Restaurant Savings

Only 4 more days left to the 30 day challenge.  I inadvertently left out the clearance finds that I mentioned in the title of my last post.  We were able to find Disney twin sheet sets for half price in the large clearance our local Walmart is currently holding.  This was a savings of $11 and we bought a set for each of our girls bringing the savings to $22. 

Clearance Savings:  $22.00

Since my last post I have also bought certificates at Restaurant.com.  This is a great sight for saving money on restaurants and one I have used many times over the  years.  You can frequently find savings of 80% off a gift certificate to a local restaurant on this site.  This was the sale the day that I purchased.  This meant that I bought $80 of dining for $6.40!  Additionally, they wee offering a choice of three coupons with purchase and I chose a $10 certificate for shutterfly, an online picture site.   

Restaurant Savings:  $73.60 + Shutterfly coupon for $10

Total Savings:  $525.37 

Clearance, Coupon Codes and tag sales

I have been busy with more savings.  The amount of ways to save amazes me!  

On Saturday the girls and I stopped at some tag sales on the way home from the Kids Fair.  The girls LOVE tag sales because they can find items that they can buy with the loose change they have for funds.  They bought a Barbie bed, a play horse, a bubble gum machine (still in the box) and a change purse, for a grand total of $1.75.  The most exciting find of the day was a fairy costume for $2.  It had $39 marked on the package. Alyssa had asked to be a fairy for Halloween this year.  Though the costume itself wouldn't fit her the wings would work and the price couldn't be beat.  It wasn't new so how does this figure into our savings totals?  I am stumped about used items and time trades for items or services.  They save money for sure but I haven't figured out how to calculate used items for the purpose of this challenge. 

Savings:  Toys and Costume Parts = ?

Last night I was able to order winter boots for my oldest daughter.  As I haven't been able to get the kids to stop growing winter outdoor clothing is a big cost item every year, winter outdoor clothing. We have a clothing give away weekly at Community Bible Chapel in Brattleboro which has been a great help to us over the years.  All the clothing there is free and in good condition.  Unfortunately, as the kids get older it is harder to find clothing for them this way.   Our oldest daughter passes clothes down which helps with our younger daughter but we don't have a hand me down source for her.  JC Penney has free shipping on shoes purchased online through December (no coupon code needed).  They currently have two coupon codes available for $10 off the purchase of $10 online.  The codes are GO4TEN and LIZ4YOU.  One code can be used per order.  If you shop through Ebates you can get 3% of your purchase back.  Just type JC Penney in the search after joining the site and click on the link.  The boots we bought were originally $50.00.  They were on sale for $34.99.  The $10 off coupon code made them $24.99. with no shipping charge due to the free shipping special.   

Savings:  Boots = $25.01 + Ebates = $.75   =  $25.76

I did our grocery shopping for this week.  I have been stocking up so didn't do much but veggies and milk.  I bought things on sale as I didn't have coupons for these items.  

Grocery Savings $17.02

My husband bought gas using the discount from our Fuel Advantage savings from grocery shopping the last few weeks as well.

Gas Savings:  $4.00

Savings From This Post:  $46.78

Total Savings:  $429.77

$1 Laundry Detergent at CVS

 A lot of people are reporting getting a $2/2 Xtra detergent store coupon at the coupon scanner at CVS. It is on sale 2/$4 this week so you will pay just $1 a bottle!   It is worth giving it a try and scanning your card!
(Thanks Couponing To Disney  and  Money Saving Madness )

$45.07 Saved At Walgreens

I went to Walgreens this morning to pick up on the freebies and good deals.  I spent $14.42 and saved $45.07.  There are great matchups to be found on www.couponingtodisney.com  This takes a lot of work out of figuring out what coupons can be stacked.  However, there are often regional differences in price, coupons or flyers so don't forget to take a look through the store flyer and your coupons as well.  

When taking advantage of sales or free items it is always best to get as many as possible.  I have been doing this and am stockpiling a lot of items, particularly personal care items such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste, razors and deodorant. This means that I am actually ending up with more items than my family can use.  We have a small home as well and can't afford to store a lot of  extras.  I know that many coupon users find great joy in donating the free items the accumulate to area shelters, food shelves or other community organizations.  Additionally, once you initially stock up you could keep an inventory of your items and only pick up things as you get low.  Whatever you may choose there are a tremendous amount of free, or almost free, items out there that can save a lot of money with some planning ahead.

Today's Savings:  $45.07

Total Savings:  $382.99

GPS

Here we are on day 11 of the 30 day challenge, almost half way there.  My husband got lost yesterday on the way to a call to bid a job and lost a lot of valuable work time.  He called and said that he feels the time has come to get a GPS.  Yikes!  I began researching online.  It was a big overwhelming at first looking at coupon codes, the rewards coupons we had from Staples, sales and auctions.  There were certain features that he wanted to be sure to have as well of course.  In the end we found a great deal at TigerDirect.com.  We found a refurbished model that had a 3 month warranty from the manufacturing company and a reasonably priced 1 year warranty as well so we could feel safe with refurbished. 

