CVS Couponing

Extra Bucks are $$ coupons given at CVS with the purchase of certain items every week, and they are used as cash at the register. I had a few that were about to expire this week, so I planned an "extreme couponing" trip to use them up. I also decided to put my extra CVS card/account (which is technically supposed to be my husband's) into play since it had not been used for a long time. I did these transactions in two different CVS stores so as to not clear the shelves (FYI: there was ample amounts of everything in both.)
Here's my couponing magic:

Card 1 (mine):
Received 20% off email coupon from CVS last Thursday

• Two Colgate Total Rinse, 1 L $5.99 sale price (Buy one, get $3 Extra Bucks, limit 2) 
• Used two $2.00/1 Colgate Total Mouthwash (coupons.com)
• One Crest Pro-Health, 1 L $3.99 sale price (Buy one, get $2 Extra Bucks, limit 2)
• Used one $1.00/1 Crest Pro-Health Rinse (coupons.com)
• Used $3.00 off $15.00 Toothpaste, Rinse, Toothbrush CVS coupon
• Two Dove Chocolate Bars 3.3 oz, 2 for $3 sale price (Buy two, get $1 Extra Bucks, limit 1)
• Used one $1.00/2 Dove Chocolate Bars (smartsource.com)
• Three M&M's, $0.77 each, sale price
• Used Buy 2, get 1 Free (smartsource.com)
• Used $1.00 off  $5.00 Candy CVS coupon
• Two St. Ives Apricot Scrub, $4.49 reg price, BOGO 50% off (Buy two, get $3 Extra Bucks, limit 1)
• Used two $1.00/1 St. Ives product from SS 5/18
• Four Revlon Colorstay Shadowlinks Eye Shadows, $3.19 regular price (Revlon Spend $10 get $4 Extra Bucks)
• Used one $2.00 off $10.00 Revlon CVS coupon
• Used four $2.00/1 Revlon Eye Product (coupons.com)

I had $11.00 in Extra Bucks from previous weeks which I used to lower my Out of Pocket expenses. 

My total before coupons was $49 something, almost $50. I used $30-something in coupons, $11 in Extra Bucks, and my out-of-pocket cost was $6.89 and I received $14.00 in Extra Bucks to use later. 

Card 2 (husband's): 

Received $4 off $20 purchase email coupon from CVS last Thursday

• Two Colgate Total Rinse, 1 L $5.99 sale price (Buy one, get $3 Extra Bucks, limit 2) 
• Used two $2.00/1 Colgate Total Mouthwash (coupons.com)
• One Crest Pro-Health, 1 L $3.99 sale price (Buy one, get $2 Extra Bucks, limit 2)
• Used one $1.00/1 Crest Pro-Health Rinse (coupons.com)
• Used $2.00 off $10.00 Toothpaste, Rinse, Toothbrush CVS coupon
• Two Dove Chocolate Bars 3.3 oz, 2 for $3 sale price (Buy two, get $1 Extra Bucks, limit 1)
• Used one $1.00/2 Dove Chocolate Bars (smartsource.com)
• Three M&M's, $0.77 each, sale price
• Used Buy 2, get 1 Free (smartsource.com)
• Two Right Guard Xtreme Deodorants, $4.49 regular price, (Buy one, get one free)
• Used $1.50 off $4.00 deodorant purchase CVS coupon
• One Sunday newspaper $2.00 (I was so excited there were leftovers from the day before! I just couldn't help myself)

This card had not been used in a while, so I had no Extra Bucks to lower my Out of Pocket cost. The total before coupons was around $30. After coupons I paid just over $14 and got back $9 in Extra Bucks to use later. 

I am usually never OK with anything higher than $5 out of pocket, but since I hadn't couponed at CVS for quite some time I don't feel so guilty. I also walked away with a total of $23 Extra Bucks, which is more than the $21 I spent out of pocket, so to me, this is a great deal!

CLICK HERE TO PRINT COUPONS! 

