, December 24
• Atlanta, Georgia                      Saturday, December 25

This is going to be a whirlwind "vacation" for sure, but this is the best plan we could come up with to try to see as many people as possible. Please understand that due to the amount of driving we will already be doing in such a short amount of time, we will be unable to deviate from our planned itinerary. Consider this a piece of stone.

Couponing comeback: spent $20.92 Saved $95.30!

I haven't posted in a long time because I have been really lazy about couponing and saving this past month or so. While it is alot of fun to see how much I can save it is still really time consuming for me to go through the deals and print/cut out the coupons I am planning to use. Not to mention, the best stores for couponing for me (CVS, Target, Homeland) are about 15-20 miles away and Jake hates ALL of them. He is a pretty miserable couponing companion- I have to spend so much time entertaining him and trying to keep him quiet it is really quite difficult to pay attention to prices and coupons while I am out with him. Even more frustrating (and this seems to only happen about 97% of the time)  I go through all that planning, driving, and hassle with Jake, only to find out they are COMPLETELY OUT of what I worked so hard planning to get. Then I come home empty handed with nothing but a wasted day (or two!) to show for it and I have to wonder if couponing really is worth it.

But today, I decided to give it a try again. I spent HOURS planning this out yesterday (I am really hoping I get quicker at this as it gets easier), printing and clipping coupons and deciding what to buy where. I started out at Target, the furthest one away, because there is a Chick-fil-a across the street from them that was offering FREE chicken biscuits this morning. So I brought my own coffee and started the savings off with a totally free breakfast. YUM.

I was planning on going to Target, CVS, and Homeland (in that order) and being home around 11 or 12 at the latest. (I started at 9). I have no idea what I was thinking. I think I completely forgot about the number one reason I haven't done this in a while.

My first trip to Target was AWESOME. I spent $5.37 and this is what I got:

• 1 Scrubbing Bubbles daily shower power sprayer on sale for $6.99, used a $3 off Target coupon and a $5 off manufacturer coupon. Yes, I actually MADE $1.01 off the purchase of this! I really wanted the Scrubbing Bubbles extend a clean power sprayer, but at such a good deal, why on earth would the first Target I go to have them in stock???? stupid me for planning on it.

• 3 cannisters of Gerber Puffs ($1.89 each), 1 can of Gerber wagon wheels ($1.89), and 2 packages of Gerber yogurt melts ($2.49 each). I used a $1 off the purchase of 5 Gerber food items Target coupon. I also used four $3 off the purchase of any or multiple Gerber products. (I got them in the mail because I had previously purchased a bad batch of Gerber rice cereal. I expected them to only replace the bad box of cereal, but they were WAAAY more than generous!)

• 1 jar of Vlasic hamburger dill pickles ($1.79) and 1 squeeze thing of Vlasic sweet relish ($1.19). I used 2 Vlasic coupons $ .55/1 I printed from their website.

• 1 bottle of Suave Professionals conditioner. I used a coupon to get one free, I have no idea why Suave sent me one in the mail, I must have signed up for it at some point? Anyway, I am NOT complaining!

• I am kicking myself for this one: 1 Baby Oragel tooth and gum cleanser for $2.99. I had no idea I had a $1 off coupon for this until I got home. (See, should have spent another hour planning this trip!). I know it is only a dollar but that is not the point. The whole point of this "game" is to see how much I can save and how little I can spend. I guess I feel kinda like I lost the game or failed or something. I could have had my total for the day UNDER $20!!!!

My total out of pocket at this store was $5.37 (could have been $4.37 GRRRR!!!!)
$1.97 of that total was tax. My total saved this trip was $22.49 just over 80%!

By this point Jake was getting really upset about being dragged around Target. He HATES Target more than anyplace he has ever been. I don't know what it is, but he usually screams the whole time we are in there. Maybe it is the lights or the Target sign, I have no idea. But, I had more Scrubbing Bubbles coupons and since this one was out of the Extend-a-clean, we had to go to another Target. I was thankful at least the other Target was right across the street from CVS (where I was planning to go next anyways).

