My last doubles run this week

...and it was a good one! I got all this (and 5 boxes of Capri Sun) for...

$18.60, a savings of $89.03!

True, some of it was a mistake...the assistant manager kind of insanely demanded that she refund me $4 for the coke even though I tried to explain I had already used coupons and doublers. Most of my total was the chips ahoy/capri sun. My store stopped doubling anything over $1, so I payed more than I expected for that but with the extra coke savings it all worked out. I also got a survey with a $2 coupon for my next purchase, woohoo!!

There were no doubles in the ad for next week, but the lady working told me that there would be (so, maybe Sunday?). She also said something about another smores deal and gave me a ton of coupons to use for that, but I honestly don't see a thing in the ad about it. Anyone have any ideas?

Cheap Cereal, and a splurgy trip!

$1.92 for all this:

I had some $1 coupons for the cereal and with 8 of those plus two doublers, I was able to snag a ton of cereal for cheap. I was hoping for taco shells to make this deal cheaper, but I'm happy to pay one buck for 2 cans of refried beans.

$12.18 spent, $36.90 saved

I was able to snag a few $1 off beef coupons, so with those and doublers we payed about $0.40 for each steak. The chocolate milk was $0.99 after q and double and the buttoni were $1.99 each after qs and doubles. I payed $3 for 2 pints of Ben&Jerry's (the husband will be thrilled) and only $1 for the "flipped out" dessert. I'm thinking fancy buttoni and the ben&jerry dessert will make for cute romantic-like date night for cheap!

A rumor about tuna...

The tuna sale is good through next week!

Look for a set of 3 doublers in the paper today. If you don't have coupons on hand, there are tons of peelies and hangtags in store that make items free or cheap. Be on the lookout for:

• $0.55 off any one propel water (priced at $1) = FREE!
• $0.50 off taco bell taco shells = FREE when you buy 10, or $0.50 if you buy one (buy more and donate!!)
• $1 off any culinary circle pizza (on the take and bake kind, works on the frozen kind)= $1.99 for a frozen pizza and a 2-liter of 7-up or Orange soda
• $1 off fruit when you buy Cornflakes touch of Honey (on sale 4 for $5)= Buy 8 boxes of cereal with doublers and get $10-$13 worth of fruit (depending on how many doublers you can use in one transaction) all for $10 (while you're at it, toss in that $1 off produce when you buy $10 worth to get an extra dollars worth of fruit or veggies)

*I was able to pick up another 30 pouches yesterday when we went on a little bit of a drive...there was tons of tuna at that store and 3 tearpads intact. I only took enough for myself to do the deal a couple more times, so there's more there. If you're in the area and know how to get ahold of me (or you can email me at maybefrugal(at)hotmail(dot)com, I'd be happy to tell you which store to go to.

a "big" shopping trip

It really seems like the more I coupon and stockpile, the less I need to buy when I do my regular shopping...and the less I spend. We did our big shopping trip (the one in which we buy most of our groceries for 2 weeks) and this is what we bought:

3 gallons milk (not pictured)
2 Rib Eye Steaks...$16 something
2 corn cobs
1 pound broccoli
bag of carrots
2 bags flour tortillas (used $0.75 coupons and doublers to pay $0.19 a bag)
3 bags mini oreos (used $1.50 off oreos when you buy milk to help pay for the milk)
can refied beans
10 boxes taco shells (used $0.50 peelies to make them free)
...and then I used $18 in catalinas I had earned from shopping at Albie's in the last week...

$10.07 spent, $55.46 saved!

That's not all we're eating. We will have to go back for more milk, bread, and fruit. We have tons of fruit and veggies left over from the birthday party right now- and we've been getting lettuce from the husband's grandparent's house while they're on vacation. Albertsons- you're really winning me over with these double coupons!

$0.19 is a great price for tortillas by the way! Look for the 75cents off coupons in the condiment section and then grab the bags of mission tortillas (corn or flour) priced at $1.69. Look for specially marked flour bags, some have 8 tortillas but the newer ones have 10.

Safeway ad 6/28-6/30

Just in case you're not having Safeway issues, here's a peeks at what's coming up Sunday-Tuesday with a few decent deals.

Ball Park Franks, on sale $0.99
use a $1 off 2 coupon to get 2 packs of hotdogs for $0.98

Rosarita Refied Beans, on sale $0.99
use a $0.50 off 2 coupon to get 2 cans for $1.48
(not the best deal, but I'm out and need more)

Mission Corn Tortillas, on sale $0.99
use a $1 coupon from 5/17 or a $0.75 blinkie (find them in the condiments aisle)
*currently cheaper at Albies, but not by much so if you're at Safeway anyways...

Primo Taglio Pan Roasted Turkey Breast, $5.99/lb in the deli
use a $2 off 1 pound printable coupon from Safeway.com (it will beep or not scan right, good luck!)

I found tuna!!

