Walgreens Trip

Busy shopping today, going to be a busy week since I missed all last week with my daughter being sick.

I took off to Walgreens to take advantage of the 2 for $5.00 Ziplock deal, I needed some gallon size bags to put some corn meal away in, and I wanted to take advanatage of the SC Johnson $5.00 rebate. I also wanted to pick up some gummy worms that my son needed for his class, and today they were Buy One, Get One Free.

Here is what I bought:

3 boxes of gallon sized Ziplock bags - $3.59

1 Box of Quart sized Ziplock bags - $3.59

Buy 2 for $5.00

(2 coupons for $1.00 off)

12 pack of Charmin - on sale for $6.49

(coupon for $1.00 off)

6 rolls of Bounty - $6.49

(coupon for $1.00 off)

4 bags of gummy worms - $0.99 each

Buy one, Get One Free

Total Price before Walgreens Deals (before taxes): $31.30

Price after Walgreens Deals: $24.96

Price after Coupons and Register Rewards: $19.96

After SC Johnson Rebate: $14.96

I hope to get better at my couponing and rebates soon...with practice, I'm sure I will.

Walgreens Deals

Okay, so I've mentioned Walgreens a few times, so now I'm going to try to break you into the deals you can get, just like I'm learning.

Today I headed to Walgreens and picked up a couple of their EasySaver catalogs and a few more weekly inserts. Also, thanks to MoneySavingMom and the people that contribute, I picked up the Walgreens Children's Activity Book for $0.99 (I actually picked up two).

The Activity Book is packed with coupons for the kids - $1.00 off Crayola Color Explosion or Color Wonder, $1.00 off character Band-Aids, $1.00 of Johnson & Johnson baby products, $1.00 off Flintstones Vitamins, and a ton more.

Now, for the deals that I'm going for! In the EasySaver Catalog they are offering a $3.00 rebate for the purchase of any Airwick Fresmatic Ultra Automatic Spray (regular or mini) or the Neutra Air FreshMatic Kit. You can buy up to four of these items for a total of a $12.00 rebate. I plan on buying the Airwick Freshmatic Ultra - both the regular sized and mini. The mini sells for $9.99 and the regular sells for $11.99. So right there, I'm going to be getting back $6.00. Now, the Bargain: remember that website I showed you where I printed a bunch of coupons for the home? Go Here for a refresher. There you can print off coupons for $4.00 off the Mini and the Regular sized Airwick Freshmatic Ultra. That right there is $8.00 in automatic savings, plus, don't forget the $6.00 in rebates (and the 10% added in if you request the gift card which totals $6.60!!). So now I will be getting the Mini for $2.99 and the Regular for $4.99. Smells great to me!! Plus, there is also a deal for a $2.00 rebate on the Veet Bladeless Razor System (only one available!!). So, I priced that at $8.49. And now you are getting $2.00 back, so really it's $6.49. Plus, that website you just checked out for the AirWick is offering a $2.00 coupon for any Veet product. So now you are paying $4.49! And, your rebates just grew. I have a couple more floating through my mind, just deciding if I want to go for it or not. Like the Spray'n Wash Laundry Stain Remover with Resolve. Right now it's normally $3.79 for one but they have a deal this week for two for $5.00. Plus, the Catalog is giving a $2.00 rebate for the purchase of one. So, even though you are buying two for $5.00, you still get the $2.00 rebate so it's now two for $3.00 (Rebate plus 10%) and I printed off a coupon for $0.75 from the Home Solutions website, so guess what?!?! That's two for $2.25!! And if I get lucky, the coupon will end up applying to both items and I will save more, but let's not forget Murphy and just move on with what I have.

Hopefully you find something useful for you, too. I love getting deals!!

Gift Cards

Since I've been working with the Total Money Makeover and trying to abide by Dave, I no longer carry any credit cards. I actually feel a little sad about this, because before I used to have a HUGE card organizer that held all my credit cards. I always thought I was impressing others with my huge collection. It took a horribly long time to realize I was just ruining my life with those little "money suckers". So now I'm addicted to gift cards. I try to "earn" them as often as I can.

Like Sunday, Target had in the circular that if you bought two specific paper items, you could get a gift card for $5.00. So I went and bought one of each of the advertised paper items, used a $0.35 coupon for one and a $0.75 coupon for the other and I STILL got my gift card. And considering that every other store was advertising similar paper products at the same price (with no gift card) I figure I got a GREAT deal. And seriously, a Target gift card ALWAYS comes in handy.

And just a side note: Walgreens does this rebate program, which I will explain more about later, that gives you your rebate back by gift cards or check. But, if you request the gift card, they automatically add an additional 10% of your rebate onto your card. Cool, huh?

I also earn gift cards through a website called MyPoints. It's pretty neat because they send you an e-mail or two just about every day. Almost every e-mail is worth 5 points. Plus, their surveys they send are worth at least 10 points and if you a qualify and finish them, it's 50 points. (These are actual surveys, they only want your opinion.) You can also earn points by shopping online. Just browse through their links and click on through. It depends on each store how many points you earn per dollar, but the least amount you can earn is 2 points per dollar, some have deals where you earn 10 points per dollar. And the stores aren't some crazy place you never heard of; nope. Gap, Joanne's, Target, Payless, eBay, some good places. You can also earn points by playing games, doing searches, and printing and using their coupons. It's really great. I almost always have enough points every month to cash in for at least a Starbucks gift card. The places you can redeem your points for are great, too. I've gotten gift cards to Circuit City, Target, Walgreens, Starbucks, Subway, Barnes & Noble and Gap. They also offer gift cards to restaurants and charities, it all depends on you.

Now that you have all of these cards, you need to check out one more place every gift card holder should have: leveragecard.com. On this website, after joining for free, you register your gift cards. All you need is the card number and it usually does the rest, so you don't have to scratch off the little PIN ID or anything like that. I did notice, however, with my Victoria Secret card, that I had to type in all the info, including the balance. Apparently the site is still new and they are trying to get more merchandisers to allow leverage access to gift cards. What I like about leverage is that they give you interest for the cards that they can verify. I haven't even been with them a month and I've already earned $0.04 cents for the few cards I have. You can also buy more gift cards and even trade your cards using this site.

Check out the sites. I by no means promise miracles by joining up with each site, I personally enjoy them. I love going somewhere and using a gift card that I earned. I love the fact that just by doing what I would normally do, someone sends me little plastic cards with money on them...which I can spend however I want. No budget attached.