Oh My Goodness, An Update! (Mostly Deals)

Yes, yes, I'm updating! Life has been crazy, but I'm alive and (hopefully) ready to start blogging again. The past couple months have been hectic, including getting custody of 4 kids, and because of that, I completely slacked on my couponing. I had piles and piles of printables/inserts, a binder full of expired coupons, and about 40 magazines that needed to be read and picked through for coupons. Well, I finally caught myself up and I'm happy to report that the deals/money saving/stocking up has resumed! Here are some of my favorite deals from the past couple weeks-

Walgreens 11/1

I spent $20.84 OOP, got back $16 in RR, so it was like paying $4.84 total! Great week at Walgreens!

Office Max 11/2

I received a free $5 gift card through text message, so I got all of this for $3.84 OOP. That was a great score, since the Command Hooks retail for $6.99 each.

Smith's 11/9

 

This is the most I've EVER saved at Smith's!! I bought 127 items and paid $51.04 OOP!! I saved $185.85. It was seriously an awesome sale.

Walgreens 11/9

 

I used the $16 RR from my previous Walgreens trip and paid about $6.70 OOP (I lost the receipt).

Walgreens 11/14

I paid $23.24 and saved $81.27! Good day at WAGS.

Rite Aid 11/14

I paid $16.58 OOP and saved $36.42, plus I still have $5 in +UP rewards.


I've also been crafting a little. I made this wreath, and this plethora of flower clips for my step-daughters.

 

And I've been baking! Mmm, pumpkin spice cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting!

 

And finally, we had our family pictures done. They turned out so cute!! Here are some of my favorites -

 

Phew! I hope to post more often (oh, I quit my job, so that's new, too!!). :)

I'm Alive!

Yeah, I know I haven't posted in a while, but I'm still alive. There's a lot that has been going on, but I promise to post some fabulous frugal finds soon. In the meantime, I've created a family blog. It will eventually go private, so if you want to be added to the privacy list, let me know. I'll keep this blog for my couponing/crafting/repurposing adventures. Here's the link! :o)

Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes

Well, here's another cupcake recipe I tried. I made orange creamsicle cupcakes, and let me tell you, they taste just like the ice cream pops! I made French vanilla cupcakes, and when they cooled, I poked holes throughout the tops and poured in orange Jell-O. I placed them in the fridge for a few hours so the Jell-O could set up. for the frosting, I added orange extract to some store-bought vanilla icing, and alternated orange icing and marshmallow fluff in a Ziploc bag for piping. I frosted the cupcakes and added some orange wedges for garnishment. These were really yummy! Here's the finished product:

Raspberry Lemonade Cupcakes.....YUM!

Okay, so here's my second 'cupcake experiment'. Tonight, I made raspberry lemonade cupcakes! It's a moist lemon cake filled with raspberry preserves, then topped with lemonade butter cream and fresh raspberries. They turned out pretty well. I've never made butter cream before, but it turned out to be pretty simple. I definitely need to sift the powdered sugar next time, but for a first-timer, I think it was yummy. Here's some lovely low-light, nighttime pictures;

Next up, orange creamsicle cupcakes! Mmmm.....

Mmmm, Cupcakes!

Okay, so here's something a little different. I'm posting a recipe! I've been experimenting with different cupcake ideas for my son's upcoming birthday party. I wanted something different, something not yellow or chocolate cake-ish, so I found a recipe over at Tidy Mom for peanut butter brownie cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. Hot damn, they were good! I made them for my step-kids yesterday, and they all loved them, so I think maybe I'll make them for the party. Here's the finished product....

One little tip that Tidy Mom didn't mention....take the wrappers OFF right when they come out of the oven!! If you let them cool all the way, the wrappers will become one with the cupcake and you'll be munching on paper. Here's the recipe:

Brownie Cupcakes

1 prepared box of your favorite brownie mix
1/2 to 1 cup Reeses Peanut Butter chips

•Make brownies according to package directions.
•Add peanut butter chips and mix.
•Pour batter into paper-lined cupcake pan, filling about 3/4 full (I got 15 cupcakes)
•Bake at 350° approximately 20 mins or until a tooth pick comes out clean. Don't over bake.
•Remove from paper wrappers
•Cool completely

Peanut Butter Frosting

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
4 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
2 cups powdered sugar

•Beat butter and peanut butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer.
•Gradually add powdered sugar
•Add cream one tablespoon at a time until all of the sugar is mixed in and the frosting is thick.
•Beat for at least 3 minutes until nice and fluffy.