$10.39 spent, $84.67 saved

...and I got another $8 in catalinas to use on my next transaction! Not pictured: another 10 more boxes of taco shells (going to St. Vincent's) and 1 frappucino. Just in case you're wondering, there are 36 pouches of tuna. yumm! I used 12 $1.50 off 3 tuna coupons (tearpad found at Safeway), $0.50 peelies on taco shells (that makes them free without doublers!), a $1 off 3 mini hagan-dazs coupons, $1 frappucino coupon, and 2 doublers.

I've got more tuna coupons coming (this time for donation purposes). hooray for fun shopping!!

Safeway coupon frustration!

I didn't think to pick up bananas and bread at Albertsons earlier, so after dinner we made a quick run to Safeway. I wanted to take advantage of the sale on ground beef and frozen chicken as well, so I printed and clipped a couple of Safeway coupons from the site before we left. I spent $23.49 on 5.5lbs beef, 4lbs frozen chicken breast, bread, Starbucks ice cream, 2lbs bananas, and a pound of their fancy sliced turkey. (saved $20.02 or 46%). I only used 3 coupons: a $2 Starbucks ice cream, $2 off Safeway deli turkey, and $1 off Safeway frozen chicken. All was good, except of course that the Safeway coupons wouldn't scan!

Has this happened to anyone else? It seems as though nearly every Safeway coupon I print is either unscannable or else takes off nothing more than a penny. The lady tonight even made a big deal about, asking every other cashier if she could accept these (waving my coupons in the air) if they didn't scan. Then she called for a manager to come check them out, he looked and said they were okay, so she manually pushed them through. My problem is that the coupons never work, and it gets embarrassing to stand there while they wave your coupons around and shout to each other about coupon policy. I can't figure out why they don't scan, and it's not like I can use the coupons for Safeway products anywhere else. I'm also super careful about matching coupons and products because I'm fairly shy and hate when deals don't work. The manager at my store is always awesome, but the employees are getting to be a bit much. I think I'm going to skip shopping at my Safeway for a bit- I want the cheap hot dogs this weekend, so I'll hit the store across town where all the employees know the Safeway coupons are legitimate and watch to make sure they work the way they should...LOVE those guys! In the meantime, I'm thinking Albertsons has been a pretty nice place to shop even if it is a bit of a drive.

Albies, run #1 for the week

Total spent $3.43

There will be more runs, this week has some fun stuff. I would have bought a ton more tuna except that all but 4 pouches were gone! It didn't make sense to buy 4, so I picked up three and got a raincheck for 30. I also grabbed a handful of doublers for future trips.

Run 1 was the pizza, 2 liter sunkist, and frappucino for 2.62. Soda was free with the pizza, and I used a $1 coupon and a doubler to make the pizza $1.99. The frapp was $0.39 after coupon and doubler.

Run 2 was everything else. I used $1 off 2 peelies on the pasta salad, $1.50 off 3 tuna pouches, $2 off when you buy capri sun and chips ahoy, and 2 doublers. After all of that and the instant $5 off, I spent $0.81 on that transaction. Yes, I have tons of pasta salad already...that and the capri sun are headed to St. Vincents.

I spotted lots of coupons on products while we were there, so keep your eyes peeled!!

I actually made it to Albies!

After having one crazy week, I ended up making a run to Albertson's tonight (the last night for the ConAgra promo). I really wanted to take advantage of the deals since this is food the husband tends to eat like crazy. I didn't quite do the deal as planned but after figuring the $10 catalina for my next purchase, I spent $8.10 for all the above items. Not shabby for 22 items! I saved over $30 (not including the catalina).

Now I just have to wait for the kiddos to go to bed, so I can start planning for next week. There were two doublers in the ad...not as nice as three, but I'm happy!

...and the winner is...

Thank you to everyone who entered my very first giveaway!

Congratulations to poster #7 Mr.Smalls, you've won the $50 Old Navy coupon. I'll be forwarding it to the email address you left in the original post, happy shopping!!

Free umbrella at RiteAid (ended)

ThriftyNorthWest mom has the scoop on how you could possibly get a free beach umbrella at RiteAid today only. Knowing the employees at my store, I'm not so sure it would work, but even then $4.99 for a nice umbrella isn't such a bad deal...having a small filler item might work. I may have to check it out, especially since we were talking about a beach vacation this summer!

You can get both coupons here!

*edit* I got mine!! No filler needed, the guy just double checked one of the coupons with a manager, and I paid $0.42 for it...woohoo!!

Safeway and Albertsons Previews 6/24

There's a sneak peak at the Albies ad starting Wednesday right here (thanks to the folks at PYP). Some of the items in the mix and match promo look promising. I still have some $1 coke coupons, so I'll probably be using them over there this week. I am tempted to wait and see about possible double coupons, since those make good deals awesome!

The Safeway ad looks kind of like this, except that there are some store-specific deals (it came from a store having a grand re-opening). The items on the front page are usually on sale everywhere, just not at those amazing prices. Here's a peek at the Sunday ad (good 3/28-3/30 only). Those $0.99 Ball Park hot dogs will go great with the $1 off 2 coupons, and the $0.99 tortillas will be even better with $0.75 coupons people are finding in stores. A big thank you to SlickCate at SD for the previews!

