More Krazy Couponing!

We had another great shopping trip!  Unfortunately I'm all sore again from the lovely 9th grade dance, so I was out of sorts on "the good stuff".  However, thanks to the WONDERFUL folks at the Truman Blvd. Walgreens, I had a VERY successful shopping trip.

Haul minus dog food

I split our trip into three transactions to make the most of additional register rewards (so important when you're working Walgreen's adds to be savvy enough to split things up efficiently--obviously last time I didn't "nail it" enough to come away using all my RRs!).

Close up!  Look at all the shiny pretty deals!

We walked away with awesome deals!  If you keep in mind the roll over of register rewards (and if you're wise to spend them all on the same trip) you save the most amount of money.  I got two "free" Revlon nail polishes, 36 rolls of toilet paper for 27 cents a roll, 50 cent Brut deodorants, $1 Herbal Essence shampoo/conditioner, 2 free big containers of Pert Plus, and (unseen in photos) 2 packs of dry erase markers for just a couple of bucks (they were going to be free, but darnit one of the coupons didn't pan out!), 2 boxes of Hefty Zip bags for a few dollars and cents, and a Gillette Pro-Glide razor for $1.99!  We spent right around $25 bucks for everything (over three transactions) and would have spent $100.  Plus we were so pleased with the help at Walgreens, we immediately called corporate and reported the manager and cashier that helped us get the products we needed.  We aren't so good at selecting "filler" products--in order to use register rewards (which are actually manufacturer's coupons) you have to make sure you don't have more coupons than products, so you get small or cheap things (or things you need) to add to transactions so you can use the rewards.  We keep getting Snickers bars (I think we got six), but eventually if I can calculate how many fillers we'll need, we can get something a little more productive.  Still.  It adds to the haul!

I want to sleep with these under my pillow.  I don't know what that means.

At Gerbes (which was Matt's baby), the highlight was 18 cent hand soap and Spaghetti-Os for 30 cents a piece.  I didn't really see any exciting adds to draw me into Gerbes, but I also needed to transfer a prescription, which through a promotion gets me a $25 gift card that I will pick up later this week.  We're holding on to the card for Labor Day sales... all the free ketchup, mustard, and barbecue sauce a girl could hope for (fingers crossed!!). 

Gerbes transaction

At Target (which was less successful, I felt, but necessary), we got dog food--44lbs for $17.99, NatureLuxe mascara and lip gloss with $6.00 off in coupons making the lip gloss free.  I also got a free box of Herbashine hair dye and Ortega taco seasoning for 39 cents a piece, and four 50 cent travel first aid kits.  We bought a toy for Claire (not on that receipt, we wanted to highlight our savings), and of course since we're stocking up on more coupons, we needed more baseball card holders to keep our coupons in our binder! 

Target receipt!

Finally we went to Mosers and cleaned up on cereal.  We got ten boxes of cereal for $1.50.  Now, that's no where near the 75 cent recommended stock-up price for cereal, but if you've noticed, groceries are going nothing but up!  This was the best deal we've seen in a while for cereal, so we decided to bite the bullet and buy now versus holding out and letting the sale pass us by.
So all in all we had a lot of really cool deals!  There's nothing we won't use in our haul, plus there are some frivolous things like the nail polish and make up that I normally would have never bought for myself in order to save money. 
Now I'm happy to report our toiletries stock pile has gotten large enough where we can now just scan for amazing "free" or nearly free deals... not worth buying anything more expensive!  And we're set on breakfast food thanks to Matt's cereal spree--plus his great find on Eggo Waffles a couple of weeks ago!  We've got lots of great things for hamburger now like the taco seasoning and all our previous hauls of Hamburger Helper (and we're getting free beef from my dad, which is just an amazing deal ;)  Always pays to know the right people, huh?)
Overall I'm really proud of our couponing endeavors.  It feels good to know I probably don't need to buy deodorant for over a year.  And that I've got shampoo waiting in the wings.  And that we have food for dinner next week.  Great times!