CVS Couponing In 2013

Today I received this email from CVS: 

I only did "extreme couponing" for about two months and I saved over $350! I should take this up again. 

2013 12 18 Target Haul!

I LOVE COUPONS! I had a few choice items I needed to purchase at Target yesterday, so I took advantage of the trip and planned a "coupon crazy" purchase. These were the results:

Target is awesome because it allows you to use multiple kinds of coupons per item; Target Coupons, Cartwheel Coupons, and Manufacturer Coupons. This coupon "stacking" strategy is what allowed me to get such a great deal. This is what I did: 

• Two Purina One Beyond 3.5lbs dog food, Regular Price $6.89 each
• Used Two $5.15/1 Manufacturer Coupons
• Used One $1.00/1 Target Coupon
• Paid $2.48
• Four Purina Beggin Strips 6oz, Sale Price $2.50 each
• Used Four $3.00/1 Manufacturer Coupons
• Used One $1/2 Target Coupon
• Used 5% off Cartwheel Offer
• Received $3.74 overage
• Two CHEX Cereals, Sale Price $2.00 each
• No coupons, but paid $4.00 total instead of $6.78 regular price
• One package of Chicken Breasts, Regular price $6.99
• Used $3.00/1 Target coupon on package
• Paid $3.99
• One package of Chicken Drums, Regular Price $3.19
• Used $1.00/1 Target coupon on package
• Paid $2.19
• Two Campbells Condensed Soup, Regular Price $1.27 each
• Sale price of $0.65 each
• Used Cartwheel Offer 5% off each
• Paid $0.61 each
• One Nestle Toll House Baking Chocolate Chips, Sale Price $2.79
• Used one $0.50/1 Manufacturer Coupon
• Used Cartwheel Offer 10% Off
• Paid $2.06
• One Market Pantry Peanut Butter, Sale Price $2.29
• Used Cartwheel Offer 5% off
• Paid $2.17
• One Market Pantry Confectioners Sugar, Sale Price $1.69
• Used Cartwheel Offer 5% off
• Paid $1.60
• One Market Pantry dozen eggs (not seen behind chicken), $1.50 sale price
• Used Cartwheel Offer 5% off
• Paid $1.42
• One package of Oscar Mayer Bacon, Regular Price $5.89
• On Sale for $4.99
• Used $0.50/1 Manufacturer Coupon (found on package) 
• Used Cartwheel Offer 25% Off
• Paid $3.36
• One Market Pantry Half Gallon Milk; Sale Price $2.29
• Used Cartwheel Offer 5% off
• Paid $2.17

All together I paid $24.14 for $59.73 worth of items! Thats a 60% Savings! These kinds of shopping trips just make my day =)

Washing 'Chine

I think I broke our old washing machine the other day...? I had a small blanket and 4 pillowcases in there (not even half full) and halfway through the rinse cycle it started making very loud banging noises. I Googled and YouTubed possible problems and fixes and never came up with anything. Philip tried taking it apart and checking for broken springs or couplings and there wasn't anything wrong with those either.
We ended up at Best Buy on Saturday and picked out this one here. It's a high efficiency washer so it doesn't have that rotator thing in the middle.
So far I love it. It adjusts the water level according to how much stuff is in there, and yesterday I easily fit a fluffy king-size comforter in there without a problem. It also plays a rather melodic tune to let us know it's done washing stuff. Only negative aspect so far: it locks the lid as soon as you hit Start, so I have to make sure to hunt down those socks under the bed before I start a cycle.
Also, off to the side you can kind of see my growing stockpile of laundry detergent. (I'm addicted to buying laundry detergent. Don't ask) The shelves they're sitting on I purchased from Walmart ($13!) out of necessity because their old shelf (seen above the WD) couldn't take the strain any longer.