Walgreens June 21-27

There are a few good deals this week (finally!) but I have no plans to go only because I'm fully stocked on the kinds of freebies they've got this week. If you're new to Walgreens, you may want to take a look at MoneySavingMom's Walgreens 101 post.

Organix Shampoo/Conditioner
on sale buy one get one free, looks for "try me free" hangtags to get two for free

Aquafresh Advanced Toothpaste, $3 with $3 register rewards
use $1 coupon here to get $1 overage after coupon and RR

Skintimate and Edge Shave gel, $1.99 after in-ad coupon
use $1 Edge coupon or the $1 Skintimate coupon to get these for $0.99

Buy 2 Lysol Disinfectant Sprays, $3.50 each with $2 register rewards
use 2 $2/1 coupons from 6/7 insert= $0.50 each after coupons and RR

Carmex, $2.99 with $2 register rewards
$0.99 after RR

Click here for the complete ad scan, with thanks to Barryswife @ AFC for the scan, and Imm93 and Amit19 @ SD for google doc and matchups. You can see even more matchups and deals over at hMoneySavingMom.

Redbox code!

Get a free movie rental code when you text FIT to 414141. The code is personal, so only good for one use but doesn't expire until the end of August!

We started using redbox when they had free movie Monday and were bummed when it got cut down to once a week...but they keep giving out free movie codes. I love it!

An Old Navy coupon giveaway! *ended*

*Entries are closed!!*

It just so happened that Old Navy updated their weekly website today during naptime! I was lucky enough to snag a $50 off a $100 purchase coupon that I'd love to giveaway...so, this is my first ever giveaway! The coupons don't expire until July 2nd this time around, but I'd like to end the giveaway on Tuesday the 23rd at 12:00 PST so you have plenty of time to shop. There are 3 ways to enter (and you can enter 3 times!):

1. leave a comment below with your email address
2. mention this giveaway on your blog, then leave a separate comment here with a link back to your post
3. follow me and leave a separate comment about that (or just leave a quick note that you already follow me)

...that's it! I'll use http://random.org/ to randomly select a winner. GOOD LUCK!

quick update

I'm really slacking on posts this week due to what appears to be a weeklong birthday for the oldest boy. We did the family birthday thing on Tuesday and both grandmas (and an aunt with boyfriend in tow) came by to visit and bring presents early. On Wednesday, my sister got to town and came by for a bit. Thursday we had to go see the pediatrician for his 2-year checkup and hit petco on the way home so we could look at animals (we call it our mini zoo). We're busy cleaning and decorating today for the party tomorrow.

I decided to go the not-so thrifty route and order an ice cream cake to save myself time and because the 2-year old will not eat anything with frosting. He does love ice cream, so that should work perfectly . We're planning to serve hot dogs and hamburgers, with pasta salad (since I have tons) and some fruit. I'll probably also make some of that lemonade I picked up at Albies. So all in all, it's a pretty cheap deal this year. We only have one other kid coming so we put together a cute favor bucket, and the adults will all get dino shaped cookies to take home. We're trying to keep it simple, since he's only two, so the "activity" is a bubble machine.

Albertsons ConAgra plan 6/17-6/23

On the back of this weeks Albertsons ad is another one of those "Spend $25, get $10 off your next purchase" deals, this time with lots of ConAgra products. Remember that the $25 is before coupons! I've got a few coupons that match perfectly (from the ConAgra coupon mailer and May All You), so this deal is looking too good to skip, especially since so much of it is food the husband likes. My plan includes:

• 6 Hunt's snack packs $6.00
• 2 Crunch 'n Munch $2.00
• 4 boxes Orville popcorn $6.67
• 8 cans Chef Boyardee ravioli (yuck!) $8.00
• 3 cans Hunt's diced tomatoes $3.00

for a pre-coupon total of $25.67. I'll be able to use:

• 2- $1 off any 3 Snack Pack
• $1 off any 2 Crunch 'n Munch
• 2- $1 off any 2 Orville
• 2- $1 off any 4 ravioli

to knock my total down to $18.67 with a $10 catalina to use for my next purchase. I'm torn between doing it early this week and using the $10 catalina to pay for the fruit and buns I'll need this Saturday or waiting until Sunday to see if there are doublers this week. I've heard rumors that there will be more, and that'd knock my net cost for those items down to a cool $5.67. Maybe I should just wait and see... and yes, the ravioli is for the husband, I would never feed that to a toddler!

If you're looking for coupons to match this deal, don't forget about internet coupons! Here's a few that should be of interest:

• $0.75 off Marie Callenders Pasta Al Dente and $1 off 2 Crunch and Munch available here (there's also a $1 off any 1 Hebrew National hotdog coupon)
• $1 off any 2 Healthy Choice meals over here

...and one more thing: Hefty one-zip bags are back on sale at $2 each and those $1 coupons are still right in front of them! Keep your eye out for doublers and they'll be FREE!

