Thursday, April 9, 2009

money not spent

I have come across some crazy blogs recently where people have committed to only spend $1200 or whatever on groceries (food, toiletries, diapers, etc) for their entire family for the entire year! Seriously. And I mean crazy in a nice way, I think. I say "crazy" because as a general concept it seemed impossible to me.  But once I started reading more and more of the blogs and the endless lists on them of the sales, coupons, and savings.. it actually seems possible. And I'll admit it.. I've gotten a little swept up.

While I'm miles away from committing to any budget, never mind a $1200 or $1500 one, I have started scouring the Sunday flyers for deals and sales.

I found a buy 1 get one free coupon for Kleenex at Walgreens- so I bought two. A couple of days later, I received a register coupon for 50¢ off Target brand tissues (which are normally $1.29 or something). So now there are 3 boxes of tissues in my stockpile.

This week I bought some shampoo at CVS that was on sale for $4.99 and the brand was also promoting a "try it for free" mail in rebate. While I was at CVS I got $25 worth of baby products (diapers and wipes) that were on sale and got $10 back in CVS Extra Care Bucks. But I didn't really spend $25-  I had a $5 off $25 CVS coupon, $4.50 in ECB, $1.50 off diapers coupon, and 50¢ off wipes.. so I actually only spent $13.50 (for 80 size 3 Huggies diapers and 216 Huggies wipes). There was a pretty good deal on iTunes cards too.. if they had had the $5 versions available, but seemed to not- oh well.

I don't know, is CVS crazy? On one of the $1200 budget blogs I came across (midgetmomma), the woman gets such good deals with Extra Care Bucks, coupons, and sales that when she shops she very often gets gift cards back with the difference on them (as well as her bags of products)! Please take this 63 cents and $50 worth of products, have a nice day.. geesh.

At Target on Thursday I had a coupon for 50¢ off a Grande Pike's Place coffee at Starbucks. It wasn't really supposed to be for iced coffee, but the girl was nice enough to hook me up anyway. I also got another pretty good deal.. something like buy two of product X and get a $5 gift card, but then I also had a $1 off 1 manufacturer coupon and a Target coupon for $1 off 2. It was for a product I like, but wouldn't have bought otherwise because it's a little expensive. You gotta be careful of things like that.. you end up spending more money just to save. I guess it usually works out in your favor in the end though.

What a nerd.. I am looking forward to Sunday all week now!

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