Couponing for week of March 15th

Well, I have come up with a new way of posting all my good deals. I know this is mostly for my benefit, but it may help some of you. Granted, I know by the time I will post, many of the deals, can no longer be had, but that's why I have all the "frugal" links on the side of my blog. THOSE people, they blog, a LOT and they are GOOD, which is why I won't post all the specifics of that. My favorite bloggers are hip2save.com and lately utahdealdiva.com and my sister-in-law, shannasteals.blogspot.com. Anyways.....humor me people. I want to be accountable to myself.
When I first started "couponing" as I call it about 18 months ago, I started signing up for free samples, coupons, etc. Now, the mail is AWESOME because at least a couple of times a week, I get free stuff...and coupons, and gift cards, so. Here is some of what I got in the mail today. Free sample size Oil of Olay body wash (from Wal-mart, yes I never shop there, but I do request freebies). I also got a couple of free diapers, and my $10.00 Kmart gift card from buying some candy awhile ago.

Hello co-op. This week was the first time I went to the site in West Jordan. It didn't appear to be as much stuff (it only filled up half the laundry basket this time), but still very good. I'm most excited to find out how to eat the weird purple stuff that I don't exactly know what it is and the little orange kumquats. One of the coolest things about the co-op is it has helped me try new things. I also got to meet some very nice, but tired, firemen today since I went to the wrong place in the beginning. Overall, I still think it is great to just go and buy all your produce for 2 weeks at one place. YEAH! This week we got:

Veggies:

2 asparagus bunches (HELLO! I already warned Ryan more of the TO DIE FOR carmelized bacon asparagus coming up this week)

1 celery bunch

1 yellow cauliflower

1 romaine lettuce

2 bunches green onions

1 purple leaf thing (yet to be identified :))

Fruits:

2 mangoes

1 pack of strawberries

7 bananas

10 roma tomatoes

2 appearingly "regular' tomatoes

17 little apples---not sure what kind these are

16 kumquats---which I"m anxious to try :)

I think in my search for good deals this week, I went to the most stores I have been to in awhile. Kmart...I NEVER go to Kmart, but my sister-in-law (shannasteals.blogspot.com) scored a great deal on toilet paper there. After the coupons, rebates and catalinas, all of this toilet paper will basically be about 2.00 for a 12 pack! WAHOO! And it is the NICE kind :)

Also at Kmart score on super cheap diapers. Granted, the coupon that processed these I don't believe is out there anymore (see hip2save for details) but I got these packs for about 2.50 each. Someday, we will move out of size 3. I have a lot of size 4 stored up, but Collin just hasn't got there yet :) I NEVER pay full price for diapers and I have never bought diapers at Wal-mart. I truly believe you can get cheaper diapers elsewhere :)

Earlier this week, I went to the Smith's Megadeal promo...as some of you may know, our family (mainly, read Ryan here) can go through A LOT of cereal. I'm actually trying to be better about making homemade breakfasts on weekends so we can have more variety), so I had to go. I'm lamenting the Albies cereal deal this week since we no longer have Albies around where you can get a TON of cereal for FREE but alas... I paid a little more than I like to for these boxes, but they were HUGE and most of the boxes I got had $5.00 worth of coupons in each box, which was AWESOME! They are all high value coupons and some is even off of bread, milk, fruit, etc. for future deals I want to do. I ended up paying for all of this $47.00 and it ended up being basically averaging less than $1.00 per item. It put me over my budget this month (I think), but I stocked up on pasta basically for the next year, and also got a lot of cereal that will hopefully last us longer :) The Smiths mega promo continues through Tuesday.

I also went to Rite Aid the first part of the week. I am lucky that where I live, all of these stores are within 5-10 minutes of my house, so it is not a big deal to go there. Collin and I have our little "outing" each day. Rite Aid I got some cheap stuff for my mom, some cheap candy, and though they were out of tissues and diapers, still got all of the stuff below for around 8-9.00. The cool thing about RiteAid, is instead of just depositing my SCR (single check rebate checks) I am totally geeky and cash them and put them in a ziplock bag in my purse so then I just keep
"reusing" that money so it's less OOP (out of pocket) for me. It has actually been REALLY cool to have my budget for non-food stuff go way down because I reuse my "free" money. I'm acutally going to start doing this with all my rebate checks now. I just get out my little ziplock bag and pay away, in cash. I'm so geeky.

Also went to Wags, Walgreens, for the first time in awhile. Since Collin and I have had REALLY bad colds this week, I got a ton of tissues to resupply all the tissues we used.... I got all of this for basically less than $6.00. I saved more than $35.00 on that trip. Plus, I got some fun seeds to plant in our garden, if SPRING ever shows up!

This came free in the mail this week. Vocalpoint.com. Join it people. I have gotten so many cool free products and coupons by randomly signing up for stuff. This was totally free, super cool packaging and BRAND NEW Pantene fancy shampoo. My hair will be thanking me. I have also got free tuna fish, Kashi cereal, cheap fruit snacks, by joining vocalpoint.

Whew! I believe that is the longest post I have ever done. But, I just wanted to share all my great deals with myself (as an accounting thing :))