Weekly Spending Summary (4/21-4/27)
Monday, April 29th, 2013
Some of you have wondered where I get my printable coupons. Here are the main coupon sites that I use: Coupons.com, Coupon Network, Smart Source, Red Plum and Saving Star. Manufacturer websites and Facebook pages are another great source.
Favorite buys:
- Huggies diapers for less than $5/pack
- Free chocolate
- Free toothpaste
- Boneless, skinless chicken thighs for less than $1.40/lb.
- Free Beech-nut Fruities
Total Spent: $81.61
Total Saved with Coupons: $65.71
Total Saved with Sales: $17.30
Total Saved: $83.01
CVS: $0 (gift card)
Saved with Coupons: $51.04
Saved with Sales: $12.89
This week I again used a gift card that we had earned through our credit card rewards program to pay for my purchase which was $4.32. (And no, we have never carried a credit card balance. We pay them off in full every month.)
In addition to the other Extra Buck that I got, as part of their ExtraCare Beauty Club I will also get back $5 in Extra Bucks the next time I shop at CVS because I finally spent $50 in beauty care products.
The diapers were a great deal at $4.66/pack after coupon and sales. While I’m not a huge fan of the Huggies Slip-ons, I don’t hate them either. And since they are the diapers that I am able to get the best deal on late due to the high value coupons for them, I’ve been buying quite a few.
The other items were all free or moneymakers. In fact I made $1.40 with these purchases.
Bought:
- 3 Huggies Diapers $9.99 each
- Brookside Chocolates $3.00
- U by Kotex $3.99
- Crest $2.99
- Thermacare $3.79 (bought with rain check)
- Physicians Formula $7.99 ($5.99 after 25% off coupon)
- Revlon Emery Boards $3.49 ($2.61 after 25% off coupon)
Coupons Used:
- $2.00 Huggies Little Movers printable coupon
- $2.50 Huggies Slip-ons printable coupon
- $1.50 Huggies printable coupon
- $2.50 Brookside Chocolate CVS printable coupon
- $1.00 Brookside Chocolate printable manufacturer’s coupon
- $2.00 U by Kotex CVS printable coupon
- $2.00 U by Kotex printable manufacturer’s coupon
- $1.00 Crest coupon from Sunday newspaper coupon inserts
- $3.00 Revlon CVS coupon from coupon machine in CVS
- 25% off regular price items CVS coupon received via email (took off $2.87)
- $30.67 in Extra Bucks (CVS coupons that print at register for purchasing specific items)
Got Back:
- $10.00 Extra Bucks coupon for purchasing the Huggies (can be used on next purchase of any item)
- I did two transactions and used this coupon right away for the second transaction - $2.00 Extra Bucks coupon for purchasing the Crest (can be used on next purchase of any item)
- $4.00 Extra Bucks coupon for purchasing the Thermacare (can be used on next purchase of any item)
- $7.00 Extra Bucks coupon for purchasing the Physicians Formula (can be used on next purchase of any item)
Rite Aid: $1.99
Saved with Coupons: $1.00
Saved with Sales: $0.80
Don’t you love my huge purchase this week? 
One of the great things about living in town is that I have two Rite Aid’s within walking distance of my house. I wouldn’t normally go to Rite Aid just for one item but one evening I wanted to take a walk so I just walked to Rite Aid and got this free toothpaste! I always enjoy when I can combine getting exercise with my couponing!
Bought:
- Colgate toothpaste $2.99
Coupons Used:
- $1.00 Colgate coupon from Sunday newspaper coupon inserts
Got Back:
- $2.00 UPReward coupon for purchasing the Simple (can be used on next purchase of any item)
Giant: $7.45
Saved with Coupons: $8.79
Saved with Sales: $3.61
More inexpensive wipes this week at Giant. I probably have about 15 to 20 packs of wipes now in my stash downstairs. I keep buying more though because I know we’ll use them eventually. We hope to have more children, so if I don’t get them used for our daughter I’ll hopefully be able to use them on another baby. Also, I’ve been kind of scared that Giant will stop doubling coupons since so many other stores are slowly dropping it. So I figure I might as well make good use of it while I can!
I was so excited to get our favorite croutons for just $0.45. There was a coupon for them in the Sunday newspaper coupon inserts a couple of weeks ago. Our newspaper had a $1/2 but my parents save their coupons for me and theirs had a $0.40/1 which of course doubled for me. The Beech-nut are not something I would normally buy but for free? Sure, I’ll take them. Besides my children love them- especially my 4 yr. old. And they are really handy for trips or for on the go. I’m printing out more coupons to buy more this week since it appeared that they are on sale through 5/4.