I can't believe he's TWO!!

This is my first "little guy" and as of tomorrow, he will officially be a two-year-old. The time really flew by. He is currently in bed, and the husband is out picking up balloons to put in his room as a early-morning surprise. I was feeling a bit nostalgic, so here's a little snippet of how quickly he's changed from itty-bitty ("I can't believe they just let us take him home!") baby to ("oh goodness, what's he going to want to wear today") toddler.

Happy Birthday little guy! Thank you for making the last two years so fun/unpredictable/hilarious/crazy/unbelievably amazing!

The actual Albies run...

So, I basically did exactly what I had outlined in my scenario post except that everything scanned funny. Both the chex mix coupons and both the frosting coupons each took off $1 instead of $0.50 like they should have. The cheerios coupons also scanned in at $0.50 instead of $1. When I pointed it out to her, she adjusted my total down an extra $2 to make up for the cheerios scanning wrong and didn't adjust the chex mix or frosting, so my total was lower than anticipated. I paid $7.50 for the 1st transaction. I used the $10 catalina I received to pay for 2 gallons of milk, the hamburger pattys, and added 3 free (after coupons and doublers) Ken's dressing to that transaction. My total for that ended up being $2.97. We needed the milk and the hamburger pattys are for Trent's party this weekend. Most of the salad dressing went to my mom's for the sister's visit (she's vegan and goes through it like crazy).

total spent $10.47, total saved $63.53

...Trent had to be in the photo, the socks and sandals was all his idea. He's going to be 2 tomorrow!!

Alberstons has doublers!! eek!

IT'S TRUE! There are doublers in this week's paper, and in store. I was most likely going to skip Albies this week...but now I don't think I can resist. I've been working on scenarios, and this is what I'm planning for my (first?) trip:

• 4 boxes cheerios $2 each
• 2 boxes whole grain total $2 each
• 2 bags chex mix $1.50 each
• 2 tubs betty crocker frosting $1.50 each
• 2 wishbone salad dressing $1.50 each
• 2 valley fresh steamers $2 each

for a pre-coupon, pre-tax total of $25. and I'll be using:

• 4 $1 cheerios coupons (you had to sign up for these)
• 2 $1 total coupons (from here)
• 2 $0.50 chex mix coupons (same site)
• 2 $0.50 betty crocker frosting (also the same site)
• 2 $0.75 wishbone salad dressing (from here)
• 3 TV coupons (doublers) from the Albertsons flyer

to bring my total down to $12.50, but with the $3 in catalinas from last week I can knock it down further to $9.50! Plus, I'll get back a $10 catalina to use on anything else I want/need at Albies. I need frosting anyways for Trent's birthday cake, and with a 2 year old in the house we always need cheerios. Guess I'm just going to have to make time for a quick stop!

To see more match-ups and scenarios, visit the Krazy Coupon Lady's post! You never know what great deals other people have figured out. Just keep in mind that some deals were worked without doublers so you may have to calculate in the extra $3 savings yourself, but that's not much of a problem!

Great deal on Scrubbing Bubbles @ Safeway

Check this deal out!

Recipes for A Clean Summer Promo is a $4 instant discount at the register when you buy any 4 "participating" items. Some of those items include Windex, Lysol, and Febreeze. Scrubbing bubbles is also included and on sale for $2.49 each. If you have the coupon booklets from SC Johnson (found in-store last month), you'll find $2 off any 2 coupons. If you purchase 4 scrubbing bubbles cleaner and use 2 of those coupons, you'll pay $0.49 per can after all discounts! I really like this cleaner (only when the toddler isn't helping) so I plan on picking some of these up! Windex is also on sale at $2.99, and there are $1 off coupons in the same book. After coupon and discount, they'd be $0.99 each...not a bad price!

Another nifty promo is the $3 off instantly when you buy any 3 participating Dove products. The Original Dove deodorant is priced at $2.79 and counts towards the current Mix & Match promo as well! Buying 3 as part of a M&M will knock down the cost to $1.29 each. There are also supposed to be $1 coupons out there (not sure where, but I'll let you know if I figure out where!) that could make your per-item cost $0.29. At that price, it's a great donation or stockpile addition.

A huge thank-you to Momto5 over at SD for spotting both these bargains!!

The "big" shopping trip

Besides produce, milk, and bread I do most of my grocery shopping in one big trip for a 2 week period. Then, as I see deals around town that are too good to pass up, I swing by and make purchases for my stockpile. A few months ago, when I was brand new to couponing, I felt awesome when I spent less than $120 in one trip. I suppose a bi-weekly trip of $120 wasn't shabby for 2 adults and a toddler, but it wasn't really that great either (although it was a massive improvement over the $200-ish per week we used to spend pre-kids, and we ate out all the time- I don't even know what we were buying!?). Since I began stockpiling, this amount has dropped quite a bit, a good trip is less than $80 and every week I seem to nudge that total down just a bit. I'm sure it'll go up a bit once the newest gets onto food in about a year or so. We skip babyfood and just go to solids when they're older, but they eat so little when they first start out!

