Zulily

There are not very many things that I pay full price for anymore. However, I have always wanted a little girl and to be able to enjoy dressing her up in cute clothes and bows! That can cost a lot of money.... so I try to hit sales and use coupons (of course) to purchase clothes.
http://www.zulily.com/ is a site that hosts daily deals on women's and children's clothing/toys, these are typically designer or high-end clothing, for at least 50% of the retail price! The deals show up at 8am via email and the good stuff sales out quickly!!!
I got this dress below for only $19.99 and it retails for $48! It was sold out in less than 10 minutes yesterday but it was worth a quick decision and purchase... I think I'm going to get some pics of Allie done in this dress!

I now have a favorite designer clothing line for kids (Baby Nay!!!!). I got a bunch of these pieces at a sample sale last November and fell in love! I got these 2 pieces for only $15 each... and these retail for around 50$ each. I bought these for our vacation to San Antonio because they are really light and will not be so hot in the summer... and they are adorable too!

If you join Zulily... mention me by going to this link to get started! It will give me credits to feed my new addiction!!! :) Thanks in advance!
http://www.zulily.com/invite/hhughes848

CVS trip 5/23. Only paid 1 cent!!!

CVS

I stopped by CVS this afternoon with my list and coupons in hand. I came out with a great deal! I got everything pictured below for only 1 cent! I actually got it for free but the cashier told me he had to collect 1 penny in order to give it to me. I don't understand that policy but oh well! They are having an awesome makeup sale for 75% off the original price. Pair that with a coupon and it makes for FREE makeup. The Loreal Lash Out, Lip gloss, under eye concealer and eye shadow were all free or next to free (under .25 cents each)!!!

Some tips for shopping at CVS.

• CVS's sales run Sunday through Saturday. The deals are located in the ad in the sunday newspaper. I use the blog http://www.hip2save.com/ , http://www.mylitter.com/ and http://www.couponing101.com/ to match up coupons with their sales. Basically these ladies do all the work for me. I just make my list and gather the coupons.
• Always scan your store card at the "thing" - not sure what it is called :) but it is the red machine located in the front section of the store. Once you scan your card... it spits out coupons. Today I received a 2$ off Hershey's drops or Reeses' minis and a 5$ ECB for spending 30$ on beauty products (before coupons) during this quarter.
• ECB- These are Earned Cash Back for purchasing specific items each week. This week the stride gum was on sale for $.99 cents and you got back $.99 cents ECB on the bottom of your receipt. (ECB are pictured below). This makes the gum free. ECB print out at the bottom of your receipt. Just tear them off and use on your next transaction.
• There are limits on the amount of items you can get with ECB. For example: the nail polish has a limit of 6 this week. I bought 2 today and received 4$ ECB for each of them. I can go back this week and get 4 more that will issue ECB... the 5th one would not issue any ECB.
• I save ECB from the previous week in order to use it towards the first purchase on the next week. Today I started with 10$ ECB from last week.
• Multiple transactions: Today i only did one transaction because I had $15 ECB to spend. I got exacly 15$ worth of items and I was done for the week. I got back $8.99 that I am saving for next week's deals. However, I could have spent them on more items in a second transaction. If your second transaction gave you ECB then you could use them towards a third transaction and so on and so on.... Although, I typically never do more than 3 or 4 in one trip.

This is a pic of my ECB this week.

I typically recommend starting to coupon at CVS rather than Walgreens at first. Walgreens has some confusing coupon policies that I will talk about in a future post. Let me know how you do!

