Shopping last night...

As you all know I've been trying to "penny pinch" around here. We went shopping and for us, it's been a few MONTHS since we've done any kind of major shopping because we've been trying to use up what we have & quite frankly didn't have the money to do a BIG shopping trip. SO LAST NIGHT was the NIGHT... Anyway we've been doing really good about using up what we had in the pantry BUT that means we were REALLY in need of some things.. we were having to get creative with dinner choices.. haha.. I think that's a sign. Anyway.. so being that I've been trying to save us some money.. i went thru the ad's and compared them to wht I had coupons for & then decided the places we should go and made up 4 list. One for Target, one for CVS, one for Riteaid, and one for SHOPRITE... I know it's sounds like a lot of work & running around.. but since we have the HYBRID now we don't mind so much the running around, and since I'm not working, I have the time to do it.. so we can swing it. Anyway, Brian got home kinda late last night so we ended up only going to 3 of the 4 stores, and we did pretty good. We saved $33.00 in Manufacturer's coupons and got 2 $5.00 Target gift cards &4 CVS bonus bucks to use next time. So a total of $47.00 in savings in coupons and BOUGHT nothing unless it was on sale.. NOT TOO BAD! We spent a total of $178.00 at all 3 stores we went last night... which was more than we wanted to spend BUT we also got ALOT of things for that, 60+ items... including some BIG ticket items like 2- 38lb boxes of cat litter, 1-20lb dog food, 3 razors & one blades refill (for me & Brian), 3 Shave gels,3 cottonelle wipe packages,a big 12 roll of paper towels, food shopping: Including 14 boxes of Cereal, 24-16 oz bottles of Ice Tea, 2 bags of Tostito's & salsa, 2-boxes of Granola bars *bonus back with 4 extra's for free, 2 frozen dinners, 2 pizzas, 2 free bottles of soda, amongst other things...We only bought things on sale or if we had a coupon and I was able to get many things on sale with a coupon! YAY! Anyway... we still have to go to Shoprite tonight... and I'm hoping we can keep it within $75.00 (we need a new swiffer-wet jet kit which is $17.99 on sale but I have a $5.00 off coupon so that's a big price item already) Anyway..I'm no where near as crazy as those Extreme Coupon people on TV NOR do I want to be & no where in my house do we have a wall length "stockpile" but I do like buying things when they are on sale..& then I use them up and not buy them again until we need them & only then will I buy them again, & I'll wait for them to go on sale or we have a coupon. I'm trying to be smart about it.. and know I don't need a stockpile of 40 DEODORANTS just because they were a good deal. The reason we got sooooo many cereals is because with Brian's stomach problems, its actually one of the things he regularly eats so we go thru A LOT of cereal... alot of Fiber one, Special K, etc.... so they can be like $4.00 a box if u don't have a coupon, so it made sense to buy them in bulk when they were on sale & also we had coupons! When I was doing this blog post, I counted the boxes from the receipts& I couldn't believe we have 14 boxes. Haha.. Anyway.. after tonights shopping, we shouldn't need to go serious shopping again for months, and week to week, we should only need the basics, milk, bread,etc. Which is good.... next week is when there is better meat sales... so we'll wait to buy our meat until then.... but that's it. Anyway... just wanted to share this with you, to show you how I've been doing it. :)

Oh and by the way.... We found this great program at CVS Pharmacy. We've been using Recyable bags at the stores. At CVS they have this things called GREENBAGTAG. It cost .99 and you put it on your green bag, and each visit have them scan it *there's a barcode on it. & after the 4th visit.. you get a $1.00 bonus buck savings certificate. HOW COOL??? Right?? Love it! :)