Friday is for Food Shopping and Falling in love with Coupons!

Ok, so like I was saying the other day... I love food shopping! I used to hate it with an unhealthy passion because it can be very difficult to run to multiple stores carrying 2 kids and having to climb in and out of the back of our 2 door Jeep. Sometimes it's very awkward wrestling with the groceries while trying to buckle in the kids in the back seat with one leg on the middle front seat counsel and one leg in the back seat while I watch our cart roll past the window..... I can just feel people watching.. *blush* ....so embarrassing. I also have tried running errands in a timely manner... that's always a big fat FAIL.

So, I now just embrace the fact that we will be gone the better part of the day and we just kind of take our time, or at least I don't rush. I also make sure that Thursday night the house is clean and I never plan on cooking dinner that night, I almost always pick something up quick to make and that takes a lot of stress out of the day.

This morning started early but Diana had MAJOR MELTDOWN so instead of leaving the house at 7:45am the girls took a much needed nap and we didn't leave till 10:30 or so. But it's all good! That worked out better because then I got to put on make up. Yes!!!! I also just got a new shirt and the most adorable pair of brown cargo pants. Can I say that I love them? Because I do, I really truly love them. I was praying asking God to help me find a cute pair of pants because all my "normal" pants still don't fit :( and all the pants I seem to find in my budget and in my size are total mom jeans... Gross! Mom jeans....

Anyway, I found these pants at a high end thrift store (there are such things! "high end thrift stores" :) and they fit perfectly, Daniel thinks they are totally cute and they are super comfy. I know God had them picked out just for me! You can't really see them in the pic, but they are awesome!



So we got all ready to go and the girls looked totally adorable :) I tried the headband on Ellie. That lasted maybe 2 seconds and she didn't like it and Diana was pushing to leave... so we left the adorable head band. Oh well, one of these days she'll be old enough for me to bribe ;)






Every time we back up then pull out of the driveway Diana breaks out into applause...I hope she always keeps that enthusiasm!



First stop was the gas station. $25.00 got me only a tad over 6 gallons, which stunk. But I made silly faces at the girls while pumping the gas and they laughed and it was adorable. I should have then gone to our bank inside Piggly Wiggly to pull out our food shopping / Daniel's gas money for the week, but the thought of going through the hassle of jumping into the back to un buckle the girls and spend 10 min with all that just did not appeal to me today. So I wasted money and went through a drive through ATM. I was worth it because next was Walgreens...

So, Walgreens was one of the 2 places where I was armed with all my coupons and a battle plan for shopping and saving money! The cart was too small for both kids so Diana had to just walk and stay by me while we shopped. It was good for like 2 minutes and then she saw a display of jewelry...she gave the spinning display one quick whirl and sent about 20 necklaces flying off in every direction... so that was awesome. I had her stay by me and hold my hand and she was really good, but then I had to look through the 50 different brands of razors and study my coupons to make sure I was getting the right ones. Didi started off in the direction of make up but I held her hand and had her stand in one spot and told her she was not to move. She listened really well and stayed put, but while I was going through the razors she put about 20 different types of pantyhose containers into the cart, but she stayed put!

Soon Ellie started crying because she wanted out of the cart and Diana was trying to throw anything she could reach into the cart and I got all flustered so we cut our trip a tad short and there were a few things I forgot to get but that's ok because we totally rocked our coupons!!! The lady(Tara)at the register was totally sweet and helped me sort all the items into different transactions. It took awhile, but she helped me with all coupons and taught me a lot. ( I went back there today and saw her helping someone else... I'm pretty sure she does this a lot, sweet lady!)

If you need to learn how to use coupons, go to the Saukville Walgreens and see Tara!!!!

Walgreens check out process.....

Some of the things I was getting was only one per transaction, and since some of the transactions gave me "Register Rewards" (basically a gift card voucher to be used at Walgreens) I wanted to be able to do a transaction, get a few dollars in Register Rewards, then use that reward money towards my next purchase. Also, your coupons cannot exceed the items your buying, so if I had 5 coupons and only 4 items, I had to buy a "filler" item to be able to use my coupons. So the cashier was awesome helping me sort out everything into 5 different transactions was really patient about Diana and Ellie being fussy.




Total cost before coupons: $71.05

What I paid: $25.05
I also earned an additional $9.00 in register rewards (free vouchers to be used on anything at Walgreens next time I go)

So, with mfg. coupons, in store coupons, buy one get one free deals, and all promotions..... I spent a grand total of...

$16.05!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



I was so thrilled!!! (Still am :)

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So altogether (not including other shopping I did) I bought
$138.54

Had a savings of: $85.30

And total I paid: $53.24!!!!!

Another success! I am really thanking God that he is opening more windows for us to save money, it's such a blessing!

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After Target we went to Aldis, not really a place to use coupons but their prices are so low is doesn't really matter. The girls each got an adorable stuffed animal that was on sale. But, Diana thew a complete fit, hit Ellie several times, screamed at me and threw her toy out of the cart while we were waiting in line. So, I picked up her toy, put it on a side shelf and Diana started reaching for it whimpering. I told her that she was being mean to Ellie and she needs to listen to mama and not throw things, and that is why she wasn't getting her toy back. She looked so upset but didn't whine again after that. As I was loading things onto the conveyor belt I looked over at the girls sitting in the front of the cart (it's a double seater) and Ellie was being adorable and snuggling her puppy and Diana just looked at the bunny I had put back being perfectly quite and had tear filled eyes. I wanted to get it for her so bad!!! She was being so good after that! But, I need her to know that there are consequences to her actions and rules are rules.

So this is what mom and dad meant by "this hurts me more than it does you..."

Next was Costco. We went to the bathroom for diapers changes and Ellie somehow threw her puppy into the sink. But I was able to dry it in the super awesome, highly powered, dyson hand dryer. It blows a high power blast of air in a perfect straight line. It was awesome even though this photo is oddly disturbing....



Then we sat in the food court area and I had a mocha freeze.....numm!


And Diana and Ellie ate lunchables that I picked up at Aldis. Almost the whole time they ate they staired down two other kids who were about their age who were also eating. That was awkward, they all just staired down each other like "Who are you and how many other little little people like us are out there?!?!" "What? You got cherry juice? Well, guess what.. I did too. Let's all stare at each other while we drink it. I need to make sure you don't somehow have more than me..." Like I said, it was odd.





We wandered the aisles for almost an hour and I spend too much money and it was fun. :) By the time we got to the 15 min long check out lines though both...both....kids were whining, shoving and crying. Instead of having people all around me who understood, I had a bunch of people shooting me dirty looks and rolling their eyes. That was not so much fun but didn't really bother me, I knew the girls were being awesome for being gone so long and it was past nap time.

It took another 15 minutes to rearrange everything in the Jeep and that was a trip..we were all feeling tired and a *wee* bit grumpy and just a bit frazzled. But we then listened to Third Day on the way home and it was great.







Then, after 6 trips up and down the apartment stairs, the kids took a nap and it was all good. Another awesome shopping Friday!