WoodElves

My husband has been cleaning the house spic and span for me this week, and we finally got our own internet so I feel like I can relax and do a post or two. :) He's the best.

We went to Farm Fresh today after I went to Target by myself.

First, the Farm Fresh trip:
We paid $6.87 for the items above. You can find the matchups at The Coupon Challenge HERE. I had a $1/1 coupon for the Trop 50 that I printed out earlier this month and is no longer available, making the orange juice only $1 each. We saved 73%.


The Target trip is here:
I spent $3.79 and saved $14.78. I couldn't believe that my total before coupons was over $16!! It doesn't look like very much, does it?! It was more than I intended to pay but I guess the pack of socks I picked up were in the wrong spot so I thought they were cheaper than they were. My matchups were from Money Saving Mom HERE.

A couple of weekends ago, David and I traveled to Ohio for the wedding of one of my dearest friends, Noel. She and I have been friends since she moved in next door to me my junior(?) year of college and I was honored to have her stand up in my wedding with me.

It was a pretty long trip for just a weekend - 12 hours each way, with overnight stops in West Virginia - but David pulled over to let me pick flowers off the side of the road along Route 35, so it brightened up the car a little.





Of course, the best part was seeing Noel and spending time getting ready with the girls. It was an absolutely gorgeous wedding with an absolutely gorgeous bride.

Getting situated for wedding party pictures:


Gotta love the bride and groom Twinkies with the cake!

As good a place as ever to celebrate a birthday is at the docks, watching the boats come in and out, hearing tales of sea adventures, watching the sun go down, eating good seafood, and spending a romantic evening with your beautiful wife.

The Deck Restaurant is a good place for such an evening but you may have to tell your own sea adventure stories.

It's nice to grow old with someone you love and celebrate the years together on this earth before we meet our Saviour.

You may wonder why I post deals when they're almost over. A lot of blogs already post these deals; I usually post them after I am able to do the deal myself so you can see how it worked. I like to look at pictures of other people's shopping trips because sometimes I see something in the picture that I overlooked on the matchups (or they found a special deal in store that hadn't been in the sale paper). Then when I go to do those deals, I know what to expect. Also, there have been many times when I see a deal on a blog and then go to the store and what I see in store is NOT what the blog said, and then I'm trying to figure out and remember what the blog had said - and sometimes, they make mistakes with the coupon matchups.

All that to say, there are some money makers at Office Depot this week and David finally was able to do the deal yesterday. :) Note that there is a NEW $10/$25 Office Depot coupon available, good through the 24th. The deals David did, however, are only good through tomorrow.

Here are the deals, thanks to Faithful Provisions:

Mr. Sketch Markers, 12 pk
FREE after $7.99 Mail in Savings Visa Prepaid card (limit 1)

Swingline® LightTouch Reduced Effort Stapler
FREE after $2.00 instant savings and $13.99 MIR (limit 1)

Office Depot® Brand Multipurpose Paper Ream
Pay $1.00 after $5.29 Mail in Savings Visa Prepaid card (limit 2)

Office Depot® Brand Color-Coded Heavyweight Sheet Protectors, 25-Pk
Pay $1.00 after $6.59 Mail in Savings Visa Prepaid card (limit 3)

Wilson Jones® 1? Round-Ring Impact Binders
Pay $1.00 after $2.99 instant savings (limit 3)

Pentel® Quicker Clicker™ Mechanical Pencils, 2 pk
Pay $1.00 after $6.49 Mail in Savings Visa Prepaid card (limit 3)

David got two reams of paper and a package of the Mr. Sketch markers. Everything else on this list was out at our stores, so David hit the clearance racks to get up to the $25 so he could use the coupon. He found packs of mechanical pencils on clearance for $2.22 but they rang up for only $1!!

This is how his deal looked:

2 Reams of paper @ $5.29 each

+ 1 Mr. Sketch Markers @ $7.99 each

+ 5 packs of clearance pencils @ $1 each

- Used $10/$25 coupon

---------------------------

Paid $16.17

Getting back $18.57 in Savings Visa Prepaid Card

Makes it a $2.40 moneymaker

Neutrogena is running a rebate this week where you can try their $35 Clinical Night, SPF or Eye for free after rebate. I got mine yesterday, and the stuff feels so good on my skin! You can get the rebate HERE.

There used to be a $5 coupon which makes it a money maker, but the coupon is no longer available on their website. However, if you go to Rite Aid to get it, be sure to take a $5 off of $25 coupon with you. You'll also get $2 UP+ rewards if you use your Rite Aid card. Furthermore, you can submit it for Single Check Rebate #15 to get a free $10 Rite Aid gift card back. However, David was unable to find this product in our Rite Aid store here. You may have better luck - and end up with a $17 moneymaker!

Today David ran into Farm Fresh for me today while I was in Walmart. I don't shop in Walmart very much, only the weeks when there aren't many good deals in the grocery stores; then I go to Walmart to use my weekly grocery allowance on some of the staples I may be running low on. Anyway, here is his receipt:

101% ?!?! Who saves 101% at the grocery store?!?

On to what he got:

(No, I don't remember where I got the coupons from. Either the RedPlum or the Smart Source.)

This is also our first week using the Nielson HomeScan with the National Consumer Panelists. We applied for the panel and finally a scanner came available for us and it came in the mail. Basically we scan everything we buy, transmit it to them once a week, and then we can accrue points to buy things from their gift catalog. Right now it seems like a bit of work (since we also have to enter if we used coupons or anything) for not very many points, but I'll let you know how it goes as I get faster at it.

Food Lion has some great free deals this week that are super easy. Buy 5 Cool Whips at $1 each and get $5 taken off automatically at the register with your MVP card. I hooked up with a friend and she agree to take some of the free Cool Whip since I didn't have room in my freezer for 5! The Capri Sun 10 packs are regularly priced at $2.07. Use the $2/1 Food Lion printable coupon HERE to get them for 7 cents!

Food Lion: 5 Cool Whips + 2 Capri Suns = $.14!! (including tax)

Thanks, $30 Grocery Challenge!



At Harris Teeter I picked up the things I had coupons for that were free or almost-free and grabbed a bag of marshmallows for 99 cents. The Mission taco shells came up on my E-Vic special this week for $1.25 and I used the $.75/1 printable coupon (no longer available) to get them free.

Harris Teeter: picture above = $2.10

A nice end to a very stressful, difficult week at work!