Frost brownie cupcakes with frosting. I added a few peanut butter chips and a strawberry for a garnish, but they're yummy without anything else on them. Enjoy!

Hello, My Name Is Kahra, And I'm A Couponaholic!

Ugh, it's true. It's so very, very true. But you know what? I love it! I've seriously saved so much money these past 6 months or so, it's amazing. And my stockpile is getting bigger and bigger. My good friend Beckie started this madness in me, and I can't thank her enough.

I talked about getting a coupon binder in the post below, and I finally took the plunge and did it. It was a lot of work, but it seriously is so much easier and convenient when I'm at the store. I also found an awesome bag at Target (a birthday gift from my awesome father-in-law....you can kind of see it in the picture below) that houses my coupons, scissors, paper pads, calculator and pens. It's HUGE, but it's cute, and it looks better than lugging that big binder in everywhere. Collin over at Hip2Save has the same bag, so I'm copying her, but isn't imitation the best form of flattery?

Tonight I hit Walgreens, Rite Aid and Target. There are three different links to score $3 off Huggies coupons, so I had to get in on the awesome diaper deals that are to be had. Below is a picture of all of the items I bought, and I spent about $67! I'm a little bummed with Target; the cashier took 15 minutes and read every, single. coupon. Seriously?! By the time I read my receipt, I realized she didn't use a $3 coupon for deodorant, but I was so tired of the store, I just left. If I would have received the $3 off, I would have only spent $64, which isn't bad at all.

 
- 9 packs of Huggies
- 2 packs of Little Swimmers
- 5 J&J first aid kits
- 10 J&J Buddies soaps
- 10 Bandaids
- 5 Vick's NyQuil/DayQuil
- 3 Puffs tissues
- 1 Vick's cough drops
- 2 Dial hand soap
- 7 Ocean nasal spray
- 1 AlkaSelzer
- 1 Maybelline concealer
- 1 Samy Istyle mousse
- 3 Planter's trail mix
- 4 boxes chocolates (filler items)
- 4 Degree Girl deodorant
- 4 Suave deodorant
- 4 Degree Men dodorant
- 1 Colgate toothpaste
- 1 Diet Coke (in my belly)

Not bad, eh? If you want to know how I did any of it, let me know and I'll post my scenarios.

I also hit Toys R Us and got the last 4 pre-order's for Toy Story 1 & 2! I was so lucky!! I got 2 for me and 2 for my sister. I paid $10 per 2 for a deposit, and then got $14.99 off any other Disney movie! So, here's the math...

$10.00 - deposit for Toy Story 1 & 2
$19.99 - Snow White
- $14.99 instant discount
= $15.64 for Snow White & a FREE jewelry box! Plus the $10 deposit will go toward the purchase of Toy Story 1 & 2, and they're $16.99 each wyb both. I have 2 $10 off coupons, so I'll end up paying $6.99 for each movie!! I did the same deal for my sister and got G Force for $4.99. Woohoo!!

I'm tired. I should go put my items away, but really, I'll probably let them sit on the floor until tomorrow. Goodnight!

Cut. It. Out.

So, do you love couponing but DREAD cutting all of them out? Mhm, that's me. I absolutely despise cutting out the 457858906749 pages of coupons I've just printed, and honestly, I just throw them all into a tote bag, and there they sit until their expiration date. When I know I have a coupon in that stack, I'll rummage through the pile until I find the coupons I need, and back into the tote bag they go. I really do miss out on some good deals when I'm at the store, and I see something that wasn't advertised on sale, and I know I have a coupon for it....but it's in the bag! At home! UGH!!

Anyway, in my quest to become more organized, at work and home, I've decided I'm going to change the way I store my coupons. Collin at Hip2Save has an awesome purse/bag that she puts her coupon binder in, and I love it! I'm going to find one similar to use, but what Collin uses is a giant binder with baseball card holders. I've heard lots of people talk about this method, and at first, it didn't appeal to me. But the more that I use coupons, and the more that I miss out on deals, I've decided this is the method for me.

