You are here: Home / Archives for Thrifty Thursday

Thrifty Thursday: My Walgreens trip for the week

January 8, 2009 by

My Thrifty Thursday tip of the day is to always have a back up plan. I posted my Walgreens scenario for the week here. Unfortunately, no matter how well you try to plan, sometimes things don’t work out. I forgot my $2 Revlon coupon and they were all out of the Hunt’s tomato sauce. I was trying to figure out what fillers to get. Candy would have been a cheap option, but I decided against it because I’m really trying to cut out candy. I wanted to get something I needed/would use, so I decided on some cards. My OOP ended up being $3.91, which was more than I had planned, but I had to improvise, and I would have ended up buying the cards at some point anyway. Plus, I paid with a gift card 🙂 I also ended up with a $3 RR from the cereal and I will get a $1.50 Easysaver rebate from the Electrasol. The best part of this is that none of it will come out of my weekly grocery budget.

Filed Under: Thrifty Thursday Tagged With:

Thrifty Thursday: My Favorite Bargains from 2008

January 1, 2009 by

For this week’s Thrifty Thursday, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite bargains from 2008:

Amazon toy sale – The Amazon toy sale last month was AWESOME! I saved so much money that I had a bunch of money left in my Christmas budget and I was able to buy season passes for our family to Sea World and a zoo membership and I still have money left to start out this year’s Christmas budget.

Cottonelle toilet paper – I had never used Cottonelle toilet paper before. My first trial with them was last February or so when CVS clearanced their value packs to $4.99, there were coupons, and they were still printing ECBs. Since then, I have loved the .25 and .50 coupons (which double or triple at my stores) combined with the Cellfire and Shortcuts coupons and end up getting a free (or almost free) package of toilet paper almost every time I go to the grocery store.

CVS – I can’t say enough good things about CVS. Thanks to them, I have an ample supply of health and beauty items (shampoo, deodorant, vitamins, toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors, body wash), cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and diapers that I got for free or close to free. My total combined savings on two cards was over $10,000 this year.

Electrasol coupons – Thanks to two different $2.25 Electrasol coupons and a great price cut at Target, I stocked up on Electrasol and paid almost nothing for it. I still have several boxes left and I have given some away.

Free Scotch Brite disposable toilet scrubber coupons – In March or April, Scotch posted a PDF coupon for their disposable toilet scrubbers on their website. The expiration date was about 6 weeks out. I printed lots and lots of copies and looked for toilet scrubbers everywhere I went. I can’t remember how many I ended up with, but I still have about six boxes left.

Johnsons buddy bars – I have a huge stockpile of these, but my kids love them and I got them for FREE! I still have some of the $3 Kroger catalinas to use.

Kroger – The Mega sales they have had have been awesome. My pantry is over flowing and we’ve had to add shelves to accommodate everything. I love that they double and triple coupons because I save a ton every time I go and then get discounts on my gas on top of that.

Lila Guide Target gift cards – I earned a total of $35 in gift cards from Lila Guide this year for writing 10 reviews, starting a group, and adding members. It was a super easy way to make $35! 🙂

Omaha Steaks – Even though the promotion with the GEICO cards ended up being a bit of a fiasco, who can complain about free meat?

Target – Thanks to the $2 off Archer Farms ham coupon, I have a freezer full of ham steaks that I got for free. I have tons of the StarKist tuna pouches that were also free. I loved the Glade promotion and even though I gave away tons of candles for Christmas, I still have a box full of candles and air fresheners. I can’t forget the $3/2 Huggies coupon from December/January. I still have about 13 tubs of “free” wipes left from that deal. The $5 gift card or $5 off Pampers when you buy diapers/wipes coupons from the summer were awesome, too!

I’m looking forward to lots more great bargains in 2009!
Filed Under: Thrifty Thursday

Thrifty Thursday: The reason for the season

December 26, 2008 by

This week’s thrifty Thursday is in honor of my daughter. On Wednesday, I took her out to do some last minute shopping with me. I had a $10 off any $10 purchase coupon for JC Penney and I told her that she could pick something out. She loves nativities and found one right away. It was marked down to 60% off, so with the coupon, it was only .39! She was pretty proud of herself.

Here’s a thrify tip for the week. Wait about a week until stores have their wrapping paper clearanced to 75-90% off and stock up for next year. Last year I got really great wrapping paper sets that included the gift tags and bows along with really nice wrapping paper for about $1 each. I have a wrapping paper holder (these are a great investment if you don’t have one), so I just stashed it all in there to wait for this Christmas!

