What did you do to save money this week (2/4/07)?

[minnie1928]

It's a new week, time for a new thread!

Today I plan on studying the grocery and CVS sales. Then I'll take the kids with me to Kohls, I need a new winter coat (70% off, or so I've heard) and if I take the kids that will ensure that I don't actually want to shop around (DD3 and DS8 will start bickering after about 10 minutes). That should save me some money!

I'm also going to pick up a new, water saving showerhead. We are using our "spare" bathroom while I tear apart the Master bath ( I hate ceramic tile showers!). The spare shower still has the builder grade regular showerhead.

I finally got DH to agree to let me shop around our car, life and homeowners insurance so that'll be a project for this week. Hopefully, I can save some money there...

Have a great week everyone!

 

[TammyNC]

Just found this thread, how exciting. I went back and read last weeks, it truly is motivating. I am getting ready to sit down and make out our meal plan for the week using up things we have in the freezer and cabinets. I will only purchase at the grocery store what we need to help fill in for the meals. I will be checking ads against coupons that I have too.

 

[T1130]

I cooked dinner on Friday and Saturday instead of ordering out.

 

[ducklite]

Today is a milestone day for me. Day 21 of not eating anything out other than a few bottles of water where I wasn't allowed to bring my own, and a couple of cups of tea using my Starbucks gift card.

I figure I've saved around $400 and I know I've lost seven pounds! I will admit that I'm looking forward to our Valentines Day dinner at Citrico's, and "if" my sister and her kids come in next week, I'll be eating out a lot with them at WDW. My DDE card will save some at least, and I'll be avoiding alcohol at most of those meals as I'll be driving home shortly after. I haven't gone to an ATM for two weeks, and noticed yesterday that I had a lot more cash in my wallet than I expected--I guess I'm not used to not spending money!

I'm working on getting my CVS list together, I'll be spending more than I wanted, because I've got a coupon to spend $50 and save $10, plus I want to hit $40 to get $20 in ECB. So trying to plan around my manufacturer's coupons to hit a few cents over $50, take of the $10 and hit a few cents over $40 to get the extra $20 in ECB. I'll use that towards my co-pays, which are $40 a month minimum, some month's they can hit well over $120.

My next door neighbor is a chiropractor and swears he can cure my asthma. He told me to stop over and he'll do the adjustment at his house for free, and if it works I can start going to the office. I'm thinking about taking him up on the offer. (If you're going to have a medical emergency of almost any kind, make sure it's in my neighborhood. DH is an EMT, and within two houses in either direction I've got a chiropractor, dermatologist, OB/GYN, and general surgeon! And no lawyers in the entire neighborhood! )

I'm going to be stocking up on a lot of Kleenex to make my numbers, but DS goes through tissues like crazy, and he doesn't really care what brand he gets as long as they are reasonably soft.

I went through the Target flyer, and is it me or are their prices really not all that good? It seems that I can do just as well at Publix which is only half a mile rather than drive the ten miles round trip to Target. One thing I noticed is that the bin I bought last week is now on sale, do they do adjustments? It's only $2 difference, but still... I do have to go up that way today to go to Home Depot and pick up the lightbulbs for my kitchen, they do'nt sell them anywhere else, and I need a new water filter for the fridge, hoping maybe they have those at Home Depot rather than having to order it and pay shipping.

I've also got some stuff to put on ebay, watching other auctions for the same items I should net almost $400!

Anne

 

[delmar411]

I dont' have any grocery deals lined up yet as our ads switch over wed/thurs but I've got my CVS deals all set to go. Just waiting on some coupons.

I did alredy place some of my coupon orders this morning so I spent $7.60 today already but 40 of those coupons are for free success rice and 20 are for $2 off Huggies B&B wyb wipes(CVS deal this week!) so I way offset the amount spent.

Just as a heads up...if you can get ahold of those $2 off Huggies B&B wyb wipes , use those this week at CVS.

Buy 2 wipes @ $1.99 each
Buy 1 CT toddler wipes box @ $1.99
total = 5.97
-$2.50/2
- $2 off wyb
= $1.47 for 3 tubs of wipes

and when combined with the ECB deal they are all free.

other combos too, I'm working on figuring the best deal.

ok, best combo I've found:

10 boxes of Huggies wipes 1.99 each
10 boxes of CT wipes 1.99 each
1 box kleenex .89
1 Gillette Fusion power 9.99
$1.81 in fillers
total: 52.49
-10/50 CVS
-(5) $2.50/2 Huggies B&B
-(10) $2 off wyb wipes
-$9.99 ECBs
=
zero

get back in 2 days : $20 ECBs(wipes) and $6 ECBs(razor)

I'll have to dig up a coupon for the razor to make it an even better deal.

