Target Deals

I went into Target to use up a few Tide and Downy coupons that expire tomorrow. I get so frustrated with their cashiers. It seems like they never truly understand Target's coupon policy and it is really frustrating. The cashier insisted that Target couldn't give me stuff for free and that I couldn't use a $1 off coupon for a $0.97 item. It was very frustrating, but after a huge argument I got the stuff above, plus 3 travel size Tide detergents (which I gave away). Now that I know who that cashier is I will skip that line and try someone different! I'm not even sure what I actually paid for all this stuff because my receipt looks a bit crazy as she added stuff and took stuff off, but it was around 50cents.

Quick WAGS Run

During my lunch today I ran over to Walgreens and got a few things for nothing! I love a great deal on stuff I need.

2 Puffs boxes @ $0.89
3 Wrigley gum packs @ $2.78
1 Carefree pantyliners pack @ $1.39

WAGS Coupons: $1.40
WAGS Savings: $1.89
MF Coupons: $2.49

Total Savings $5.78

OOP: $2.58

Rite Aid Rocks!

I have been meaning to go to Rite Aid for a few months, but I felt like it was a lot of work to keep up with CVS and WAGS. I simply didn't have the time. I have come to realize that I like my Rite Aid location better then the other two and there are great deals to be had there. I will be going back there, weekly!


This week Rite Aid has a BOGO Maybelline deal and I found these 2 mascaras at 75% off. I had 2 $1 off coupons so my total came to $1.69, which went on my gift card. Basically these were FREE!


This is the only other deal I have done at Rite Aid and it went well so it is worth posting. I got raisins and razors for about $2 and I transferred a cheap prescription so I wasn't out of pocket at all after I used the $25 gift card I received for transferring.

Easy Turkey Chili

Last week I made the easiest Crock Pot chili and promised several I would post the recipe here. (Sorry, no picture.)

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped
2 turkey thighs (1 lb. each), skin removed
1 can (15.5 oz) white kidney beans (cannellini), rinsed
1 can (11 oz) corn, drained
1 1/2 cups salsa
2 tsp minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1. Put turkey thighs on top of onion in Crock Pot. Add beans and corn. Mix all other ingredients.
2. Cover and cook on low 8 to 10 hours until meat is tender. Remove turkey to a cutting board. Cut bite-size, discard bones.
3. Return meat to cooker; stir in cilantro

Serve with sour cream, shredded jack cheese.

Vegetable Soup Recipe

Yes, I know, applause please........I also made soup tonight! I feel very stocked up now that I added quite a bit of soup containers to my stock of freezer foods. This way I can save the cans of Progresso I stocked up on during cheap sales for when I run out. I actually prefer making my own soup since you can control the ingredients that go in it. I packaged them in several different sizes, 1 cup containers to take for work, 2 cup containers for dinners, and then I made a larger one that I'm gong to eat out of for dinners over this week. It's a perfect way to get your veggies in and the great thing is, you can throw pretty much whatever you have on hand in the pot! Each time I make it, it has been different. And the easiest part was that I had already chopped up the soup starter stuff the other day so I had that ready to go and it made it very easy. I made this pot for probably under $4 and its making 7 plus servings.

The Task: Homemade Vegetable Soup

The Ingredients:

-about a cup and a half each of chopped carrots and celery

-one onion chopped

-2 cloves minced garlic

-6-8 cups of chicken broth (I did 6...depends on how brothy you like it)

-Any extra veggies you have on hand (I love using cabbage or spinach but had none, so I threw in a frozen bag of mixed veggies)

- on can of diced tomatoes

-2 tbs of tomato paste

*any spices you like-- I add a few dashes of salt, pepper, thyme, and basil

*you can add rice or pasta towards the end (I threw in a cup of fussili pasta)

The Directions:

Spray a large pot with cooking spray. Saute' onion, celery, garlic and carrots, for about 10 minutes. Add chicken broth, veggies, and spices. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for about 15 minutes. If you are going to add quick cook rice or any pasta add it now, then simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Package how it works for you, and enjoy!

Baking Day(s) Part 3- Meatballs

Today marks the end of my prep cooking weekend. I have been pretty productive in making things in bulk/baking to freeze this weekend and plan to do this each weekend on some level.

This weekend's list included:
Party Potatoes
Baked Oatmeal
Chopped veggies for soup starter
Ground turkey w/veggies in baggie for freezer
Meatballs for freezer
*possibly working on actually making soup yet tonight. We'll see.