Closet Clear-Out

I somehow ended up with some extra money this week (never happens) and had a particularly boring day at work. I've been in a shopping mood lately so I headed over to Ross looking for anything which might steer me away from the usual "jeans and a T-shirt" attire. This is what I found:

Not a very impressive photograph, but that's because it wasn't meant to illustrate anything special. Total price was $45 (I shop clearance) and now I have dress slacks, a yellow blouse (I didn't own anything yellow previously), some cute cutoff jeans, summery-looking wedges (its still hot around here) and a gorgeous lace maxi dress that I purchased without even trying on, it was so pretty.

I had previously committed to a rule of "one thing in, two things out" and followed it. The following is a picture of the stuff I dug out of my closet and put into a "For Goodwill" box. For every new item that went in, two old items came out.

What came back out were 3 jeans, 1 white capris, 4 shirts, 2 skirts (one of them NEVER worn), 1 pair of black pumps that I never mastered walking around in (worn ONCE), and 1 pair of black suede mid-thigh boots that I couldn't ever figure out how to wear gracefully. I doubled the amount of the shirts coming out since I have too many. 12 pieces of clothing later.... my closet looks exactly the same. 

Maybe I just need to keep on buying clothes.... ;)

lucky craigslist find

Yesterday I was doing my daily perusing of craigslist furniture. I don't even know why I look for stuff in there so often... maybe it's because it feels like a city-wide garage sale that I don't actually have to walk around in. Towards the end of my 'craigslist time' for the day, I came across an ad for a bookshelf for $40 and opened it up. I didn't expect much since nice bookshelves go for much more than that, but I was pleasantly surprised to find this one! The previous owner had purchased it for $140 two months ago for her son's bedroom, but was disappointed when it was not the "barn red" color she'd expected. This might be a boring story, but it just made my day.

 I was texting with Philip, who apparently had a slow day at work, and advised him to come searching for me in case I didn't show up again. He was nice enough to ask what kind of sandwich I wanted him to bring along after rescuing me, but thankfully neither one of those things was necessary. 

  I received A TON of pretty picture frames as wedding gifts, and my issue so far has been not having any flat surfaces to put them on, so they've been sitting in a drawer for over a month. So yay! I finally get to display them! I took extreme pleasure in filling up this bookshelf, organizing things, and making room for more books on my other one. Another great thing about this story.... we have a visit to Half-Priced Books coming up this afternoon to look for some of Philip's textbooks. Yay!

New Truck!

On July 25th 2013 Philip and I bought our first vehicle together. It's a 2012 Dodge Ram 1500 Crew Cab and other yada yadas, and her name is Claire. We have kind of a rule that vehicles have to be named, and they have to be the opposite gender of it's primary driver. We came to the abrupt decision that we needed a new truck because we realized that it was silly to be making payments on Phil's older truck, Amber, which was a 2004 GMC Sierra and needed a bit of mechanical work done on it. It was painful to buy a truck, I'd never done it before and I'm not really looking forward to the time when I have to pick out my replacement for Steve (the faithful little 04 Toyota Matrix I drive). We spent 3 consecutive evenings at the dealership in town negotiating prices and trade-in stuff, but our salesman was extremely helpful and nice and informative. 

Now that it's all over I'm glad it happened; I had NO IDEA what the vehicle purchasing process was like, but now I know what to expect when the time comes. 

I'm pretty jealous that Philip gets to drive her all the time (except on Fridays which is gas-filling day, and since the gas stations around my office are about $0.20 cheaper, it's always my job to do it) but then again, I spend about 5 minutes trying to park, which can sometimes be embarrassing if there's people watching. So far we've taken her out to two bonfires at the beach and plan to take trips to the RGV (Rio Grande Valley) to see my parents (and empty out my bedroom) and to San Antonio. She's a super comfy ride, so I'm excited for these trips to happen. I'm also very glad that I don't have to take a running jump to get into this truck... see that steppy-thingy on the side? It's one of my favorite things :) My second favorite thing is that it has a power outlet just like my car, so that I can charge my phone without needing a car charger. 

And so this is our Claire. We look forward to driving her until the end of her days... we agreed that we wouldn't trade her in for another vehicle until she could go no more, and since she only has 19,000 miles on her, she should be with us for quite some time with a little tlc.