4th stop, Walgreens. 2 Depends Fit Kit, 2 Kleenex tissues. Spent $3.27, saved $6.29.

3rd stop HEB. 6 Depends Fit Kit, 1 Johnny Cat box liners, 3 One Beyond cat food, clearance cheeseburger mac and 2 clearance Mott's Apple Sauce. Saved $24.23. Spent $6.09.

Second stop CVS. Almost score. MyLitter.com heard a rumor of Depends on clearance for $3.07. Another needed item and I have $3 off coupons! My store had them for $6.14 each which is still 50% off. Paid for 4 packs $13.60 ($1.30 less than 1 pack at full price), saved $36.60. Can you believe that some people would willingly have paid $50.20 for 4 packs? 

First stop Walgreens. Got 6 packs Huggies wipes, 2-2 count packs Avent pacifiers, 6 packs Depends, 2 packs toilet paper, 1 bottle antacids, 3 caramels. Spent $18.29, saved $23.75. All items (except caramels) that I need! Imagine paying $42.04 instead on the same stuff!

Finally got a response from Kimberly-Clark regarding the Huggies Little Movers coupons

CoupoNewbie: Kimberly-Clark Corporation (United States)
I have a question on the Huggies Little Movers diapers coupon that came out in this past week's paper. Is it valid on the Huggies Little Movers Slip On diapers? I was told by a store that the Huggies Little Movers Slip On diapers, even though the packaging says diapers, is considered a pull up and not a diaper. Is this accurate? Thank you.
· Wednesday at 1:49pm ·


Kimberly-Clark Corporation (United States) Hi CoupoNewbie: Thanks for your interest in our diapers! We periodically offer coupons for both Huggies Little Movers diapers and Huggies Little Movers Slip-On diapers. You will find unique coupons for each diaper style (hint—watch for a coupon next month for Huggies Little Movers Slip-On diapers).
Wednesday at 5:35pm ·
 

CoupoNewbie

Ok, I understand that, but it still does not really answer my question. My question was is the recent coupon that states "Little Movers Diapers" also valid on the "Little Movers Slip On Diapers." The package clearly states these are also diapers, but the manager of the store I went to stated that the Kimberly-Clarck Corporation considers these a pull-up.

Also, if these are a pull-up, why keep Pull-Ups on the market when they are also a Kimberly-Clark Corporation product?
Wednesday at 5:38pm ·

Kimberly-Clark Corporation (United States) Hi Dawn: We consider both products to be diapers, but they are unique styles with separate coupons. If you have additional questions, please call our Consumer Care team at 1-888-525-8388. Thanks.
23 hours ago ·

Just re-tried Walgreens for the Huggies Little Movers Slip-On diapers

Just got back home from re trying the deal from the Krazy Coupon Lady.  Two stores are quite different!  I called them both first, again because I really can't stand for long periods of time due to the pregnancy.  Here's what happened:

La Marque, TX:

I was told that they called Kimberly-Clark (the maker of Huggies) and KC supposedly claims that their Little Movers Slip-On are a Pull-Up, therefore does not qualify for reimbursement if the coupon for Little Movers is used on the Slip-On style.  I had to ask them a few times about this because the packaging clearly states "diaper."  Wouldn't this be false advertising on KC's part?  Also why keep Pull-Ups around if the Little Movers Slip-On are pull-ups and not diapers, in their opinion?  The only, and I do mean only, reason I even stopped at this Walgreens was because the manager told me he would be willing to put the IVC code from the Infant Care Booklet for a further discount.  Sorry, but $0.50 off is NOT the same as $2.00 off.  I'll try another store.

Texas City, TX:

Spoke with the manager, Angela, before I went in.  She was at least willing to attempt to scan the coupon to see if it would match up.  Guess what?  It did.  Not only did the $2.00 off Little Movers work for the Slip-On style, but also the $1.50 off *any* Huggies diapers coupon worked.  Unfortunately, she wasn't willing to type in the IVC code from the Infant Care Booklet.  I purchased my diapers there anyway.  I'd much rather get $10.50 off  from manufacturer coupons than $3.00 off from the Infant Care Booklet and $12.00 off from the February Coupon Book.  Of course, $25.50 off would've been ideal, but I'll take $22.50 if I have to ;)  

I paid out of pocket $34.03 with a total savings of $40.50.  Instead of $11.99 per pack, I paid $4.99 for 3 packs and $5.49 for 3 packs.  

I'm still waiting to hear from Kimberly-Clark's Facebook page.  The customer service rep wasn't much help, so I'm hoping someone monitoring their Facebook page will actually do research instead of supposing what's true and what isn't.