The Task: Meatballs for the freezer

Ingredients:
1 lb lean ground turkey
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 egg beaten
1/2 onion, diced finely
squirt of ketchup and mustard each

The Directions:
I combined all the ingredients in a bowl and mixed together. This was my first time making these and I just added as needed wet or dry ingredients, use what works for you! I formed them into 14 balls and cooked them on the stove in a skillet for about 10 minutes until just cooked mostly through. I froze them on a plate to individually freeze for about an hour,then put them into freezer baggies. Now I can pop them out and throw them in spaghetti sauce, or just nuke them in the microwave for a snack! I usually buy these at Trader Joes for around $3 a bag and I made them for just over $1 (got turkey deal at Kroger $1/lb). Enjoy!

Recipe: Party Potatoes!

Second task today was to make another pan of what my family calls "Party Potatoes". I have revamped this recipe somewhat in order to lower calories and make it a healthier breakfast treat to enjoy! Making a pan this size makes 8-10 good sized servings and for a family of 4 can feed for 2 breakfasts' for very cheap...and for us single girls or a pair can last even longer! Stays good in the fridge for a few days and tastes just as good reheated! Enjoy!

The Task: Party Potatoes

Ingredients:

2 lb bag of frozen southern style potatoes (cubed)

1 bag (2 cups) 2% Milk reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese

1 tsp salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

2 tbs diced onion (I do about half a medium onion-- can do more, less, or none)

1 cup reduced fat or fat free sour cream

1 can cream of chicken soup (10 3/4 oz)

The Directions:

Combine the first 5 ingredients in a large blow. Combine the next 2 ingredients in a smaller bowl. Stir the soup mixture into the potato mixture. Spread into a greased 9x13 pan. Top with crushed cornflakes or special K (whatever you have on hand- or can omit this). Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes until browned. Enjoy!

Finally, an organized stockpile!

I have been eyeing this piece of furniture at Crate & Barrel for the last month. QQ and I have been looking for something for this spot for quite some time. As I have ventured into the world of coupons and stockpiling we have realized how much we need a piece of furniture to store stuff in our "cozy" hallway downstairs. We don't have a great deal of kitchen storage space so it has been a bit of a challenge. When friends come over they have noticed the growing pile in the hallway. I hate that. We bought it last night for $299.99 and QQ put it together when we got home.

I am grateful that I no longer worry about tripping over my pile on my way through the hallway. My new problem is...how do I reorganize all my food storage. As I was surveying all the food to put away, I was amazed at how much there was. I have a ton and I have only done this for 5 months. What is even more amazing is that most of what went into the cabinet was free or just a few pennies! I am sure that it would have cost at least $300 at typical grocery prices.

It was all a bit overwhelming to organize last night and I was tired. I threw it in to get it out of the way. I'm going to spend some time today figuring out what would work best. Because the cabinet has glass doors on it, I think I am going to start collecting baskets on sale and move things to baskets. (Thanks Savvyteacher for that idea!) This way it will look nice in the hallway and be quite functional too!

Baking Day(s) Part 2

This mornings tasks: Party Potatoes and Baked Oatmeal. I made both of these last week when I hosted a muffin party. I wanted to work on the baked oatmeal recipe and I think I got it to perfection, it was delicious!

The Task: Baked Oatmeal

The ingredients:
2 cups uncooked quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup of dried fruit (can use just raisins or cranberries or omit, I used a variety pack I had with golden raisins, cranberries, cherries and blueberries and it was awesome)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon (if you aren't a huge fan, reduce-- I love a lot in mine!)
1 1/2 cups fat-free milk
1/2 cup applesauce
1 tablespoons butter, melted (can use more, I just did a little to reduce fat/cal)
1 large egg, beaten
Cooking spray

Directions:
Mix the first 5 ingredients together in a large bowl. Next mix the milk, applesauce, butter, and egg in a medium bowl and then add to the dry ingredients. Mix well, pour into a greased 8x8 pan and cook for 20 minutes at 360 degrees. Makes 6-8 servings, stays well in the fridge for reheats, and is a very cheap, very delicious, very healthy breakfast! Enjoy!

Baking Day(s) Part 1

When I say baking I actually mean more like cooking for the freezer. We had our muffin party last week so I am stocked well with muffins (more about that in another post) but I had a bunch of lean ground turkey from the Kroger sale (got 1 lb 93% ff ground turkey for $1-- bought 6 of them) so I decided to turn some of it into other things to freeze.

Here are two things you can do with these ingredients. A bag of carrots, celery, and a couple onions.

Task #1 Stretching your money out of ground turkey:

This is a trick I learned not too long ago, and one of the best ones ever for me personally. It allows my ground turkey to stretch farther, to have easy add ins to foods like taco's or pasta sauce, and it is a healthy option.

