Saved big today!

I went to Publix yesterday and brought the baby with me. I usually like to either take my daughter (to show her how to save money while shopping) or go alone because it is easier but I really wanted to get my shopping done earlier than normal. I like to sit with my husband and enjoy the evening rather than heading out to go shopping til 9pm.

I bought a lot more than I usually do. but... I went to the southernsavers.com and did up my list. Then, I decided to look at all the comments ion the comment section that they have under each stores shopping list and the Q's that go with the products. I learned about a few more deals that I could do and I was excited and had to add a few more items to my list!! I keep forgetting that I can use competitors coupons at Publix and that includes CVS and Walgreen's Q's!! There was a comment about a product at Publix that was on sale and I had a manufacturers Q for it but then Walgreen's also had a Q for it. Walgreen's is considered a store coupon so I can stack it with the manufacturers Q to get a great deal! I walked in with about 50+ coupons and it took me a good hour to shop. The baby was absolutely wonderful. He is also a HUGE flirt. It was around noon when I went shopping. The store is filled with all the elderly people who shop at that time to avoid the after work crowds. My son just caught everyone's eye. I had older men and women coming up to me wanting to see and talk to the baby. My son Loves to smile and that usually grabs everyone's attention when a cute toothless baby smiles at them. :)

I finished shopping and gave the cashier my Q's and she said "Oh boy.". I thought that was funny. The total for my order came to $213.66!! That is with tax. After sales and coupons I paid only $76.92 (tax included). I saved a total of $136.74! Wahoo! A deal I found right away when I walked in was a new booklet Publix came out with, Tampa Bay Food and Wine Festival booklet. All the coupons in it are food Q's. One of the coupons was $1 off 1 Chobain Greek Yogurt. Well, publix has them on sale this week 10/$10 so $1 each! I grabbed 15 booklets (there were tons of them so I was not taking then all. Trust me I would never do that to other people) and cut out the Q's and got all 15 yogurts FREE! My kids have snacks for after school all week and it is good for them too! How fun is that!?

until next time...

I love CVS!

This was from my trip to Target. I got the hand soaps free as well as the 8 bottles of shampoo. Getting the cereal got me a $5 target gift card to use on anything in the store. Total for trip was $16 but the cashier was sick and did not ring in all my coupons. I did catch $2 of it and the customer service man gave that to me so only $14 spent out of pocket but if I paid closer attention it would have been only $12. I caught another $2 mistake after I was in the car. Oh well, I learned a lesson. Pay attention when cashier is ringing in the coupons. :)


My CVS trip. The powered toothbrushes cost about eight dollars and change each and the manuals were a little over $4. The total for the trip came to $46 but I only paid $4 for all of it. :)

I am not sure I will ever have to pay for toothbrushes or toothpaste or even deodorant for that matter, ever again!! I paid $16 for $40 worth of items @ target. Yay. Then, at Publix, I spent $51 for about $96 worth of groceries. Not too bad. I think I could have done better though.

I can't wait to see what is in the Red Plum and the Smart Source tomorrow. :) Every week I have gotten coupons for a free item in the paper inserts. Last week it was that new no-sugar sweetener called Ideal. I got 4 boxes, FREE. The week before it was Marcal products and the week before that it was Greek yogurt. Love this couponing!!

GREAT FIND: I found a coupon on the Internet through Hip2Save for Cetaphil. It was a $5/1 coupon. I printed it two times and found the 8 ounce bottle of it for $5.24 at Wal-Mart. I paid $.24 each!! I had never used it before and so I have now started using it and I really LOVE it! My skin is not breaking out at all and it leaves my skin so fresh and clean! I think it smells like my babies shampoo and I love that smell. Very subtle. It does not affect my allergies at all. I think Cetaphil cleanser for the face is a keeper!

Got rid of mop 'n glo residue on my hardwood floors!

I am sooooo ecstatic! I have gorgeous hardwood floors throughout my house. When we moved in I started using mop 'n glo to make my floors shiny and I would caution everyone to not walk on the floors til it was completely dry. Well, to my dismay, the floors started to lok really dull and had lots of patches where it was worse, like there was stuff caked on the floor. I went to Home Depot and got some hardwood floor cleaner and sprayed it on the floor a dozen times and mopped and mopped and mopped but nothing was getting this gunk off my floors. I even got down on my hands and knees with some Murphy's oil soap and scrubbed but, nothing. This stuff was not coming off. I could not figure out what it was and why my floors looks so dull and grungy. I asked a friend who has hardwood how her floors always look so shiny and my floors are newer. She asked me what I use on My floors and I told her I used mop 'n glo and she immediately said "Never use that!" I didn't know.

I went home and looked it up on google and low and behold lots of others had the same problem with mop 'n glo. This residue that never comes off. I finally found a woman willing to give FREE advice on how she got the residue off her floors. (Most were trying to sell and e-book about it) Here it is folks..... the secret! 1/2 cup of ammonia to 1 gallon of hot water! That's it! Use a rag and scrub the residue off the floors. It will take time and some elbow grease but it works and my floors are shiny again!!! If you have a laminate floor like pergo or something else like it you can follow the woman's advice and put a little of the ammonia water onto the floor and let it sit for 5 minutes before scrubbing but since I have hardwood that does not do well with water just sitting on it I had to squeeze the rag almost dry and scrub with it and then follow it with a dry rag to mop up as much water as possible as I was scrubbing. I noticed that the second pass of the damp rag took the stuff off as the first pass allowed the ammonia to penetrate the residue on the floor. I was so happy to see my beautiful floors again. they no longer look dirty and I feel like I can wash the floors now and they will lOOK like it!!

Mission accomplished!