The Passion Has Died

Its been slow, gradually over time, but yesterday marked the end.

I walked into CVS and used my last $2 in extra care bucks to by household necessities that would give me no more ECBs back in return. Just a straight transaction. $0.88 cereal and two boxes of $0.87 tissues.

Beyond yesterday, I haven't been in a CVS store or a Walgreens in about a month or so. The proof of which is the $3 in ECBs I had to throw away yesterday because they were expired.

When I first started playing the drug store game, I thought it was great fun. I'd bring home my purchases and make Jay guess how much I'd paid for the merchandise in front of him. Sorta like an at home Price Is Right.

You know you have an addiction when you have a room in your house named after your passion. Please meet my CVS closet.



The closet extends about 6 inches on either side of the door frame, so the picture is missing a row of tampons, a row of Mr. Clean wipes below that...etc.

So when the CVS deals started to go south, I justified my lack of shopping. Who wants to pay $0.50 for a tube of toothpaste when you've got at least 10 tubes at home that you got for free?

Then Walgreens discontinued their EasySaver program. I played their "Register Rewards" game for a week before decided that it was just too much effort and typically I still had to spend some money out of pocket.

So now its back to just Krogering for me. I'm still gonna clip coupons (my Kroger doubles coupons $0.50 or less so i get stuff for free there too) and keep and eye on the sale ads.

But for now, I'm in retirement.

Funny thing happened this morning. I finished the bottle of shampoo I have in the shower, restocked with a new one and discovered beyond that I only have one more bottle in the closet. Guess I'm gonna have to keep my eyes peeled for a good deal on shampoo. Even if I have to pay for it.

Brooke vs. the Chicken

Two weeks ago while I was at the store, I saw that Kroger had their chicken leg quarters on sale for $0.59 a pound. Since I normally buy boneless skinless breasts for $1.99 a pound, the bargain price jumped out at me.

Jay and I love buffalo wings, so I got the chicken and used my $0.40 Frank's hot sauce coupon (that doubles at my Kroger) to buy some buffalo sauce. I put the legs in the freezer to deal with at a later date.

Last night Jay was out late showing property to a client, so I had a date with that chicken. Who knew that chicken with the bone in and covered in skin was that gross.

Thankfully I was getting it ready to marinate over night, cook tonight, and not eat until tomorrow night. I would have rather thrown up and gone hungry than eat that chicken last night.

But sure enough I riped the skin off that sucker with all my might. I didn't realize a knife would be handy till I already had my hands in chicken carcass. And the news was on reporting a little kid that just died in our town of E Coli.

I'm paranoid any way, but that news story made me wash my hands 4 times, and spray everything down with anti bacterial cleaner twice. I just hope baked buffalo chicken is worth it.

I may not being a cooking diva, but Jay better realize what a wonderful frugalista wife he has. I should get major wifey points for doing battle with a chicken to save $1.40 a pound. Just don't remind me that some of that weight got thrown out with the skin and will get thrown out with the bones later...

February Grocery Wrap-up

I started the month with a lofty goal – to not spend any money on groceries for the month of February. Since I rarely buy fresh fruits and veggies, and my freezer is stocked full of meat purchased on sale, I thought I’d have a relatively easy time of it

One thing I didn’t consider was lunch. I knew that I had plenty of canned soup and frozen lunches to do me for the month, but I didn’t factor any variety in.

When Kroger put their deli lunch meat on sale for $1 a pack – I decided that I had to break my “no spend” rule. The objective was to save money, and buying it down the road at a more expensive price doesn’t save anything.

After coupons (and adding green peppers and baby carrots to my cart) my first trip to the store totaled $11.20. I put a couple of packs of lunch meat in the fridge and threw the rest in the freezer for future use.

My next trip into the store included buying a pack of diapers for my sister (with coupon of course) and a few other almost free items totaling $13.27. The next trip was $11.73.

Then came the temptation – a $5 off when you purchase $45 or more. These coupons come around every few months and I like to use them to stockpile food. I rarely spend $45 a week on groceries, so I use this as the opportunity to stock my cabinets full with staples.

I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to save $5 on items I would use any way, so I caved under the pressure. Luckily for me, Kroger was having another $10/10 sale. I ended up spending a total of $33.09 (after coupons and beer*).

*Beer doesn’t count toward your $45 total. Its also something not regularly purchased at the house. Instead it’s a “stop dipping aid” that never seems to work. That $8.20 will be added to my “dip money” shopping spree!

My February monthly total came to $69.29. Not quite low enough to make me happy, but I know I got some great deals out of it.

