Unadvertised Deals at Wags!

Buy four 3 Musketeers (3 Musketeers Bar, Mint Bar or Truffle Crisp)
Use $0.49 in-ad coupon
Pay $1.96 plus tax out of pocket and earn a $1.50 RR back. (Common Sense With Money)


Orbit Gum (multi-pack)–$1.50 (unadvertised sale, be sure to price check!)
Use $1/1 Orbit Gum coupon
$0.50 each after coupon (Money Saving Mom)

Michael's Coupon valid through 2/13. go HERE (Money Saving Mom)

Wanna Know What Bugs Me About CVS?

Here's the thing. Their circular does not come to me in the mail or newspaper. So I look at it online. But what really bugs me is that they put a picture of some item, usually with the size of it concealed, and then say buy 2 get 1 ECB or something similar, but they don't tell you what the price is! So how in the heck can I tell if it's something I want to put on my shopping list?

What I've usually found to be the case is that it's a very small size of the item and the price is ridiculous to start with. So unless I have a high value coupon, it's probably not a good deal.

So for CVS it's usually a good idea to check with one of the experts' sites for what the good deals are...and then double check it yourself. I can often do much better someplace else. That's not to say I haven't got some great deals there, just do your homework.

Important Walgreens Lessons Learned

I had $5 RR and a new batch of $1.50 off Dove Men + Care coupons, so I headed to Wags after dropping Treklet at school.

First Store, First Lesson: I got the Dove for $5.99, minus the $1.50 coupon. That's $4.49. Added a Valentine Peep for .50 on sale. That's $4.99, plus the tax on the Dove, which is calculated before coupons, so it's .52 tax. That made the total $5.51. But I could not use my $5 RR to pay. Why? Because the coupon transaction is calculated before the tax! (Confuzzling, I know, right?) So I added a Reese's Valentine Heart for .50 on sale and the register accepted my RR. I had to pay $1.01 OOP. Weird.

Second Store, Second Lesson: Stopped at the Wags on the way home to use my new $6 RR. I picked up another Dove Men+ Care so I could add a couple of free items and still have $6 RR, following? Well that's all wrong! I didn't get another $6 RR. Why?? Because you can't use a RR that you got from a product to purchase the same product again! The computer knows you are trying to get another one for free!

The clerk tried to explain that the coupon doesn't work if you are paying less that the item is worth, because I had a coupon, but that didn't make sense since I already just did it at the same store yesterday, and another store earlier today. She told me to ask the manager. Well guess what? I'm the one that figured it out...it wasn't the $1.50 coupon, it was the RR Coupon that messed things up...I got the RR for the Dove, so I can't use it to buy the Dove again. Look at the picture: The RR says Thank You from Unilever (that's who makes Dove). But you know what? The manager was totally cool, and used his Magical Manager Key to print me out a new $6 RR! Yippee!! I got lucky this time, but I know better for the future. So I ended up getting Kleenex (.89 on sale), another Valentine Peeps and Valentine Reeses (.50 ea) and another bottle of Dove Men + Care all for .98 and I STILL have $6 Register Rewards left!

The Wags game is fun and profitable, but there are a few more strings attached than at CVS. Treklet has karate tonight, and there is a Wags next to the studio. I'm gonna go and use my $6 RR for some Wags brand mucinex, ($6 for 20), and get $4RR back, which I'll roll for another deal Wednesday, when we are back at karate.

At the end of the week I'll put up a picture of all I got at Wags this week and how much I actually spent out of pocket.

I Am One Happy Trekkie!

Remember the Utopia Planitia poster I got? Well that frame I bought at Michaels just wasn't working for me so I returned it this morning. I inquired about custom framing, but the cost for that would be $135 AFTER coupons! Forget about it!!

Instead, i took my poster to Staples this morning and had it laminated. It was $6, and I paid for it with my Ink Recycling Rewards. So my free poster, laminating and all, was completely FREE after all! Yippee!

On the way there I made another Walgreens run (2 stores!) and I'll post about all my Wags deals at the end of my Register Rewards run later in the week. All I'll say is I'm streeeeetching my dollars!

And on the way home I found a filled in punchcard from Hot Shots and got a FREE large mocha!

