Target Steals......I mean Deals

I'm heading to a great deal today. I printed my coupons for Aquafresh Kids' Toothpaste. It's on sale at Target for $1.62 a tube. I printed $1 off manufacturer's coupons and Target has a store coupon for 50 cents off. That makes the tubes 12 cents.... Hmmmm. I think I'll get 4. (Hahhahaa...we have 2 computers and I was able to print 2 sets of coupons from each computer, thus the magic number of 4).


I did the same deal with Cottonelle Toilet Paper at http://www.coupons.com/. They have a manufacturer's coupon for 50 cents off a 4 pack, and at http://www.target.com/ (under coupons), I was able to print $1.50 off coupons. The beauty of this possibility is that the Target coupon doesn't have any size restrictions....so. I don't know what the going rate for 4 packs of toilet paper are, but I'm hoping that they aren't too much over $2 a package. If they are...wowzers!! I'm going to start getting a little more irritated when I see how much gets wasted in the kids' bathrooms for everything except for what it was intended for. I know--TMI. But that's what happens when you don't really have to "pay" regular price for things from your living wages...you don't freak out over the wastefulness as you would if you'd just worked an hour of hard labor for the money that would have paid for what the 5 yr-old just flushed down the toilet to see if it would actually go!! (Thrift and budgeting is in the works for a lesson to said child....but we are also trying to encourage curiosity and interest...just haven't introduced cost factors to her yet).



Other things on the Target shopping list: Huggies' Baby Wipes. I printed coupons that save $2 on a container of 64ct or more. WOW!!! Now that's what I call a deal. I would buy a year supply (or 10 years) if I had 100 computers. That's a stellar deal. By the way--5 yr-old has been out of diapers for 2 years now. But I got hooked on baby wipes almost 13 years ago with the first child-and now they are a must for everything from road trips, preschool, sticky hands, etc. Life will never be the same again in our household because we love baby wipes. Just sayin'....


I e-mailed my sister-in-laws the fabulous Huggies deal going on at Fred Meyer this week. Haven't heard back if it was profitable for any of them...but here's the scoop. You need to hit all the websites and print the SWEET Huggies coupons and then take them to Freddies' to clean house on this deal because they have a Catalina deal going on in conjunction with the Huggie's sale price. Buy 2 Huggies Jumbo pack diapers for $7.99 each with in-ad coupon. (This includes Little Movers, Little Swaddlers, and Snug & Dry). Use 2 of your printed coupons from any of the coupon websites. You will end up paying $9.98--then receive a $3 Catalina coupon...making the final price for each package $3.49. You could do a second transaction (and third, and fourth, etc.) and use the $3 Catalina coupon with other coupons, making each transaction $.96--plus you keep generating a new $3 Catalina coupon from each new transaction. For all of you in diapers still--great deal!!


The best diaper websites to print free coupons from: http://www.coupons.com/, http://www.smartsource.com/, http://www.bricks.coupons.com/, and http://www.target.com/. There are more--you'll just have to find them. It probably wouldn't hurt to google "Huggies coupons" and see which sites you can print for free from.

Follow-up: Home from the stores. I got everything in the picture for $9.24 (the bulk of that being my contribution to the Governor's slush fund). If I had been in my "left" mind instead of my "right" mind--it would have cost $37.42 before tax. I saved around 80% off of that original price with coupons I printed for free from home. Now if I can do it--anyone can, if they have a computer and a printer ;)

Schweet Deals again...

Got another little fix tonight. I know the receipt is a little caddy-whompus on the total, but it says $13.76. That's what I paid for my haul tonight...except, note: $8 worth of OYNO coupons. So technically--I paid $5.76 for the goods on the table. That would be 5 boxes of Fudge-covered Oreos, 5 gallons of milk, 3 boxes Capri sun (another story...), 4 bottles of Scrubbing Bubbles Extend-a-Clean, and 4 bottles Scrubbing Bubbles Extend-a-Clean Refills. Well, you're probably thinking that's an odd combination of goods. And, yes, I agree with you. But I had to go to the store because we were almost out of milk. I usually get 3-4 gallons at a time. I generally pay $2 a gallon. But everything on the table except the milk was bonus (ie...FREE) because I contrived the deals to my advantage to basically get the milk for the aforementioned totals. But the irony of the deal--it would have totaled $98 without coupons. It was a no-brainer...it's better to buy the surplus goods--even if you've never heard of them before (like me and these cleaning products...)

So--I would never buy a bottle of cleaner, no matter how golden it promised to be, for $8.99 a bottle. But it was on sale for $6.99 a bottle. (I know--whoo-hoo...NOT). But there were $5 off coupons for each bottle. And another coupon that said "Free Scrubbing Bubbles Refill with purchase of Extend-a-Cleaner Spray"--AND, for every 2 sprayer products purchased, you got a $3 Catalina coupon OYNO and for every 2 refills, you got a $1 Catalina OYNO. So--with the sprayer product at $6.99 each and the refills on sale for $3.50--it was still a moneymaker at negative $4.02. **Remember--I still needed milk so I used my Oreo/milk combo coupons that saved $1.50 on each gallon of milk. All in all, it was a fabulous night at Safeway.

I made a quick trip to Albertsons' to use my double coupons. I needed NOTHING, but I had Capri Sun coupons for a $1 and they were on sale for $2. The doublers made them free...so it was worth the pit stop. But was even more impressive than my great deal was seeing flocks of serious couponers (with filing/organizing systems in their carts) taking advantage of the double coupon and Catalina deals. WOW.... It made me realize that I'm not the only one that sees a great deal for what it's worth! The stores love us. You've got to remember that coupon-users bring more money into the stores' profits than the average shopper without coupons. I had to stop and talk to a lady tonight because I knew what she was up to and I wanted to see her system. Everybody goes about it in a different way, but the results are the same--YOU control what you spend rather than the stores controlling you. And what a way to stock up--LOVE it!! It changes the way you shop--and I laughed when I told her that 50cents for a box of cereal IS NOT a good deal anymore!! There was a guy in there buying 6 boxes of Kelloggs' for 50cents...as in 50 cents for all 6 boxes. So make a plan. What do you want to accomplish with your weekly shopping trips? Learn a few techniques and put them to work. And the most important thought for shopping with a plan--It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.

Procter and Gamble Update...

I went to Safeway today to cash in on my stellar toilet paper deal. It turns out that the ad says the Charmin 12 double-roll pack is $7.99--but it actually rings up at $5.99. I did a little happy dance at the register because I had been planning on getting 3 packages per transaction, but I ended getting 4 packages per transaction. I didn't have coupons (lack of judgment on my part last Wednesday)--but I did get 4 jumbo packs, a large bottle of Dawn dish soap and a large package of candy for exactly $20 after I gave them the $10 OYNO coupon. Another coupon generated after the transaction and so I will plan my course of action tomorrow to swoop by another store and claim my $60 of TP for $20. I might even go through my cluster of coupons and find the Charmin coupons to seal the tax deal. And as always, Mondays are like Christmas Eve...wondering what the new sales are going to look like in the flyers tomorrow. Anticipation kills me. But at least with this kind of shopping, I don't have to worry about returning anything on the day after the sale starts :)