Hey! It's a great week for coupons!

Well, I'm having a great week with coupons, anyway. I didn't do much shopping for most of the month of December, and was basically living off the stockpile and buying only produce and meat. (Since I mentioned it earlier in the life of this blog: Not a vegetarian any more. Not too happy about it, but...) I've been getting some of the biggest deals, but I haven't been paying much attention to it. So, it was kind of nice to get back into the swing of things this week.

CVS. I did CVS on Sunday morning. Where the heck is my CVS receipt? For the sake of completeness I will tell you that I got five bottles of laundry detergent, a couple of bottles of Listerine mouthwash, lots and lots of free Excedrin, toddler wipes, Pepsi, and a couple of newspapers. I'm sure that if you shop CVS, you know the deals.

Second place I went was Target, Sunday. I don't have a picture of the spoils of this shopping trip, but I bought:

Special K cereal (x2)
Special K Red Berries (x2)
Kikkoman soy sauce (x4)
Eveready batteries (x4)
quart of milk
Market Pantry whipped cream
Christmas wrapping paper (x2)

Total OOP after coupons: $9.37. Used two B1G1 coupons on the Special K, two Target $1/2 Special K coupons, two B1G1 coupons on the soy sauce, and four $1/1 Energizer brand battery coupons on the Eveready batteries. (Eveready is an Energizer brand! Who knew?) This shopping trip was a major headache. The Special K B1G1 coupons rang in for 98c, rather than $2.50, and then I had some coupon-related issues with the incredibly sweet and patient cashier, who must have been new, because she wasn't real clear on how to scan coupons or work the register. The B1G1 Kikkoman qs were a major problem. Checkout took about fifteen minutes, and in the end I gave up, paid full price for a couple of things, and took my coupons over to customer service, where they gave me cash for them. I think I actually underpaid, which I would have addressed in the store, but did I mention: worst checkout experience ever? Wasn't sure whether I overpaid, underpaid, or paid the right amount until I came home and got out the calculator. And I'm still not sure, because Target's receipts are a hot mess these days.

Target shopping trip #2, on Tuesday because when I got up in the morning I discovered that we were, horror of horrors, OUT OF CAT FOOD. OH NOES. The cat population of my household vastly outnumbers the human population, and when they are out of food, they start destroying my personal property just for the hell of it. They're jerks. Fuzzy little jerks.

Bought:
Purina Cat Chow (don't judge me. it's the only food that doesn't make Connor puke constantly) $11.29
Quaker Oats (x2) $2.14 each
Eveready batteries (x2) $1 each
Christmas ornament (x1) 50c

Total: $12.02
Stacked $1/1 Quaker manu q with $1/1 Target q (for 14c oatmeal, woohoo!), and used another couple of $1/1 Energizer qs on the batteries (free batteries, woohoo!)

Next stop: Rite Aid! The kid was pitching a major fit because he wanted to go back into Target and drink water from the fountain, after he had vehemently rejected the water fountain in the hopes that I would buy him a drink from the cafe. When that didn't happen, he broke down. I'm talking, full-on panic attack temper tantrum. Oh, yeah. He calmed down only AFTER he had attempted to bolt into the middle of the parking lot, in an effort to avoid getting in his car seat. Ah, three year olds. Ya gotta love them. Because without a mother's love, the entire human race would be road pancakes before they reached school age. Anyway, he was much happier by the time we got to RA. Go figure.

Bought:
Special K (x2), $4.31
Special K Red Berries, $4.31
Special K Blueberry, $4.31
Wet Ones wipes (x2), $1.99
Orange drink (not pictured), 80c

Total OOP: $1.44
Used Wellness+ Silver 10% discount, Special K B1G1 (x2), Wet Ones $1/1 (x2), $10 in Ups. Received back $11 in Ups.


Today: Walgreens. No picture, because it's one puny little box of Finish gelpacs. Cost $3.49, used a $2.25/1 coupon, paid $1.52, got back $1.50 in RR. Am kind of wishing that I had held on to that coupon instead of using it at Walgreens, because when I got home I checked the ad scans and found that CVS will have a good deal on Finish next week. Could have gotten the dish detergent with no OOP at all, there. Walgreens is too restrictive with its register logic for my tastes, so I don't shop there much, and didn't have any RRs to get my OOP down. Plus, they overcharge me on tax ALL THE TIME. Oh, well, maybe if my Sinex qs ever arrive, I can use today's RR to get my OOP on that purchase down. Should have checked the ad scans before I went to the store, though! Oh well, you win some, you... don't exactly lose some others, because I wouldn't call dish detergent that cost two cents after coupons and RRs a losing scenario, but I still wish I hadn't gone to Wags.