Category Archives: coupons

Back Into Couponing!

While I was super sick in the fall and early winter, I decided not to coupon. I just didn’t have time or energy. That’s what is nice about having a stockpile of necessities – we only had to buy one or two necessities during those months without coupons!

Now I’m back in action, rebuilding our stockpile before Baby Deuce arrives. I know I won’t have time for couponing during her first few months! I’ve just been back in action for a week, and I’ve already snagged a couple fantastic deals.

After accounting for my $5 gift card to use for a future purchase, Target actually paid me a few cents for these toothbrushes this week!

free toothbrushes

We also stocked up on Hubster’s deodorant and snagged four Old Spice brand deodorants for $1.75 each.

And…it’s always worth checking the baby clearance section, because I found these three pairs of Cherokee jeans for Baby Deuce to grow into for just $3 each! That’s cheaper than I can buy them on consignment. Woohoo!

target clearance jeans

Online Couponing with the Coupon Chief

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Since embarking on motherhood, the amount of online shopping I do has increased exponentially. It’s so much easier for me to click around online in between entertaining C than it is to go out shopping in between naps, meals and tantrums (his, not mine!).

As you know, I never pay full price for anything. My inbox is flooded every day with store newsletters and emails from daily deals sites. It can be a little obnoxious at times, but it also guarantees that I never miss a good sale on something I need.

The awesome thing about shopping online is that you can pair store sales with coupon codes to save even more money! I enjoy using Coupon Chief, because they have an extensive catalog of more than 100,000 coupon codes for over 30,000 stores. You can search for your favorite store in their alphabetical listing.

My favorite place to shop online? Old Navy. Almost all of my maternity clothes are from Old Navy, and a lot of C’s and Hubster’s clothes are from there as well. I also recently took advantage of a big sale that The Children’s Place was having and bought C some clothes for the summer. I was able to find extra savings via coupon codes on Coupon Chief. I love to save some money!

If you like to support a good cause while you shop, check out Coupon Chief’s Coupons-4-Causes program. When you use their coupons for online shopping, they will donate 20 percent of the purchase to your favorite charity, school or church. I enjoy when a company helps consumers give back to their communities.

They also offer a Pays-2-Share program that compensates you for submitting your own coupon codes. To participate in this program, sign up to be a member of Pays-2-Share, upload your coupon codes and track how many people use your codes on your “my account” page. Every time someone uses your coupon code, you’ll earn 2 percent of the sales via check or PayPal. How cool is that?

If you’re on Google+, be sure to +1 CouponChief.com!

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by CouponChief.com. The opinions above are 100% my own.

Another Day, Another Dollar

Score FREE Desitin Diaper Cream at Target!

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I am *so* excited to share this deal with you! Right now, there is an unadvertised deal at Target on Desitin Diaper Cream…and an unadvertised sale.

The unadvertised deal is that you will get a $5 Target gift card when you purchase three Desitin Diaper Cream products, through 2/4. The unadvertised sale is that the purple box of Desitin that says “20% more” is ringing up as $2.48. You can score three boxes for free when you print three of these coupons and combine them with the sales: $1.00/1 – Desitin Diaper Rash product, Any (excludes 1 oz.) – (smartsource.com) . You may need to use two computers in order to print three of these, but I was able to do it with one computer.

At Target, you will need to find the purple boxes of Desitin that say “20% more.” I found them on an endcap in the baby department with the Johnson’s Baby products that were on sale. Grab three boxes and find a price check scanner to make sure that they ring up as $2.48 each. You’ll end up paying $4.44 and you’ll receive that $5 Target gift card for future use, resulting in three boxes of FREE Desitin!!!

Enjoy!

Couponing 201: Strategy and Cost Standards

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Here is lesson two in my couponing series! You can find the first one, Couponing 101, here. Today we’ll go more in-depth about couponing strategy.

I’ve found that it’s best to purchase two newspapers each week. Be sure to check to see if the coupon inserts are inside before buying your papers! There are people that steal coupon inserts or sometimes a paper gets missed in the stuffing process, but you don’t want to get home and discover that they’re missing. You can also find great coupons online via Answers.com coupons.*

I tend to cut out every coupon, with the exception of products that I will never find use for (i.e. pet food, because I don’t have pets). Once in a while, there may be an item on sale that you can turn into a moneymaker when you coupon. Matching your coupons from multiple inserts together will save time when it comes to shopping preparations. Next, I sort the coupons into categories and put them into envelopes for each category. For example, a few of my envelopes are: Baby, Makeup/Lotion, and Toothpaste/Toothbrushes/Mouthwash.