Maybe I should reinstitute the challenge for the month of March. Then again, I have a $6 off a $60 purchase for next week. So maybe not!

For more money saving tips, head on over to Frugal Friday.

Free Quiznos! and weight loss ramblings...

Thanks to Southern Savers for the link.

And a shout out to my LOST message board buddy "Hello" for hooking me up with the link to their blog!

Quiznos is giving away a million subs - go here to get a coupon for yourself! I registered myself, and sent the link to Mr. Right. Since we have a Quiznos 5 minutes from our house - we'll be dining there this evening.

Actually we'll be getting them to go so we can save money by providing our own drinks and sides. Depending on how my caloric day goes, we'll either be having french fries (if I'm good the rest of the day) or I'll be eating popcorn and Mr. Right will be searching the house for some potato chips.

I'm trying to lose weight and am limiting myself to 1500 net calories a day. I get more if I work out. Yesterday was a great example - I burned around 350-400 calories at spin class, so I was able to have an extra biscuit with jelly last night and still stay below my 1500 for the day.

Of course I'm still at 135.6. The exact same weight I was last week.

Before you tell me that 135 isn't all that big, please keep in mind that 80%* of it is being carried below the waist. That's a lot of junk in my trunk!

*Percentage completely made up...although it is a scewed ratio!!

Bullet points & CVSing

A quick list of things I love, before I dive into CVSing!

• Mr. Right willing to save money and drive my Trust Toyota. (Come back tomorrow for a Frugal Friday explanation.)
• Mr. Right allowing me to drive his first love – his Jeep.
• That I’m enough of a woman to drive a manual Wrangler, jacked up on big mud tires, all the while wearing dress slacks and heels.
• LOST!
• Tatiana isn’t going any further on Idol.
• One night of meatloaf mixing (1 lb at a time in my stand mixer) has created 4 very easy meals!
• Mr. Right is making another attempt to quit dipping – he even gave me his credit card today so he couldn’t buy any more! (He’s a CC only guy – doesn’t carry cash.) Hopefully this will be the time that takes.
• I lost 1.5 pounds last week.

Typically I don’t blog about the CVS/Walgreens deals I get because there are plenty of other bloggers out there that do the job much better than me! I check out Money Saving Mom every Monday morning to get her list of deals, and just do the ones that work for me.

For the past couple of months I’ve been disappointed with CVS. I haven’t been able to find as many of the deals posted. I’m not sure if its my new CVS or that I’ve been too busy to stop early in the week before everything is picked over.

This week, I actually had a money-making deal! Thanks to Mercedes, I purchased two Neutrogena facial bar soaps at $2.99 each, and got $10 in Extra Care Bucks! Then I purchased the Colgate Total toothpaste for $2.99 less my $1 coupon and got $2.99 in ECBs! After tax this ended up being a $4.89 money maker!

I haven’t had that kind of success deal shopping at CVS in a long time. Its enough to get me motivated again.

For more Things I Love Thursday, head on over to the Diaper Diaries.

Gotta love those sales!

This weekend is the weekend my family has been waiting for…well at least the women in my family. Twice a year the consignment store in K-ville has their clearance sales. The first week they slash everything to 40% off, then 50%, and the final week of the season everything is 70% off!

That’s right – 70% off consignment store prices!! I typically end up getting tops and pants (brand names) for $2 and $3 each. Sometimes, if I find something I’m really in love with, I’ll splurge and spend $5 on an item.

This isn’t just a sale for us – it’s an event. We carpool and make a day of it. My grandfather went the first year and considered it a “twofer” (a two for one – the first and last time he’ll ever go). Early in our relationship Mr. Right went along with us. He was quite handy to have. He looked for stuff that he would like on me, and he held the stuff that I wanted to try on.

It’s hard to explain, but the entire store is a mad house. Women everywhere, grabbing up clothes, shoes, and handbags that they think they might want. If you’re not quick on the draw (and we’re all standing outside the door 10 minutes before they open) then all the good stuff will be snatch up. You snatch first, sort later.

Then it’s on to the community dressing room. The sale is so big their meager 4 dressing rooms aren’t enough, so they open up their stock room for anyone to go in, and sometimes even it gets full and you have to wait. Nothing like seeing 20 other women in their undies for a boost of confidence.

The community dressing room is also full of honesty. I’ve had complete strangers tell me that a pair of pants is too tight, or that a top just isn’t flattering.