Kroger Mega Event

I have been sooo busy the past few weeks and I hope to not let so much time pass between posts in the future.
The Kroger Mega Event is taking place right now and I wanted to share some tips on how I shop these. A Mega Event is when certain items go on sale and you are required to buy 10 items to get $5 taken off at checkout (this is done automatically after scanning your Kroger card). This is $.50 off of each item's sale price.
Most of my work is done at home when I make my grocery list and gather my coupons and then I have some tips and tricks on shopping these sales easier. I also bring my coupon binder along and find deals while I shop (only when I am kid-free!)
Mega Event shopping: I typically group things together in items of 10 in my cart. I then find "fillers" to add... in order to create mulitples of 10. Today I had 25 items in my cart that were part of the mega event and I needed 5 more in order to make it 30 (mulitple of 10- just thought I should add that :)). I used Skinner pasta as my filler this week because they are only $.39 each! I also could have used Kraft bbq sauce at $.50 each but my stockpile is overflowing with bbq sauce right now. I had $15 taken off just for swiping my Kroger card.
I was low on pasta so I stocked up today. I got all of the Ronzoni pasta for free today and decided to stock up for the next 6 months and used every coupon I had in order to do this!
Some of the things I got for free using coupons were the 12 Ronzoni pastas, 2 Del Monte veggies, 2 comet cleaners, baby carrots, coffee creamer, 3 maruchan noodles, 4 Mahatma rice packages and the chicken (yes the chicken)!

I paid $48.52 for everything... orginally $146.23! Also, there was a 1$ catalina coupon printed out for next week.
How I got the chicken for free: I purchased 4 Freschetta pizzas and received a $5 coupon when I checked out. I used this 5$ catalina coupon in order to purchase the chicken (on sale for $4.89) in a second transaction.

I received coupons for free carrots, Del Monte veggies and creamer in the mail last week from Kroger and Vocalpoint.com. If you have not signed up for http://www.vocalpoint.com/ I highly recommend it. They send samples of new products and coupons for free products often. Kroger mails coupons at least once a month to my mailbox and every quarter sends some coupons for free products that I purchase often.

There are 2 more days left for this Mega Event but they usually take place once a month!

If you need some motivation to begin couponing...

Here is a list of things that I get for free with coupons. I have been able to get just about everything for free at some point but this is a list of things that I get consistently for free...
All of these items I got using coupons out of the sunday paper and on occassion using some printable coupons (I hate using printable coupons because it wastes so much ink so I try to avoid it if possible)

toothpaste
toothbrushes
dental floss
deoderant (secret, suave, lady speedstick, rightguard, oldspice,etc...)
dish soap (dawn, gain, etc...)
hand soap (soft soap, dial)
bar soap
chewing gum
pancake mix
brownie mix (duncan hines and betty crocker)
rice
bbq sauce
Frank's red hot sauce

Over the last year I have been able to get these things for free or for less than $.25 each....

pasta
spagettie sauce
canned tomatoes
Swanson's broth
fruit snacks (betty crocker)
cereal
dryer sheets
frozen veggies
body soap (Nivea, axe, old spice, etc...)
ketchup
mustard
many condiments
spices (McCormick grillmates, salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc...)
canned veggies
canned soups
canned fruit
ziploc or hefty freezer or sandwich baggies
baby food (I get coupons in the mail from gerber, beechnut, ect.)
baby wipes
and many more....

I also never pay more than $4 for a jumbo pack of diapers (this is less than half of the original price)

All of these items are in my stockpile right now and I never worry about running out! Half of my daughter's closet is for my diaper and wipe stockpile and the rest of the items above I store in the garage, laundry room and our pantry. I take note when we get low on a certain item and then I look for a great deal in order to stock up again.

5 coupon inserts this weekend!!! Yay!!!

Ok this is a great week to begin couponing. If you are just beginning I recommend buying multiple papers each week! I will get 4 papers this week (3 for free!). There will be 2 smartsource inserts, 1 redplum insert, a P&G insert and a Moments to Save insert (this one is rare and has a picture of a mom and daughter on the front of it) so don't toss it! So excited about all the coupons... yes I'm a coupon nerd!

How to get coupons for free?
I subscribe to The Dallas Morning News Briefing which gives me a preview of the sunday paper on saturdays... in this paper there are usually most if not all of the coupon inserts in there (this week the briefing was missing one of the smartsource inserts). Usually there are less than the sunday paper and some are missing but for the most part this works really well for me. My mom also gets the briefing so I usually pick hers up as well. I also get the coupons out of my grandparents' paper. I repay them by giving them lots of free things that I get with these coupons.
I usually only purchase one paper each week... sometimes 2!

Hopefully you will be able to find someone who is willing to give you their coupons each week! If you don't have someone that will do this... buy the double edition paper that is a dollar less ($5) and gives to two sets of coupons and subscribe to the DMN briefing!