Speaking of Walgreen's.....

Wow is all I can say.

This week's Walgreen's ad is awesome. This store allows you to combine their store coupons with manufacturer's coupons for tremendous savings. The Lady Speed Stick deodorant coupon is $1 each, limit of 4 (means if you buy 4, you get them all for $1 ea.). PLUS I had 2 manufacturer coupons for 75 cents off two. So, I got 4 deodorants, minus the store coupons and the manufacturer coupons for a grand total of 63 cents apiece. If I had more manufacturer coupons, I would have bought them out (again....buying coupon inserts pays
off.....).

Then the Easy Saver rebates on the Soft Soap Body Wash and the Walgreen's brand maxi pads. Both items FREE after you send in the rebate at the end of the month. I bought them to donate to my church's homeless mission. In fact, I'll donate all this stuff, and after all the savings and rebates, I only spent $2.50 and am donating about $30 worth of stuff (I bought multiples of the free ones too, and sending one of the rebates to my daughter in another town).

I am so pumped about coupons and rebates. It is so worth it. The cashier lady was in total awe of this incredible buy. She congratulated me on a job well done. I told her I was donating it all
and she was even more impressed. I told her, "Don't be impressed, copy what I do and donate it somewhere. People need this stuff."

Making these kinds of purchases allows me the opportunity to be more generous that I could otherwise. The mission needs personal care items. Food they can get at the food bank, hygiene items are valuable and in demand. Here is info on the mission we donate to: http://www.basilicaofstjohn.org/St.%20Benedict's%20Mission.htm

It is my hope, that by my sharing my own frugal and couponing experiences, that other people reading this will learn and make their own dollars stretch more as well.

Show Me The Money!!!

I am taking my first stab at blogging and hope that it's fun and that other people will read and like it.

I've been working hard on budgeting these last few months. There are so many *fixed* expenses that we all have, such as mortgage pmt., car pmt., and so on. The grocery or food category is one place where we have some wiggle room. So, I have been learning all about couponing. It's a lot of work. But you can save a lot of money. I think one of the most helpful things I have read is to consider those little coupons are actually money in your pocket. Every time you cash one in, you keep more money in your purse. I'm finding that it allows me to have more money to spend on the entire food category than I would otherwise. It allows us to have more discretionary money for eating out, for example.

Another fun reason for naming this blog "Show Me The Money" is because Jerry and I (Jerry is my husband) are going on our first ever vacation ALONE. Day after tomorrow we are leaving for Las Vegas. Now, what is a budget-minded person like me doing going to "Sin City" or as others have called it, "Lost Wages"? Well, it's where Jerry would like to go. And I am interested in just going somewhere alone with him, so I am all about going too. But the most amazing thing is that we can actually afford to go BECAUSE we're on a budget and we have control of our moolah!!! So, it was a planned out trip, paid well in advance, we shopped for the best prices on a vacation package, etc. No guilt whatsoever. And the house payment is not late because we took a trip. All the bills are paid and on time, I might add. Of course, I would love to win some money out there, but I'm not planning on coming home a winner. I know that I am going to be paying for some entertainment, basically.

Hope you enjoy my blog and as the Spirit moves me, I'll add thoughts and experiences to it. I want it to focus mainly on frugality/simple living/budgeting.