shopping but not spending

that's my goal lately....

i've been following money saving mom and her cvs tips for a couple of months now, and it really amazes me how many great deals can be had. i've impressed j a couple of times with some great deals (recently we got 4 2-liter bottles of coke, 1 2-liter bottle of dr. pepper and a 12 pack of coke for $.50...i loves me some coupons when they work like that!), but that is far from the norm for me. i do ok with coupons, but other than that one trip, i haven't really had anything where i've handed anybody $1 and walked away with half the store. baby steps.

today i ran two errands...i got some dog and cat food over at petsmart first. i had coupons, and i was gonna use 'em. i got a 5lb bag of nature's best dog food for clio, and a 3 1/2lb bag of iams digestive for the minouzer. i had $3 off coupons for both bags of pet food, which is why i bought those particular ones. i also had a buy one/get one free coupon for some cat food in a pouch. all told, $6.50 in coupons on what would have cost me $22.66. handed over my $16.16 gladly and skipped on over to cvs.

this month - or is it week? i never remember unless i'm looking at it :/ - if you buy $15 worth of certain dove products, you get $5 back in extra care bucks. i just got a *ton* of dove coupons in the mail, so i went to see what i could get into.

i bought 1 2pack of dove soap (2.50), 2 dove cream oil body washes (3.99 each), one dove cream oil lotion (6.99), and 2 lypsyl lip moisturizers (2.99 each)...i used one $5 off of $15 cvs coupon, one $3 off of $15 worth of beauty purchases coupon from cvs, 2 $2 off dove cream oil body wash coupons, 1 $1.50 off one dove cream oil lotion coupon, and 2 $1 off lypsyl tubes coupons. that took my total down from $23.45 to $8.88. *happy dance*

i also earned $10.98 in ECB's that i can use on a future purchase! (the lypsyl gave me $2.99 each in ECB's too) couple those with the $6 in ECB's that i already had and the $10 cvs gift card that i just got in the mail from redeeming some points on mypoints and i've got $26.98 to spend on toiletries and household stuffs...

i stumbled across this site today, and she has got the niftiest little cvs tracking spreadsheet that you can download to keep track of spending with your cvs card.

also, if you're new to couponing and want some tips on getting started with ecb's or with walgreen's and their rebate program, money saving mom is the place to go! her cvs beginner's tutorial and her walgreen's beginner's tutorial are both wonderful resources.

links and randomness, 2/12/08

i've got a post brewing that i've been laboring over for days...it was time to get out of my head for a bit, and i stumbled across this little beauty:

sooo would have thought that i was a middle-of-the-nighter, but the description is so very me...well, except for the no worries bit, because anyone who knows me knows that i'm just a giant ball of constant worry...i wish i'd copied the full description, but it mentioned things that were very true for me...

other things distracting me from my current bout of introspection-slash-navel gazing:

• i so want to make this soup very soon...
• speaking of awesome foodstuffs, the pioneer woman defies description....go! read! drool!
• i see a pattern here with food...hmmm...but how awesome would it be to be able to make my own pita bread??? now if i can only find that recipe for homemade yogurt as well as the one for that other thing that sounded awesome....
• more from the motherload...i'm about 50/50 on whether i rinse our ground beef or not. i'll probably do it more often now, this was an interesting read.
• and, to keep all this food in, more bento info! i truly covet the lock & lock lunch sets, featured here, but they are infamously impossible to find in the us and even online, really. i found a couple of online stores, but they don't ship to the us. probably i will just bide my time and wait, but as perfect as it looks like it would be for j, there are things about it that wouldn't work...for example, there is the ubiquitous pb&j that wouldn't fit and would need its own container, or mushing...then there's the fact that i would probably send water or some other good for him drink in the hella cool drink container, but i doubt that he'd be into that...so maybe what i'll do instead is seek out some single lock & lock containers and use them in our adapted system...ha! i said system. like there's some sort of system in use here. i crack me up.... :)
• sandy rocks! ran across her the other day on an organizing website, heaven help me if i remember where now...she is a personal virtual assistant, and will remind you of whatever you need reminding. she can manage your calendar, help you in scheduling meetings and appointments with others, keep lists for you, maintain bookmarks and notes...pretty much anything a real assistant would do...within limits, of course....

happy surfing!