Over the next 2 weeks, the plan is to eat from our stockpile quite a bit so none of it gets pushed too far back and forgotten about. I made a list of everything we had and then made the menu from that. This trip (no pics- sorry! bad day in toddler-land) included:

• waffle mix
• 2 cans peas
• hershey's cocoa powder
• 4 cans del monte corn
• stiry fry sauce
• 2 bags mini oreos (free with coupon wyb milk and include them as part of your M&M promo)
• 2 bags tortilla chips
• 2 boxes barilla piccolini pastas
• 1 dozen eggs
• 2 gallons milk
• bread
• 2 packages bone-in-chicken breasts (2 per pkg.)
• 1 lb. baby carrots
• and six candy bars (on sale buy 3 get 3 free, and I used 3 BOGO free coupons to make them all free!)

Things in italics were counted as part of the mix and match (buy 10 items save $5) promo. I got a total of 28 items with a total spent of $29.09. My savings for the trip were $31.41 or about half. I will have to go back for more milk and produce PLUS buns and hamburger patties for the birthday party bbq we're doing next weekend. I also picked up a couple of pumpkin scones marked down at QFC when I went this afternoon with my mom (she wanted $1 artichokes).

QFC tonight

Isn't it funny how sometimes, once you get used to how much you save during a great shopping week, you look at how much you spent on what you got and feel just a bit of disappointment that it wasn't a better deal? Tonight was one of those trips. Of course, anything following a week where I purchase $400 in groceries for less than $20 bucks would probably fit into that category. I probably wouldn't even share, except that I don't want to look like some ridiculously amazing shopper all the time. I did get a good deal regardless, except for the tomato...

14 .32 spent, 17.65 saved

3 artichokes $3
3 bell peppers $3
Cranberry juice $2.50 (should have bought 2)
2 chocolate milks (a treat for the husband and myself)
2 cans tuna $1.24
tomato $2.30 (yikes!)

I would never buy a tomato for $2.30! I don't even like tomato, except that I was going to make BLT's this weekend and needed one for that (and yes, I was going to make myself eat some but only to set a decent example for the toddler). My plan was to buy 2 "on the vine" for $1/pound and use one for a salad and one for the sandwiches. The husband was shopping with me, and when I asked him to "grab me a bag please" he heard "there are holes in these". His response was something like "they have hothouse tomatoes right there". I was kind of confused and so I asked "you want that kind instead?" and he said "sure". They were obviously more expensive, but since I thought he really wanted that kind, I figured we'd just grab one that looked good and didn't look at the price. As we were walking to the car I made a joke about his expensive tomato, to which he replied "yeah, but it doesn't have holes!" and that's when we figured out where the conversation went wrong. Moral of the long story about a tomato: it's either grab my own produce bag or stick with what's on my list. I'm not sure, but either way he better eat that tomato!

Deals around town this week 6/10-6/16

I don't know how much shopping I'll be doing this next week, with Trent's birthday coming up and having a party to plan! I skimmed the ads last night, and have plans to hit QFC and Safeway. Albertsons has a promo that looks promising and I may swing by if I can find the time, but for now these are the things that look good to me.

Albertsons:

• Buy $25 on participating items, receive a $10 catalina for your next purchase (it rolls, meaning you can use that $10 to do another similar transaction and get another $10)
• Krazy Coupon Lady has some ideas for you over here
• My Day to Day World also has a post for Albies this week right here

Safeway:

• $0.98/lb red seedless grapes
• 10/$10 red or yellow bell peppers
• $0.99 Safeway butter top bread
• BOGO free Cheeze-Its (rebate for $2 wyb 2 in Coors $25 savings booklet)
• B3G3 free Mars single bars (use 3 BOGO free q's for 6 free!!)
• Continuing Mix & Match Promo (visit The Bargain Jargon, Money Wise Moms, and My Day to Day World for ideas)

QFC:

• 10/$10 jumbo artichokes (yumm!)
• 10/$10 extra large red, orange, or yellow Bell bell peppers

and don't forget to visit the ecoupon sites!

• These are websites where you can load coupons onto your card, saving you time and making saving money easy. Every time I chat with someone embarrassed or shy about using coupons, I always suggest these sites. Some sites take 24 hours to load onto your card, so make sure you do this in advance of any trip.
• Shortcuts- Safeway & QFC
• PGesaver- QFC
• Cellfire- Safeway & QFC
• Bringing Hope to the Table- QFC
• Note: you need a physical card in front of you when you sign up, because they need the number on the back of your card. I never signed up for my own Safeway card *I know, I should* and don't have my mom's/mil's number so we only use the ecoupons at QFC.

After doing a review of my Albertsons transactions, I'm a little bit in shock at how good I really did! I spent $18.23 over the course of a week and have $3 in catalinas for my next trip. I didn't track my savings as well as I could have so some things were given a low estimate, but they still clock in around $379.33. EGADS!!! I'm really proud of my savings for the week- that's 95% before you figure in the $3 I have in cats!

