Mommin' It Up!

November 22, 2008November 22, 2008

Exclusive Meijer Deals & Gettin’ Paid to Buy Glade!

I had a very fun week couponing during this week,my one year coupon-aversary! But before I tell you about it, I have some exclusive Meijer deals to tell you about! You see, the folks at Meijer have apparently decided we’re cool, (or at least I am, right Emily?) and have “leaked” us some deals to share with you, our DEAR READERS!! Yay! Here are some deals you can get exclusively at Meijer this Sunday November 23, only!

There will be special coupons in the Meijer circular!

Good Sunday 11/23 4 x 6 Express Photo Prints $0.09 each
Good Monday 11/24 20% off any camera or camcorder $99 or more
Good Tuesday 11/25 20% off entire stock of video game and pc gaming gift cards
Good Wednesday 20% off entire stock of hardcover books

And here are some great food deals just in time for Thanksgiving!

$9 off Grade A Hen Turkey with additional $20 purchase
$15 off Grade A Tom Turkey with additional $20 purchase
$29.95 Entire Turkey Dinner (Need to order 48 hours in advance)

a. 12lb Turkey
b. 4lbs Mashed Potatoes
c. 2lbs Stuffing
d. 1lb Gravy
e. 1lb Cranberry Salad
f. 12 rolls

So make sure and hit Meijer to get these great deals!

Now for my super-fun week of savings!

Target had a great deal on Glade holiday candles. (Can you hear the “Target Lady” from SNL saying “Halliday Cayndles!”?) If you bought 4 of them, you got a $5 Target gift card. The Glade Scented Oil Candle holders, refills and jar candles were $2.50, and I had LOTS of coupons! So I got all this in picture for about $2 profit after all was said and done! And before you start scoffing me (Emily), I am going to give these as gifts to Joshua’s Awana leaders and co-op teachers. 🙂

Now on to my first coupon love, CVS!

I had to hit this great battery deal!
4 packs of AA batteries @ $5.99 each = $23.96
Coupons: Rite Aid $5 off $25 purchase (my CVS takes competitor q’s)
Four 75-cent off coupons
Total $15.96 before tax
I paid with a $15.99 ECB adjusted down to $15.96, and got back 15 ECB for buying the batteries!

Next up: MORE GLADE! This time at CVS instead of Target!

1 Vaseline lotion $5.99
Two Glade plugins fans $7.99 each
Two Glade refills $3.99 each
Total = $29.95
Coupons:
$5/$25 Rite Aid coupon
$1.50 off Vaseline manu q
$1 off any lotion CVS CRT
Two Buy Glade refill, get warmer free manu q’s (-$15.98)
BOGO Glade refill manu q (-$3.99) (I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to use this one but it didn’t beep)
Total = $2.48
I paid with 2 ECB and paid $2.02 in cash with tax and got back 12 ECB. 10 for the Glade and 2 for the lotion! Yippee!

Well that is all for me this week. Hope you all did great! For more great couponing tales, check out CVS Superstars at The Centsible Sawyer an Super Savings Saturday at Money Saving Mom!

November 21, 2008

God’s Love in a Bottle

One year ago this week I started couponing. I discovered CVS, I got paid to buy Glade candles at Target, and I basked in the wonder of it all! It was truly exhilarating to be able to get stuff I needed for free and to get paid to buy other stuff. I really felt that coupons were a gift from God, just one more way He had provided for us since I decided to quit my job and stay home with the kiddos full-time. The first week of December, whilst still in the throes of CVS-newbie excitement, I discovered that my kids needed baby wash. So, I thought I’d go to CVS to get myself some Johnson’s baby wash and pay for it with my CVS ExtraCare bucks. I had a $1 off manufacturer’s coupon as well. Alas, when I got to CVS, I discovered the baby wash was $4.29. $4.29!?!? No way was this new-couponer going to “spend” that much of her ECBs on that. I decided I would just save my coupon and use it to get some reasonably-priced Johnson’s at Target later in the week.

