Great price on Snickers peanut butter @ CVS until tomorrow

The deal at CVS this week is 4 Snickers peanut butter (and other varieties) for $2 with $1 extra buck, making it 4/$1. I used an extra buck from last time and the purchase was FREE! Try it!

Lowe's: Milk only $1.87 until March 1st

If you have a large family this would a great time and value to stock up at! You can even freeze it if you won't go through it quick enough.
Freezing instructions: Open the gallon and pour out 1/2 a cup and then you can freeze it. This will allow room the expansion when it freezes. Also- don't be alarmed because when you freeze milk it turns yellow, but as soon as you thaw it out it turns white again! :)

People are just giving stuff away...

Today was an great day! Due to my coupon mix up with this last Sundays' paper I got 5 extra copies of every coupon in the Red Plum coupon booklet!
Tell me that isn't a great deal. :)
So today I used those coupons to my advantage at Walmart, buying 5 Dial NutriSkin lotions and using 5 $2.00 off coupons!


Sale price: $1.97 ea
Coupon: $2.00 off
Total price: FREE (actually I made $0.03 per bottle)

Spic & Span was discounted at $0.97 a bottle. I bought 2 so that I could get the full deal.

Sale price: $0.97 ea (2)
Coupon: $1.00 off 2 products
Total price: $0.94 (making them $0.47 a piece)


And at Target Bertolli's pasta sauce was on sale for $1.97 a jar.

Sale price: $1.97 ea (2)

Coupon: $1 off 2 jars (manufacture coupon) AND $1.50 off 2 jars (Target coupon)

Total price: $1.44 (making them $0.72 a piece)

Note: When you combine a manufacture coupon with a store coupon this is called "stacking coupons" and it's always how you get the best price!

My Stockpile

I started 'couponing' about 4 months ago. I started out only shopping at CVS, swearing that I would never get into the 'extreme couponing' (i.e. going to multiple stores). Well, almost two months later I am now eating my words and I'm glad because it's so much more rewarding and I am saving like crazy! I decided to get serious about saving money in January of this year and I'll tell you, if you are not living like this you are missing out and over spending on everything!
So I thought I would share my stockpile with you at this point so in a few months when I show you how big it's gotten, you'll have something to compare it to.
Keep in mind most of this stuff was just been accumulated in the past 2 months and every item you see (just about) has multiples behind it. Also keep in mind that you are looking at 100's of dollars worth of products and a lot of that I got for FREE.

Where there's a will-there's a coupon! :)

Target: Steal of the Day

Today I basically stole from Target. I got:

20 Finish powerball tabs

2 Ibuprofen (24ct each)

1 Dental Floss
1 Seventh Generation Bathroom cleaner

All for only $1.07

Woooooo Whoooooo!! :)

Sunday Only (2/20): Walgreens Kleenex for $0.47

This Sunday only Walgreens will be having a sale on their kleenex's. Now will be a good time to STOCK UP!!

Here's how it works:

Buy 6 Kleenex Tissue 78 or 110 sheets $0.89 with in ad coupon Limit, 3
Buy 6, Receive $2 Register Reward, Limit 1
Use 2 $0.50/3 – Kleenex Bundle Pack, Excludes Individual Kleenex Pocket Packs or Junior Tissue – (coupons.com) (zip 90210 pg 2)
Or Use 2 $0.50/3 Kleenex Facial Tissue, any or (1) Bundle Pack from SS 2/13
Pay: $4.34, Receive $1.50 Register Reward
Total Price: $0.47 each

Did you know....?

Today, Josh and I made our bi-weekly run to Sam's club. As we were there we bumped into some friends and it just so happened that she taught me something I didn't know so I thought I would share it, along with the deal I got, of course!

She taught me the "1" rule. If a price tag has a 1 at the end of it that means that it is a "Close out." For example: $4.81.

This just means that Sam's is currently trying to get rid of that inventory to make room for more, so they mark it down as low as possible. Which means good deals for us!! :)

So the deal we got today was a variety box of 3 bags of Barilla tortellini for $2.21. If you ever buy tortellini at the grocery you know that they typically ask a pretty penny for it and that this is a terrific deal!

Wal-Mart deal of the week!

This week in the Sunday paper there were coupons for $3.00 off a Gain fabric softener or dryer sheets. I was able to get 3 of these coupons and put them to good use today!

