So i haven't warmed up to Price Chopper since it opened across the street from Shoprite. But this weekend I learned something that may turn the tide in their favor.

Price Chopper accepts Shoprite's coupons.
AND
Will match prices printed in Shoprite's flyer if you bring it with you.

Oh this made my whole shopping experience better! Now if only they'd make the list and pay for it...

We're down to our last two days of summer vacation here... and Steve and I are working. We have no last hurrah, fun thing planned. But then we did our big doin's in April with the cruise and moving back to NY.

The boys have met their teachers and are excited to be going back. It's been quiet around here with very few kids their age in the immediate vicinity.

Holly starts preschool a week from today - she'd like it to have started 3 weeks ago :) to say she's ready is an understatement. She's chomping at the bit!!!

Our vacation account is growing. We've passed the $500 minimum so now we'll start to accrue interest. It'll do for now, but when we actually take the $$ out I'll probably look for a new bank to keep the account in. I'm not a fan of them charging me a fee just because I used the $$ for what it was intended.

We were invited to Florida with a friend in June '11 - which would avoid hotel charges. So I'm looking to see what the chances are of saving enough for the airfare and entertainment (tickets, food, etc). I think there's a darned good chance we'll make it!

Overall, we've spent the summer settling in. Most weekends we are here at the house instead of traveling all around. There have been showings of the house in MA and we've done some things in response to feedback. Most recently, we replaced all the carpeting, so it should show really nicely now. Now we cross our fingers!

We did manage to meet up with Holly's friend Tara at the Bronx Zoo a few weeks ago. the kids had a great time and were exhausted by the time we left.

The boys also started Karate in August and have been enjoying it. Kyle is really eating it up, and Ryan isn't complaining (he could try harder - but we're working on that).

From aug10

Holly is looking forward to starting dance lessons in the next few weeks.

From aug10

I'm looking forward to getting back into the school year routine.



Hope you all enjoyed your summer!

I am so not looking forward to work this week. I had to pull stuff together to build a presentation to show to 4 different sets of folks this week. 2 of them are just prep for showing an upper level manager, which in itself is prep for presenting to execs. Blech. Of course since my first one is at 8:30 am tomorrow, it's what's been on my mind most of the weekend (in between setting up Holly with the super duper Princess bed of course).

Weeks like this really make me yearn for non-professional employment, preferably in a school so that I can enjoy summers off... But it is what it is, and usually I enjoy it. So I will suck it up and get through this week and go back to enjoying what I do.

Hopefully.

:-)

I made a 2nd grocery run today because I found a $10 off $75 in the local paper that could only be used up to today. I used the opportunity to focus on buying things only on sale. I almost did it too. I think if we include the bouncy ball I bought for Holly, I only grabbed 3 items not on sale.

At any rate - I saved $91.43 !!! And I spent out of pocket $90.96 - that's just over 50% - Woohoo Me!

Some cool matchups that I made (these are all at Shoprite) -
Several varieties of General Mills cereal are on sale at $1.99
I grabbed 2 boxes of Honey Nut Cheeries at 1.99 each
And used a $.75/2 coupon which was doubled -
total $2.48 ($1.24 ea)
I grabbed 2 boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch at 1.99 each
And used 2 $.60 off one coupons which are doubled!
Total $.79 each!!

Fantastik spray cleaner was on sale for $1.99
I used a .55 coupon (doubled!)
Total $.89

Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner on sale for 1.99
coupon for .55 (doubled)
Total $.89

I also popped into Rite Aid to take advantage of a possible money maker deal on Neutrogena (Thanks Mojo Savings and Kristin at Couponing To Disney !)

Do you know about Kidvantage?
First there is the spend $100 and get a coupon for 15% off which is nice.

Know what's better? Their KidVantage Guarantee. For all kids' apparal and shoes they stand behind them. If they wear out before your child outgrows the item you can bring it back with the receipt (and box if it's shoes) and they will replace it with the same item in the same size. If they no longer carry the item they will substitute something comparable in the same size up to the price you paid.

I use this for sneakers. I swear my oldest sweats acid from his feet (and I guess that's technically correct, but I mean like battery acid!). I will pay more at Sears for sneakers for him because he ends up with Sketchers and they last longer than Walmart cheapy shoes, AND when they fall apart I take them in and get a new pair. So we end up with 2 pairs for the price of one.

