HELP!
I've got "SHOPPER'S HIGH"
It seems to be a bad case!

Does it ever go away? Oh my..
I 've been itchin' at the bit to go shopping for 7 days now, but to no avail.

So, tonight, after packing up supper, I headed out to 3 Winn Dixie's and a Publix, armed with my coupons and a list of what to buy where!

NOW I UNDERSTAND YOU ALL!

I didn't dare try to stay in town, since too many of my fellow "smart shoppers" live here, so I headed to the neighboring Winn Dixie, about 12 miles away.

There, I did my best: I got my bill from $112.47 to $9.10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then, I went to the CVS, to try to get some of that fabulous candy, which is on sale for $.99. Alas, I got a rain check... Two, in fact, one for Cadbury's and one for Hershey's kisses. BUT, while I was there, I noticed that they had a cordless razor and it was 50% off. I opted to buy it. However, it was 75% off, not 50% off, so I got my 14 year old son his first razor. I told the clerk that if he ruins it, it was only $2.66, so we'll be ok... (I didn't tell her I had just saved $103!)

NEXT STORE: Winn Dixie was just across the street. So, for the second WD, I got my bill from $90.21 to $24.75. Not as great, but I opted to buy only the "very most" needed items at this particular "dinky" Winn Dixie. And I had already used my $10/$50 "one shot" coupon at the first store.

Then, I went across the street from that store and went to PUBLIX, where I even bought a couple of things regular price with NO COUPONS.. (gasp). However, I needed them and I was there, and they were there, and with gas at $3.19/gallon, I didn't feel like driving 3 more miles out of the way to save $.50... (esp. since my total savings for the past hour and a half had been in the neighborhood of $150 so far..)

At PUBLIX, I got my bill from $70.60 to $28.27. I was rolling along, pretty happy about then, because I was buying one supper meal setup (main dishes, etc.) after another... preparing my freezer for upcoming meals and easy dinner preps.

However, I had noticed at the second WD that I could get Valley Fresh canned chicken for $.33/ can (regular price $1.67) if ONLY I'd stop back by the Office and pick up some $1/2 coupons. So, I did. I grabbed a handful and then went to my OWN local, yokel Winn Dixie.

There I ran my bill skyhigh up to $209.38. Now, I was pretty nervous about that since I've never spent $209 at one shot at any grocery store EVER in my life.. Maybe $100, but NOT $200!

But, DRUM ROLL, please.. I got it down to $47.80.

By the time the clerk was done with me, she had the other 2 teenagers surrounded around here saying things like, "That's crazy." "Insane." "Wow, you beat out my dad shopping" and "Boy, is Chelsea going to hate you for having to count out all these coupons." I said, "Oh, Chelsea will be fine with it. She knows me." (She used to go to our church and was Sarah's best friend for about 3 years...)

I got home and had a whole back end of my van full of goodies. Do you think I had ANY trouble getting my boys to unload the van for me? NO WAY! As soon as they saw that it was all stuff that they had either specifically requested or that they knew that we needed or that they liked, they started helping me put it away, even! (I have them bring it in and then I put it away, is my usual drill.)

So, from 6:10 p.m. until 9:50 p.m, I bought groceries that retailed at a ridiculous $482.66 for only $109.92. That represents a 77% savings.

And that was NO DOUBLES! I'm DEAD SERIOUS!

And I wasn't buying a lot of fluff that we won't use or didn't need just to run it up, so it'd look good for you all!

YOU CAN DO IT TOO!
GET THOSE FLYERS OUT... and ORDER THOSE COUPONS!

More Groceries For Cheap!

You're probably tired of hearing my savings at Publix, but this time I got a savings of 75%.

Please realize that we are not able to double any coupons at all here in Central Florida, so we do regard this kind of savings to be fabulous! I was, indeed, very pleased with this kind of dealings.

I bought:
10 Mott's apple juice minis.
10 Juicy Juice bottles
6 Kraft Live Active Cheese
2 Meow Mix..

Retail price: $75.40.

Coupons and sales totalled $56.28 in savings.

I paid $19.12. I left smiling, of course.

The clerk was, too.

--A great stop for a Saturday afternoon!!

Savings at Publix abound even in NO DOUBLING LAND

I just wanted to drop a quick line and let you know that at times you simply can't take time to dig up all the coupons that you really want and need. However, if you watch your store's sales, you can take advantage of the store sales and make a huge dent in your bills. I wanted you to see what I stumbled across, achieving a whopping 65% savings with VERY few coupons and just by watching the store sales.

I bought 14 bottles of Mott's Apple Juice, 2 Gorton's shrimp and 8 bags of Ore-Ida potatoes, and 2 bags of red potatoes. The only things I had coupons for were the Mott's.

