Happy New Year!

Prospero ano y felicidad! It is great to be here in the year 2011! I am so excited to see what God has in store for my family and myself!

I went shopping today, and you know I don't leave home without my coupons, so I was out for a deal!

First stop was Randalls, where I bought 5 boxes of fruit snacks for Daizia at 99cents each. After my coupons, I paid $2.95 cash. I got back a $3.50 Catalina coupon to use on my next trip there, for ANYTHING! And I made a valuable discovery! Randalls is doubling coupons, up to $1! When you take my Catalina coupon into consideration, I actually MADE 55 cents profit since I have that much extra to spend on my next visit. THEy paid ME to shop!

Next, we went to Walgreens. There, I bought Electrasol, which was $3.49 this week. I used a $2.50 coupon from the paper (I have another one to use after seeing this deal work so darn well), bringing the total down to 99cents! I got 3 packs of 5 mechanical pencils for 19cents each, and 4 chocolate bars, bringing the total to $4.13. I had to get the chocolate because I had to bring my total over $3.50 because I was using a coupon for that amount. But you already know that I used the coupon in the Walgreens ad to make them 49cents! lol I had a coupon from last week's trip for $3.50 (after buying Chex Mix for the exact same amount), so I paid all of 63cents out of pocket. AND I got a $1.50 coupon for another trip to Walgreens!

Then we made a stop at Target. I hadn't planned on stopping there, so I just got a jog of Simply Lemonade that was on sale for $2. I used a $1 coupon and made the deal work for me.

My last stop was just about an hour ago. I went to CVS. I had printed out buy one get one coupons for Special K cereal and they had it on sale 3 for $10, AND you get a $4 coupon (called Extra Care Bucks here) for another purchase. After the coupons, my total was $6.58 but I used a ECB coupon that I had from last week for $2, bringing my total down to $4.58 for 4 boxes of Special K! And not only did I get my $4 ECB, I got an extra $3.50 for the Fall Spending total from the store clerks using the card that I got on people that didn't want to fill out the paper to get a card.

So do you want to know about my plans for these coupons? I am honestly not sure what to do with the Catalina from Randalls. The coupon for $1.50 for Walgreens I will be using for more Electrasol. You can't beat it being pretty much free after the newspaper coupon, and totally free after the coupon that I got from this last trip. CVS is a little more complicated. They have the 20-32 load liquid Wisk for $5, and when you spend $25 (before coupons) you get $10 in ECB. You know I have worked this out to a T! The newspaper has $2 off any size Wisk coupons this Sunday. I do need to find 3 more things of coupons to make this work, which I can do if I go to the recycling center. When I get these coupons from the paper (already have 2!) my total for 5 bottles of liquid Wisk will be ONLY $15! Take away the $7.50 in ECBs that I got tonight, and it brings my out of pocket total to only $7.50, AND I get $10 to use next time! JACKPOT!!!! That means that they are paying ME to buy their items!

I now have 6 boxes of Oreos, a box of Ritz, 6 boxes of Special K (2 of those w/strawberries), 3 boxes of Rice Krispies, 4 boxes of Crispix, and 5 boxes of Fruit by the Foot in my extra storage. Add that to 11 bottles of shampoo, 7 bottles of lotion, 2-20 packs of Purex washer/fabric softener sheets, 2 bottles of Lysol Air Refresher, 2 boxes of Glad Force Flex garbage bags, 8-8oz cream cheese, 4 bottles of coffee creamer, and plenty of frozen veggies in my stockpile (that I can think of). It may sound a little excessive, but like the Krazy Coupon lady says, if you buy it when you don't need it and the price is very low, you have it when you do need it and the price is high.

I hope that your New Year has started off with a bang, and that being a good thing! Follow your dreams and love yourself!

Love and peace!
Juilia