Each Saturday, I visit The Krazy Coupon Lady to view each store’s upcoming sales that will go into effect on Sunday. I have a couponing notebook, in which I write down exactly what I’m going to purchase, how much it is on sale for, the coupons I will use and the final price. I pull the coupons I need from my envelopes, then put them in separate envelopes corresponding with each store where I will shop. I like to shop on Sunday or Monday to ensure that the items I want are in stock.
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Now…let’s talk dollars and cents.

I’ve learned a lot in my past four months of couponing. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, too! After watching sales cycles for this long, I know what price point items need to reach before I decide to stock up. If you need certain items, you may not be able to wait for these price points; but once you have a small stockpile then you can be picky. I have about 4 tubes of toothpaste, and several deodorants and hair products on hand. That’s about as large as my “stockpile” will get.

Shampoo/Conditioner/Styling Products: $1 or less
My favorite brands are Dove and Aussie. I also use Pantene’s line of products for curly hair. The most I’ve paid for Dove and Pantene is 65 cents per product, and you can routinely find Aussie for $1 at CVS or Walgreens. There are many other brands that go on sale – I just haven’t purchased others yet, so I can’t recall the pricing of them! If you’re looking for a medicated shampoo, you’ll occasionally be able to find Head and Shoulders for $1.99.

Deodorant: 75 cents or less
In the past few months, we’ve stocked up on Old Spice, Irish Spring and Dove Men+Care for Hubster. I admit that I paid $1.50 when I started, but now I know better! Hubster has enough on hand right now that I can be picky and wait until it’s 75 cents or less. For me, I’ve held out for sales on Dove deodorant. I’ve seen many sales for Secret and Arrid, though.

Toothpaste: 50 cents or less
I used to purchase the cheap 74-cent toothpaste at Walmart, but now I realize that I can get Crest or Colgate for even cheaper. Match coupons with sales and store offers (Target gift cards, ExtraBucks at CVS or Register Rewards at Walgreens) and you can get name-brand toothpaste for less than 50 cents – and sometimes FREE! When a new toothpaste comes on the market, it’s basically a guarantee that you can find it for free somewhere.

Mouthwash: $1.50 or less
Hubster is currently using pink Barbie Listerine Smart Rinse for kids because I got it for free! He may not want to show off his Barbie mouthwash, but it was free and it does the job. :) Listerine Zero is a relatively new product, so you can expect to find some great deals on it right now. The best deals are typically on the 500 mL bottles, but once in a while you can get a large bottle for very cheap (especially in a different brand, such as Crest).

Toilet Paper: varies by brand
The best toilet paper deals are on Cottonelle. One week, I scored Cottonelle for about 12 cents/roll at Walgreens; but we hated it. I’ve decided to only purchase Scott Extra Soft. I wait until I can match a coupon with a store sale. Sometimes you’re just willing to pay more for certain items!

Feminine Products: $4.50 or less
Even with couponing, tampons and pads are still rather expensive. However, you can get some awesome deals at drug stores. I’ve been able to get an 8-pack of Walgreens brand tampons for free, as well as a 20-pk of Carefree liners at CVS. Keep in mind that these are with Register Rewards and ExtraBucks offers. You can also get good deals on name-brand products when you combine coupons with store sales and offers. Target often offers a gift card deal when you purchase a certain dollar amount in Playtex products. Walgreens and CVS also offer store rewards that you can combine with coupons and sales for a deep discount.

Dish Soap: 74 cents or less for a small bottle
Since I started couponing, I only purchase my dish soap at CVS. They regularly put name-brand dish soap on sale for 99 cents and there are often 25-50 cent coupons in the newspaper inserts. I have enough in my stockpile now that I will only purchase it when I have a 50 cent coupon to combine with the store sale.

Diapers: 16 cents/diaper or less
Target is hands-down the best place to find deals on diapers. I *love* Target. Target often runs a sale where you can get a $5 or $10 gift card for purchasing two or three packs of diapers (the $10 gift card is offered when the huge boxes are on sale). Sometimes they also have store coupons for diaper purchases. That means that you can combine a manufacturer coupon with a store coupon AND the sale – resulting in a huge savings. The best deal that I ever got was 8 cents/diaper on Luvs at Target; but other than that one occasion, I typically purchase Pampers or Huggies. I’ve found that couponing makes diapers cheaper than what I could get through shopping clubs or programs like Amazon Mom.