At the second Target I bought

• 1 Scrubbing Bubbles extend a clean power sprayer for $6.99, again using a $3 off Target coupon, and a $5 off manufacturer coupon. Again, I MADE $1.01 on this purchase. But I don't know of any store that will just GIVE you money back in these situations, so I had to buy something else. 

• I bought a new binder for all my coupons. The binder was $4.29. 

After my coupons and the $ .05 discount for bringing my own bag, my total for this purchase was $3.93. Tax was $ .70 of that total. Total saved was $8.05 so, less than 50% but I really needed a new binder. My other one was getting way to small.
Next we went to CVS and big shocker here, but they were out of what I went there for. I didn't buy anything there and had to make yet another detour. I went to another CVS and bought

• 4 boxes of Scrubbing Bubbles toilet gel things. They were $2.50 each, and when you buy 4 of them, you get $5 ECB. I used two $1/1 coupons from the paper and one $2/2  peelie coupon. I also had $5 ECB that CVS emailed me for completing a short survey last week. My total out of pocket was $1.43 ($.43 was tax) I saved $16.16 and have $5 ECB for my next transaction.

• My next transaction was for Prevacid. It was on sale for $23.99 but they were giving $5 ECB. I was very excited when I scanned my card in the store today and it spit out a $6 OFF PREVACID CVS COUPON!!!! YAY! Love when I get an extra (great!) coupon for something I was planning to buy anyways. I combined this with my $10 off manufacturer coupon I got from calling them and requesting. I used my $5 ECB I got from Scrubbing Bubbles and only paid $5.04 out of pocket!  And $2.05 of that was tax! I saved $26! I guess that was worth going out of my way for!

After that last CVS I had to come home. Jake was tired and hungry and cranky. It was almost 2:00 when we got home and we hadn't even made it to Homeland. THIS is exactly why I don't coupon as much as I should. What a long day.

After Jake woke up from his nap we FINALLY made it to Homeland. I think this is the first time I have gone the first day of their sale and the FIRST time they had everything I went there for and did not have to ask for a rain check. Homeland doubles coupons up to and including $1.00, so those double coupons paired with great sales and rain checks from past great sales got me the following:

(1) Kraft salad dressing
(1) Texas Toast croutons
(1) Kraft barbecue sauce
(1) KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce
(2) Sweet Baby Rays barbecue sauce
(1) 9 oz pkg Oscar Mayer deli shaved chicken lunchmeat 
(2) 10 oz cans of diced tomatoes with green chiles
(1) box of Blue Bunny fudge bars (6 count)
(2) pre-sugared Kool-Aid powder mix cannisters

My total out of pocket was only $5.15!!!!! Can you believe that?????? And $1.05 of that was tax!
I am not even going to try to break it down because Homeland's receipts are even more confusing than Target's and I am not sure how to figure out what each item actually costs (other than writing it down as I shop, but shopping with Jake is complicated enough as it is, so no. Sorry.) Their receipt does say that I saved $22.60 and got 84% off!

Homeland only doubles one like coupon per transaction, I hear some cashiers will only let you double one like coupon per day so I am scared to do multiple transactions unless I leave and come back and try to hide from the previous cashier. That is too much hassle for me and I am scared of getting caught. I might end up going back later in the week though for more of those good deals (or more likely rain checks) because they ALWAYS run out of their sale items.

Anyways, today was busy and tiring but I am proud of all the money I saved and stuff I got. And the best part is, even though I only spent $20.92 out of pocket, I still have $5 ECB for CVS, and I have two $5 rebates I can submit for all those Scrubbing Bubbles things I got! So once you factor in the rebates and ECB, I actually got all of this stuff for $5.92! (Could have been $4.96 GRRRR)

Re-starting my garden in June

This (holiday for most of you) weekend started out pretty good but ended tragically for my poor vegetable garden yesterday.

Brian and I spent ALL DAY Saturday working in the yard. I think we started around 9? and worked till about 8. Of course, this is Oklahoma and Oklahoma gets HOT this time of year, so we were forced to take many popsicle breaks.