 

[maggiew]

I will admit that I'm looking forward to our Valentines Day dinner at Citrico's, and "if" my sister and her kids come in next week, I'll be eating out a lot with them at WDW. My DDE card will save some at least, and I'll be avoiding alcohol at most of those meals as I'll be driving home shortly after. I haven't gone to an ATM for two weeks, and noticed yesterday that I had a lot more cash in my wallet than I expected--I guess I'm not used to not spending money!

I think we can all agree that Valentine's Dinner at Citrico's and maybe eating out when taking your nieces to WDW don't count!!! You get a "pass" for those, since its here on the Disney board.

Maggie

 

[Bearvet]

DS17 and DS13 had 10 kids sleep over last night (big UFC fight on TV). I don't like to send kids home without offering breakfast and thought about going out to get donuts. Dunkin Donuts is 15 minutes away and I realized I'd need a LOT of donuts to feed all of these guys!

So, I made pancakes instead! Had a box of pancake mix on hand (used the whole box!) and made some plain and some with chocolate chips. The house smelled wonderful and the boys were thrilled! I would imagine I saved at least $20 (probably more if I include gas $) and spent about the same amount of time (I have a big griddle and can cook a lot at once).

I'm happy that I didn't give in to the temptation to take the "easy" way out!

 

[OceanAnnie]

Today is a milestone day for me. Day 21 of not eating anything out other than a few bottles of water where I wasn't allowed to bring my own, and a couple of cups of tea using my Starbucks gift card.

Congratulations on day 21!

We have some GCs to use. We ordered take out last night from Outback Steakhouse. I got a Caesar salad (about 4.99), loaded baked potato (1.99) and a kid's chocolate sundae (1.99). He got the Joey ribs meal (generous portions) that came with steamed veggies and a drink (4.99) and a cinnamon apple type dessert (about 4.99). It was a lot of food for not a lot of money! It came to alittle over $20 with tip. (Free for us since it was a GC!) If we had ordered from the adult entrees it would have been a lot more! We like to save on our GCs too. And they gave us another drink for the long wait!

Haven't set foot in a store in days. No impulse shopping. Writing out a list of things we need. I'm going to be really giving the CVS supplement the once over. Those deals sound so good!

I've been listing some odds and ends on ebay almost daily.

 

[ducklite]

Oh! It's not huge, but...

When i left my last company, I was vested in teh 401K, pension plan, etc. I took my 401K money and rolled it into an IRA. Got a letter a couple months back that they had misclaculated something, bottom line, I got a 401K statement from Fidelity showing that the employer had deposited $82.08 into my 401K.

I'll transfer that to my IRA as well. It's certainly not enough to retire on, but every little bit helps when it comes to retirement savings, especially when it's found money!

Anne

 

[T. Lynn]

I just posted on the other thread I think.

Oh well, we just got a trailer full of wood to burn in our woodstove. Much cheaper than having to purchase oil.

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

So far today:

--cut coupons from the newspaper
--went through the grocery ads (3 stores), RiteAid, Eckerd, and Happy Harry's (local drugstore chain now owned by Walgreens) and made shopping list, matching coupons with sales. Nothing really exciting this week.
--lunch of leftovers from dd's bday party last night (wings, fresh fruit w/ hm fruit dip, carrots w/ onion dip)
--ds and dh will be going to my parents' house later to use dad's tools. Ds is building a new catapult for this year's state Science Olympiad competition. He'll be using scraps of wood left from my dad's various projects.
--While the guys are gone, I'll show dd12 how to sew a baby blanket (just attaching blanket binding to two layers of really cute flannel purchased on sale). She's making a gift for the artistic director of her ballet company who is expecting her first "bunhead" next month.

We were invited to a Super Bowl party later today, a very casual affair. Dh will bring some homebrew as our contribution.

 

[minnie1928]

Well, I found a winter coat at Kohls. Originally $160 and I paid $48, that'll work! I also found a really nice Reebok hoodie in the boys section for $6. It's too big right now for my son, but it fits me real nice . It'll help keep me warm on the days I lower the thermostat. I also got mom a pair of Isotoner gloves for $6 (reg $20) to replace the ones she lost.

Target had mens lounge pants for $3.74 so I picked up 2 pair for my dad. He's in a nursing home, so I'd say that that lounge pants are in the dress code! They look pretty comfy and for that price who could argue!

 

[luvtheduck]

Haven't contributed to this thread yet but read it everyday and love all the great ideas. It's nice to know there are others in the same boat. I am not an expert on CVS (just made my first purchase this past week). But sometime in the past I found a website called families.com and saved it in my favorites. After signing into families.com, go to Deals, Hot Deals, Drugstore, and then CVS.
They discuss deals going on at CVS and it looks like they have the following week's ads up. I rarely read this so hope it is some help to others. I am going to try and read it over the next couple of days. If this has been mentioned before I apologize.

