Hot Dogs and Spam

That's what I stocked up on at Harris Teeter this week.  The deals were incredible!  I coupon-stacked and bought $7.51 worth of hot dogs for $.02!  Do you know how far your money goes when it is used for hot dogs?  I bought a deep freezer to store them in!  I will return several more times to continue to get these great deals on hot dogs!  

And the Spam.  Oh, the Spam.  What should have cost me $15.32 cost me $1.07.  $15 worth of Spam?  That's a true deal!

Here's my plan to make it healthy.  Spam sushi:

 the wanderlust diaries- thanks for the inspiration

That's what I've been doing with my free time, now that I am facebook-free.  Double coupon week at Harris Teeter!  Woohoo!



J/K.  I didn't really buy Spam.

I did, however, buy lots of Palmolive dish soap (sorry, Seventh Generation hippie soap doesn't work for me.  I go through it twice as quickly as Palmolive, which can't be that much better for the environment, right?), Aussie shampoo, and Multigrain Cheerios.  And a lot of toothpaste.  I might have gotten carried away with the toothpaste.  Also a ton of other stuff like organic eggs, some pasta sauce, noodles, etc and so forth.  More stuff than I usually buy, but not enough that I have to hide it under my bed just yet.  I mean these are the shelves the hubs built for my stockpile but that is totally normal, right?

Again.  J/K.  No stockpile here.  Just a small pyramid of toothpaste that will last us for at least a year.

I went to Harris Teeter twice in two days (once with my kids, sort of in a low blood-sugar buying frenzy- I think that's how I ended up with all that toothpaste.  I was stressed and hungry and just throwing things in the cart) and once by myself.  I spent a total of $90 in my two trips, but saved $74 using coupons and my VIC card.

I had not done the math on that until now, when I just looked at my receipts.  Hot dang I am impressed with myself.  

I didn't buy anything weird and I didn't buy a cart full of frozen taquitos or something (not that there is anything wrong with that).   Mostly just stuff I normally buy one at a time, as needed.  Except this time I bought a lot at a time if it was on sale and I had a coupon.

Of course I spent some time looking online at the sales and then clipping my little coupons but it felt enjoyable to me so I don't mind that.  And a couple of hours of my time is worth $74 to me.

No facebook right now, so coupon'ing is how I'm spending some of my free time.  

Although I have to admit to feeling a little embarrassed when I pull out my coupons.  I'm not sure what I'm embarrassed of...   Maybe that I'm a cheapskate?  Or that I'm acting out some sort of stereotype (Mom of two pulls out the coupons, haggles over the $.50 deal on toothpaste, then walks her groceries out to her mini-mini-van/crossover vehicle/"space wagon")? 

Does anyone else feel lame forking over coupons?  Is this normal?  Analyze this, please.  There's something embedded in there...

I'm a Mess

Couponing 101

Nothing to do with writing whatsoever.

Just reporting that I spent $5 for four boxes of cereal today, using coupons and sales. I think this is called "coupon stacking," if I am not mistaken.

The "Extreme Couponing" has gotten to me. I have just seen clips on YouTube but these people are crazy and now I want a piece of the action. So I spent about an hour (okaymaybemore) researching coupons and loading them via the interweb onto my Kroger pluscard and then walked out tonight with four boxes for $5.

Don't do the math about how much time I spent to save that precious few dollars that I did because that will ruin my joy. Sometimes I just get compulsive about things and the time just flies by while I research coupon stacking and abbreviations such as OOP (Out of Pocket) and CRT (Cash Register Tape). Give me a week and I bet the frenzy will have passed.

But in the meantime, this is what I'm working toward:

What?  What?   Is it sooo wrong to crave seven years' worth of Corn Flakes, lined up neatly in my closet?

Watch this and tell me you don't want to clip one or two yourself.

from TLC's "Extreme Couponing"

I mean, you saw all those Ritz crackers she got for pennies, didn't you?   Think of the possibilities:

Ritz crackers and cheese

Ritz crackers and peanut butter

Ritz crackers crumbled up, topped with milk, and eaten like a buttery-flavored cereal

Ritz crackers and ham

See?  Totally worth it.