We have had this HORRENDOUS weed problem since we moved here. We had pulled weeds in the front last year, and earlier this year Brian had time to fertilize the front with Scott's Turfbuilder and weed control. He did not have time to do the backyard though. Let me just say, we had more weeds in our backyard than we did grass. It looked HORRIBLE. So horrible that I thought about taking a picture to show before and after, but I knew I would be too embarrassed to ever show anyone that picture, so I didn't do it. The front yard had a few weeds in it, but it didn't look that bad.

Well, starting a couple weekends ago, and ending on Saturday (with me putting time in during the week when I could) we got on our hands and knees and pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled. Finally we got all of the weeds out. Then Brian had to mow and edge and spray for bugs.

We worked soooo hard on Saturday that we decided not to go to church yesterday and spend some much-needed family time together. Brian is only home on the weekends so we can't get any projects done after work during the week. So it seems like all we do when we see eachother is work work work and more work. Poor Jake ends up having to watch Baby Einstein or play in his crib alot on weekends because there is just SO much that needs to be done. So we decided to devote Sunday to family and doing something fun together. We could not do that today (Memorial Day) because, unfortunately that is not considered a holiday in Brian's line of work. Memorial Day is just another Monday, regular hours, regular travel.

Before we headed to the park on Sunday morning, Brian had one last thing he needed to do to his yard. Fertilize. He used Scott's turfbuilder with weed control, the kind of stuff that looks like kitty litter. Some of it got into my vegetable garden on accident, but he didn't think it would hurt the veggies since they weren't weeds. I noticed my squash flowers open, so I went out and pollinated them. I saw the fertilizer on them but Brian said he thought it was ok so we just left it there and went about our family fun day.

We came home yesterday afternoon and I went to check on my garden (I do this multiple times a day, every day). To my horror, the leaves on the squash and tomatoes were completely wilted. They looked like they were dying! The onions, rosemary, corn, and chives looked okay.

I called Scott's and was told that stuff *could* kill anything that is not grass so that is why you need to take extreme caution to avoid any plants of any kind that you would like to keep. I was told I could try soaking my plants to get the weed killer off of them and depending on how much damage has been done, they possibly could make it. However, the weedkiller is toxic and Scott's advises against consuming anything from any plants that may have come in contact with it.

I was completely devastated. I started my plants from seeds back in March. It seemed to take forever (as well as alot of work and alot of money) to get the garden established. Just in the last week, I saw my first tomato blossoms, first squash, first zucchini. I still had not been able to harvest anything yet.

I was very upset and depressed over the loss of my plants. Working in the garden has become my favorite thing to do. I called Scott's again this morning and asked how long the "half-life" of the product used is. This is basically the amount of time the ingredients are still active in the soil. I was told it is less than 7 days, then I *should* be able to replant.

I called a local plant farm to see if they were open today and explained my situation. They advised I should pull EVERYTHING out of the garden, whether it appears damaged or not, and destroy it, as the ingredients used are very toxic. They said if the half life is supposed to be less than 7 days, that they would wait AT LEAST two weeks, and in the meantime, just water, water, water my boxes of dirt.

I ended up going to the plant farm today and buying 3 tomato and 1 pepper plant. I will just need to baby them in their pots until my soil is un-contaminated. I also bought some herb and flower plants.

As far as my garden goes, I am downsizing a little. I could not find squash plants so if I am going to do squash again I will need to start those from seeds SOON. I am going to soak some onion seeds overnight and start those in the morning (the onions I grew from seeds seemed to do so much better than the sets I transplanted), but I probably won't get to harvest those till next summer. I think I might just use one of the beds for now and save the other for cooler weather plants to be planted closer to the fall. Or maybe corn. I have until July 15 to get corn seeds in the ground- same goes for pumpkins.

The bright side of this is that Jake and I discovered an AWESOME plant farm not too far from here. I had something fun to do on Memorial Day (Jake, not so much, he did not like it when the sprinklers got him. He was good for the first hour or so we were there) for a couple of hours.

Then, I got to come home and play in the dirt. It was hot, so I came inside for an air conditioned popsicle break and started typing this blog entry when Brian came in through the garage door. Scared me to death to hear someone just walk into my house unannounced (the garage itself was open) but once I got over the initial shock, it was a nice surprise.

This Memorial Day Monday is ending ALOT better than it started :-)

I LOVE the bread store.

