There is just nothing more fun than this!!!

Oh, friends.

There is just nothing more fun than this.
In three, yes, three I am addicted, transactions this weekend I purchased:

(items not pictured yet because I left the camera at my parents' house)

4 bottles Herbal Essence Shampoo/Conditioner
1 bottle Organix Shampoo
1 12-roll package Cottenell toilet paper
9 Essence of Beauty gift bags
1 Mennon deodorant
2 Glucose Monitors

I spent:
Approximately $12 OOP, however about $7 will come back to me via rebate on the Organix.

I used:
2 $3/2 Herbal Essence coupons
1 Mennon coupon
And about $40 in ECB

I have:
$25 ECB for next time

I gave:
1 glucose monitor to my dad who will donate to someone that needs it at his nursing home
1 glucose monitor to my father-in-law who is diabetic and now loves having a back-up


I know that there are nay-sayers out there, but thing is this: THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE BLAST! I love coming out of CVS with a couple of bags of goodies for myself and others and hardly paying anything. I love the challenge of scoping out the best deal, and I LOVE using the products. I would have never bought Herbal Essence or the Organix, but it's just fun. The other cool thing is that it really curbs my shopping desires. I get my little shopping fix and get some treats for my family and I don't need to go spend a bunch of money anywhere else. And that, friends, is a HUGE savings!!

SO:
If you've never tried it before, this is a great week to get started.

:)

Super Savings Saturday with SUSE!!

As we all know, I adore my friend Suse. I'm crazy about her for a lot of reasons: she holds me accountable in my walk with Christ, she would support me if I decided to grow out my hair/cut it all off, she's very generous with products that she can't use, she's always willing to talk to me, I can ask her anything, she really thinks before she answers my questions, she just "gets me, she loves shopping at New York & Company, antiquing and the outlet center.................and she introduced me to the fantastic world of couponing/CVS/Walgreens. How could I not love this woman????

Last Saturday she took me to Kroger and showed me how to do this:
That's right, folks, over $60 worth of product for only $13.68.

My dad asked me if I was going to frame the receipt. I told him if I could find one for free, I might.

So, to Suse, and all the other ladies out there who can't keep quite about saving money and helping their families, I send you my love, affection, and adoration. You're the best! I love you!!

How do you do it?

So, I go to CVS the other day, find the "essence of beauty" toe separators, grab 3, and think SCORE! I go to the counter, they ring up for $3-something, I pay with a $2.99 ECB and somehow end up not owing anything. Awesome, right?

Even though I'm positive that I had the right brand of toe separators and I made sure to buy three like the instructions said, the $5 ECB don't print out at the bottom of the receipt. I ask and they aren't coming. There's a line behind me, so I walk out of the store, $3 poorer, with a purse full of toe separators, that upon further inspection, aren't that nice and that I don't need.

Without warning, I think to myself, "I'll take them back. I'll tell the clerk that I'm hosting a bridal shower and that the co-host and I got mixed up and we both bought pedicure supplies, so I'm returning mine. I'll get my money back and everything will be fine" Then I think to myself WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU????? You aren't hosting a shower. Why would I feel the need to lie to the clerk? Why can't I just admit that I tried something and it didn't work and now I'd like to return these perfectly unharmed toe separators ???

The problem that I'm having isn't that I wanted to return a product that I didn't need. It's that my first instinct was to lie to someone that I didn't know to make myself feel better about returning the toe separators. Like that person actually cared why I was returning them. I really need to pray about this.

On a happy note, I did return the toe separators. I had to practically fight myself, but I did not lie. I simply said "I'd like to return these," handed them over, and returned them. And, of course, I was questioned because there was some sort of problem with the receipt. BUT, I did not lie. And tonight, that's something.

Am I the only one out there that feels the need to lie about stuff like this???

I figured it out!!

After falling head-over-heels in love with coupons, I was left with one colossal problem: how do I sort them. Okay, two problems: sorting & storing. You see, in my coupon infancy I used this:
And it worked.....sort of. You can see that I labeled the sections, but things like "hygiene" were soon crowded with about 50 coupons. Sifting through all of these was annoying at home and next to impossible while shopping. I try to plan out what I'm going to buy before we leave, but I usually see at least one thing on sale and think, "Oh! I have a coupon for that!" Or my husband says, "Did I mention that I'm out of razors/deodorant/soap?"

So, what's a girl to do??

I looked online and found several good ideas:
The Money Saving Mom had some good ones and
Out of the Over Flow really impressed me, especially because she used a binder. I LOVE binders.

But-I had gotten used to carrying all of my coupons with me all of the time. That way, if I was in the town I work in, I could check out their CVS/Wal-Mart/Kroger as they were usually less "raided" than mine. It also has worked out a couple of times that I had my store coupons with me in my purse (that's how I got my free panty at Victoria's Secret), so I didn't want to lose that.

I'm now in the 'wobbly toddler" phase of couponing. I've been at for about a year now. I remember them when I go to the store every time (it took a while to establish that habit), and I found moneysavingmom.com to help me use them even more effectively. But I, as I started clipping more and more (and USING more and more) I found myself sifting through piles of coupons at the store while trying to entertain my 10-month old, tell my husband what aisle the Excerden is in and talk to my mother on the cell phone. It was time to reevaluate my organizational system.

It took me a couple of weeks and a lot of thinking, but I finally came up with a plan:
What's that, you ask??
$1.99 Photo albums!

How do they work?


I labeled each page with letter stickers I found for $0.99 (I had to get creative when I started running out of letters). I only used one side of each "page" (they have a slot for a picture on each side) because I thought that they would fall out as I flipped through.

I purchased two books--one that I'll keep with me all the time and the other that I'll only keep with me when I know we'll need it. The first one has all of my CVSesque coupons in it. The other has food, restaurants, and specialty stores (Best Buy, New York & Co., etc) that I would be making a special trip for anyway. I am thrilled with this new system. I have 18 slots per photo album, which is enough for me right now. I will reevaluate in a couple of months to see if I need to make any adjustments.

Right now I'm just happy to have something that fits in my purse that is easy to use...and it's pretty!!