Filed Under: Thrifty Thursday

Thrifty Thursday: My Walgreens trips and more savings for the week

December 11, 2008 by


I am usually not a big Walgreens fan, but every now and then they have deals that I just can pass up. The past couple of weeks at CVS have been slow and I’ve been missing my bargain retail therapy. This week, Walgreens has a promotion where you get a $5 RR if you spend $25 (this is the total BEFORE coupons).

I did two transactions and got all of this for free (I had a gift card from filling a prescription). Without the gift card, I would have paid $13.45 out of pocket, but I will be getting back $7 from Easysaver rebates and I have $10 in RR to spend.

The scenarios I used are posted here:

http://melziemomsbargains.blogspot.com/2008/12/wednesday-deals-walgreens-3-day-sale.html

If you don’t have any RR or gift cards to start out with, here’s an easy scenario that you can use to get start for very little out of pocket:

Buy 4 Arm & Hammer laundry detergents (the in ad coupon says limit 2, but people are reporting that they have been able to buy more than that)

The price of the Arm & Hammer before the coupon is $6.99/each, so it brings your total to $27.96. Then, give them the coupon from the Walgreens ad and print four coupons $1/1 from Armandhammer.com (you can print two per computer). Your total will be $3.96 (plus tax) and you will get a $5 RR back.

Then, the Entertainment books are $25 and there is a $10 off coupon in the weekly Walgreens ad. Buy that, use the $10 off coupon from the Walgreens ad and your $5 RR from the detergent and you paid $10 for an Entertainment book and you will get a $5 RR back.

If you haven’t done the Easysaver rebates before, they are super easy. You just enter your receipt #s with qualifying purchases online and then it will submit them automatically for you at the end of the month. The turn around time is pretty fast, too. You can choose to get a check or your rebate can be loaded on to a Walgreens gift card and you get a 10% bonus.

Here’s another deal for this week:

Macy’s Friends & Family sale: take an additional 20% off and get free shipping using code MACYSFRIEND at check-out. This sale is in effect through 12/18/08. Also, get 8% cash back when you shop through Ebates.

Kohls Biggest Christmas sale: (December 11-13) Save 15% off everything using code BUYSAVE15 at check-out or 20% off everything when you spend $100 or more using code SAVETWENTY at check-out. You will also get free shipping if you spend $100 or more and you get $10 in Kohls cash for every $50 that you spend. Get 4% cash back when you shop through Ebates.

Filed Under: Thrifty Thursday Tagged With: ,

Thrifty Thursday: More "cheap" Christmas ideas!

November 13, 2008 by

Get a free photo book from Snapfish.com:

http://www.snapfish.com/registration/pns/grantpromotion/p=2001112

You need to log in after you click on the link or create an account if you don’t already have one. Here are the details of this promotion:

This offer is only good for one standard 20-page 8″ x 11″ custom cover photo book per household. Coupon dispersal ends on Friday, November 14, 2008 at 11:59pm PST. Free photo book must be redeemed by Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 11:59pm PST. Offer does not include customary shipping & handling charges or additional pages. Offer applies only to US customer accounts and mail-order delivery to U.S. customers. Offer cannot be combined with other coupon codes. Coupon cannot be resold or otherwise transferred, and is void on the earlier of redemption or the offer end date.

Toys ‘R Us – Check out the weekly “door busters”
Toys ‘R Us has been putting out an ad with special sales good from 3-10 p.m. on Friday and 6 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday. This week’s ad is already posted on Toysrus.com.

Be sure that you sign up for their e-mail list as well because in previous years, they have done a “12 days of Christmas” promotion where they e-mail you coupons with special deals.

If you shop at Babies ‘R Us or Toys ‘R Us, also sign up for Rewards ‘R Us. It’s free and you get the following benefits:
*Earn free Pampers diapers
*Earn “R Us Dollars” to use toward future purchases
*Member only discounts
*Special member shopping nights
*Recall notifications

Here’s the link to sign up:
https://rewardsrus.toysrus.com/Benefits.cfm

If you haven’t signed up for Geoffrey’s birthday club, do that, too 🙂 Your kids will get a phone call from Geoffrey on their birthday, you get a $5 off $20 purchase coupon BEFORE their birthday, and the kids get a birthday card with a $3 Toys ‘R Us gift card.

Here’s the link:
http://www.birthdaysrus.com/

Filed Under: Thrifty Thursday Tagged With: , ,