Ah, what could be better than FREE chocolate and coffee and FREE Treknobilia?

FREE Stuff and a Productive Shopping Day

I got some new freebies this weekend. The Nescafe free samples came in the mail Saturday. It's a pretty generous freebie. there are 6 different Taster's Choice flavors and a $1 coupon, with a 5/01 expiration date.

The Oreos came from Vons, with the free coupon on got from the Oreo fan page on Facebook. I got the tortillas free by using the VonsClub coupon for Mission Soft Taco Tortillas for .99 and a manufacturer's coupon for $1. I made a penny!

My entire trip to Vons was for sale/coupon combo items. My savings were 62%! The best deals were:
* Johnsonville Italian Sausage, 19.76 oz pkgs (5 sausages per pkg) on VonsClub Coupon sale for $2.49 minus manufacturer coupon of .55. So I got 3 packages for $1.94 each. The coupon was good for brats, too, but I already stocked up on those last month at Ralphs, and they were sold out anyway. By the way, Johnsonville brats are about $3.25 per pkg at Costco, where I used to buy them.
* Quaker Instant Oatmeal The Vons Club deal was buy 2 boxes, get 3 free. But the price for one box was $4.18! Very expensive. With the deal, the price came down to $1.67 a box, but I knew I had bought it last month for about half of that. I had 4 $1 coupons and so my final cost was $4.36 for all 5 boxes, just .87 each! That's only .085 per packet!
* Jimmy Dean Breakfast sausage. BOGO, but still not a good deal at $4.79 a pound! But I had 2-$1 coupons, which made my final price$1.39 per pound..that's .60 less per pound than the giant bulk chub at Costco.
* Gatorade Doug like to take Gatorade on the golfcourse. I can buy it by the case at Costco, but he only likes one flavor, so that doesn't work. Vons had a VonsClub coupon for 8-packs of 20 oz bottles for $3.99. I only wish I had manufacturer coupons! Still, .50 a bottle is not bad.

Before Vons, Treklet and I made a few other stops. We hit Walgreens first for a moneymaker. I got a 13.5 oz bottle of Dove Men+Care Bodywash, on sale for $5.99. I used a manufacturer coupon for $1.25 off. Total out of pocket was $5.25 with tax. I got $6 back in Register Rewards.

Next stop, Michaels. I have several coupons for Michaels. I got a 50% off one item for signing up online. I used it last week for a frame. I recieved a 40% off coupon good for next week. I used a 40% off coupon from the paper last week on my embossing powder, and got another 40% off coupon for next week. I got another 40% off coupon for signing up for Michaels "The Knack" and I used it today to buy a refill cartridge for my Xyron.

After that we went to Toys R Us. Treklet had allowance money burning a hole in her pocket. Her original intent was to buy Polly Pockets, but I didn't like the prices. Instead, we found Harumika was on sale Buy One Get One Half Off. So She got a doll with fabric and accessories and a package of fabric and accessories. She's been busy with it for about an hour so far, and I think it's a good toy for creative expression.

From there, we made another Walgreens stop, at the one near Vons. I used my $6 RR and coupons to get John Frieda products. The deal this week is buy 3 products for $5 each and receive $5 RR back. I had a $5/2 and a $2.50/1 coupon, so my out of pocket cost was $2.81.
But I'm not done. I'm planning at least one more trip to Walgreens this week. There were some very good RR deals, but I did not have the older coupons so I will just do what I can. At the end of the week I'll put up a photo of all my Wags purchases and a final OOP cost.

Oh...and one more freebie! Treklet earned a FREE Personal Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut for reading at school. She has read over 4200 pages so far this year! So we ordered her pizza, ran into Wags, then picked up her pizza which she munched on while I shopped Vons. Even Treklet gets Freebies!

Free Valentine stuff at CVS

I got cheap Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie mix at Walmart yesterday (.68 a pouch). Our church is collecting baked goods for our adopted Marine Helicopter Squadron for Valentine's Day this weekend, so I thought I'd make a couple of batches of those cookies with the kisses in the middle and send some to Katie, too. Then i got an idea. Instead of kisses, how about heart-shaped chocolates? But I didn't want to spend money.