Todays Savings:  $70

Total Savings:  $337.92

We are on our way to a FREE kids fair today as well.  They have children's entertainers, inflatables, activities, puppets and a barbecue all FREE.   We love free family fun!!

Free Jewelry

I got another great gift at a great price today!  I don't want to give too many details and give away the gift to someone who may be reading but I love the format of this site.  There are four items offered free all of the time and they are up for just a few minutes.  You can order as many as you like and just pay shipping.  I'm so excited that I found this site! Click here to check it out.

Today's Savings $49.99

Total Savings: $267.92

Free Gifts

There are many free items available on Vistaprint.  I have ordered from this company from years.  I originally used them for their free business cards.  The quality has always been excellent and their orders have arrived promptly.  Some of the most meaningful gifts are personalized.  Before this challenge started I placed an order with Vistaprint for a number of personalized gifts which included:  picture calendars, photo books, tote bags, stamps, post it notes, journals and more.  My daughters had a wonderful time designing caricatures of our family for a special gift for dad for Christmas.  Our parents will be getting books with pictures of family and grandchildren.  The shipping on my large order was much less than it would have cost just for the ink to print these kind of items and many of the items were not things I could do at  home on my computer.  If you are looking for inexpensive, high quality gifts it is hard to beat VistaPrint.

Free Book/Swagbucks

Last night my oldest daughter was doing her 15 minutes of reading, for part of her homework, when I heard a loud, "MOM"  come from  her room.  I went to see her and she was quite concerned and wanted me to read the end of her book because, "they forgot to put the end in the book."  I will admit that I didn't really believe her but I sat down and read aloud the last page or so from the book.  Sure enough, the story was not done.  This was a Nancy Drew mystery and to get to the end of the book and not have the mystery solved was not a nice surprise.  Looking at the front of the book it was instantly obvious that this was the first book in a trilogy.  Uh Oh!  In my Nancy Drew days there were no trilogies.  This book had been obtained for free using the gift certificate my daughter earned for participating in our library's summer reading program.  Now we needed to find two more books in order to finish the mystery.  A quick search of the online catalog at the library showed that they did not have the books.  I did a good bit of comparison shopping, including checking couponmountain.com  for discount codes, but was not having much luck finding the book at a lower price than the $5.99 it sells for at the book store once shipping was added.  In the end the best deal was to use the $5 gift card I had in my Amazon account from Swagbucks. Below is a more detailed explanation of Swagbucks. I wasn't sure if this card would apply to shipping but it did.  I was able to find a used copy of the book for 43 cents plus shipping for a total of $4.42.  The gift card was $5 making the book FREE!

Today's Savings:  $4.42

Total Savings:  $217.93

Swagbucks 

I just joined last month and have already earned one $5 Amazon gift card and am close to earning my second.  It is easy to earn the swagbucks and it amazes me how they really do add up.  Swagbucks are basically points you get added to your account when  you do the normal websearches you do every day or choose to do some of the other activities available to earn points.  I don't personally do much but the searches.  The program is completely free.  Once you reach a certain number of points you can trade them in for various items, such as Amazon gift cards.  Now that I have seen the result of having that "free" money help my family I am a believer and will be a member for a long time to come.  You can check it out here.

Savings on Fuel

Today's post is all about fuel.  Fuel for the vehicle and fuel for heat.  

Gas for the car is an ongoing expense.  Thankfully our grocery store, Price Chopper, has a program where we earn gas discounts when we buy groceries.  In a nutshell we are able to earn 10 cents off per gallon of gas for every $50 spent in the store.  The details of the program can be seen here.  We use the discount to fill the van as it is good for up to 20 gallons per purchase.  My car gas tank is only 10 gallons and it is difficult to remember to keep the gas cans in the trunk for the extra 10 gallons at a discounted rate.  My husband filled his van this week with an 80 cent per gallon discount.  

Total Savings:  $16.00 

Shell has a gas card that gives you 5% back on your gas purchases.  Exxon has a card with rebates as well.  I am sure that there are others out there as well. 

For those of us in the colder regions of the US  winter heat is a big expense.  Thankfully, the state of Vermont has a fuel assistance program for those who are income eligible.  Your state may have one too.  It is worth checking into as this can be a very hefty expense.  I do not have details on the amount of assistance/savings at this point. 

 Today's Savings:  $16.00

Total Savings:  $213.51

Shopping Day 2

I visited 3 stores that I will outline in this post.  