Bought:
- 3 Huggies Wipes $2.00
- 4 Pampers Wipes $2.00
- Beech-nut Fruities $0.99
- Texas Toast Croutons $1.25
Coupons Used:
- Three $0.60 Huggies Wipes printable coupons from Common Kindness (doubled to $1.00 each)
- Four $0.50 Pampers Wipes printable coupons from Coupons.com (doubled to $1.00 each)
- $0.75 Beech-nut printable coupon (doubled to $0.99)
- $0.40 Texas Toast coupon from Sunday newspaper coupon inserts (doubled to $0.80)
Aldi: $10.81
Just got my usual Aldi stuff this week. Some of you may be wondering why I keep buying canned black beans when I posted that it is cheaper to make your own. Well, believe it or not I am not super woman and just simply can not do everything. Shocking, right? Yes, I prefer making my own black beans and each week I think I’m going to get it done. But each week, well, life happens and I don’t. And truth be told, if I’m going to buy canned beans I don’t mind these black beans that much. Unlike many canned beans they are basically beans, salt and water. No sugar and no funny ingredients. So, if you were wondering, now you know. (And yes, it’s on my to-do list for this week again!)
Bought:
- Bananas $0.44/lb.
- Napkins 250 ct. $1.49
- Oranges 4 lb. $1.79
- Tortillas $0.99
- 2 Brown Sugar $1.29 each
- 3 Black Beans $0.59 each
- Mustard $0.69
Walmart: $4.24
Saved with Coupons: $4.88
I love Gold Medal’s unbleached flour. I use it anytime I have a recipe that calls for regular flour and it works great. If you don’t use unbleached flour, I highly recommend trying it! The Dannon plain yogurt is my favorite yogurt to use as starter for my homemade yogurt. The Beech-nuts? Well, read what I wrote above under my Giant spending. And the Duncan Hines I only bought because I made a little money on them. I never buy bought icing (personally can’t stand how it tastes) and you are to use these with that. So I’ll probably just see if one of my friends wants them.
Bought:
- Gold Medal Flour $2.14
- 2 Beech-nut Fruities $0.98 each
- Dannon Plain $2.38
- 3 Duncan Hines Flavor Creations $0.88 each
Coupons Used:
- Two $1.00 Beech-nut printable coupons
- Two $1.00 Duncan Hines printable coupons
- FREE Duncan Hines Flavor Creations coupon from Sunday newspaper coupon inserts ($0.88)
Glenwood Foods: $19.69
This is kind of a bent and dent type store so you never know what you are going to find. The receipt doesn’t list the price of all the items and I can’t remember what they all were but here is what I do know. The bacon was $1.89, the strawberries $0.99, the cheese sticks were less than $2.00/lb., the eggs were jumbo organic, free range and $1.39/doz. and the shredded mozzarella was $2.19/lb. I don’t typically pay quite that much for eggs but for jumbo free range I was definitely willing too!
Springville Foods: $27.43
Oh I totally forgot to take a picture of my chicken! Not that it would have been a pretty picture anyway. A local bulk food store was having a meat sale and since the stores I typically get my meat at don’t usually run amazing sales in the summer I decided I had better stock up now to hopefully last through until fall when I’ll be able to get some good sales again.
I got around 20 lbs. of boneless, skinless chicken thighs for just under $1.40/lb.! It was really nice meat and I was very pleased with it- I’m almost wishing I would have gotten more since I’m hoping to have quite a bit of company this summer and will probably often have chicken. I often use chicken thighs in place of chicken breast. It’s typically cheaper and more moist too.
Thanks to reader Michelle for emailing me about the sale. She knew I was local to her and thought I might be glad to know about it. Was I ever!
Misc.: $10.00
We’ll use the $10 cash to purchase milk from a local dairy where we get it for $2.00/gal. Can’t beat the price and the milk is so good!
The Campbell’s Go soup was sent to me from Smiley360 to try. We had it for lunch on Sat. when my brother-in-law was here. It didn’t make enough for all of us to have a big portion since it’s more a 1-2 person package size but we all had a taste. My brother-in-law really liked it a lot. I thought it was really tasty for a bought soup although a bit too spicy for my liking. Good flavor just too spicy. My husband thought it was good but commented on the funny preserved taste. It wasn’t bad but I thought too that it was slightly there. Overall though, we thought it was good and it would definitely be a great thing to have to grab for those on-the-go days when you just run out of time to do much food prep.
When my parents were here last weekend they brought me 2 bags of Gibbles cheese curls- my favorite and the only cheese curl I like. Unfortunately they recently went out of business but my mom knew that and so she got me two bags to enjoy. Wasn’t that sweet of her? As you can see we were already enjoying them by the time I thought of taking a picture. On a side not, I discovered that someone is selling them online for $15! Goodness, I don’t think I’m that desperate.
I started a Mom’s Group at our church and the Melaluca hand soap was a thank-you gift from a friend for my time spent getting that together. She’s given me this hand soap before and we love it!
The Post cereal was sent to me to do a product review which you can read here. And the lettuce was from our local farmer’s market.
Categories: My Deals, The Thrifty Frugal Mom | Tags: budget, couponing