Albertsons $4.74 spent

...with a savings of $46.45 and $3 in catalinas towards my next Albertsons purchase. No picture today as the store was packed and we were running late for dinner (my 2 year old is very strict with his schedule). I did 3 transactions, and got:

A1 steaksauce
2 Country Time Lemonade canisters
Grey Poupon mustard
2 Bagelfuls
Cheap Steaks ($3.15 worth minus $2 for buying mustard and A1)
4 to-go packs of Crystal Light (for a friend)
Chips Ahoy
Seattles Best coffee (the cinnabon flavor is delicious!)

Today was the last day of doubles, and I'm feeling pretty good about all the deals I got. I'm sure we'll have plenty of lemonade for the summer!

I learned something new today at Albies!

It's true! I haven't seen it posted anywhere, so I thought I'd share. The rule about only being able to use 3 doublers per transaction? not necessarily true! As long as each doubler has a different number, you can use one of each per transaction!

For example, in the weekly ad that got mailed out last Tuesday there were doublers and each one had a bold number (1, 2, and 3) on it. In the glossy flyer we got in the Sunday paper, there were more doublers but these ones had different numbers in bold (5, 6, and 7). You can use all 6 of these in one transaction because none of them are expired...they're all good til tomorrow! Just think about how much easier it'll make your deals!

This info came from management at a nearby Albies, not the one I usually go to but they're also very coupon friendly. You may want to double check with your manager/cashier but they should have no problems putting it through register-wise.

Yes, that's another 20 boxes pasta salad. The coupon lady in front of me gave me some coupons for the KC Masterpiece in a sort of apology for being so confused about her transactions and "taking too long". I told her I'd been hitting Albies all week and was in no rush, but I gave her some bagelfulls coupons to try. I did 2 transactions, one of just pasta salad and the second with pasta salad and the bbq stuff (using 6 doublers and paying $1). Anyone need pasta salad?

toilet paper deal @ Albertsons!

Thanks to Bfrugal at SD for pointing this one out, we don't usually see such good deals on toilet paper! Albertsons has 12 packs of Angel Soft on sale 3/$10 as part of their promo from this last week. You can register here for a $0.50 off coupon and print it twice (by hitting the back button 3 times after the first print). If you have access to more than one computer, print it 3 times or else keep your eye out for $0.50 off coupons in the store.

Buy 3 packs for $10.00- $3.00 instant off -$1.50 (3 $0.50 off coupons) -$1.50 (3 doublers)= $4.00 for three 12 packs of toilet paper!

If you can only print 2 coupons and use 2 doublers, your total will come to $5.00 for 36 rolls of toilet paper which isn't too bad either.

You'd better hurry though, because this week's sale ends tomorrow!

besides being thrifty...

I really like taking pictures. I'm not really too good at it, but I try. When Trent was new, I took thousands of pictures. Really cute ones too. I've also got a few cute pictures of Ryan, and am looking forward to taking more in the next few months (it's so much easier before they start moving!). Getting the two together to "pose" for a picture?

Not the easiest thing ever. What you see above is the result of bribing Trent to sit still with yogos and attempting to shake a rattle to get Ryan to smile all while snapping away. Posing just one, when they're old enough to sit and will smile for silly faces? I can handle that! Below, Trent at 9 months for valentines day 08.

That picture is still one of my favorites, and I'm sure he'll be super embarrassed when he's older. For now, with Ryan I'll just be happy with the photos I've got. Below is Ryan at one week. I hate taking pictures of myself, but I really wanted to capture just how tiny and squishy he was.

Albertsons ecoupons

Wow, I'd never even heard of this! Albertsons actually has their own loadable coupons. You'll need to have your card handy so you can enter your number on the website here and activate these coupons. Thanks to SD for the heads up on this one. I've only ever used the ecoupons at QFC before, but they sure are handy!

*Note: they may only be working in limited areas, but they load onto your card super quickly. It's worth a try but I don't know that I'd count on them working for a deal just in case. Jane from All Together Beautiful spoke with someone about these coupons and was told they're only available for online orders. I have heard from several people who report them working in different states, ours just doesn't seem to be one of them. Thank you for the info Jane!

Safeway mix & match

I've been having so much fun at Albies this week, I wasn't even going to hit Safeway this week. Then I heard about the Hefty bag deal ($0.50 each after coupon and promo discount) that when we ran out of milk, I decided I'd better figure something out. I know the hefty bags were free a couple of weeks ago at Albertsons but my store got cleared out the first day, and a raincheck didn't even cross my mind...see? I'm still learning all this stuff! The husband and I split everything into 2 transactions, 10 Mix&Match items each and one order had the 2 gallons milk.