I had some CVS ECBs so I thought I'd stop by and see what I could get. I had 5 ECBs for taking a short survey on their website and about 7 ECBs from register rewards. Then I got a bonus! The CVS on East Valley at Citrus has a scanner near the front of the store. Usually when you scan your card it prints out a coupon or two from some CVS products. Sometimes people leave their coupons on top of the machine if they don't want them. Guess what someone left? ECBs!! Yep, 2 of them. I swiped my card and got coupons. pfft.

Now that particular CVS is Valentine Central. They've got a big selection. I spotted Dove chocolate hearts, but they were $4 for an 8 oz. bag. I kept looking and found the CVS brand for .88 for 5.3 oz. I picked up 2 bags. Then I treated myself to a lovely door decoration. It's shaped like a heart, and made of artificial roses. It was on sale 25% off for $7.50.

I had more than enough ECBs to pay for it all and I got 1 ECB back for swiping my bag tag (you get 1 for every 4 tag swipes).

Now our Valentine treats will be extra special, and 3 dozen only cost me $1.36.

Star Trek and Valentines

Free samples that I signed up for in January have started to arrive. In the past week I've received a full size bar of Dove soap and a sampling of Always pantyliners with coupons.

I got a wonderful one-of-a-kind poster from my friends at Trekmovie.com. They had a contest on Twitter in celebration of Voyager's 15th anniversary. (see http://trekmovie.com/2010/01/22/voy15-the-science-of-star-trek-voyager/) The contest was to simply tweet what your favorite technology from Voyager was and why. Here is my winning answer:
@TrekMovie my fav voyager tech in EMH cuz he was dynamic/able to learn/grow & became integral part of crew esp. once he got mobile emitter.
Here is the description of the poster, sent to my from Kayla, the Science reporter for TrekMovie.com:

It's a poster, which was designed specifically for me by a friend of mine who works in the Mars Space Flight Facility, which is at Arizona State University, the campus where I work and go to school. We only printed four of these posters, so it is one of a kind!

The image on the poster is of Utopia Planitia, a vast lava plain on Mars as well as, in Star Trek lore, the location that is in geosynchronous orbit below the Utopia Planitia ship yards (where USS Voyager finished its construction). The image was taken by the THEMIS (THermal EMission Imaging System) camera, which is onboard the Mars Odyssey spacecraft currently in orbit around Mars. If you want to learn more about the photo, or themis, and where the photo was taken, all of that info is online. Go to:

http://viewer.mars.asu.edu/

The image number is V01993007. Type that in and you can get all kinds of cool data about the photo. The website: http://themis.asu.edu/ has more information about the THEMIS mission. You may have met my boyfriend, Andy Britton, at the Vegas con last year. He works at the Mars Space Flight Facility, and he helped me get your poster. If you're ever in Tempe, call me up, and I'll have Andy give you a tour of the facility. It's a really neat place, and there is a full scale MER rover in the front lobby.

I hope you enjoy the prize and that you know how special it is!

One more thing I forgot to mention about the poster. Because of the toner used to print it, it is a bit fragile. These posters tend to scratch easily, so be careful when handling it. I'd recommend getting a cheap frame for it if you can.


Pretty cool, right? So I took my 50% coupon that I got for signing up at Michaels.com and went frame hunting yesterday. Unfortunately, the poster is a weird size, so I had to get a much larger frame. I will try it later today and see if it will work. I don't want to have to pay for custom framing! Perhaps I can have it laminated instead. I must say, the poster is more than just the Mars photo...they added Trek info. and a Trek logo and Voyager! More info. on the cool Trek connection can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_Planitia
http://www.utopiaplanitia.info/
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Utopia_Planitia_Fleet_Yards



I'll post a pic of my framed poster whenever I get it figured out.




Last week there was an awesome deal on Glade Candles at Vons. The weekly circular had a special VonsClub coupon for 2/$4, limit 4. I combined it with a manufacturer's coupon for $3 off 2 and paid .50 each! I picked up another circular on my way out and went back the next day for 4 more.

I just thought I'd share what I did with some of those candles. I made Valentine gifts! I thought these would be cute for teachers, friends, whoever. Isn't nice to be able to share a gift without breaking your budget?