Walgreens-love it or hate it

When Jaron and I lived in Rexburg, Idaho, a Walgreens had its grand opening right down the street from us. We honestly did not care about it. We thought Walgreens (I will refer to it as WAGS from now on) was just a over priced drug store. We only went there late one night to get vanilla ice cream because I NEEDED it at my 8 month in pregnancy. It is interesting how my opinion of this store has changed in the past three years. Dont get me wrong I still think it is over priced on items and I cant believe that individuals go there and purchased toilet paper, tooth brushes, cold medicine and laundry soap for $30! There is so much that they need to learn. I always go home and tell Jaron what I just witnessed it shock! Also, there are still frustrating times at WAGS when cashiers are mean, when cashiers are unfamilier with the Register Reward program (RR), and when either RR's dont print or when coupons beep!!! There are a lot of different things that you need to know about WAGS before you can shop there the smart way. I would love to go into detail, however right now in my life, (as much as i would love to) I am unable to do a Thrifty Blog. Someday I would love to have a blog like Hip2save (my favorite blog), but right now in my life, even though couponing is a great passion in my life, my children are still #1(along with hubby Jaron ;) and I know I just would not be able to juggle continuous blogging and being a homemaker and all that i already do with couponing. I want all to know that couponing is a major money saving, actually, most of the time i MAKE money, which has greatly helped our family while Jaron has been in school. We have been able to get gifts for everyone in my family and for us without any stress and we are excited about the things we got for each other and the kids with little money out of pocket. Anyways, Couponing yes it is a money saver, however it is A LOT of work. I spend time each week planning trips to WAGS and Rite Aid (on top of that i still do a little grocery shopping at Sauders, Walmart and Aldi). I check my saving blogs Multiple times throughout the day. I print cut and file all of my many coupons. But I love it! I would really miss it if i couldnt do it anymore. This is my hobby that i am good at. As my friend Kate said to me this week, it is all through Trial and Error. I have become the saver that i am today by going out to the stores to find the great bargains/freebies. So this week, I loved WAGS. I went out with my friend Kate and had a blast. We spent the night snagging some really great deals. I wanted to show you my four different transactions. I had everything picked out and seperated in my cart, so i could just do four different transactions right in a row. And it was my lucky night because i got a really nice girl who checked my out. She gave me no problem. So I used coupons and RR's (you "roll" other RR's from different compaines to pay and then the machine will spit out more RR's to use! Brillant huh! Take a look-The total came to about $15 in all, however i had a $5 gift card from the triaminic (RR did not print) that I used. So 10 oop (with is about $6 tax URG!) Not too bad huh! And I have all of the above RR's to use on the next free RR's at WAGS! And I will be getting $14 back on Rebates from the Hair Dye!!

Are you excited about the snow?!

We finally had the first snow fall this week! Lily and Connor both loved it. They did not like getting all bundled up to go outside though. Lily was so excited to see so much snow early in the morning, so we got daddy to go outside with us and make our first snowman of the year. It was a huge success, until it fell over about 15 minutes after making it. It warmed up just too fast!

Wal-Mart Savings

As most of you know, my new "thing" is couponing. Jaron would probobly call it an obsession (one he loves though;)). It is interesting to see how my opinon has changed on the subject of couponing. 7 months ago I liked to use coupons saving a $1 here on toothpaste, makeup, toilet paper etc... However i still felt like we were spending a lot of money monthly at wal-mart to get our basic needs. It felt like every year we spent a lot of money at walmart/BJ's buying just our basic needs, excluding food (ex. toilet paper, soaps, shampoos, conditioners, hair mouse, razors, medicine, make up, napkins, lotions, diapers, wipes, etc.). Even when we used coupons, it seemed like a lot. Then if we tried to buy food items with coupons(usually buying food we usually would never buy) it felt like we were spending A LOT of money on what? Cookies we dont need, Yogurt that we really would never want in the first place, and other processed crap! I used to agree with many of my friends who would complain about the same thing. Now as I would term myself as one of the many crazy coupon ladies out there, I feel a strong desire to reach out to those i care about to inform them, that if you use coupons right, you are able to save TONS of money.

Every month, Rite Aid pays me money by buying top brand products including, make-up, shampoos, conditioners, lightbulbs, lotions, soaps, toothpaste toothbrushes, razors, etc...

Every month I purchase hundreds of dollers worth of products from Walgreens for nothing.