I was looking at this week's sale ad for Reasor's and noticed they have hotdog/hamburger buns ON SALE 2/$3. That is ridiculously outrageous considering I can go to the bread store 1/2 a mile away from them and buy the EXACT same thing for $ .60 each. There is nothing wrong with the bread from the bread store either. In fact, most are Sara Lee brand (I have seen those ON SALE for $1.99 a pack at Reasor's) at this particular store and the hotdog and hamburger buns I bought today are really soft and fresh and have a sell by date of June 8!

Plus, I just love the way the bread store smells. lol. It smells so good it makes me want to buy a ton of bread or anything, really. Kinda like how the smell of Subway makes me really hungry for one of their not-so-great subs.

Anyways, I just wanted to post this as an FYI to any of you who may not have thought to check out a local bread store for any of your regular bread needs. We have saved soooo much money at this place! I go there at least once a week.

How to make country fried steak

Yay! Brian is home tonight! And since I was able to get a great deal on cubed steak this week, I made Brian his favorite meal for dinner tonight: Country Fried Steak with white gravy.

This recipe is so easy and delicious, but I guess it is not really a recipe since I don't really measure anything. I guess it would be more like instructions? Anyways, here is how I do it:


You will need:
enough oil to coat a large skillet
cubed steak (I made a pound for the 2 of us, but Brian eats alot)
flour
salt
pepper
3 eggs
approximately 2 tablespoons of milk? again, I don't measure so just eyeball it!  (I usually just use regular milk but tonight I used buttermilk and it was way better than normal. But it is still pretty awesome even with regular milk!)
seasoned bread crumbs

This recipe is so simple I really don't even measure this stuff.

Heat enough oil to cover bottom of skillet over medium  high heat.

In small bowl, mix flour with a little bit of salt and pepper. In a separate bowl, beat eggs with milk. Dump a bunch of bread crumbs in another bowl or on a plate. (The only thing I don't like about this recipe is that I have to dirty about a million dishes to make it!)

when measuring out your flour and bread crumbs, just keep in mind you need to coat each piece of steak.

Pound flour mixture into both sides of meat with a meat tenderizer. Coat meat with remaining flour mixture, dip in egg mixture, then coat with breadcrumbs. Place meat in skillet and brown quickly on both sides. Cover, reduce heat to medium and cook 15-20 minutes, turning occasionally. Remove meat from skillet and keep warm.

Now you are ready to make the gravy. Here is what you will need for that:
milk (about 2 to 2.5 cups)
3 or 4 tablespoons of flour
salt and pepper

Whisk the flour into the meat drippings in the skillet. Add milk, bring to a boil, continue to cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Add salt and pepper to taste.

And that is it! Even without measuring, I think it would be kind of hard to mess this up. It is that simple!

How I organize my coupons

I don't. But I should? I wish I knew how. To me, this is the most frustrating part about couponing- how do you keep track of all those little strips of paper and always know what you have and when to use them so they don't expire? If I ever find out, I will be sure to let you know. In the meantime, I have heard of a few different ways to do this, they all have their pros and their cons: 

If I cut the ALL the coupons out and put them in one of those accordion coupon file thingies (like I used to do), I will surely forget what coupons I have and they won't get used. I really hate having to look through those at the store, it takes me FOREVER to shop that way and I feel so unorganized and I am dropping coupons all over the place. Also, when looking online at the coupon matchups from the sale ads and I see something I want to get it will be harder to locate the coupon.

I have heard that alot of couponers use "coupon binders." Those are basically a zippered 3 ring binder with baseball card holders in them. Then they cut all their coupons out and sort them by category. I think. But I could not imagine taking something so big and bulky as that into a store and trying to look through it while trying to decide what shampoo to buy while Jake is trying to squirm out of the cart as he is trying to grab the binder and eat all the coupons.  That sounds like a lot of work on my part and a disaster waiting to happen. And lots of frustration. And lots of coupons flying everywhere.

I think for now, I am going to keep the inserts/magazines intact and use the matchups posted online. This way, when doing looking over the matchups, I can easily and quickly located the coupons I want to use and can put them in an envelope/wallet/diaper bag to take with me to the store.. I will do this until I can think of a better way of organizing coupons.