My family usually spends from 10 o’clock to around 2 or 3 that afternoon shopping for deals. Lately, I’ve been the high spender, walking out with around $100 worth of clothing. This is my one area where its difficult to budget. I see all these great things for only a couple dollars and I want to buy them all.

This year, I’m accountable to more than myself (and God) for my spending. Mr. Right and I talked about it last night and I’ve set my budget at $70. I’ve been calculating my “dip money” since we got married. Basically, he wastes $60 a month on smokeless tobacco, and at one point (before we got married) I wasted about the same on fast food.

When he questioned my spending, I told him that was money that I blew, just like he blew too much money on dip. I started tracking my spending (and for weight loss reasons I stopped eating out as much). A friend suggested that I save up the money to buy something really nice. To sort of illustrate a point.

So Repeat Boutique here I come!!!

In other frugal news, I’m very proud of my Kroger deal from last night. I spent $2.05 (including our 8% tax on food in Tennessee and 9.5% on everything else) on the following:



Thanks to Money Saving Mom for the link to the Cottonelle coupons, which doubled for free TP!

I was proud of myself coming up with the Quaker Quakes (mini rice cakes) deal – I noticed when I was at the store earlier in the week they were on sale for $10/10 (or for $1 each) and got very excited when I clipped the $1 off coupon yesterday (I was a little behind in my couponing.

The soup was also on sale and I had a coupon, but it wasn’t a spectacular deal - $0.85 each. Mr. Right really likes the soup though, and I wanted something so that the cashier wouldn’t think I was trying to cheat the system by not paying anything. I know what he’ll be having for dinner tomorrow while I’m out shopping!

For more great frugal fun, check out Frugal Friday over at Biblical Womanhood.

Redbox Code - Today only

Inside Redbox has posted today's free rental code (545D29)

Happy viewing!

Movie Night Monday Review

I'm sure I'm behind for the rest of the bloggy world - but I got my first free Redbox DVD rental last night! Since it was spur of the moment, I didn't consult Mr. Right and just chose Hancock - a movie I had been wanting to see.

Normally Monday night is Chuck and Heroes night at the Right household, so I've never bothered with the free codes. Both of those shows won't be back on till the first of the year, so I thought the rental would be the perfect way to spend the evening!

After work I walked with my mother, then headed to Walgreens (our Redbox location). Since I also had to go to CVS to grab up their two day only Extra Care Buck deals, I told Mr. Right we'd be having leftovers for dinner.

On the way home I decided that pizza and popcorn would be the perfect treat to go with our movie night. (Not to mention the leftovers I was going to serve consisted of chicken slop from last Monday - and my mom assured me chicken didn't stay good that long.)

While I wasn't all that crazy about the movie (I was expecting a superhero-comedy), Pizza/Popcorn/Movie night was a success! We've even decided that in the future when Monday codes are available, we'll tape Chuck and Hereos and watch them the following evening. Although instead of having frozen pizza, it would be more economical to keep the boxed pizza kits on hand.

Amazingly enough, I think Mr. Right and I are actually going to survive this cable fast!

Walgreens - Free 8 X 10

Crystal over gave the heads up about a current photo deal at Walgreens.

All you have to register on their site (if you do online rebates you're already registered), upload a photo, add it to your cart, and during check out enter the coupon code "freegift". Be sure you choose to pick up the photo in store.

I've ordered a wedding picture, and have let all my family know about it just incase they want one as well!

Works for Me Wednesday: Coupons

My Kroger doubles coupons up to $0.50. This isn't a service they advertise, but a friend of mine noticed she was getting "bonus coupons" at the bottom of her receipt and asked about it. I've tried to pay better attention to item prices and coupons (since $0.50 are now worth $1).

Mr. Right and I need toilet paper for the new house. While its not officially my house yet, I still "go" while I'm there and so I put it on my grocery list. I had an ecoupon for charmin as well as a $0.25 coupon, so I wanted to see how that would stack up. Turns out I was better off using a traditional coupon for a cottonelle 4 pack. Charmin would have saved me $0.75 off a couple of dollars. The cottonelle was $0.99. My $0.50 doubled (well almost) to $0.49 and I got the rolls for free (after tax).

I also worked a good ecoupon deal that a friend tipped me off about. I got an esaver coupon for $5 off a fabreeze noticeable started kit, as well as a paper coupon for $5. Kroger allows you to use both coupons, so I got the $6.99 kit free and then the additional $3.01 taken off the remainder of my grocery bill.

Paying attention to coupons and working good deals works for me. Check out Works for Me Wednesday over at Rocks in my Dryer.