$0.25 Colgate toothpaste and $0.60 Colgate toothbrush

 
Jewel has Colgate toothpaste and toothbrushes for $1 this week.  In this weekend's paper, there are coupons for both.  I can't remember if it was the redplum or smartsource insert.  I clipped it all out before I took note.

$0.75 off toothpaste
$0.40 off toothbrushes

Nice time to stock up :)

One Week Free Yoga - it's Yoga Month!

CorePower Yoga is offering the chance to try out an unlimited amount of classes for one week.  This applies to new accounts only.

http://www.corepoweryoga.com/YogaforBeginners/FreeYoga.aspx

Once the week is over, they are also offering a great deal for a one month of unlimited classes for $89 (at least in Chicago).  Normally, the one month unlimited is about $130.

I'm taking advantage of this deal tomorrow!

Free Wheat Thins at CVS this week (8/29)

In the new ad book, CVS has Wheat Thins as part of the 10/$10 deal. 

If you go to the Wheat Thins facebook page, you can print up a $1 off your next purchase.

Which means.....FREE!

Week Four Results

I really can't believe this....but in the four weeks that I have started couponing and shopping smartly, I have saved a grand total of: $274.38

That may not seem like a ton of money, but that's $274.38 that I could use somewhere else...pay off debt primarily.  Watching where I spend money has been revolutionary for me.  I was a spend-a-holic!  Just becuase there was a deal...I would purchase.  I wouldn't pay attention to weather or not the advertised sale was an actual deal nor evaluated whether I really need to buy that item.

I am a changed woman!

Now don't get me wrong...I will still splurge on the things that I want, and there are some things that I'm a brand snob about (mostly make-up), so I'm not being crazy frugal....just smarter with my money.

My goal is to pay off my credit card debts by my birthday in January....happy birthday to me!  Then I can concentrate on actually putting money into savings.  Slow and steady I go!

Date	Store	Amount of Receipt	Amount Saved	Amount Earned	% Saved
8/15/2010	CVS	3.33	6	3	73
8/18/2010	Target	28.4	5.02	0	15
8/18/2010	Michaels	3.92	0	3.92 rebate	100
8/18/2010	Walgreens	22.06	3.68	0	14.3
8/21/2010	Jewel-Osco	0.99	1	0	50.3
8/21/2010	Dominicks	26.48	10.96	0	29.3
8/21/2010	Staples	43.95	11	6	27.9
8/21/2010	Dunkin Donuts	1.97	1.97 free	0	100
Total		131.1	39.63	12.92	28.9

Do Not Double/Do Not Triple

I have this statement on many of the manufacturer coupons that I print up off sites like coupons.com, redplum.com, etc.  I assumed it meant that you couldn't use both a store and a manufacturer coupon for the same item.

From what I can tell, that is not the case.  It has to do with stores that have "double coupon" days....and the branding is more for the store than for us because it would mean that the manufacturer will only reimburse them for the face value of the coupon.

Here is a great example that I found:

"So, for example, if you have a 50-cent coupon and the store doubles it to $1, the manufacturer will pay the store back 50 cents for the coupon, plus that 8 cents for handling. But the other 42 cents comes out of the store's pocket. Many stores choose to go ahead and double coupons anyway because it's a way to compete with other stores in the super-competitive grocery industry. And that is really good for shoppers!"

Read more: http://projects.newsobserver.com/taking_stock/coupons_101_do_not_double#ixzz0xOdRAWK4

I've added tabs!

I know that that there are some common questions for specific stores and organizing, so I've created tabs for each at the tab of this blog. It has taken me forever to figure out how to do this (hence the weird color). I'll eventually try to change the color of the tabs, but for now I'm going to concentrate on filling in each section with useful info for you!

I feel like such a computer geek right now! Ha!

The Organize Tab is content rich - hope it's helpful.  Let me know if you have any additional questions that I should consider adding.

I'm gonna try out the Binder method

Oh my goodness....I was afraid to try this, but I was starting to lose my mind with all the stacks of coupons in my expandable file folder.  The store specific coupons are much easier to manage in an expandable file folder.

But the amount of manufacturer coupons is started to get crazy and so are the multiple copies of redplum and smartsource....so I ordered the baseball card holders to try out the binder method.

I ventured onto a new site called Cuckoo for Coupon Deals (link to her site is in my coupon guru section) awhile ago and I posted a video of her binder organization.  In that video she mentioned that she would be posting her binder categories on her page.  I took a peek this evening and jotted down the ones I liked for me.

Here is a list of her categories...

I am about to start sorting the coupons....will post an update (and hopefully picture) later tonight!