I chopped about 5 good sized carrots, 1 medium onion, and about 6 or so celery stalks. Saute' on medium for about 8 minutes then add the pound of ground turkey. Cook through, drain and let cool. It nearly doubled the size and you can add as little or lot you want of the veggies.

The results: measure them out into whatevr size portions you want. Put them into freezer bags and they are ready to go! I divided mine into four bags which is a good size for serving 1 or 2 people.

Each bag cost about $0.50 to make!

Task 2: Soup Starter

Using the same 3 ingredients, onion, carrots, and celery you can chop for a soup starter that you would have paid $3 for in the store. Chop a cup or so each of carrots, celery, and onion. I also chopped 2 garlic cloves. I tossed them into a container to stick in the fridge for making soup. Im going to add chicken broth, a bag of frozen veggies that I have, and maybe some rice or noodles. While you are chopping veggies might as well take an extra few minutes for this!

I made mine for about $0.50....why pay $3 at the store?

Next Steps:

-Make soup with starter

-Make pan of baked oatmeal

-Make meatballs to freeze

-Make pan of party potatoes

Orajel Money Maker

At Walgreens this month, Orajel is a free after rebate. Now normally I buy most of the free after rebate items since I just pay with my giftcard, but I usually don't mind the ones I wont use. This is something I wouldn't use, so I had passed it up. HOWEVER.....in the paper there was a coupon for $1 off, and a mail in rebate. Thus, making it a pretty big money maker for buying a product that will be free anyways!

The Deal:
1 Orajel produt @ $8.49

Used $1 off coupon

OOP: $8.06 (on a giftcard) for now....profit soon!
Wags Rebate will be for $8.49 (.43 money maker)
MIR(Mail in rebate) will probably be just for $7.49 I am guessing since I only bought 1 item and they will see the coupon.

So for buying a product I will pocket between $7.95-8.95. Not bad :)

Target Deals

Target had some good deals this week! I did this deal during my lunch and the guy at the register was totally impressed. He said, "Frugal shopper. I like your style."

Here is the deal:
2 boxes of Pepperidge Farm crackers at $2.33 each
2 bottles of Ocean Spray Cranapple juice, 64 0z. at $1.99 each (on sale)
2 cans of Progresso Light soups at $1.40 each
2 boxes of Kashi cereal bars at $2.75 each
2 boxes of South Beach Diet Fiber Fit bars at $2.99 each
6 Johnson & Johnson Buddies soap bars at 97 cents each

Coupons used:
Pepperidge Farm crackers-2 $1 off newspaper coupons
Ocean Spray-2 $1 off Internet Printables, 2 $1 off Target coupons
Progresso-2 $1.10 off Internet Printables
Kashi-2 $2 off Internet Printables
South Beach Diet-2 $2 off Internet Printables
Johnson & Johnson-2 $3 off Internet Printables

Total Before Coupons/Store Savings:$32.96
Total OOP: $8.64

Yoplait coupon

Here's a link to a Yoplait internet printable for $1.00 off eight. The link takes you directly to Brick's print page, so be sure you're not using Firefox. If you're having troubles there, you can link to the coupon from Yoplait's home page here.

More Freebies, and near freebies

Total cost for the above? 74 cents!

Kroger continues to pay out when it comes to Cottonelle toilet paper. $0.50 off Cottonelle coupons are still available online, two from Cottonelle.com after playing a game and two from here (just hit your back button to reprint once).

Here's the deal (again):
Four Cottonelle toilet paper @ $0.99/each = $3.96
Four $0.50 coupons (doubled at Kroger) = $-0.04
Kroger doesn't allow overage, so they automatically adjust the coupon
OOP: $0.14 (tax)

Another great coupon this week is a $1.50 off coupon on CoffeeMate creamer available here. I was able to print three using different email addresses. I combined those three coupons with a 3 for $5 CoffeeMate creamer sale at Food Lion.

Here's the deal:
Three CoffeeMate creamers at Food Lion (3 for $5) = $5.00
Three $1.50 off coupons = $4.50
OOP: $0.60 (including tax)

Total OOP: $0.74 for four packages of Cottonelle toilet paper (16 rolls) and three 15oz. bottles of CoffeeMate creamer.

WAGS Deal Week of 1/11-17

This was a very good week at Walgreens for me. Pictured above you will find FREE equal, FREE tea, $0.50 a piece cough drops, $0.58 makeup (Clearanced for 1.58, used $1 off coupon) and paper towels for about $0.80 each and had to use kleenex packs for fillers.

Total OOP: $3.70 (on a gift card)
Total Savings: $39.26!

Kmart Double Days Deals

This week was Kmart Double Days at several Kmarts. My local SuperK was doubling coupons up to $2, and however there were several issues with some of the doubling, I didn't get any of my overage that I should have, yet I still ended up with about 50% savings and some pretty good deals overall.