Any one else have any ideas?

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.

How to make a dollar at Walgreens

I forgot to add this in the other post:

If you want to make an extra dollar at Walgreens, instead of buying the Noxema 4 pack 3 blade razors @ $4.99, you can instead get the 3 pack bikini razors. They are $2.99 and BOGO. So if you get two, it will be $2.99 for both. Use two of the $2 off one coupons, for a total discount of $4.00. They won't give you money back though, so just be sure you have something else in your cart that is at least $1.00 to absorb the overage.

Those Noxema coupons were also supposed to be in this week's Redplum, but I did not see them in mine, unless I am just blind. I thought I looked through it very carefully like 10 times. So if you have them in your paper and want to buy more than just two packs of razors/want to make more than $1.00 off of them, you can. And since they aren't a RR item, you can do it all in one transaction, too!

Saved 70% at Walgreens!

So tonight was my first trip to Walgreens. (Not ever, just my first time trying to do this whole couponing/register rewards thing). I don't think I did too bad. Four transactions, spent a total of $20.28, saved a total of $46.43. That's 70%!

Before I go into detail about how I got what I got, let me tell you a few things I have learned about Walgreens and their RR program (someone please correct me if I am wrong- this is really confusing for me):

• You can't use a RR you got for purchasing an item to purchase another of the same item. Well, I think you can, you just won't get another RR.
  
• You can't do multiple of the same RR deals in the same transaction and get multiple RRs. You will only get one. (This is why you will see I bought my 2 Goody Hair items in separate transactions)
• When using an RR, you cannot have more coupons than items (coupons include the RR). This is why you need "filler" items. Although, I just noticed when typing this up that I had 2 coupons and 1 RR in the last transaction and it worked for only 2 items. So I don't know. I told you Walgreen's confuses me!
  

Ok, now that I have probably thoroughly confused you, as I am, Here is how I did it:

First transaction:

• Bought a Goody's Ouchless headband for $2.99, got back $3 RR
  

• Bought 2 packs of Noxema razors @ $4.99 on sale buy one get one free (BOGO)

-used two $2 off one Noxema razors coupon from here

Sales tax (8.517%) $ .68

Total out of pocket= $4.66 Plus, I now have $3 RR to use on my next visit. I actually would have done all of this in one visit, but I forgot my other coupons at home. doh!

Second transaction:

• Bought two packs of Huggies Little Snugglers diapers @ $9 each/get $3 RR when you buy (WYB) 2

-used two $3 off one Huggies coupon from here or here

• Bought one A&W Root Beer for @ $1.00 (needed a "filler" item, and I love A&W root beer. I would have bought it anyway, for the same price at Reasor's)
  

Sales tax (9.5% in Sapulpa this time) $1.81

I also used my $3 RR from the previous visit.

Total out of pocket = $11.81 Now, I have $3 more RR to use on my next transaction.

Third transaction:

• Bought one pack of Goody Ouchless barrettes @ $2.99/ get back $3 RR

• Bought two 2-liters of 7up @ $1.00 each

-used two $1 off one 7up coupons. I am sorry, I forgot where these came

from. Maybe 7up's website? I have had them for a week or two.

• Bought one A&W root beer (again, needed a filler)

Sales tax (9.5%) $ .57
I used the $3 RR I got from the Huggies in the previous transaction
Total out of pocket = $1.56 Now I have $3RR again for the next transaction.

Fourth transaction:

• Bought one pack of Huggies Little Swimmers on sale for $6.99

-used $1.50 off one (manufacturer's coupon)
-used $2.00 off one (Walgreen's coupon from their May coupon book found in store)

• A &W root beer (filler, again) @ $1.00

Sales tax (9.5%) $ .76
I also used the $3 RR I got in the previous transaction from the barrettes
Total out of pocket= $2.25

And there you have it. Not quite as impressive as my CVS trip the other day, but like I told you before, Walgreens confuses me.

I now have a blog and use coupons!

Let's see how long I can keep this up. I think I am starting this mainly to document my saving/spending habits as I learn the confusing world of couponing. I am hoping that by keeping a blog it will help me to be more accountable and stick with it. This post is kind of long, it is me rambling on about how I came to become so addicted to saving money with coupons. So if you don't care how I got started couponing, this is your chance to stop reading.