The next day, CVS put out an e-mail coupon for $2 off Johnson’s baby wash. I am not lying. Hot Dog! I was excited! With my $1 off manufacturer’s coupon and my $2 off CVS coupon, I could get the price down to $1.29. Now THAT is a price I was willing to spend my ExtraCare Bucks on! So I went in and bought a bottle. And guess what happened? There, on the bottom of my receipt, I got a $1 ExtraCare Buck BACK for buying the Johnson’s. It was an UNADVERTISED special that I knew nothing about. So, between my $3 in coupons and my $1 ECB I got for buying it, I paid 29 cents for the baby wash.

The limit on this deal was five. You KNOW I got my coupons together and went back and got four more!

I went from not having any baby wash to having enough for months, and I got it all for just pennies. Wow!

So, that’s a great story, right? Super-neat how that worked out, eh?

To me, it’s not a story of a great deal. It’s a story of God’s great love for me.

You see, November 2007 had been a tight month for us, and with Christmas looming that first week of December, there is a reason I was being tight with those ExtraCare bucks. But God is my provider, and He meets my needs because I have placed my trust in Him. I needed baby wash, and I truly believe that God gave me that great deal to encourage me on my couponing path. He provided for even my kid’s most basic needs through coupons – the day after I walked out of CVS not willing to pay $4.29 or even $3.29 on for the baby wash, I got a $2 off coupon in my email! And it was CVS coupon that I could use with my manufacturer’s coupon. And THEN I got $1 back for buying it! Not a coincidence, people. (In this post, my Bloggy BFF Jill calls this “God Showing Off”.) God worked that out for me and used it to empower me. I think when I first started couponing, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to stick with it, but after the Great Baby Wash Heist of 2007, I have truly never looked back. I ask God to bless my couponing efforts, and He DOES! My most recent CVS receipt tells me that my year-to-date savings there are over $6200. And to that I say, THANK YOU LORD!

I mean for real, how cool is it that the Creator of the Universe cares what I pay for baby wash?? FREAKING COOL!!

What do you need today? Why don’t you ask God and give Him the chance to meet your needs in an amazing way?

November 18, 2008November 18, 2008

The Great Birthday Cake Saga of 2008

So, a couple of weeks ago when I posted about my yearly birthday cake freak-out, many of you left comments with good cake ideas. My husband also left a comment that simply said “P”. That’s because Sophie LOVES letters, and P is her favorite letter. So, his idea was that I make her a letter P cake.

I really wanted to make her a Little Einsteins cake, but all the ideas I found online seemed WAY too hard, and as I looked at each photo, my blood pressure went up and up. I could feel my feet and fingers begin to swell! So, then I decided, maybe I would make her a cake that looked like a Magna-Doodle, because that is about her favorite toy. She lee-oves it. She loves for us to write letters on it for her and then she tells us what the letters are and then scribbles away happily until she fills the screen. Then we start the process over again. So, I decided I was going to make a Magna-Doodle cake.

Then about three days before her party, I started to freak out that it would be too hard, that it would just look like a colorful rectangle and not a Magna-Doodle, and that I would have to mix too many colors of icing (which was what about sent me over the edge last year). So, I decided my husband was right! (Gasp!) I decided I should make her a letter “P” cake. Bobby would cut the shape out for me out of a rectangle cake and then I’d frost it. Easy peasy!

Except I didn’t hear the timer go off on the oven and the cake got a *smidge* overdone and a huge chunk of it stuck to the pan, leaving a giant sunken portion in the middle of the cake, making it near impossible to cut a letter P out of it!

AAAARRRRRGH!!

Blood. Pressure. Rising!!

This was about 9 p.m. the night before the party, and I was just done. I was near tears, and decided I would just make cupcakes. But then, my sweet, capable husband pieced the thing back together, cut the cake in half, and carved a P out of half the cake, somehow making the broken part become the center of the P that we would have to cut out anyway. YAY! The day was saved! The P was just a little smaller than I’d originally intended, so I did make the cupcakes so that there would be enough cake for everyone.

After we got the P cut out, I went to work frosting it. I thought for a little diva like Sophie, and pink-and-purple P would be appropriate! So here’s what I ended up with:

And here’s how I ended up feeling:

The next day, we had a great party, and Sophie loved her cake! Well, actually, she ended up eating a cupcake, but when I showed her the P cake, she gave me a very satisfying “WOW!”

Which coincidentally, is the same way I feel about HER!

P.S. I entered this post in the linky at Blissfully Domestic to show how darn domestic I am! Go read about the domestic feats of others here!