WoodElves

Total after coupons is $7.74, which is 77% savings. My favorites are the 4 packages of free hot dogs that will last us forever, and the free Crystal Light!

Today David went to Harris Teeter for me again, for the Super Double coupon event. He spent $1.80 on the items in this picture and has a 50c catalina to use on our next trip to the store.
Before coupons, the total was over $50.

Here is an item I have just added to my To Do List for the summer:

Bake cookies in a hot car.

I can't wait to try this!

Nobody likes paying money for things like tampons. The good news is that you don't have to. I believe that almost all non-prescription items you would usually get from a pharmacy can be found free at some point. This includes toothpaste, deodorant, body wash, lotion, toilet paper, etc.

Enough of that - on to how to get Kotex tampons at CVS this week and make $2 doing it.


This week, you get $4.99 in Extra Care Bucks when you buy the new U By Kotex liners, pads or tampons at $4.99. There is a limit of 1 per CVS card.

Use the U By Kotex manufacturer's coupon HERE

AND

the U By Kotex CVS coupon HERE

You CAN USE BOTH COUPONS together since one is a store coupon and one is manufacturer.

So you will buy 1 tampon at $4.99
-$1 store coupon
-$1 manufacturer's coupon
Pay $2.99 out of pocket
Get back $4.99 Extra Care Bucks on your receipt to use for your next purchase at CVS. If you already have ECBs to roll, it makes it an even better deal. If you haven't started with ECBs yet, now is a good time to start!

Now, who's heading to CVS this week?!

(Thanks, Southern Savers!)

PS - while you're on the U By Kotex website, be sure to request their free sample. I got a package with a few pads and tampons in the mail.

Here are a few awesome deals to take note of:

Get a FREE CAMI (value $19.50) at any Lane Bryant store with the coupon HERE between 5/4 and 5/10/10. That's next Monday, so hurry! I don't think I've ever owned a cami that's worth that much, LOL.





Be sure to check out Starbucks Frappuccino Happy Hour to get half priced Frappuccinos from 3-5pm, May 7-16!! More details are HERE.



And if you are looking for a nice, free Mother's Day present, check out the FREE 8x10 photo collages you can get at Walgreens before May 8. More details are HERE. Thanks, Southern Savers!


Have you seen any other awesome deals around that you want to share? What are you doing for Mother's Day to show Mom how much you appreciate her?

A lot of people are amazed when I come home from the store with a lot of deals for a little amount of money. You don't have to be amazed. You can do it, too! I have only been couponing since last July. I didn't take a class or workshop. I learned by following the plethora of excellent frugal mom blogs and by trial and error. Yes, error - I still sometimes walk in the store with a coupon for the wrong size item or figure my math wrong beforehand, but I'm catching on.

This post is to point you in the right direction of where to find the resources I use, regardless of what part of the country you live in.


1. By far my favorite mom blog and #1 recommendation is www.moneysavingmom.com . This is a Christian mom who covers deals, coupons, and freebies available all over the country. Best of all, on the right side of her page, if you scroll down, you will see "Looking for deals at your local stores?" There are logos for grocery stores from all over. No matter where you live in the USA, you should be able to find grocery stores in your area. Click on them and you will find coupon/sale matchups for your area.

2. Go to the Frugal Map and click on your state to find listings of blogs that cover stores in your state.

3. If you have CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, or Target in your area (which I think covers almost everyone), Southern Savers has the most thorough coupon matchups for their weekly deals. She also covers almost every grocery store in the south.

4. If you live in the Tidewater area, my favorite blog is The Coupon Challenge (not to mention, how easy is it to remember the name "The Coupon Challenge" when recommending her blog to people!). She also has links to other Hampton Roads area frugal blogs.

5. If you are learning the ropes to CVS, Rite Aid or Walgreens, check out Southern Savers' Tutorials. She explains all you need to know about how to use CVS' Extra Care Bucks program, Rite Aid's Single Check Rebates and Walgreens' Register Rewards. While you're there, she also has guides to learning coupon lingo and plenty of other resources for new couponers.

6. To find online printable coupons, check out Coupons.com, RedPlum.com and SmartSource.com as well as manufacturers' websites and Facebook pages. Or go to MoneySavingMom's coupon database and type in whatever you're looking for (e.g., "popcorn") and you will get a list of every popcorn coupon currently available and where to find it.

7. Lastly, I save myself time and money by going on my local grocery stores' websites before I go to the store. Harris Teeter and Farm Fresh both offer online shopping and store pick up programs. Since you can do your shopping on their website, you can see all the prices and stock of the store before you even leave your home. I do a lot of price comparison this way. When I go grocery shopping, I can know exactly what I am getting, what coupons I will be using and how much I will be spending. I'm sure other grocery stores in the country have similar options (Kroger and Food Lion do not).

I decided to not keep it to myself how to do the makeup deal at Rite Aid & the Nivea deal at CVS which you can see HERE.

It's pretty easy. I got all the coupons for these deals from my RedPlum. If you're not sure where to get a RedPlum in your area, you can check HERE.

There was a Buy 1 Get 1 Free Cover Girl Face Makeup coupon in the RedPlum last week. Rite Aid has all Cover Girl makeup on sale this week for B1G1 as well. The Rite Aid corporate coupon policy clearly states that you can use B1G1 coupons with B1G1 sales to get both free. I had a little trouble at the store but I had a copy of the policy in my hand and they couldn't argue with it.

All this makeup also helped me to reach the amount I needed for the Proctor & Gamble coupon rebate. The deal with that is if you spend $50 in P&G products between 2/1/10 and 5/31/10, you can submit your receipts and they will send you a coupon book with $100 worth of coupons. It's not as good as a regular rebate, but between the free makeup and the deal I did at Farm Fresh the other day, I ended up with $50 in P&G products without even trying. You can find more information about the rebate HERE.

At CVS this week, if you spend $15 in Nivea products before coupons, you get a $5 ECB back on your receipt. This week there was a $4/1 Nivea women's body wash coupon in the RedPlum as well as $3/1 Nivea men's body wash and $1/1 Nivea lip care. The body wash is $4.88 this week and we got the $3.99 lip care (though later at the checkout I saw some $2.99 varieties).

I used two of the $4/1 coupons and a B1G1 lip care coupon from awhile ago to do the deal. There are many different combinations of products & coupons you can do, depending on what coupons you have. You just have to reach $15 in products before coupons and then figure out which coupons you want to use to get the lowest out of pocket price.

If that is too complicated, just take the $4/1 coupons to Rite Aid, Walmart, or Target this week, since they have the Nivea on sale for $4 and you can get it free. That is what I should have done - it's simpler. :)

If you want to listen to the audio of Steve Saint at our church on April 18, you can find it on the church website.

1. Go to http://ccconfire.org
2. Click on "Sermons" at the top
3. You can search for "Steve Saint" in the archive and find it.

Enjoy! We certainly did.

We paid $2.16 for these things between Rite Aid & CVS, which was really just the price of tax. That's a lot of makeup!