At Wal-Mart you can get a box of Gain dryer sheet (80ct) for $3.12. If you have this coupon it will make them $0.12 each, thus making my total $0.36 for 240 dryer sheets.

This is one heck of a deal and definitely considered STOCK UP worthy!

Go see what you can find!

-A

Walgreens

I know I'm a little behind but I thought I would go ahead and share a couple of the deals that I got last week at Walgreens. I basically got a ton of stuff for only $7!! Here's a few of my proudest purchases.

This week Right Guard body wash for men was $3.99 and Walgreens was giving $3 in Register Rewards back, which made it $0.99, plus there was a peelie coupon on the bottle for $1.00 off. So basically I made $0.01 on it.
Walgreens had some really great in-ad coupons this past week for a lot of items that I would consider to be a stock up value.

Aluminum foil: $.69
Aquafresh toothpaste: $0.99
Baking soda and Morton salt: $.50 ea

I used my register rewards that I had saved from previous purchases and bought all of it for just $7 out of pocket! I would say it was a great week :)

-A

Valentine's Day @ the Holder's

Josh and I had a wonderful and relaxing Valentine's Day this year. We actually kind of celebrated it twice. This past Saturday I woke up early and began my pursuit of finding the 'perfect' Valentine's Day breakfast for us to share. I have this idea that I want to find a breakfast dish, different from any others that I make, and cook it every Valentine's Day for Josh and the kids. This is what I came up with this year. I don't think it's a keeper - but I've been brainstorming and I think I've got it!
Crepes with some sort of whipped filling with fruit. I'll keep you posted ;)

Josh and I decided to spend our day at Barnes & Noble. It was wonderful. All we did was grab some Starbucks, browse for books, and enjoy conversation for the afternoon. It was a nice time together. Then, later that evening, we made our own pasta dish and enjoyed some of the new wine that we bought at McPherson Winery on our anniversary.

Today was wonderful as well. I stopped by the house for a split second and to my surprise Josh had waiting for me a beautiful arrangement of flowers, dove chocolate (again), and a very sweet card. It made my day! :)
We also decided that we would write in our anniversary journal the Valentine's Day after each anniversary. So tonight we sat down and began documenting the first of many anniversaries for our kids to read about.

-A

Haiti Mission Trip - Our Interview

Tonight was a great night - we had our official interview for our mission trip to Haiti! We met with Paige from Church on the Rock for about 20 minutes and now we're even more excited about going than we were before!

She explained that the organization we'll be working with in Haiti, Mission of Hope (mohhaiti.org), is really great and they have a very safe compound located just outside of Port au Prince. We knew our friends and family would be happy to hear that, too. She also explained that should political unrest escalate before the trip we could choose not to go.

We asked if we would need any additional vaccinations and she said that none were required but we were free to get them on our own. I'm going to make an appointment for Angie and I to meet with our doctor about it. We know that nothing that happens on our trip will be outside God's will.

We will have one meeting each month with Rick and the rest of the team until we get closer to our departure date, and then we'll have two meetings a month to wrap up anything left to be done.

My boss told me today that when she saw my request for time-off this summer for the trip, she immediately thought Angie and I would come back with a child from a Haitian orphanage. I just laughed and said, "You never know!" :)

- J

CVS Deals

Compared to last week CVS had some pretty good deals this week that I took advantage of. I spent a total of $5 and bought 3 boxes of cereal, Dove bodywash, Trident gum, and Excedrin headache medicine.

General Mills Cereal was on sale this week for 3/$10 with $4 extra bucks back making the deal 3/$6 plus I had a coupon for a $1.00 off 2 boxes. I ended up getting 3 boxes of cereal for $5, making each box $1.66. I was happy with that!!


The Dove bodywash only cost $0.99. The retail value of this product is $5.00. A total savings of $4.01.

Sale price: $1.99
coupon: $1.00 off
Total: $0.99

Trident gum was FREE! (limit one per household)


Sale price: $0.99
Extra bucks back: $0.99
Total: FREE

Excedrine headache medicine only cost me $0.99 this week. The retail value of this product is $5.39 for 20ct. Now that's expensive.
Sale price: $1.99
Coupon: $1.00 off
Total: $0.99
Then I used my extra buck from the gum purchase before and it made it FREE!!