Baby Wipes: 0.0069 cents/wipe
My cost standard for wipes are the Up&Up brand from Target. The refills come in 240-count bags and cost $4.99 for a 3-pack. It is extremely rare to find a deal on name-brand wipes for less than that. My best wipes deal was using a coupon for $1 off a $3 or higher Up&Up item (found on Target.com). The 9-pack of wipes was on sale and I got that for $11-something after the coupon. AMAZING DEAL!

If you would like to hear cost standards for any items that I didn’t mention, please leave your request in the comments! I’ll be happy to help!

*Diclosure: I have been compensated by Answers.com coupons to include their link in this post. The opinions and information in this post are entirely my own.

Free and Super-Cheap Items – Week of 7/24

This Week’s Deals Around Town

I got $40-worth of stuff for $0.66 at CVS!

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This was my first week of 98% savings and I am SO excited!

The original price of the merchandise was $40.03, minus the sale prices from my CVS card, a few manufacturer coupons, and some ExtraBucks that I had earned last week…and I only paid $0.66 out of pocket and even walked out with $8.79 in ExtraBucks that I can use in the next few weeks. :)

Here are the major deals that I found there this week:

RepHresh Brilliant tampons, on sale for $5.79. Click here for a $1.00 manufacturer coupon. CVS is offering $5.79 in ExtraBucks with your CVS ExtraCare card. Final price: $1.00 MONEYMAKER.
2 Dove Men + Care Deodorants, on sale for $3.50 each
2 Dove Men + Care Body Washes, on sale for $5.00 each
Buy One, Get One Free coupon for Men+Care Body Wash and a $2.00/1 Dove Men+Care Deodorant from Red Plum insert of this Sunday’s newspaper. If you purchase two papers, you can use two of the deodorant coupons. Pay $8.00, receive $5.00 in ExtraBucks. Final price: $0.75 each.
1L SmartWater, on sale for 5/$5. Receive $2 in ExtraBucks. Final price: 5/$3.

Then I used $16.99 in ExtraBucks that I had earned last week. It.was.awesome.

I’m not sure if I can ever get to the point where I’m saving 98+% at other stores, but I did get some awesome deals at Target as well. Old Spice deodorant and body wash is on sale and I had a B1G1 coupon. Playtex tampons are on sale, I had a $1.50/2 coupon and you’re supposed to get a $5 Target gift card with the purchase of two (I got home to realize that the gift card wasn’t triggered at checkout for me. Bummer.).

Basically, Hubster is stocked up on deodorant and body wash for quite some time and I have a ginormous supply of tampons. But it’s stuff that we will use – I never plan to stock up on things that we won’t use! For those of you that would like to become a Coupon Ninja, one of my favorite new sites is The Krazy Coupon Lady. There’s some fabulous information on there and they do all the work for you. (This week, I found most of these CVS sales on my own before checking their site, so I was pretty proud! haha).

Bargain Shopping

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While I’ve always enjoyed saving money and finding deals, I have developed a new love for it since we’ve started living solely off of the hubster’s graduate assistant salary. I was thrilled when we received a 30% off coupon for Kohl’s in the mail this week! There are a few big items, including a breast pump, that were still on our baby registry that I wanted to fulfill. After shopping around and finding comparable items to the ones that I wanted at Babies R Us, I just placed a Kohl’s order and saved $100 in the process – AND got $40 in Kohl’s cash!

Did you know that Kohl’s has a ton of baby items available online only that can also be found at Babies R Us? I found the breast pump that I wanted, which also happened to be on sale, as well as a changing pad, bottle brush and some baby toys. They’re also having a baby sale, so everything I purchased was on sale in addition to my 30% off!

Some of my awesome deals today include:

a $280 breast pump, on sale for $238 – I paid $166.60
a $27 changing pad, on sale for $22.94 – I paid $16.06
an $18 monkey toy, on sale for $12.60 – I paid $8.82
a $20 2-pack of sleep ‘n’ plays, on sale for $14 – I paid $9.80
an $11 polo bodysuit, on sale for $4.95 – I paid $3.46

Last week, during the huge Old Navy Baby & Kids’ Sale, we purchased a clearance winter coat for about 75% off. It was an awesome find! I can’t believe how expensive that stuff is normally – it was originally over $40!

What are some ways that you’ve been thrifty for your family?