Happy weekend

I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful and yummy Thanksgivng and is continuing to enjoy a weekend full of maybe quilting mixed with some eating and shopping!  We had a great dinner and had a friend of my son's come over as well and have dessert with us.  It was really fun and everything came out deliciously.  I sat down Thursday night and went over my lists for black Friday shopping ... I also doublechecked the ads in the paper that day and matched them with my coupons.  My plan of attack was to leave the house at 6:30 a.m., go to CVS, Walgreens, RiteAid, Old Navy, Rue 21 (a clothing store) and Macy's.  My son said "why did you go to the drug stores for black Friday shopping?"  Well they were having specials like everyone else ... a lot of the stuff was going to be free, and since they were all open on Thanksgiving, I was worried that all the free deals would be done.  I left here at about 7 in the morning and my first stop was CVS.  There was no one in there ... it was great ... went around with my list and got all my goodies ... out of all the bargains I was trying for there, only two were sold out, and they were small sized bottles of pain relievers that were free, so that wasn't a big deal ... here's what that haul looked like:

Before sales, this stuff would have been $97.54 ... sale price was $70.95, coupons brought the total down to $61.54 out of pocket, but CVS extra bucks back were .................... $58.35, so I only paid $3.19!!!  Is that incredible?  Never have done that well ... the lady at the cash register said she has never seen a receipt print with all those rewards and asked me if she could take a second and look at them all ... I said sure!

Here's what my total receipt from CVS looked like ... ha, ha!  Here's a close up of the extra bucks so you can see what they look like ... each certificate is just like cash:

Then I went to Walgreen's ... again, no one was in the store, it was wonderful!  Got to the cash register and ran everything through, in the middle of printing out the rewards at the end, the paper ran out of the machine, which totally put a glitch in their system and it wouldn't print out any more.  Well thank goodness I have a list of everything I'm buying and the rewards I should get back ... I just checked off the ones that had already printed, and let the cashier know the ones that still needed to print.  We had to go to another register and rering those items so we could get those rewards to print ... they were so apologetic, but I didn't care ... free is free, and savings are savings, and I wasn't in any hurry.  Before sales that total would have been $126.53, but with sales, and coupons, my total there was $70.41.  After the rewards printed, they gave me back $47.99, so my total out of pocket was $22.42.

Next up was Rite Aid ... again, no one in the store.  I had my husband come in at the very end to help, but I really didn't need him.  I did two separate transactions (which I normally won't do because I don't want to hold the line up, but no one was there).  That way I can use the bucks I get back in the first transaction on the second transaction ... my totals at Rite Aid were $95.16 before sale and coupons .. I turned the first set of bucks in on the second transaction, so my total haul only cost $32.83, and with $13.00 back in bucks, all of this was only $17.83!

I had a problem at Rite Aid too ... after my second transaction I thought "this cost too much money."  So I went out to the car and as we were unloading I checked over my second tape ... the Old Spice deodorants were supposed to be $2.50 a piece and I had bought 8.  They were also supposed to kick out a $3.00 buck on each set of 2 ... they had rung out at $4 each and did not print any savings.  I hauled them all back in the store and very nicely explained to the lady what had happened.  We found that I picked up the wrong deodorant; the ones I was supposed to buy someone had taken the sign off of, so they didn't look like they were on sale.  We went back to the register with the right ones, had them all rung up, gave me the credit from the return on the first ones that I bought, and then it still didn't print the bucks up.  They had to call a manager at another store to find out how to solve the problem; instead of having the $12.00 in bucks print out, they just gave me a gift card for that amount to be used at my next visit.  No problem!  Wahoo ....

Here is my summary ... the totals of my shopping for the three stores were $319.23; after sales, coupons and bucks returned, I only paid $43.44 ... that is a savings of $275.79!!!!!!!  That's a savings of 86% ... was it all free, no .... can I eat for the next month from it, no!  But ... I don't expect it all to be free, and because I save so much on all the non-food stuff, it helps me on the rest of my budget ... I still shop sales and coupons on my groceries.  I'm going to try and track this for a few months and see how it all plays out.

Later I went to Target with my friend, Tracy ... we haven't seen each other in a week because she has a job; she is my real Black Friday shopping friend, but this year is working retail ... we went to Target and Macy's, and then out to lunch ... I love to get my son those trial size packs of Tide laundry soap.  They cost .97 cents at Target and  you can use a coupon on them ... most manufacturer coupons will say "not good on trial sizes", but Tide coupons do not say that ... it makes me so happy ... I had several $2.00 coupons and some $1.00 coupons too ... I bought 8 packages of Tide and the retail price for that was $7.76, but I had coupons totalling $13.50 ... most times they will just adjust the coupon so the price of the Tide is free, but this time they took the entire amount of coupons off, so they paid me $5.74 to buy Tide!  Awesome ... that amount just got credited towards the rest of Christmas shopping order ... life is so good!

Just for fun here is what it all looks like

Here's what all my receipts look like ...

Here's what all the bucks look like after they're cut ...

These are really cash ... so I decided it would not be a good idea to carry them around in my wallet.  I organized them into stores, and wrote the amount in each one.  That way next time I shop and make my lists, I can just take that envelope to the store with me.

Just for fun I thought you might like to see what my list looks like ... it is printed off the computer and it has the item, what the sale price is, any coupon amounts that I have, what the store's reward is back, and then what the final price is.  It helps me stay really organized.



And in the middle of this, I even had time to squeeze a quilt in ... started it Wednesday night and finished it Thursday morning before the rest of the house was up ...

The lighting on this is really bad, but it's so cute ... free download pattern from Moda.

It's out of the new Kansas Troubles fabric; a store sample, but my friend is also giving it as a Christmas present.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend ... we are driving to L.A. to watch the Kings hockey game tonight and then spending the night up there.  My son leaves out of L.A. tomorrow super early to go back to Hawaii.  =:((  Very sad, but we have enjoyed him so much and will see him soon for the Christmas holiday!