Hope you get some good stuff this week!

-A

Our First Anniversary

It's hard to believe that it's been a year since Angie and I were married! It seems like just yesterday we were repeating our vows, walking down the aisle, and dancing our first dance as husband and wife :)

Our anniversary was February 6th and apparently there was some big football game happening that day :) Anyway, because of the game, we had a great time because every place we went we had to ourselves!

First, we got dressed up (and Angie looked beautiful!) and went to dinner at one of our favorite places - Rain Uptown. Angie ordered one of their specials, which was a crepe baked with ricotta cheese and spinach and then topped with a bolognese sauce - she loved it! I ordered the prawns with fettuccine pasta and alfredo sauce and it was incredible! Angie had a glass of DaVinci Cabernet Sauvignon and I had a Toasted Head Chardonnay. It was so much fun because we were the only customers in the restaurant!

I had a surprise planned for after dinner, so we hopped in the car and went on to our next destination - the Embassy Suites! As we walked through the tree-lined plaza to our room, Angie said "This really doesn't feel like Lubbock!" When we arrived at our room, there were red roses, chocolates, and rose petals waiting for us. I loved seeing Angie's face light up as she found each of these little things that made the room so special. We went down to a little table by a fountain and talked about what we had learned in the past year and what goals we had for the upcoming year (more about that in future posts).

The next morning we went and had omelets and french toast for breakfast. We read the paper together and took our time getting ready. We had already decided we weren't going to put ourselves on a schedule.

Angie then had a surprise for me - she took me to McPherson Cellars for a wine tasting and tour! We each sampled five wines from their selections and learned about what awards they had won for different vintages. Of course, we both liked the dry reds and whites - we weren't too fond of the sweet wines. The host took us on a tour of the winery, which I really enjoyed because I had never been to a winery before.

After the winery, we went back home and pulled out the top of our cake from our wedding. Maybe all of you already know this, but year-old frozen wedding cake is actually REALLY good! We were expecting it to be gross, but we looked at each other after the first bite and then we just kept eating it! We actually kept the rest and will probably eat more later this week :)

After all that excitement, the real world was waiting for us because I had to buy a new part and fix our oven so we could cook dinner that night!

It really has been an amazing year - here's to 100 more, honey!

- J

Today's purchases

Staples had a two-day only coupon for a 12pk of post it notes (1200 ct) for FREE! The retail value of these were $12.00. You better believe I took advantage of that :) $12 for post-it notes is rediculous.

AND after noticing last night that I had a coupon for the toothpaste that was on sale on at Walgreens and that it was expiring today I dashed over to Walgreens today to pick it up for $0.99! Well worth the quick trip :)

Sale price: $2.99
Walgreens coupon: $1.00 off
Manufacturer's Coupon: $1.00 off
Final Price: $0.99

I had a good day :)

-A

Target spending

Target has some really great sales this week and I thought I would share with you what I got. Today I was able to get 4 boxes of Totinos Pizza rolls (15ct each) and 3 boxes of Reynolds slow cooker liners all for $5.76. Here's how you do it!

Totinos Pizza Rolls Buy 3, Get 1 FREE (40 ct. packages at $2.75 each) or 4/$4.32 (15 ct. boxes)
Use 2 $0.40/2 – Totino’s Rolls Snack, Any Flavor/Variety – (coupons.com) (zip 90210 pg 8 )
Final Price: $0.88 each for 15 ct. boxes or $1.86 each for 40 ct. packages

The slow cooker liner might be a different story for you if you don't receive more than one Sunday paper. I usually have 4 Sunday papers that way I can always have a chance to take advantage of a good sale, like this one!

Reynolds Slow Cooker Liners 4 ct $1.62
$1.00/1 – Reynolds Slow Cooker Liners From SS 1/30
Final Price: $0.62 each

I had 3 coupons for this item so I bought 3 of them, meaning I bought them for almost less than what one would cost on sale! This is definitely a STOCK UP item!
Hope this helps

-A

Broadening my shopping Horizons

Well today was a new experience for me as I tried shopping at Walgreens for my weekly deals. I'll tell you, I had a successful day!! The planning and preparation was well worth it this week. I decided to stop blogging on my weekly purchases as a whole and to start blogging about the best deals out of what I purchased.