This is something I should've posted here on 2/7/12

Today at Walgreens, Target and CVS should've been $94.67 out of pocket. Instead I paid $22.53. That includes getting 18 packs of Depends Fit Kit packages, cat litter, cat food, 3 Scrubbing Bubbles 1 Step Toilet Cleaner Starter Kits, 6 candy hearts, night light bulbs, water, a doughnut, diapers, and a Lunchables.

Somehow I also managed to get a 25 minute massage in while PreK Newbie was in preschool too for all of 3 hours.

Did I mention I'm 7 1/2 months pregnant?

I'm wiped out!

More Walgreens issues

My poor blog.  So neglected unless I have something to complain about.  Oh, well it didn't help that this pregnancy has been so completely hard on me physically.  Medically, it's been pretty textbook and rocking awesome, but physically... not so much.  I can't walk around much, I can't stand much, my hips have been hurting like crazy since I was 2 months along and I still have a month to go.  :(

I don't know why I continue to bother with Walgreens.  I do, but still.  I go there to get cheap diapers with their sales, in store coupons, and manufacturer coupons.  Why do they make it so difficult when they actually allow you to combine all these items according to their coupon policy?

Yesterday, I was denied using a manufacturer coupon for Huggies Little Movers (2/12 SS) because I had selected the Slip-On style. I was in too much pain (despite only being in the store for 10 minutes, tops) to argue. Today I've seen a photo of the item I was planning to purchase thanks to the Krazy Coupon Lady. Apparently the Slip-On style is also Little Movers. How was this an incorrect purchase? Planning to make an appearance today in order to get what I had tried to get in the first place, completely legitimately. Hopefully I'll also find the Infant Care book in order to get care book in order to save an additional $0.50. I already have the coupon from the February coupon book to save $2.00 and the $2.00 MFGR coupon. It'll make each pack $4.49 after the sale price of $8.99 and coupons instead of the original cost which is probably close to $11/pack.

I also plan to get PreK Newbie a Beanie Boo from Valentine's day, marked down of course.  He's addicted to those things, and at $5 each, they're only for special occasions!  He has 5 already and is constantly asking for more.  I'll get him 1 today and a few more when he's in PreK tomorrow to put into the gift closet.  We're having a girl this time so even if he grows out of the Beanie Boos, I can save them for her. 

Cheap baby wipes at Walgreens

I really hate going to my home Walgreens.

When I say hate, I mean hate.

Last year I lived in Pearland.  I got kicked out for trying to keep my son in the shopping cart.  I had to raise my voice.  Other shoppers threatened to call CPS on me.  Management kicked me out.  Of course, I called corporate.  I never heard back from that store after the incident.  I also never shopped there again.

This year I live closer to Galveston.  I've had one woman try to tell me that it's illegal to get overage on any coupons.  She said it was fraud.  I tried to tell her that it's not, according to the CIC.  She said I just don't know enough about coupons.  There's another lady that always works the front register.  She insists on scanning each coupon as the item is scanned.  Of course, this makes a 3 minute checkout stretch out to about half an hour.  It's just ridiculous!

Nonetheless, I found a deal posted by Wild for Wags that I couldn't pass up.  I gathered my coupons, which were $0.50 off 1, not $1.00 off 2, and headed to Wags.

I stepped inside and worried because the item-coupon scanner was the only one at any registers.  No one was at photo, no one was at makeup.  Uh-oh.

Even so, my transaction went smoothly.  I was expecting some sort of problem with using 2 Walgreen's coupons, just because that particular cashier works in those ways.  No hassle.  It took $6.00 off per Walgreens coupon.  All in all, I got 3 packages of Huggies wipes in the 216 count for $4.87.  Awesome!  

Walgreens advertised savings: $9.00

Manufacturer coupon savings: $13.50

Your total savings $22.50

Not too bad considering 1 pack of these wipes cost $8.99 normally.  I scored 3 for close to half that price!

And, there's a specific reason why I need these baby wipes now.  I do have a 4, almost 5 year old.  They're great for quick wipe ups still!  There's another reason, though.  Come March, Baby Newbie will be joining us!  <3 <3 <3  So far, Mom's very nauseated all.the.time.  Mom's also very tired all.the.time.  Nothing is getting cooked from scratch, everything's frozen meals.  While it's not good on our budget, it's better than ordering out every day, and you gotta do what you gotta do especially in the 1st trimester and 8th month. 

More free for me at HEB

 Free Nut-Trition nuts, Breakfast Blend coffee, and celery
with peanut butter.  Hooray for healthy snacks!

This was free last Friday. I think they finally caught on the coffee because this week there were no more out of date and there was a huge empty spot on the shelf. I finally managed some produce. Celery with peanut butter cups. Yum! And another canister of Nuttrition nuts. This is helping my budget so much!

More free for me at HEB

Free Organic Applegate chicken sausages, hard chorizo sausage, Nut-Trition
nuts, and Moo Mix chocolate milk mix.