$15.52 spent, $50.21 saved

not pictured: 2 more bottles Sierra Mist

Here's the breakdown:
8 bags Hefty One zip: $16.00 -8 (8-$1 coupons) -4m&m= $4.00
3 Cereal: $6.00 -1.50 (on 3 coupon) -1.50m&m= $3.00
4 Sierra Mist: $5.00 -2.50 (BOGO printable) -2m&m= $0.50
Ken's Dressing $2.50 -1 coupon -0.50m&m= $1.00
Chinet plates $3.00 -2 coupon -0.50m&m= $0.50
Mission Tortilla Chips $1.99 -1 coupon -0.50m&m= $0.49
2 bag Oreos $3.98 -3.00(save 1.50 on milk wyb oreos) -1.00= -$0.02
2 gallons milk $3.98 (sale $1.99 each when you buy 2)

Or an average of $0.71 per item. I didn't need the Sierra Mist but it was a cheap filler, and adding just a splash of lemon-lime soda to raspberry lemonade is delicious...pre-kids it was the drink of choice where I worked. yumm!

More lemonade mix at Albie's

$0.19 spent, with $1 catalina earned!

I couldn't resist going back for more lemonade mix. Before I used to coupon this was a treat I'd pick up for myself every once in a while, so I can't resist a bargain like this. I've been searching for more of the $1 tearpad coupons but haven't had any luck but things worked out today!

2 Kraft dressing $5.00
2 Country Time Lemonade Mix $5.00
2 candy bars 1.39

-$3 instant
-$1.50 on 2 Country Time printable (coupons.com)
-3.00 (for 2 $1.50 kraft dressing coupons)
-$0.69 Buy One, Get One Free candy coupon
-$3.00 doublers**

Total: $11.39-$11.29= $0.19 and I got another $1 catalina!!

**Apparently most Albertsons will not double any coupon valued over $1. Management at my Albertsons says it's okay, but that "we can only use the doublers for $1" and some cashiers will actually pull out the doublers to "take care of you" if you don't hand them over yourself. Just want you all to be prepared in case you try the same deal and get turned down.

Albertson's...total spent? NOTHING!!!

My mom and I went back to Albertsons today to pick up some more pasta salad (to donate) and a few other things. We did a total of 7 transactions at 2 different stores, spending $2.00 total out of pocket and leaving with $2 in Albies catalinas- that means it was all FREE!!!

Store #1

20 boxes Pasta Salad
8 bottles Kraft Dressing
4 canisters Country Time
2 bags Seattle's Best Coffee

*or 2 transactions of 10 boxes pasta salad and 4 kraft dressings- cost $0.00 each
and 2 transactiosn of 2 cans Country Time and 1 bag Seattle's Best- cost $0.50 each, with $1 catalina

Store #2 (8 bottles salad dressing not pictured)

20 boxes pasta salad
8 bottles kraft dressing
3 bottles Mayo (yuck! but we needed if for pasta salad and it's $1.00/3 after q's and doubles, and paid for with a catalina...FREE!)

We took the pics in the car today, since most of it was going and not staying. All in all, an awesome trip...probably my best ever!! I'm out of salad dressing coupons, but I do want to buy more pasta salad this week. How much did we save, you ask? I don't have the mayo receipt and since I don't usually buy the stuff have no idea how much it usually costs. Excluding the mayo we saved a total of $173.98 today!!!

A couple of links

I've spotted a few neat coupon matchups for the promos going on right now, so I thought I'd share. I'm doing the bulk of my shopping at Albies this week, but don't forget about Safeway's Mix-and-Match!

Albertsons:

• Krazy Coupon Lady's post: Albertsons Deals Around the Blogosphere 6/3
• Fist Full of Coupons' post: Albertson's Doubler Ideas 6/3-6/9
• All Together Beautiful's post: Albertson's Haul 1
• Frugal Living NW's post: Albertsons's Deals for June 3-9

Safeway:

• MoneyWiseMoms' post: Safeway This Week 6/3-6/9
• Being Frugal is Fabulous' post: Safeway 6/3-6/9

Of course, I'll be going back a few more times too so keep an eye out here!

Today's Albertsons Run

Have I mentioned how much I love Albertsons? Well, I do. I didn't plan to well ahead of time, but I did manage to get some great deals (and met a really awesome "Coupon Queen" who shared a few great Kraft Dressing Coupons, thank you!). Here's what I spent today, for a grand total of $12.30 and a savings of $59.71:

$2.50 spent, $13.65 saved

1 Hunt's Ketchup- used FREE item coupon
2 Ritz Crackers- $3.50 (-$2 coupon and doubler...lost one coupon)
2 Country Time Lemonade- $3.50 (-2.50 coupon and doubler)
Buying the 2 Lemonade Canisters got me a $1 catalina (that I used on my second transaction)

$9.51 spent, $22.16 saved

3 Boxes Cornflakes Touch of Honey 1.99 each
2 Nectarines $1.52
Bag Braeburn apples $2.99
Bag Romaine Hearts $2.99
4 lbs Grapes $4.04

and I used 3 peelies from the cereal for $1 off fruit when you buy the cornflakes (I had to look for boxes on the back of the shelves, so check all your boxes), 3 doublers, and the $1 off produce when you buy $10 worth of produce. I also used my $1 catalina. To make the most out of this deal, you want to buy as close to $10 in produce as you can get (I went over), and technically at least $6 of it should be fruit.