I have tried to use coupons off and on. I even bought the Tulsa World newspaper for several weeks in a row when I first became a stay at home mom. Sometimes I would find the time to cut out a bunch of coupons of things I thought I would use. Then, I would go to the store (mostly Wal-Mart because I wrongfully assumed they were always the cheapest at everything) and find that the "Great Value" brand was still cheaper than using the coupon for the name brand. So I ended up with a bunch of cut out coupons that kept expiring.

With a newborn in the house, it can be quite a challenge to find the time/energy to do much of anything. When I did get some time to myself I wanted to spend it sleeping or relaxing, not cutting out coupons I probably wouldn't use! That meant that sometimes I wouldn't even go through coupon inserts until the coupons were about to expire. So I had coupons and coupon inserts and newspapers coming out my ears it seems.

So I gave up. I continued shopping at Wal-Mart buying Great Value brand everything I could. I thought I was saving money. I have a grocery budget of $50 per week (I shop with cash, so I can't go over). I thought I was really doing good when I occasionally had enough cash leftover that we could order pizza on Saturday night.

But that was then. I have since stopped shopping at Wal-Mart altogether. I am starting to learn how to use coupons. I have saved enough in the past several weeks, that last week, I did not even need to spend ANY of my $50 on groceries. Instead, we spent half of it on clippers for Brian so I can learn to cut his hair. Let me just say, his hair is REALLY short in the back right now! I also have to say, that was HIS idea, not mine!

I have started saving by shopping mainly at two different stores in my area, Reasor's (my favorite) and Warehouse Market. I am learning which things are cheaper at which store. Since I got frustrated with coupons in the past and quit "wasting" my money on the Sunday paper, I was just trying to find the best deals using printable coupons from sites like coupons.com smartsource and redplum. That works at Reasor's but unfortunately Warehouse Market does not take printable coupons.

A couple of weeks ago, my sister, Jessi, talked me into buying the paper and trying to shop at CVS. She recommended I check out Southern Savers. I went on that website that night and could not believe all the deals at CVS that week. I ended up going to CVS twice, spending $15.49 and saving $89.48. That is an 85% savings! I could not believe how many things you can get at CVS for FREEE just by using coupons and shopping their sales! Things we all use, like toothpaste and deoderant! I only wished at that point that I had still been buying the Sunday paper, because if I had been, I would have been able to get alot more things AND save alot more money. I decided from that point on to start getting the paper again.

Here is what I got my first week "CVSing"


I can't remember exactly how I did all my transactions to end up with those amounts, and there was some confusion. You see, I had everything worked out on paper before I went into the store of how it was going to work out (the order of transactions, etc). I had everything figured out, including tax, right to the penny. Then, I went in there and accidentally bought the wrong thing first! That created alot of confusion and me, just beginning at all this got somewhat frustrated. Thankfully, there was a manager there, who walked me through it, step by step (not only did he let me ring up like 6 different transactions, he HELPED me figure out how to save the most money and even gave me some bonus extra care bucks! He was totally awesome).
I am hoping that in the future, I can use this blog to show you all exactly how I save with sales, coupons, and ECBs (or RRs if I can figure out Walgreens!)

I did not make it to CVS last week. The closest one to me is approx. 20 miles away and there were only a couple of deals that looked good to me, that I needed coupons from last week's Redplum insert in the Sunday paper. I bought TWO Tulsa World papers for $2.00 each and discovered, to my horror, that TW does not get RedPlum anymore! Bummer. Now I know I need to buy the Daily Oklahoman. Yesterday, I bought 2 Daily Oklahomans and 2 Tulsa Worlds. So now I have lots of coupons to get started with.

I think this week I am going to try to make it to CVS and Walgreens and see how much I can save there. I also cut out all of my about to expire coupons from my All You magazines and I am going to attempt saving money at Homeland (a grocery store about 20 minutes away that doubles coupons). I have never been to Homeland before, and Walgreens Register Rewards/coupon policies confuse me so I am not sure how well I will do.

Hopefully I will have some pictures/savings to show you in the next few days! Now I gotta get to planning my lists!