I hope that you all had a spectacular weekend! Ours was a bit chilly and we have more snow to look forward to this week. The girls are playing quietly right now, so I thought it would be a good time to do a post on the trip that I had to the Harris Teeter yesterday.
I did this one completely right from the start. I made sure that my coupon book was up to date and organized. I sat down with the list of both advertised specials and unadvertised E-VIC ones. I wrote a list (something I have been slacking greatly on lately) stating the product I would buy, the advertised price, the coupon that matched and if there were any restrictions on the coupon (i.e., must buy 2 products to use coupon). For example, I wrote "Gain Laundry Detergent, 50 oz. - $2.99 (-$1.00 coup)." This helps me when I'm in the store and my memory is shot and I'm fumbling with the printed ad, my coupons, and the products in question. The final preparation item that I succeeded at was to leave Katelyn at home and only take Abigail and her backpack carrier with me! :)
When we arrived at the store, I knew there were LOTS of good deals to be had, but I had to have a little talk with myself before going in...something along the lines of "I know that Betty Crocker Warm Delights are on sale and that there's a coupon, but they're not FREE, so get your willpower together because you're going to have to walk right past them if you don't want to be wasting money!" I think I did rather well in the end because I didn't let my focus stray very much from what was on the paper that I had brought with me. Aisle by aisle I scooped on deals (I got 10 Dannon yogurts for $3 after sale + coupon, 2 bags of discounted apples (one for $1.72 and the other for $1.68), 12 double rolls of Angel Soft toilet tissue for $3.99, 3 boxes of Green Giant frozen veggies for $1.80, an 18oz container of Jif peanut butter and a 12.75oz jar of Smuckers sugar free jelly for $2.98, 2 cans of Campbells Chunky soups for $1.20, 10.3 oz of Folgers coffee for $1.99, and 11 oz of Millstone coffee for $1.99, just to name a few). I had figured in my head approximately what the bill would be as I went along, so I was surprised to see that my calculations were almost $10 off when I got to the register. I paid, but before I walked out of the store, I read my receipt. Halfway down the paper, I found the glaring error...the Millstone coffee that I had purchased was an E-VIC special for $3.99, limit 1. I had purchased 1 and had combined their sale with a $2.00 off coupon that I had BUT the cashier had rang my bag up TWICE, causing an extra $8.95 + tax to be added to my bill. I was able to get the money back by going to the Customer Service counter and walked away feeling happy that I had done such a great job shopping and paying attention to what I had bought. Total OOP for the trip (after the refund) was $32.30 and total savings were $45.44.
I have another exciting piece of news to share from this week...my oldest daughter started her first savings account at our credit union. She has been asking to go to Disney World for some time now, and we used most of our meager savings for it while Scott was laid off. So, last week, I rolled all of our spare change and put it with all the cash that she had in her piggy bank and then took her to the bank and the grand total of her first deposit was $118.50! From now on, all of our spare change goes to her bank account, along with any other funds that we can filter away from our general account (like the $9.13 refund that I got from HT). I hope that she's learning important lessons about saving and money (and my tentative goal is to be able to take her to Disney World by next spring). She's already a great couponer, so if I can turn her into a saver too, then my work will be complete.
I hope that you all have a wonderful week and if we get snow, I'll post pictures!
All my love,
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