$0.29 spent, $23.90 saved

...and a pack of gum, not pictured!

The pasta salad was on sale 10/$10 and the boxes had $1 off 2 peelies attached. I used 5 of those, and 3 doublers to take off $8.00. I didn't realize they also counted for the $3.00 off instant Kraft promo, so another $3.00 came off leaving me with negative balance. I threw in a pack of gum marked at $1.29 and paid $0.29 for all that pasta salad. Hope it's good!!

**even better would be to do this deal and add a pound or so of grapes to make it all free!

A quick Walgreens run

I had $4 in Register Rewards from the bandaid deal that were going to expire today and a Redbox movie to return, so after dinner I made a quick run over to Wags without any real plan. Here's what I bought for $0.93 (on a giftcard!)

Pringles were on sale 2/$3 (I'm a bit of an addict & so is the husband)

Decaf Green Tea on clearance for $0.95 (wish they had more than 1 box!)

Olives $0.99 with in-ad coupon, was able to print a $1 off 2 coupon to make these $0.49 apiece.

To print an olive coupon, copy and paste this link: http://www.lindsayolives.com/where-to-buy/coupon.html?em=x and replace that last x with your email address. (note: you can print two, but the wags coupon limit is 3 so you may have to do 2 separate transactions.) You could also get those jars of green olives, we like the black ones better.

On a personal note, I got dressed in a rush this morning and it wasn't until just a bit ago I realized my shirt has been inside out. *sigh* I'm sure I looked like a crazy lady aimlessly wandering the aisles of Wags with my shirt inside out, a handful of coupons, and a diaper bag but no kids.

Alberston's Ad 6/3-6/9

More Doublers!!! Hooray for another week of fun shopping. Here's what I'm seeing so far:

• $0.99/lb grapes
• $1 off produce coupon (when you spend $10 on produce)
• FREE Kraft BBQ sauce after coupon
• FREE Kraft Cheese after coupon and doubler (sale $2)
• FREE V8 (regular and fusion) with coupons and doublers (sale $1.88)

We don't usually buy grapes unless they're less than a buck a pound, Trent is going to be excited! I'll try to post more deals as I spot them or hear about them (I'm better once I get an ad in-hand). Thanks to Superbob0000 at SD for posting an early copy if the ad!


Here's a scenario for you to try! First, print the following coupons from coupons.com and grab the doublers from your ad (or pick one up at the CS desk).

• $1.50 off any 2 Country Time Lemonade
• 2 $1 off any 1 Planters Big Nut Bars
• don't forget those doublers!!

You'll need to buy

• 2 canisters Country Time Lemonade 9oz
• 2 Planters Big Nuts Products 6-8oz

Your total, after Savings Card and before coupons, will be $10+tax. $3 should come off instantly for their promo, and your coupons will knock your total $3.50+tax. Hand over those doublers (the cashier may only let you use 2) and your total will come down to $1.50+tax. You'll get back a $1 catalina (coupon good to use on anything in your next order) from the Country Time, making your net cost $0.50 for those 4 items. If your store/cashier will let you use 3 doublers (mine will) you'll pay $0.50+tax and get the $1 catalina...a moneymaker!

a peek at the little guys

Ryan will be a whopping 3 months old in just 4 days! He flipped himself over for the first time yesterday and is starting to figure out how to grab things. He's really loving the play gym in this pic below. Trent gets impatient sometimes and will spin the flippy toy every once in a while to show little bro how he's supposed to be doing it. I just love watching him try to figure it out!

Trent will be 2 this month, I can't believe how quickly he's growing up. We made some stuffed manicotti for dinner (and an extra for the freezer) and he had a blast helping out. He's such a little cutie in his apron, and a wonderful "big boy helper"

I'm still trying to get the hang of dividing my time equally, but it's kind of hard when you're nursing one. Trent's really great about grabbing a book for us to read together or handing me the remote so I can put the toddler music station on the tv and he can dance. Sometimes he just snuggles in with us and those are some of my favorite moments

Ribs & Charcoal again!

The husband grilled the ribs I picked up last week at Albies, and they were delicious! A lot of that was due to his amazing grilling abilities, but it was also good meat to start out with. He was so happy, he actually asked me to go back and do the deal again (something that almost never happens!)
I spent a total of $9.30 for all the items pictured above. Charcoal was 6.99 and BBQ Sauce was $0.69 after "Free up to $2 when you buy Kingsford" coupon. Ribs were on sale for $8.10, but I was able to use a coupon for "Save $6 on pork when you buy Kingsford and one other participating product=" (the BBQ sauce!!) and a doubler from the paper yesterday for an extra $1 savings. The M&M's were all free (2 Free product coupons and 2 Buy One, Get One Free coupons!). I saved about $20 on this transaction, and I'll get a night off from cooking...woohoo!