 

[PartyOf5]

Yeah, we are all in the same boat, welcome aboard! Together this board can bring down the economy...

Anyway, for me - I'm staying in today. There will be no temptations! We also had the urged for oatmeal cookies. In the past, I would have jumped in the car and drove to a bakery but not today...checked my pantry and had all the ingredients (except raisins, but that's OK).

This board had changed me...my first impulse used to be to run to the store, when I wanted something. Now my first impulse is to see if I can make it myself.

I'm going to clip my coupons this afternoon to prepare for a trip to grocery store after work one day this week.

 

[lisaj68]

Well, I've clipped my coupons and am looking at the CVS and Walgreens ad at the same time as going thru my coupons, and also looking at Families.com (yes, I agree! good coupons)...Anyway, I fee like my head is about to explode!!

I can't keep track between who has what cheaper and while checking on line with the coupons, the product is slightly different than what is on sale in the ads!!

Like the Huggies wipes in the CVS ad...I can't find a coupon to go with it. The one in the paper is for Cleanteam, etc. So I don't know that CVS would accept that coupon....

Oh well, with two sick kids today, it's not like I have anything to do!

 

[DaisyD]

I booked our October trip using a code. I saved over $2500!!!

 

[ducklite]

I just got back from my Publix and CVS run.

CVS I did pretty well. I saved $20.87 on sale prices, and then another $10 for spending $50, a $.40 man. coupon, and cashed in my $4.49 ECB for a total of $42.10. I'll get $20 in ECB's, so it worked out to $22.10 for $65 in merchandise! I stocked up on some things because there really wasn't anything all that exciting this week. Lots of candy and junk food.

Publix was another story. I didn't really have a good list. That said, I didn't buy almost any junk food, and what I did buy was such a good deal I couldn't pass it by. More on that in a sec.

My total when all was said and done was $156.27. BUT, I saved $65.42, which was 30%. There were a lot of BOGO's I wasn't planning on buying, but I thought about it, and things like cereal and steak sauce don't go bad for along time, so I stocked up. Same with English muffins (now in the freezer) and BBQ sauce.

So probably $40+ was spent on stock up BOGO's, and another $50 on stock up sale items like Charmin and Welch's Grape Juice. I also bought chicken cutlets on sale and stocked up on them, and they had canned chicken breast on sale $.89 off, so I bought two cans of that. Now about that great deal... The TGIF's stuff in the freezer section is on sale. It's supposed to be half off, it's actually ringing up at $1.44 (orig $3.39) and some of the boxes have an instant savings coupon for $1. So I bought four boxes of Buffalo chicken poppers for $.44 each--and I think I'm going to look again in a couple days to see if there are any left. (Wanted to be sure I had the freezer space.)

My entire very large trunk was full when I left, and there's filet mignon in the fridge again--my weekly spurge as long as I'm not eating out--filet cooked at home with taters and veggies doesn't cost any more than Mc D's would!

So I spent a lot, but got a real lot for it. Total savings today including the $20 in ECB's I'll have in a couple of days is $106.29!

I noticed a few things in the Walgreens flyer that were great prices (Oatmeal for $1.89 or 99 being one) so I'll go through it and stop on my way home from work this week.

I've just started to clip coupons, so I expect the savings will be greater as I accumulate a stockpile and will have a coupon for almost everything I buy. I had to buy taco sauce without a coupon, we were out--didn't even have a stray Taco Bell packet in the house, and we'll have taco's one night this week for sure, so really needed it.

Anne

 

[mommyof3grlz]

I love this thread. I am about to leave the computer to go cut out my coupons. Thanks everyone!

 

[delmar411]

Well, I've clipped my coupons and am looking at the CVS and Walgreens ad at the same time as going thru my coupons, and also looking at Families.com (yes, I agree! good coupons)...Anyway, I fee like my head is about to explode!!

I can't keep track between who has what cheaper and while checking on line with the coupons, the product is slightly different than what is on sale in the ads!!

Like the Huggies wipes in the CVS ad...I can't find a coupon to go with it. The one in the paper is for Cleanteam, etc. So I don't know that CVS would accept that coupon....

Oh well, with two sick kids today, it's not like I have anything to do!

there was a coupon at the beginning of the year that is $2.50/2 Huggies B&B or Clean Team. Wipes are B&B.

 

[CindyBeth]

This week, I went thru some of my medical bills and found 2 errors that saved me $55 total!!! woo hoo!

I do want to say I always check what the doctor's bill me vs the insurance explanations and this past year alone, I have saved over $500 that they tried to charge me in error! So always check!