More Fun Frugal Finds!

Ok, so today Cara is at preschool, and I stayed up WAYYYYY too late last night planning out my morning with Micah and our coupons ;). I didn't waste all that time trying to figure out where to go and what to buy, I was mostly reading old blogs, getting ideas on what else I can do, besides saving money on groceries, to help support our family from home. This was an unusual trip planned, because I only want to go to Kroger (and CVS to get free money like last night). I do not want to be going to 10 stores to save a few bucks. However, since I am beginning my stock-piling, I wanted to hit a few good deals that were about to expire, and make some money in return. Plus, if you know where I live, the 3 stores I went to (Kroger, Randalls and Walgreens) are within 5 miles of my house. So, maybe I spent $1 on gas....wait till you see what I saved!! Oh, and no, we try not to drink soft drinks except maybe a few times a week, in our house (especially now that I'm trying to lose weight). But we do have a fridge in the garage that is mostly empty (except the freezer), and we host gatherings quite often with friends and family. I want to be able to offer them drinks besides milk and water (which, if you ask my parents, my in-laws, maybe Sterling or the Whites, this has DEFINITELY been the case on more than one occasion!). So that is why I stocked up on cokes and juice!

Tally:
5 12 packs of Pepsi products
1 4 pack of TP
1 bag of Baked Lays
1 box of Kleenex
2 cans of Lysol Disinecting wipes
2 Windex cleaners
2 mens deoderants
1 womens deoderants
1 Aquafresh toothpast
5 Juicy Juices
1 bag Iams dog food
1 Johnsons buddy bar
1 refill Swiffer dusters (I was totally out and this was FREE)
2 Quaker quick cooking oats
1 clearance 3 pack of huggies wipes (usually $6.59, got for $1.49, and since we use cloth wipes, I'm going to donate these to the pregnancy help center--this was an awesome find, I just happened to walk by the clearance table and they had 3 packs for $2.49--plus I had a $.50 coupon for huggies that I could double!)
Total paid OOP (out of pocket): $51.21 (a little more than I wanted to spend)
Total value of products received: $114.19 - Savings of 55%!!

Plus, on top of saving all this money up front, I have qualified for two rebates. Frito-Lay and Pepsi are having a rebate that you can read about here. That's also why I stocked up on Pepsi (and the entire reason for buying the chips. I had already purchased 2 other bags for recipes, so I only needed one). So, I'll get $15 in more coupons for doing that (and these 2 companies RARELY give out coupons). And PG&E has a rebate going on that you can read about here. I almost didn't participate in this because I didn't want to spend $25 more. However, then I remembered Iams is on the list. And my dogs are always needing to eat. I had already spent $19.99 (minus a $2 coupon) earlier this month on the monthly bag I buy, plus some money on Puffs and Cottonelle. So, I went ahead and bought next months bag, with a coupon, and the swiffer dusters (which were free with the buy $25 in PGE products, get $5 free instantly that's going on at Kroger right now) and now I have enough receipts and UPC codes to get $120 in more coupons! Plus, I really only spent $40 on PGE, because I got 2 $5 off instantly at the register this month. Spend $40 - get $120....sounds like a plan to me. Plus, I don't have to buy dog food next month, so that's an extra $18-20 not coming out of next months grocery bill.

On another note, when I spoke about my goals in an earlier post, I mentioned saving money, but did not get specific. How can you tell you reached a goal if you are not specific? So after reading online, and thinking about it, my goals are these:

1. Get grocery budget down to $150/month by December 2009. Currently it's at $250 a month, sometimes we hit it, sometime we go over. I hope now that I'm using coupons and stockpiling, we won't go over at all this year, and hopefully will go DOWN. Our grocery budget includes all food, dog food, diapers (we cloth diaper, so I only buy a small pack of disposables for church), cosmetics, toiletries (soap, TP, pads, deoderants, etc), etc. Dave Ramsey has all that broken out in his budget (in the Total Money Makeover book), but we have always lumped it together.

2. Earn $500 for the year in different online deals, ebates, bank offers, etc. I am already on my way to earning a $500 visa gift card, which I read about here. This will meet my quota, but in case that doesn't come through, I have other plans to do things to add to our families financial goals.

Ok, we are having friends over tonight, gotta get to cleaning that house before little man wakes up!