This week Walgreens has some spectaular deals, some that are even stockpile worthy. This means you should get a lot of them (or stock up) because you will rarely see these products at this price.

I dedicated this week to my husband because just about all men's products were on sale! This allowed me to stock up on items for him. Not only did he get things he needed but they are good brands, one's he might not normally get because they are too expensive. The Gillette Fusion Proglide razors at Walgreen's are $1.99 a piece this week. Let me explain:

Original price: $12.99

Sale price: $9.99
When you buy, you receive: $4 in register rewards (which is free money that is printed after your purchase is complete and you can put towards another purchase)
Final price: $5.99
BUT then you

Use the weekly coupon: $4 off

Total: $1.99

$1.99 for these is a steal. STOCK UP! They will go fast so hurry.

I'm not one to want to pay for the expensive battery powered toothbrushes but I simply couldn't pass this deal up either. I wouldn't say this is a stock up item but definitely worth checking out.

These were:
Regular price: $7.99 each
On sale: $5.99 each
Weekly coupon: Buy One, Get One FREE
Total: $5.99 for 2

I normally do not buy frozen pizzas because 1.) They aren't really as good as they look and 2.) They are very expensive and we can make our own for less. BUT this week they had Digiorno Pizzas on sale and this brand is actually a pretty tasty.

Regular price: $6.99 each

Sale price: 2/$10 (making them $5 a piece)

Register Reward: $1 (making them 2/$9)

Then there is a coupon on the refrigerator door where the pizzas are for $3 more dollars off
Total: 2/$6

Now this is a really good deal on these pizzas!

If you aren't picky about your cleaning products this week is a good week to stock up on AJAX bleach. In the Walgreens ad from this week there is a coupon for 3/$1. If you don't get the paper - No worries because all you have to do is ask for the Walgreens ad when you go into the store and it will be in there. My favorite purchase this week without any hesitation is the .09 cents Herbal Essences Shampoo and Conditioner. That's right .09 cents!! This week Herbal Essences Hello Hydration and Body Envy are on sale and you're gonna wanna STOCK UP. Here's how it works:

Sale price: $1.09
Register Reward: $1.00
Total: $ .09

Now depending on your location it will vary. The Walgreen's I visited only had the Herbal Essences Body Envy conditioner on sale because the shampoo was sold out already. Some Walgreen's won't have this sale at all. Try to look for this when you go:

P.S. If you are in Lubbock don't go to the Walgreen's on 98th and Slide because they are now sold out of the Body Envy Conditioner - Thanks to me!! :)

Hope this helps you save money this week! I most certainly did!!

-A

Summer Mission Trip to Haiti

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy New Year! Angie and I have had a wonderful 2010 and are about to celebrate our first anniversary! While we were talking about the past year, our future also came up and we began to share how God is calling us to short-term international missions. We have been exploring some different options for the past few months and have been invited to be a part of a mission trip this summer.

We have the opportunity to go to Haiti from July 9-16. As you are aware, Haiti suffered a massive earthquake on January 12, 2010. The earthquake killed over 200,000 people, in addition to injuring approximately 300,000 and leaving over 1 million homeless. It will take years of effort to restore even the most basic services and support for the people of Haiti.

While in Haiti, we will be participating in many activities that will allow us to minister to the local people:
• We will be spending time in an orphanage playing games with children and teaching them the Bible.
• We will be actively involved in a construction project.
• We will support and encourage local churches in Haiti by helping them to rebuild.
• We will be preparing and serving meals to those affected by the earthquake.

All of our ministry efforts will be coordinated through Mission of Hope Haiti (mohhaiti.org).

We are seeking your prayers and financial support. Please pray that God would use us to share Jesus and the good news of the Gospel with those who have never heard. Since this trip is self-funded, Angie and I are asking you for your help. The cost to be a part of this mission trip is $1500 per person and both of us will be going. This brings our total to $3000. We have already started making changes to our budget so that we are not asking you to do anything that we aren’t already doing. Please know that any support will help - no amount is too small!

Please mail donations to:

Josh and Angie Holder
5628 88th Street
Lubbock, TX 79424

Or you can click on the "Donate" button on the right side of the blog.

Thank you in advance for your prayers and support!

In Christ,

Josh & Angie