So, that's the easy part. I now come back to the fact that I have 5467098675908 pages of coupons to cut! Well, this is my solution. I'm sure many people thought of this years ago, but I've really never seen anyone talk about it; A PAPER CUTTER! Uh, hello?! Such a blatantly obvious solution to my headache that is clipping coupons. This is the one I use:

Can you tell I'm at work? Can you tell my boss isn't here? Can you tell I have too much time on my hands? Yeah. But still, I got a TON of coupons cut. See??

That's the hard part. Now I just need to sort them into categories and file them away. I can do this while watching American Idol tonight.

I'd bought the paper cutter at Office Max with a coupon, of course, but you can also find them at craft stores, and there are always coupons for JoAnn's, Michael's and Hobby Lobby, so you can get a nice cutter for like 40-50% off. Here's a link to Hobby Lobby's coupon for this week.

Happy couponing!

In My Mailbox Today....

Woohoo, coupons galore in my mailbox today! I'm really loving Recycle Bank and all the awesome coupons you can earn. I got 3 $2 off Cascadian Farms product, 5 $1 Simply juice coupons and 3 $1 any Coke product coupons. I also got a coupon for a free pint of International Delight creamer, and a fun little freebie that I completely forgot I signed up for; a packet of Glowelle beauty drink that came in a little cosmetic bag! Nice!!

Another Awesome Target Run!

I ran to Target last night to get some more cereal and Juicy Juice. I left with so much more! They were completely sold out of the juice (booo), but I'll go back later to see if they have some more. I did, however, hit the cereal jackpot, among other things. Here's a picture of what I scored for $20.69 (and the picture doesn't include the four 12 packs of Pepsi that are sitting in my garage)!

I was pretty shocked that they still had Christmas stuff, but the small tubes were $.50, the big bucket was $1.99, the snowflakes were $.10 and the wreath hanger was $.49! Score!!

I bought 10 boxes of cereal, and here's how I did it:

4 Special K Granola @ $2.39 = $9.56

Used one $5/4 MFR coupon here

Used four $1/1 Target coupons here

Final price $.56 or $.14 each!

2 Kashi @ $2.75 = $5.50

Used $3.00/2 peelie

Used 2 $.75/1 Target coupon here

Final cost $1.00 or $.50 each!

2 Kashi @ $2.00 = $4.00

Used $3/2 peelie

Used 2 $.75/2 Target coupon here

Final cost was FREE with $.50 overage!

I found the peelies on the boxes of Kashi. There were two different ones, and they looked like this:

&

I used the second one. It had 2 coupons, one for $3.00/2 Kashi products and one for $1.00 off any Kashi product. They have a Target logo on them, but they are manufacturer coupons, so you can stack them with the Target Kashi coupons!

 

2 Cascadian Farms Organic @ $2.50 = $5.00

Used 2 $1/1 coupon here

Used 1 $1/2 Target coupon here

Final cost $2.00 or $1.00 each! Not bad for over a pound of organic granola. :o)

The Pepsi were 4/$12, and I used 4 $1/1 Target coupons here, so that made them $2 each!

The light bulbs were $2.00 and I used 1 $1.50/1 coupon to make it $.50.

The Fiber One bars were $2.54, so 2 @ $5.08. I used a $2/2 Target coupon that was mailed to me and 2 $.40/1 coupons, so the final cost was $2.28 or $1.14 each. Not too bad, considering these are usually pretty pricey.

The Huggies were $8.99 and I used 1 $1.50 coupon found here. Final cost was $7.49.

It was a pretty good trip. The total was $30.69 and I used the 2 $5 GC's I got from the Axe deal, so $20.69 OOP. Woohoo!

Happy savings!

Target & Wal-Mart Trips AND In My Mailbox Today!

I did pretty well today. Pretty. Well. I spent a total of $16.54 and got ALL of this. Yep. All of it.

 That's 12 jars of salsa, 4 boxes or organic mac and cheese, 4 Axe gift sets, 2 boxes of Special K, 2 packs of GE light bulbs, 2 bottles of Juicy Juice, Snuggle dryer sheets and some bananas. All for under $17.00. Woohoo!!

Also, in my mailbox today were the two perfumes I ordered from Pac Sun for about $4.00 each, a sample of Always Infinity with $1.00 coupon and a sample of the new grape flavored Pop Tarts. Everyone should join the Pop Tarts Sprinkles club, you get cool things.

 

All of my coupons and shopping scenarios were found at My Frugal Adventures. Charlene is awesome and she has a TON of deals every day. Subscribe! NOW!

Happy savings!