However, I got my bill down from 82.34 to 28.64, for a savings of $53.70, which amounts to a 65% savings. This is not bad for a basically "unplanned" splurge on everything except the Mott's. I had gone in the store prepared to get the apple juice, but ended up with some great meal "stuff" for the next couple of weeks. However, with 3 teenage boys, one can never have enough french fries. Honestly, it pays to keep them on hand, as they love the ones from McDonald's or Wendy's, but at $2.50 per serving, this is a real steal. I think they were $2.79, b1g1f, which amounted to $1.40 for the WHOLE BAG... not just one serving. The WHOLE BAG is one meal for all five of us. This amounts to French fries for just UNDER $.30 per serving. NOT BAD for something that everyone loves!

So, get out there. TRY IT. You'll enjoy your savings. The best part is, that with all these fabulous ingredients around the house, you'll WANT to stay home and cook!

All of this saving money is costing me a fortune!

Ok. Ok, Ok, ladies... STOP telling me any more good deals!

I'm about to drown in good deals lately.

DOLLAR GENERAL:

I read on one of the lists I belong to about the Dollar General 90% off sale going on. So, I headed out to see what I could find. I dropped into two stores, which were right on my way to where I needed to go. I found plenty of hand tools for the flower beds for a dime apiece. When the clerk said, "You must be a gardener," my reply was, "Well, this way when the kids lose them, I don't lose any sleep over it." You've just got to be a money saving couponer to fully appreciate the value of having "spare" hand held yard tools around. And to get them for $.10 each??? Well, that's unheard of!

So, at one store, I got this huge lot of goodies for $8 and change.

The second one, I found all kinds of neat clothing articles. Well, not really neat, but certainly worth the $.50 and $.70 cents which I had to pay for them! But, that one cost me more: around $28, but since it was $280 worth of stuff, I was happy.... especially since I really liked several of the 50 cent items!

TARGET:

Of course, I've joined the ranks of those of you who are lining up at Target to get your candy for only $.16 per bag. I'm obsessed with this task because our teenagers are supposedly going to be in the Christmas parade, handing Candy out to the kids/adults along the parade path. Well, no one likes the nasty cheap stuff, and everyone loves a Reeses peanut butter cup, right? So, why not give away what people like? So, I've gotten 50 bags and my hubby 20 bags so far. However, when it's all dumped into one bin, it's still not amount to much. I think I'll have to head back for a couple more trips. One trip was just under $19 and another was just over $15. Of course, I bought a few other things because I don't want the clerks to start to think it'll be free, call the managers over and throw me out of the store! Ken, however, is doing better. His receipt was just what it was supposed to be: $3.20 plus tax for 20 bags of candy. Of course, he got mostly Reeses.... his favorite candy. I don't think he'll let us toss that stuff!

So far, the clerks have been wonderfully agreeable and helpful at Target.

WINN DIXIE:

Last week, Winn Dixie had the Pepperidge Farm Garlic bread, b1g1f and with our $1/1 coupons, it made it FREE when you use two coupons. So, being unsure of how my family would respond to this bread, I only got 8 loaves. I had some at dinner tonight and I see I should have gotten 20 loaves, not a mere 8 loaves! They scarfed down the one loaf and asked for more, which I wouldn't give them, since they were just being teenage boys! (I think I could set down fried snails in front of them and they'd eat them!)

On that trip, my bill had started at $1o7.00. I said to the clerk, "Let's see if we can get it under $30. She laughed when it was $30.78." I said, "We didn't quite do it, but that's close enough."

And Excedrin? Well, I didn't even bother to get any free Excedrin last week, when it was $2 per bottle (use the $2 coupon to get it free), since i haven't put away the 70 bottles that I picked up in September, when I went the last night of the sale to two stores and cleaned them out. Don't worry, it was only 2 hours til closing, and the stores were virtually empty. I don't think that I took someone else's "stuff."

SAV-A-LOT:

Wow. Wow. They put their $1 stuff which had formerly been $.50 down to $.25. So, I picked up a bunch of goodies: hair care products for girls in cute little containers and really neat looking note pads, for the kids for the Polish Orphans' project, which we'll start to work on.

Talk about sales! I got 107 pieces for just over $28 (including tax). These include hairbrushes, note pads, more note pads, (those things that look like feet are note pads), adorable hair gifts., batteries, videos, candy in lip stick tubes and more! I was pleased!

Talk about running me out of house and home! Oh me. It's just a good thing I've got a plan for most of this stuff or I'd quickly be out of space! And who said that we down here in land of NO DOUBLES couldn't save money!? I've saved so much money that it's costing me a fortune! (I felt like I was actually getting yard sale prices and better--the candy was better than you'd ever find at a yard sale around here!)

Come on, ladies (and gentlemen), order coupons. Go to: http://www.thecouponclippers.com
That'll keep me out of the stores. Maybe I should become a professional buyer. It's too much fun to be called work!!!