OOP: $25.77

Coupon Savings: $24.75

Some highlights included 11 things of shampoo/conditioner for $2, FREE Reese's whipps bars and Hormel microwavable meal, $0.29 for mashed potatos/Pet evap milk, $0.29 rice, very cheap gum, soup, and good deals on cleaning supplies and ziplock baggies and containers.

I probably wont do double days when it comes up again because its quite a pain, but I am satisfied with the savings!

WAGS Deals

Savvyteacher, QQflyboy, and I went to Walgreens to get some good deals. It took some time to work out this deal, but it was well worth the time. The deals at Walgreens this week are good. (The 2 boxes of Equal and 2 tubes of Colgate were completely free.)

Total before coupons and WAG deals:$50.14
WAGS savings: $29.89
MF coupons: $13.55
Total Savings: $43.44

Total OOP: $6.70

A Super Savings Day!

Today me and qqflyboy went out running around getting some good deals. It was amazing to spend around $2 and come out with items from 3 stores. It's well worth the planning and running around!

Walgreens:
2 Splenda's @2/6 used 2 $3 off coupons = Free splenda!
1 Garnier Shampoo@ 2.99 used 2 off coupon = .99 shampoo
OOP: 1.32 (on a gift card)
Saved: $8+
Lowes Food:
1 Kellogs Special K@ $2, used 1 off coupon
OOP: $1.04
Saved: $2.55

Kroger:
3 Cottenelle TP@ .99 each, used 3 $0.50 coupons doubled = FREE TP!
OOP: $0.11
Savings: $2.97

The "Binder"

I believe I am coming over to the "dark side" of the coupon world. I am going to try out what intense couponers call the "binder". Its a binder with plastic sleeves full of their coupons, organized of course, in order to see more coupons and have them at better access. Thriftynestor was my first introduction the the "binder" and I pretty much thought she was crazy and didn't really believe her that people actually did this, but I did see my first other binder person at Harris Teeter triple coupon weekend. With the amount of coupons I have and how grocery shopping goes, I decided it might be easier to organize them this way and at least give it a shot. I'm only doing grocery coupons, as the other types of coupons are just find as they are since I usually plan my trips to Walgreens and CVS and pull them out ahead of time. I have begun the process....and will keep all updated on my journey to how it works out. For now, it is time consuming but hopefully worth it in the long run!

Triple Coupons at Harris Teeter = cheap groceries!!

Trip #1 on Friday 1/2/09:

This was my first run at triple coupon weekend at Harris Teeter. Let me tell you, I never imagined that triple coupons would be a reason I could barely sleep due to excitement and having me spend several hours, giddy, preparing for this moment when I get home and spread out the goods and review my savings. A little bit crazy, agreed, but very money savvy so I'll take crazy if this is what it gets me!

The low down:
I needed milk and wanted salad so that was $6 of this (a third of the total price) so keep that in mind!

Before coupons total: $58.41

VIC savings: $3.99

Triple Coupons savings: $34.83

OOP Total Cost Paid: $19.59 for 22 items!

Savings= $38.82

It is just under $14 for the triple coupon 20 items.....wow!!

Triple Coupons Take 2 Morning of 1/4/08:

The low down:

Sunday the new paper came out with FIVE inserts. I get one delivered, and so I went to explore the coupons and they were basically amazing!! So, I did what I said I would never do, I threw on clothes and put my hair back and ran out for more papers. No shower, no fuss, it was a bit insane. Thriftynestor was a bit shocked and was curious if I had ever thought that it would be triple coupons at Harris Teeter that got me to go out in public before a shower. Yes, the moment has come.....I got 2 more papers and went through to cut out all the grocery ones I wanted to use. I headed (still no shower) to Harris Teeter for a round of triple coupons.

Total Before Coupons: $61.24 Vic Savings $6.03 Coupons triple savings: $39.18

Total Cost $16.03!!!!!
Savings = $45.21

Triple Coupons Take 3, Sunday 1/4/09 in the Evening:

The low down:

One shower later, I got supportiveheels to go with me and she even did some of her own deals and saved $23 of her groceries! I was very proud of her first experience in triple couponing and although I do remember her calling me "crazy" earlier, I think I proved my case!

Total Cost: $61.10 Vic Savings: $10.64 Coupons tripled savings: $35.74

Total OOP Cost: $14.72!!!!

Savings = $46.38

In sum, three trips to Harris Teeter for triple coupon deals that were $19.59, $16.03, and $14.72.

Total Grocery Cost for all Three Trips: $50.34

Total Savings: $130.41

$180 worth of groceries for $50? I'll take it!!