And I also shop Wal-mart to hit some other great deals. Today i want to show you what great deals i scored at walmart. Before coupons the total was: $85.21. After coupons, my total for EVERYTHING pictured was $21.94. Yep thats right, and I usually would not have purchased the Capri suns, i didnt even have a coupon for them!!! I know right, i was really mad about not having a coupon for them. However, there is a Kraft $20 rebate offer available,and these 5 capri suns were the last items i needed to purchase. The other items i purchased for the $20 rebate cost around $8. The Capri suns were 1.78 each. -So technically I will be making the money back, and then some. So as you can see, if you use coupons right, you are able to save tons! And this is stuff that we use in our house!!!!

For $21.94 i got:

10 Snuggle Drier sheets

10 kotex liners

5 capri sun drinks

2 soy sauces

4 bags toll house morsels

4 mccormick gravy mixes

1 softsoap ensambles

4 evaporated milk

2 boxes progresso bread crumbs

2 nut clusters(incredibly yummy!)

2 knox geletin

2 scotties kleenexes

So what do you think?!

Lily turns 3!

Lily looked forward to her princess party for a long time. She had about 7 little girls and 1 boy over for a dress up party. We had a pinata, treasure hunt, magic wand craft and lots of food! Lily had so much fun!

Pumpkin Patch Fun

Last year Jaron and I took Lily to this cute pumpkin patch where they had a petting zoo, train rides, pumpkin house and little mazes. We really enjoyed it. So we looked forward to doing it again this year with Connor and Lilian. It was a lot of fun. My favorite was the petting zoo. They had the three little pigs with a house of sticks, a house of straw and a house of bricks. We got a laugh out of it. We love this time of year.

RITE AID

My new obsession is Rite Aid. My friend Kate got me into couponing April 2009. She started to show me the ropes at Walgreens. I quickly got hooked. Then i was frustrated because i don't have one close by so i have to travel 20 minutes to get to one and they stopped having great deals to make it worth my gas money. Plus i had to still pay for tax for my free items. And there was a frustration with items matching the amount of coupons i had. Annoying. So back in June Kate introduced me to Rite Aid. This is a wonderful store! Who would of thought, right! I have been wanting to make a post of my transactions for a week to show you why i love it. Well i have been really busy lately so have not had the motivation to do so, until now. Check out the pic, how much do you think this all was?... I bet you will never guess! After coupons and Rebates I will MAKE, yes i said MAKE $5.37 including tax, now do you see why i LOVE Rite Aid! Items pictured: 4 Coppertone Nutrishield Sunblock, 2 pkgs. bic mechanical pencils, 4 pkgs. sharipie markers, 1 Rite Aid sunblock, 2 renuitz air freshing crystals, 2 Shick titanium razors, 4 Glade candles with glass holders, 1 pkg of pencils.

OUR TRIP DOWN SOUTH

Last week we went on a trip down south. I know what you are thinking, how do they have money to take a trip like this!? Well we don't. HAHAH... but we are done with school next November and want to start planning for what comes next. North Carolina has interested Jaron and I for some time. We looked at this area back when Jaron was graduating from BYU-Idaho, however, it did not feel right. So now three years later, we are once again interested in North Carolina.

Our trip was wonderful. The kids did awesome traveling thanks to our new van. The DVD player was a huge plus. We spent one night in Greensboro, NC. Did not like the area at all. The next morning we went to Burlington, NC. LOVED LOVED it. It was beautiful, homes nice and reasonably priced, and they had a really fun city park.We spent the day at the park riding the rides and having a picnic. It was a blast, only down side was that there was no Rite Aid. If you know me, you know my big obsession lately is Rite Aid! After Burlington, we drove to Apex/Carey NC. This area was again very beautiful. The temple was in Apex. And there was a Walgreen's, and Rite Aid across the street from each other. They also had Harris Teeter, Food Lion and Whole Foods which have awesome deals with triple coupons! We spent the night in Cary and went to church in the morning. We loved the ward. It was a little overwhelming though. Four wards shared the same building. That afternoon we drove to Virginia Beach to have some family fun. We stayed three nights at the Crown Plaza. We bid on the room and won it at $52/night. We got there and they had us down for a double bed room, we asked for a king bed and they upgraded us to a VIP Executive Suite! We were ecstatic. Lily loved having her own pull out bed. The beach was hot and sandy. We were glad that we don't live by sand. Connor ate the sand. Lily screamed when the water came up and got into her water pit that daddy made her. Jaron and I enjoyed watching the dolphins that came to play. It was a great sight to see the dolphins so close and so many! They did jumps, and would chase after the boats that went past! It was such a fun trip, lily says she wants to go on another trip, we laughed and said that we weren't that rich! So overall, we think the trip was worth while. We know locations that we are interested in and have a better outlook for the area!