Same breakfast sausages and Nuttrition nuts. Those nuts are so good! Moo Mix chocolate milk mix for my hubby who recently got a taste for chocolate milk, and a deli chorizo sausage. I <3 the out of date guarantee!

Free for Me at HEB

 

Apparently this is what $30 of food looks like.

More free at HEB. I estimate this cost just shy of $30. The sausages alone was $6-$7. The nuts and jelly were about $5 each. I do wish these items were included in the "You saved..." part of the receipt. All I get is a receipt full of zeros. Wow. That's kinda cool to say. I have a receipt that states I legitimately took these items out of the store for free.

Free for Me at HEB

 

 Seriously?  They left the expired rice and chicken broth on the 

shelf long enough for me to get another one for free?

I think my home store is cracking down now that someone is using the guarantee. Good for them! Bad for me lol. Seriously, I'm glad it's more difficult to find expired stuff, especially stuff expired for more than a year. That's just dangerous! A few days is one thing. A year and a half is another. That being said, they still had plenty of Luzianne mix and Central Market Organic Chicken Broth on the shelf. The yogurt and ground turkey was only a few days expired but it was still expired. We're almost eating better than we did on coupons alone!

Free for me at HEB

 Had to take the pic quickly because I had to get somewhere.

Please forgive how much worse it is than usual.

They keep leaving out of date items on the shelves at my home store. Well, I'll take them up on their offer! Yesterday, yes on the holiday, I got some ground beef and turkey both expired on the 1st and 2nd. I also found some pouches of Minute Maid expired April 2010. Score! The drinks were great for the kids at the 4th of July picnic of went to. Used the ground meat to make stuffed green peppers with some peppers from Froberg's Farm for a super cheap meal costing less than $3 to feed 2 adults, 1 child, and leftovers for 1 adult lunch, so 4 servings. Awesome!

Eat the rainbow!

 

It's not a huge case of strawberries, but it's still good eats!

Farmer's Markets and local farms are a great source of getting vegetables cheap. Some farms also have pick-your-own vegetables lots which makes them even less! I wish there were more of them in my area. We'd definitely go more often to help gain an appreciation of where our food comes from. It's also a great activity for tiring out kids. Lol



As far as I know, the closest farm to me is Froberg's Farm in Alvin, TX. For a few months a year they have u-pick strawberries. Since it's about 45 minutes away from me and gas is outrageous, we head there once in a while. I lucked out today because we happened to be in the area and I begged my husband to stop on our way home. They had some different "imperfect" baskets to choose from for only $1/basket! Woo hoo! Totally jumped on it. They weren't tiny baskets either. I got 8 tomatoes, 10 cucumbers, and 11 green peppers. The broccoli was about $1.50/lb, the cauliflower was $1.50/head, the mango was $0.50 each. I also got 3-20oz sodas at $1.35 each because it was 95f out not including the Texas heat index. Paid $11 even for all of this! 

Anyone know of any other u-pick ms just general farms near Galveston? I'd love to support some local businesses while getting the freshest produce available.

More Free for Me at HEB

 

I think we're set on coffee for a good, long while.

I went to a different store this time-a newer, larger one in a more affluent community. Spent about 1 1/2 hours looking at dates. Well I tell ya what, this one is on top of the game! I wanted some chips to go with the Wholly Guacamole from earlier and I wanted to treat my men with ice cream. Since my massage place is literally right behind the HEB in the same strip mall, I figured why not check there. Found some chips out of date with no in date replacements. They wouldn't let me sub the same company's chips in the same size with the same price but different flavor. Oh well. It was worth a shot. I also couldn't get another pack of Irish Cream hot chocolate like I got last week for the same reason. Can you believe that 2 entire cases were still on the shelf dated from March? I did manage to find another huge canister of coffee out of date since March 2010 and some Planter's nuts. I've been wanting to try these for a while but they're just so dang expensive! Woo hoo! These will be great on our outing to Schlitterbahn next month.

Free for me at HEB

 

Yup went back to date scan for more items. I found a bunch of stuff! They wouldn't allow the bacon though because they didn't have any more of that one in stock. They wouldn't allow a substitution. :( This time I watched the numbers on the checkout and this stuff would've been over $20! I got Wholly Guacamole, Luzianne Dirty Rice, Cafe Ole Bavarian Hazelnut coffee, Cafe Ole Cinnamon Hazelnut coffee, HEB Breakfast Blend coffee, Central Market Organics Free Range Chicken Broth, and Central Market Organics Lightly Salted Popcorn. Wow! I'm definitely gonna do even more shopping at HEB.



On one hand this totally squicks me out because look at all the expired products on the shelves. The coffee was from last July. Ew. While I know some products are still good past their expiration date, shouldn't they be watching closer? It was all.over.the.store. I worked in grocery for 2 years and this would've been considered unacceptable in 1993! 