I stopped at Walgreens yesterday.  They were having the Dayquil/Nyquil sale that I posted about a few days ago.  Last time they had this sale I went on Tuesday and they were all out so I wanted to be sure to get there in time this time around.  I also bought some Aussie shampoo that was on sale and for which I had a coupon.  

Walgreens:

Spent $16.17

Saved $ 19.26

Register Rewards (to be used on any item on another trip) $6.00 

This morning I stopped first at Walmart.  They have their entire garden section full of clearance items right now.  I did not have a lot of available cash so I limited myself to a 25 cent folder and a $2 bottle of Listerene.  However, there are all kinds of potential Christmas gifts, cleaning supplies, picture frames and numerous other items on clearance at this time.  There were two purchases I made at Walmart that were not on sale and I did not have a coupon for.  However, all was not lost as my coupons were money makers.  (This means that I had coupons that exceeded the amount of the items purchased giving me some money towards another purchase.)

I got the following items free (or as money makers) using coupons:

3 travel first aid kits

2 dental floss

2 12 packs of Schick disposable razors

1 Post it super sticky pad

Clearance Items:

Portfolio Folder 25 cents

Listerene $2.00

Items with defrayed cost from coupon money makers:

Kodak Black Ink 

Night Light Bulbs

Walmart:

Total Paid:  $13.98

Total Saved not including clearance items:  $23.98

Estimated Clearance Savings (not detailed on receipt):  $3.25

Total Walmart Savings:  $27.23

My last stop was at Price Chopper for groceries.  

Price Chopper:

Total Savings:  $66.71


Today's Savings:  $113.20
Total Savings:  $197.51

Price Chopper Coupons

For those of you who shop at Price Chopper there are some great coupons on facebook this week.  First you have to Like Price Chopper, click here to become a fan.  Next click on the coupon tab.  They have PC Bag Salads for $1, Salad Dressing for 50 cents and even $5 off a $15 Meat Purchase! 

40 Free Pictures

After going to the fair, and the first day of school, and other various events in the last month I have pictures to develop.  I often use Walgreens and they do currently have a 10 cent per print sale going on but I decided to see if I could find a better deal.  There are many to be found!  I used Clark Color Labs today.  They are offering 40 free prints to new customers, http://www.clarkcolor.com/clark/home/  Each print beyond that is only 8 cents.  Their shipping was reasonable as well.  The end result was that I ordered 56 prints and paid $5.21.   

Savings:  $3.20
Total Savings:  $84.31 

Fair Day

Yesterday was our annual trip to the Franklin County Fair, http://www.fcas.com/.  We had a great time.  Fairs are not a good environment for saving money or for spending less than retail price but they are a lot of fun.   We make an annual event of going to the fair with my parents and my sister and her family.  Generous parents certainly help a lot with keeping the costs down!  

There are still a couple of things that can be done to avoid retail costs.  

Food:  We brought CapriSun pouches and snacks in with us.  We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the way to the fair so we wouldn't be hungry when we got there.  

Tickets:  Tickets were purchased in advance which saved $3 per ticket.  An adult ticket was purchased for our 10 year old daughter since the $3 discount was less expensive than buying a child's ticket and childrens' tickets were not available for pre-buy.  

Rides:  We didn't want to spring for ride wrist bands for the midway.  Had we done so there was a $3 off coupon available on the fair website.  We did buy tickets in bulk, which made them 25 cents less per ticket and saved us $5 off full retail cost.  I haven't yet figured out the best way to track the costs saved when money gifts or trades, such as yesterday's tires, are involved. 

uh oh......new tires

We recently had to purchase a new van for my husband's business.  We were able to get a used one on Craig's List.  Unfortunately, after we got it home we realized that the tires were not rated for the weight carried in the work van.  This was a dangerous situation that we had to address immediately.  When we called tire stores we were given a quote of about $1,000 to get the proper tires for the van.  Yikes!  We began our hunt for less than full retail price tires.  Though we found discounts and rebates on a number of tires online we were unable to find the correct match that would save us money.  We called our mechanic who sometimes has used tires but the tire man had just been there to pick them all up the day before.  We began looking at salvage yards and turned up nothing.  Finally, we spoke with a family member who had a van for his business.  He had some old tires that were a bit too narrow for our van but just may work.  A call to the tire business assured us that they would work and would be much better than having the current tires remain on the van.  My husband was able to work out an exchange of computer work for three tires.  (Did I mention how multi-talented my husband is?)  The tire company was able to find a tire that closely matched the tread of the other three tires and the total out of pocket expense was $200. 

Day 2 Shopping Day

Day 2 of the challenge and the first shopping day in the 30 day challenge. Wednesday is also family night in the Harvey house.  We take turns choosing our activities and tonight is Alyssa's turn.  She wants to play games and wants spaghetti and baguette bread for supper.  Uh oh, baguette bread could be a challenge to find at less than retail cost.  I did internet searches and have found, what appears to be, a fairly doable recipe for baguette bread.  I am heading off to shopping day still hoping for a miracle baguette purchase.