A Girl & Her Dog

Next month our beloved Venom will be 1 year old. Several sources indicate that Labradors are puppies until they turn 2, but our dog looks nothing like the puppy he is. He's a huge, 80-pound rambling tornado of energy and playfulness 24/7 and on most days it's hard to tire him out enough to get a good night's sleep. I usually get woken up by an ice-cold nose pressed lovingly against me at 4am, it's owner desperately needing to drag me outside and run around because he's reached his maximum limit of staying still. I'll be honest... I love my sleep, and I sort of despise those wake-up calls, but he's my dog and I love him anyway. The following is a list of things I have learned over the almost-year of dog ownership, all thanks to my loving giant, Venom.

1. Be friendly to everyone, even if they're scared of you. Eventually, anyone will learn to love you. 
2. Most things can be fixed with a nice, long walk. 
3. Material things are replaceable. 
4. Forgive the bad stuff. It's ok to hit the reset button.
5. Enjoy car rides. 
6. You can do anything for the right prize. 
7. Play as hard as you can for as long as you can.
8. When you are happy, let everyone know.
9. Be grateful for all the little things.
10. Always walk in like you own the place. 
11. Say hello to everyone. Twice. 
12. Love unconditionally.
13. Say yes to dessert. All. The. Time. 
14. If you're bored enough, anything can be a toy. 
15. Eat healthy or face the consequences. 
16. The more you bathe and groom, the more people like you. 
17. Be obedient when it suits you. And when it doesn't, make the most of law-breaking. 
18. If you have something to say, speak up. 
19. Enjoy attention and let people touch you. 
20. Make family your favorite thing about life.

And to honor his almost-birthday, here is a recap of some special moments in the past few months. 

The day we brought him home

The day he got a manicure (in support of breast cancer awareness)

The day I thought it was ok to leave him out of his kennel.

The day he was used as a pillow 

The day winter was over.

The day he discovered the bathtub

The day he discovered the beach

The day he thought he was a lap dog

The day we all needed a nap

The day he wanted to wrestle

The day my mom liked dogs

Venom is truly something else... He has this maniac energy about him that makes ANYONE like him, my parents included. I took him for a visit and he was actually allowed to sleep in the bedroom with me!

I truly wish I said this more often: I love my dog. There are so many things I'm still learning how to deal with, like all the destroyed household items (including a $600 pair of sunglasses and a $200 pair of boots) and the constant hair on everything I own (or will ever own, it seems like) and the fact that no matter how many times I present him with a nice, clean, fresh bowl of water, he insists on drinking out of the toilet. Still, he has taught me enough and has given me so much unconditional love that I'm willing to overlook all those things and let him be his doggiest self. Happy almost-birthday Venom!

Kit Kats Cake

Today is my hubby's birthday and since Mondays are lame and not the greatest for celebrating, we decided to do fun stuff the whole weekend instead. On Sunday we had friends and family over for birthday cake and I finally got to try my hand at the famous Kit Kat Cake which Tabby introduced me to a couple of years ago.

Ingredients: 
1 box of vanilla cake mix
1 box of chocolate cake mix
Chocolate frosting
M&M's
9 Kit Kats (Yes, you read correctly. NINE.)

I decided to make a marbled cake because it turns out there IS such a thing as too much chocolate, but a plain vanilla cake wouldn't go well with the chocolate frosting (personal opinion). Here's how I did it:

1. Prepare bot mixes following the directions on the box. 

2. Using two 9-inch cake pans, scoop alternating layers of chocolate and vanilla mixes; do not swirl. All you need to do is drop about half a cup of batter at a time right in the center, and gravity will take care of the rest. The circles DO NOT have to be perfect, as you can see. 

3. Bake following the instructions on the box. When they are done, chill in the freezer for an hour or two, stacked if possible. 

4. After the cakes have been chilled, it's time to frost it. Pay close attention to the sides, as this icing will be your "glue" for the Kit Kats. 

5. Break off all your Kit Kats before starting. I used the first knife handy, which happened to be a cheese knife. It actually did a good job on chocolate. 

6. Start gluing your Kit Kats all around the cake. I wanted to experiment with a Kit Kat/ M&M mixture on the sides, but burned my fingers pretty badly earlier in the day and decided to stick with the simpler plan. 