On the other hand I'm tired of reading on the bulletin boards how store managers are getting sick of customers abusing the policy. Um, get the out of date products off the shelves before someone gets sick, have your stockers do their job instead of your customers, and then we'll talk. I found all this in 1 hour with a 4yo while also looking for items I was paying for. Get it together instead of accusing your customers of abuse.

Revisiting the blogs I read

OK this post has officially gotten me angry.  It was beautiful... long, informative, witty.  Alas, Moofie got it.  (Am I dating myself with that term?)  So, here I am starting over.  I won't be so eloquent this time.  Ah, who am I kidding?  I'm short, sweet, to the point, but rarely eloquent.  Scratch that too.  Over explanation is in my nature.  LOL

So, it's been a while since I wrote a post that visits the couponing blogs I frequent and I thought it might be useful to do again.  As usual, I've added some and deleted others, especially since the advent of Extreme Hoarding Frauding Couponing.  I always use Google Reader to aggregate the blogs I read since there are so many.  I'd have more, but there are a lot of bloggers out there that only allow a line or two to be aggregated.  Too bad.  I don't have time to chase down a blog if they won't allow a full RSS feed.  It may seem snobby, but I don't just sit around waiting for more deal blogs to come through.  This is the reason I made sure mine will come through 100%.  I didn't want to waste anyone elses' time either.

That being said, I have a number of sub-categories that I've created folders for in my reader.  For couponing, I have general blogs, store specific and Texas specific.

General:

• Extreme Savings with Diva Desirae
• Grocery Coupon Guide (this guy is amazing!  Last year he was challenged to eat for the entire summer for $1/day and at Thanksgiving he was challenged to feed the entire family a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for $1/person - he succeeded!)
• It's Hip 2 Save!
• Jill Cataldo
• The Krazy Coupon Lady (I use her templates for my coupon binder)

Store Specific:

• I Heart Kroger (she's not in TX, so she's not affected by not having doubles and triples. also a lot of her deals are specific to her area. nonetheless, it's nice to see what hidden deals may be available.  I've mostly stopped shopping at Kroger since they got rid of the doubles/triples)
• I Heart The Mart
• I Heart Wags
• Totally Target
• Wild for Wags

Texas Specific:

• Coupon Kristin (she has a class coming up on the 9th - hurry to sign up!)
• Frugal Finds 4 Friends
• Jane 4 Girls (this woman is the one who put the bug in my ear to try couponing - she called in the Roula and Ryan morning radio show to say she had an $800 annual grocery budget. Amazing!)
• Katy Couponers
• My Litter

One last thing.. sometimes it's most advisable to check out a Coupon Forum or two.  It's especially helpful when you're about to create a shopping list and need to match up the coupons quickly.  You can also get some insider information on certain stores (for example, I didn't know about the HEB Fresh or Free Guarantee before checking out some forums).  Sometimes you can find out if there's a coupon hidden somewhere for a sale item that you'd like to match up using their coupon databases.  Here are the ones I like.

Forums:

• Hot Coupon World
• A Full Cup
• We Use Coupons
• Money Saving Mom

 Got any other good blogs or forums?  Share them in the comments! :)

Today at Walgreens

 

2 Tylenol Precise, 8 cans of Friskies cat food, total $2.71 out of pocket. Saved $20.27.

I used 2- $5 off Tylenol Precise coupons from here and one $3 off Tylenol Precise coupon from the Walgreen's July coupon book in store to get they Tylenol Precise for $0.49 each.  

The Friskies were on sale 2 cans for $1.09 which isn't a great price in general, but the coupon expires today and I have cats that can use this food.  I used 4 buy 1 get 1 free coupon from the 3/27 Smart Source to get them 2 for $0.50 or $0.25 each.

You do have to watch when they scan your coupons.  My checker was convinced I had only given him 1 of the Tylenol Precise printables.  It was partly my fault for not having them separated them adequately, but I did ask him a number of times if he had scanned both of them.  I think he misunderstood and thought I meant the one manufacturer and one Walgreens coupon.  My total was over $7, so I knew something wasn't right.  We took another quick look at the receipt and sure enough only 1 $5 coupon had been scanned.  My checker was convinced I only had one, but he looked closer and found the other.  Whew!  So nice to see the numbers once it had been fixed.

Free for me at HEB

 

My goofball insisting on being in the pic.  He's grown since his last one.  LOL

All I did was use their Fresh or Free Guarantee. At HEB, if you find something out of date you can get one item in date for free. I was there 1 1/2 hours and also bought about $30 worth of stuff we needed at home. I think I did pretty well considering. I'm glad I heard about this. I'm definitely going to use this more often!