Siderailed

I spent an hour last night getting all my coupons organized.  See, with school ending last Saturday, I got derailed in my couponing.  Now, I'm looking at my stockpile, and realize that it's getting low.  Just opened my last deodorant this morning.  So today I am going to sit and search through the coupons I have, finish getting them in my binder and then figure out my Walgreens shopping trip.

There are some great deals I am going to pick up at Walgreens.

Walgreens

2	Glade plugins,scented oil revils or warmer, 4 pk scented oil candles, rexaxing moments spray, sense & spray, candle	$2.50	$5.00	1.00 rr  1.00/2	$3.00
4	Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent	$6.99	$27.96	B1G1 free 2x 1.00/2	$10.00
2	Sunburnt gel	$3.99	$7.98	3.99 mail in rebate	Free
4	clean & Clear morning burst body wash	$5.99	$23.96	b1G1 free
4	gillette fusion proglide razor system	$9.89	$39.56	5.00 rr 4x3.00/1	$7.92
2	Pantene hair care	$3.50	$7.00	1.00 rr 1x 2.00/1	$5.00
1	wal-fex 30 ct	$11.99	$11.99	3.00 rr	$8.99
3	kleenex facial tissue	$0.89	$2.67	wags q	$2.67
2	nature valley granola bars	$2.00	$4.00	1x .75/2	$3.25

So, what I do is go through the ads, marking down what I am getting and how many in the first two columns.  The next is what each will cost.  Then my spreadsheet calculates what the final cost will be in the 4th column.  The 5th is where I put my coupons and information I will need to get the deals.  For the Glade, I am buying 2 at $2.50 each.  That equals $5.00.  Then when I buy two, I will get $1.00 Register Reward (RR) back for use on my next purchase, and I have a coupon that is $1.00 off of two items.  So in the end, the Glade plugins will cost me $3.00.  

You can also see that I have Mail in rebates in my list as well.  These I do have to pay for, but will have a check mailed back to me for the 7.98 I spend today, making them free.  

The Gillette razors will end up costing me 1.98 each, but they will have to be rung up separately, and I can not use the RR from the razor for the next razor, or the RR for the second one will not print up. 

So I will start with the 4 razors as 4 separate transactions.  I will pay 6.98 each out of pocket.  I will receive 5.00 back for each one.  Then, I will use that extra twenty in RR to pay for everything else I have on my list. Some of the RR's can be combined in the same transaction, such as the Wal-fex with one of the razors.  This is because the manufacturer is not the same.  

So to recap, to get your RR's, pay for those first.  Then, use those RR's to pay for the rest of your transactions.  Usually, it's best if you do this at the cosmetics counter.  They don't usually have a line of customers that will get angry with you when you're pulling out all your coupons.  

Have a great day, and let me know if any of this is helping.  Also, let me know if any one tries this, how it works for you, or anything else you want to share.  

Blessings 

Normally I would be couponing today

Normally, I would be spending today cutting the coupons I got on Sunday, or pulling them out of the filing cabinet I have been storing them in for the last two weeks.  Then, after separating each one into it's own separate pile, I staple them together so I can cut all 6 of each coupon out at a time.

Normally I would then look at all those coupons, open my binder and methodically begin pulling out expired coupons and replacing them with the one's I had just cut out.  I won't lie, with thirty some odd categories, I get tired after about an hour and pile the shaving/hair/lotion/pet/first aid/feminine products coupons all into one pile in an envelope and ignore them till I actually need them.

Normally, I would have my excel sheet filled out , waiting to find out which coupons I will be using, so that after dinner, I can sit down and pull them out to be ready for my shopping trip tomorrow.

However, today is not a normal day.  I am actually writing to you all, finished an online test for work, and am now going to be finishing the fifteen page paper that is due in my Lit class Saturday.  With all luck, I'll get that done today so I can get back to my couponing tomorrow :)

I forgot to get my coupons!

Sunday came and went, and I never left my house.  It was early this morning that I remembered...I didn't make my weekly trip to the Dollar Tree to pick up my papers.  That means I missed out on my coupons this week.  What am I going to do?

Thankfully, I can still go online and print out the coupons I am missing from Smartsource.com and Redplum.com.  Now, I'm not going to be able to get the exact coupons that were in the paper, and that kinda sucks, but I will be able to still use these coupons, so the mistake isn't that debilitating.  :)

I also didn't go shopping on Saturday, but when I looked at the paper, I just wasn't as excited about the things that were on sale this week as usual.  One nice thing about having a stockpile, small as mine is, is that I can go a week without shopping, and we don't run out of anything.  

PNS is back to their usual coupon policy, so I'm going to have to be a little more crafty about which coupons I will be doubling when I shop on Wednesday.  

This week, I noticed that if you buy 5 boxes of Post cereal at 2.00 per box, then I'll get a 5.00 coupon good on my next transaction.  Which is like getting 5 boxes for 1.00 each.  Now, if I have any coupons for Post (which is rare) then the price of each box will go down even more.  So I'm definitely getting some more cereal Wednesday.  

I also see that canned goods are on sale this week.  Many are at the 10 for $10.00.  Bring coupons, and when they double, they'll be almost free.  And, just because the sale says 10/$10.00, that doesn't mean you have to purchase all ten, unless the sale specifically states that you must.  You'll usually see that on cereal offers.  

One of the great things about coupons, is that I can buy name brand cheaper than the store brand on the majority of items I am getting for my family.