7. Add the M&M's! Most people sprinkle them all over the top, but I decided to be difficult/artsy and make a rainbow pattern instead. Since I had pre-sorted the M&M's a day before, this didn't take longer than 10 minutes or so. 

There was sooo much chocolaty stuff going on with this cake, and by the end only this piece remained. Here's to show you how the marbling comes out in the middle. 

This was a pretty fun cake to make, but quite a bit more expensive than your average one. I spent about $25 total because of all the extra chocolate, but everyone loved it and the sugar high was totally worth it. So what do you think?

deny not the gifts

Moroni 10:8
And again, I exhort you, my brethren, that ye deny not the gifts of God, for they are many; and they come from the same God. And there are different ways that these gifts are administered; but it is the same God who worketh all in all; and they are given by the manifestation of the Spirit of God unto men, to profit them. 

Last Tuesday marked the end of our Book of Mormon Institute course and we went over Moroni 10 as our final lesson. Although many wonderful subjects were taught and discussed on this day, there was one subject which I felt the need to share with those in the classroom and which I would like to write about now. Here's my story:

Imagine you are about to take a very long journey to another part of the world which you have never before visited. You have a long time to prepare, so you spend your days packing, learning a new language, learning about the culture, possibly acclimating to that weather, and wondering just what it would be like to leave all you know behind and step into a whole new world. When the time comes to depart, you feel ready and enthusiastic about your new adventure because you have spent a long time preparing and you know you have brought the right things with you. You have learned as much as possible and packed all the necessities for a pleasant stay, and so when you step off that airplane and into this new country, you are ready to tackle anything that comes your way, and more importantly, to find joy in your journey.

Now lets apply this same theory to the grandest of schemes: the Plan of Salvation. Before coming to Earth we all lived as spiritual beings in the presence of God. Although we did not have a body, we had our intelligence, our ability to make decisions, and the opportunity to increase our intelligence. It was then that we learned and developed aptitudes, talents, capacities and abilities of every kind. During this very long Pre-existence, each one of our spirits developed an infinite variety of skills and no two spirits remained alike.

Have you ever wondered why we are all so different from each other? Each person has several things they are good at and several things they are terrible at. The reason for this is because every one of us came to earth endowed with those talents we chose to develop in the Pre-existence. And WHY did we choose to develop those particular talents? Because we were packing for this long journey! Just like in the story above about a traveler preparing to visit a new country, our spirits prepared themselves to come and live in this world. We studied and we learned and we brought with us those things which we thought would be most important to get us through life.

Maybe you were born an exceptionally great musician, or singer, or painter and find great joy in that form of art. Why do you think that is? It is because your spirit decided that if you were going to get through all the earthly woes of life, then you needed to have your art in order to help you cope.
Or maybe you are very good at forgiveness and the wrong things others do don't phase you so much. Why is this? It is because your spirit knew that you had to be good at forgiving in order to face the challenges of life on Earth, so it worked extra hard during the pre-mortal life to develop the gift of forgiving in order for it to be emphasized in this life.

This list can go on eternally because we all have eternally different characteristics, but I want to add one thing: I keep repeating myself about how our talents help us "cope" or "endure" this life... but that's not all. Our talents also help us make this greatest of journeys the most enjoyable it can be. I know that each one of us has been brought down to Earth at exactly the right time and in exactly the right place. The Lord gave us each the intelligence we needed to develop our talents, and he put every one of us in the correct place for those talents to be developed even further. My spirit chose to emphasize certain attributes as tools in order to help me fulfill the purpose of my creation, and I am proud and grateful that I have been allotted that which I have. There is no greatest success than being ourselves, our truest, best selves, in order to answer the call which The Lord has extended.