First, I went to Walgreens to get free floss.  Crest Glide floss is $3.99.  Use $1 off 1 from the 8/29 P&G flyer and $2 off from the Walgreens September book (available at the front of the store) making this FREE.  While I was there I took a minute to check the clearance section and found Children's Grape Walgreens Brand Acetaminophen for $1.32 a bottle!  I bought three of them.  They also had Tylenol Cold Multi-Symptom for $1.87.  I was excited to see that some of the boxes had $2.00 save now peelies on them.  Unfortunately, they expired in April.  I still bought a box for $1.87.  We are refilling our depleted medication supplies from being sick!

Purchased:
1 Crest Glide Floss
3 Children's Acetaminophen
1 Tylenol Cold

Total spent (including tax):  $7.06
Total saved: $20.53

Next I was off to Price Chopper, and the baguette bread search.  I had lined up my sales/coupons at home.  Thankfully, we were not in need of fruit, veggies or milk so that would make my first shopping trip a bit easier.  I first looked in the bakery section.  I located the day old rack but there was no baguette bread despite my best attempts to make it appear before my eyes.  I checked a bread sale rack in the front of the store, no baguette bread.  I resigned myself to attempting to make the bread and got to the other shopping.  All went well with the list I had for savings.  I encountered a dilemma in the baking supply aisle.  I needed sugar and had a coupon for Domino sugar.  However, it was less expensive to buy the store brand sugar than use the coupon.  While the challenge is not to buy anything at retail cost the reason is to save money.  In the end I decided that using money wisely was the best choice.  The same scenario played out with the flour and I chose to buy the store brand rather than the higher priced King Arther flour for which I had a coupon.  This will be the standard during the challenge.  If I have a coupon to save but the store brand is less than the savings I can attain  using the coupon I will choose the less expensive option.  Shopping done, dilemmas solved and heading to check out it occurred to me that I should check the freezer section for baguette bread.  I headed there and found a coupon machine in the aisle.  It allowed me to get frozen garlic bread sticks.  I am not sure if this will be acceptable to Alyssa but I am guessing that it may be as she loves bread sticks.  If not, I'll be back to baking.  Either way I bought nothing at full retail cost on this trip and it is therefore a victory!  I have also accumulated 80 cents off per gallon in fuel savings.  (I'll explain this program another day.)  Below are the results of the shopping trip, sales, advantage card and coupons.

Total Paid:  $61.13
Total Saved:  $58.58


Total Savings Today:  $79.11
Total Challenge Savings:  $81.11

     

Sickness obstacle

It is day 1 of the 30 day challenge and we have encountered the first obstacle.  We have been fighting a cold  and three of the four of us have had it so far.  Though I had medication on hand when this whole thing started it wasn't enough to completely cover three of us over multiple days.  We love the Vicks Humidifier in our home and have found the cough/vapor medication to be really helpful.   We ran out of the liquid medication for the humidifier two days ago and last night used the last medicated pad for the small vaporizer.  Yikes!!  Thankfully I have been clipping coupons for a while now.  I pulled them out and found 2 P & G coupons for $1 off 1 Vicks product.  I sent them with my husband this morning and he is planning to purchase the medication on his way home from work.  This will be our first savings in the 30 days.   The best scenario is to plan ahead so that you can stack coupons for the best possible savings and have on hand what is needed with sickness strikes.  I have listed an example below under planning ahead.

Day 1 savings:  $2.00

Planning ahead:  $1.00 Dayquil/Nyquil

 I read in a coupon forum that 9/12 - 9/18 Walgreens is gong to have Dayquil and Nyquil  2 for $10.  They are also offering $5 in register rewards when you buy 2.  In the P&G insert last Sunday there were coupons for $1.50 off 1 Dayquil and $1.50 off 1 Nyquil.  This comes down to:  Buy 2 Pay $7  get $5 register rewards, making them $1 each. Register rewards are a reward offered on certain products at Walgreens.  They print at the end of your transaction and can be used on a purchase like cash on another visit.

Let The Challenge Begin

As with many in our current economy I have attempted to cut costs in many ways in an effort to stretch our family funds.  It seems that the more I look the more ways there are to save which led me to ask myself, "Could I refuse to buy anything at full retail price for an entire month?"  

I mentioned this to a friend who encouraged me to share the experience by blogging.  Blogging could prove to be its own challenge as I have not done so before.  

The second person I decided to ask about this challenge was my husband.  His lack of real response leads me to believe that he is not fully on board with this idea and is most likely questioning my sanity.  However, not to be deterred I am embarking today on the full price challenge, at least the purchases that are within my control.   The challenge is to buy nothing at full retail price over the course of the next month.  It should prove interesting.  I look forward to recording the adventure.