Saturday, May 31, 2008

May Monthly Summary

I have been keeping a spreadsheet listing all of my expenditures and savings for the last few weeks. I just completed it for May and I am completely surprised at how much I spent. My savings is currently at 48%, but my spending is still too high. So for June I am going to work on getting my out of pocket expenditures down. I need to be much more careful in the future. Since I was $200 over budget this month, I would like to make that up in June.

Do you track your spending and savings? Do you find that you ever spend more then you anticipated in your excitement over a deal? I'm taking this as a newbie mistake and I will work on improving my self control.

Since we are pretty much stocked up on everything I do not need to buy anything unless it is very cheap. I'm supposed to be spending less money, not more. I'll console myself with the realization that half of my overage was for formula which is an expense we didn't really have before. Now we have enough to last her through the summer as long as I can keep nursing as much as I am now. Formula is just crazy expensive even when it's on sale.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Frugal Friday

Last night was a pretty good night for us. I had my husband go use a $10 off of $30 coupon at Walgreens. Here is what he got:

2 WAG Formula $13.99 + $6.99 (They were buy 1 get 1 50% off)
2 SAMY Shampoo/Conditioner $11.00
Subtotal $31.98
$10 on $30 coupon
Total after sales tax $22.04
We also got a $5 register reward to use on our next purchase. Not bad for two containers of formula that we needed. The shampoo was just a bonus for me.

Our second stop of the night was at Safeway. They had some really good specials listed in their paper. Of course they didn't have any of them in stock and don't even carry some of the items. It was so bad there that I will never go to that Safeway again and I will be contacting their corporate offices about the experience.

The final stop for the evening was at Weis. I find this to be a much more pleasant store and with better prices in general. This is where we do the bulk of our grocery shopping. We didn't pick up much last night, but I did want to take advantage of their $2 off of milk deal when you buy 2 12 packs of Pop Tarts. Their milk was already on sale for $2.49 so we got a gallon of milk for $0.49 after buying the Pop Tarts which were on sale for 2 for $5.00. I think it's a great deal and it's even sweeter if you have coupons for pop tarts. Even if you don't do the pop tart deal, $2.49 for a gallon of milk is great.

Hot Coupon World

A great site to get tips about sales, coupons, rebates and so forth is Hot Coupon World. I love to check this site out to get previews of upcoming sales and see what other deals people are getting at the stores I regularly shop at. Check it out to see if the stores you frequent are on there.

Target - Cheap Pampers Wipes

I stopped at Target yesterday and was checking the prices of various items that I had coupons for that were about to expire. I was very excited when I saw that they had the Pampers wipes 60 ct on sale for $1.99 a box. I had coupons for buy 2 diapers or wipes and get $2 off. That made these wipes $0.99 a box. That's $0.0165 a wipe. Not too bad for good wipes. If you have any of these coupons you might want to go to Target to use them today or tomorrow (my coupons expired 5/31/08).

CVS 5/29/08

I did a quick stop at CVS yesterday. Here's what I got:

1 Satin Care shave gel, trial size $0.99
1 Aquafresh toothpaste, trial size $0.99
1 Excedrin $1.99
1 PB Nips $0.88
Subtotal $4.85

Coupons:
Free toothpaste ($0.99)
$2.00 off Excedrin (get your coupon here)
$1.00 off shave gel (they adjusted this coupon to $0.99

Total OOP $1.06 (includes sales tax)

Watch your coupons, if they don't specify a certain size, or say good on any, try using them on trial size items for free or nearly free products.

Walgreens $10 off $30 Coupon

For today only Walgreens has a $10 off your $30 purchase coupon available on their website. You can print it off here and take it to your local Walgreens to use it.

I stopped at my Walgreens this morning where I purchased the following:

2 Walgreens tampons $9.98 ($4.99 * 2)
1 Perfect tampons $6.99
2 Samy shampoo $11.00
1 Pepsi 2 liter $1.00
1 Pepsi 20 oz $1.39

Subtotal $30.36
After coupon $20.36
Total Out of Pocket $20.57

I chose the tampons because they qualify for a $10 rebate in the June Easy Saver catalog. I chose the shampoo because it gave me $5 in register rewards for my next purchase. The pepsi was just a filler to get me to $30.

My suggestion if you're going to use this coupon is to use it to buy items that you can get a rebate or register rewards on, or you can combine it with manufacturer coupons to get your total down even further. Last week they had a $5 off your $20 purchase coupon that I used. In that case I was able to get my total out of pocket down to $8 by using multiple coupons and my husband's went down to $7. I know I could have done better this week too, I just didn't have time to go through my coupons this morning.

HP Ink Rebate

I purchased ink for my printer last weekend. I wasn't happy about the price, but ink is always expensive. So I was extremely happy when I found this rebate for a $10 Starbucks gift card when you purchase two HP ink cartridges or one multi pack. I completed my form and mailed it off today. Hopefully I will get my gift card back soon. I'm looking forward to some free Starbucks!

Introduction

I hate parting with my hard earned money if I don't have to. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a stingy person, I just don't like to feel that I'm wasting my money. I enjoy searching out deals and using coupons to get the most I can for my money. For the last few years I have been using coupons and shopping sales, but I didn't put a whole lot of effort into it.

Now that I have a new daughter I am searching out new ways to save money so that we can put more away for her college and still afford the diapers other necessities a new baby has. I plan to post all of the ways I am able to save money for my family. This way, you may be able to find some deals that will work for your own family.