I have received a strong personal revelation that all of the above is true, and I could not know it any better now than if I were to watch a re-play of the pre-mortal life and the creating of the Plan of Salvation. I know we all developed our gifts long before we came to this stage in the plan, and it is by applying them that we can fulfill the purpose for which we came. I believe in Jesus Christ and in a Heavenly Father who carefully watches over us and cares for me so much that he chose me to be exactly where I need to be. I believe in the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and that no one may go to the Father but through Him and His redeeming sacrifice for mankind. I believe in the great and marvelous beauty of the Plan of Happiness, and I believed that I stood firmly behind it because I, too, wished to live in the presence of Heavenly Father again. I know that this great goal is made achievable by the grace of The Lord, and that through obedience to commandments and righteously keeping covenants we can all live eternally in the Celestial Kingdom.

HitBliss - greatest discovery ever!

We all know I am constantly scouring the internet for nifty apps to help me save or earn money, right? Two days ago I found my absolute favorite app ever! It's called HitBliss and does some amazing things!

 You basically download it to your desktop or smartphone and you earn money by attentively watching ads and commercials. This money can then be used on Amazon to purchase TV shows or rent movies, or to purchase one month of Pandora One.

There is a catch though... these companies need you to actually pay attention to their advertisements, so the app has a pop-up "Are You There?" button which you must press (or click on) within a few seconds to make sure you are paying attention. If you don't press it on time then you don't get credit for watching the ad. On the plus side, it has "trust levels" that allow you to spend more time watching the ads and give you less alert buttons to press the more you move up. (I'm currently at level 6)

It's extremely user-friendly and it only took me about 15 minutes of watching adds to earn the maximum amount of $6.00 before I had to go "spend" it. In the past two days I have purchased 4 Walking Dead episodes, 4 Big Bang Theory episodes, and upgraded to a month of Pandora One and it only took about 30 minutes of attentive watching each day.
I HIGHLY recommend it. If you are interested you can download it here: http://hitbliss.com/ss/2JZ or click on the big, bold HitBliss up in the first paragraph. Since I have referred you, you get $1.00 added to your account automatically. Enjoy the ads, movies, tv shows, and Pandora One!

Where's Florida?

Oh the case of the Mondays... all anyone wants to do is curl up in bed for the rest of the day. 

Today in the office we are having issues with our faxes not going through to the National Marine Fisheries Service office located in Florida. I think all of their phones are down or something because all numbers we have called are dead. After about 15 minutes of muttering and trying to make phone calls Dale just exclaims: 

"I think Florida might have fallen into the ocean!" 

And we just accepted that as a reasonable explanation for uncooperative phone numbers and went on with our day.

My Dollar Story

So last weekend I posted a rather large Target shopping trip and when I got home and dug around in my wallet I realized there was a $1.00 off coupon that I forgot to use! I think I'm taking this couponing thing to the extremes because yesterday I stopped by Target and took my receipt + coupon to customer service and asked to apply it to the purchase.

My local Target gives you up to 3 days to refund your money for a coupon you forgot to use (I learned that yesterday) and so I went and literally exchanged a piece of paper with ink for a $1 bill lol. The customer service lady was very nice about it, but I guess it helped that I used the "sweet, helpless, lost and insecure girl" act on her. Works every time.
ANYWAY, I just thought it was funny how I've become such a penny pincher. {It was MY dollar and I wanted it back!} And what did I do with this elusive $1? I bought as many things as possible! Seriously, I think I might have broken a record here:

• 3 boxes of Kellogg's Mini-Wheats
• Sale price $2.50
• Used Cartwheel 50% off Mini-Wheats
• Used $3 off 3 Kellogg's Cereal printable
• Paid $0.25 each, or $0.75 total
• 2 Dozen eggs
• $0.99 sale price
• Used $0.50 Target Mobile Coupon (text SPRING to 827438)
• Used $0.50 Target Mobile Coupon (text THANKS to 827438)
• Used $0.55 off 2 Dozen printable coupon
• Paid $0.22 each, or $0.43 total

Total Paid: $1.18  I had to dig around at the bottom of my purse for those extra $0.18, but hey... not bad for a month's worth of cereal and eggs. I saved $8.30 (counting sale prices) for a whopping 87.56% decrease! 

Thank you coupons for making me do math. My under-stimulated brain needed it.