The cashiers don't always hold me to the size rule - it all depends who is on and what they know and how much effort they feel like putting out. Today was the first time I've had someone hold me to that. But always I try to be as pleasant as I can be. And yes, their policy clearly states the size thing, so I grabbed the smaller size and exchanged for those. And I bought the 2nd pair in the bigger size. My reasoning is that Ky can wear the smaller size now, they are just slightly snug. He'll wear them for the summer. And in September he can move to the bigger pair. If there is life left in the smaller pair they get put on the shelf until the smaller boy fits into them (and being 'blessed' with my tiny feet it will be a while!). I had a coupon for 15% of kids stuff from my previous KidVantage purchases and used that to buy the second pair and a new pair of sneaks for the girl. Of course both of those were not full retail price either ;)

What I did find today was that not all cashiers know all the policies. The first one did not know that you could even use the KidVantage Guarantee on shoes. She said 'no, not on shoes'. But I pleasantly informed her it states apparel and shoes, and that I've not had a problem in the past. She was willing to try. Ended up messing it up, and we got a manager, but again, I did so as nicely as possible. She offered and I said - I will very nicely say yes please, I'd like a manager, just to make sure. And sure enough the manager fixed it (after making me get the smaller size.. but again, no big deal there.)

Happy Shopping!!

Hope Everyone had a fun Independence Day!
We spent the afternoon/evening with good friends of ours, relaxing, eating, just enjoying the company. The kids had a blast. They are way overtired and totally at each other today - so it's nice to look at the few pictures I took and remember that a day like yesterday is worth a bit of crabby kiddos today :)

From jul10

From jul10

From jul10

From jul10

Did my dual store run. Total before savings between the 2 stores was $184.64, saved 62.18 (42.96 in coupons!) for a total out of pocket of $122.46.

Price Chopper had 3 coupons in their mailed flyer to each double a coupon valued $1 - $3, so I utilized those. I used those for a $1.00 off 4 cool whip (which was on sale for 99 cents!), $1.50 off Meow MIx, and $3.00 off 2 oxi-clean pretreat sprays - so I saved an additional $5.50 with those. The oxi clean I wouldn't normally buy, but for what comes out to 99 cents each (they were $3.99 before coupons) it will be nice to have a stain spray around, and it will get used.

I'm getting closer to my goal of only buying items on sale. I also like to add in coupons on those items. I did use some coupons on Fiber One cereal today and that was not on sale. But they expire today, and it was $.75 off one - which is doubled by the store. Not as good as it being on sale AND having a coupon, but not shabby either. And Ryan and I REALLY like it.

Kellogg's tends to have good cereal sales - but they still use high fructose corn syrup, while the General Mills cereals are made with sugar. So I just plan and save my coupons. :)

My bread maker now has a place of it's own. In MA it was in the storage room for the 5+ years we lived there - there just wasn't any place to put it. But now I have space :) and it lives on the counter and it gets used almost every week.

Unfortunately, with the influx of fresh, hot from the oven bread - there has also been an increase in my waistline. So the next grocery trip will have a list of ingredients included for making better bread - it will at least have a higher fiber content in it! I'm also going to start playing with mixing up the flour and using lower fat fats in it (ha! that's an odd sentence).

What do you put on your fresh bread?

Price Chopper opened recently in our town. Right across from Shoprite. So I don't have any excuse that it's 'not worth it' to make two stops if the deals are good. I really liked it when there was just one store so I didn't need to think about the possibility of more deals across the street.

So now I sit down with the flyers and I start my list. No lists. I use about a 1/2 sheet of paper held long way and start with PC on the right and Shoprite on the left. I write down the sale items I want along with their price under the appropriate store. So that when I'm in the first store I can compare the price that I wrote down for the 2nd store - just in case it's a better deal. And then I try to match up coupons with the sale items.

It's more effort, but I think when I get used to it I'll think it's worth it. :)

Yesterday my $10 CVS card arrived in the mail from Mypoints :) Happy Mail!

Earlier in the week I'd gotten a coupon on my receipt for $5 off $15 and a 5 ExtraBucks ticket. So I'll be visiting today - this should be fun! And it's well timed too - we're pretty short on cash until we get paid (thankfully just a few days!) so this will get me the necessities we need to make it through (bread... cereal... eggs... the important stuff!)

I'm probably hitting shoprite today too - but again it will be a very small run. I have to do some homework first to make a strict list and stick to it!

I know - not the most original of titles. 3:00am this morning Steve got up to get ready for his drive to MA. He finds that leaving at 4am makes it a very peaceful, traffic-free drive. I woke up to look at him looking down at me and he says "There's a bat in the sink". "There's a bat in the sink?" I say looking for clarification? He either nodded or said yes, either way it was an affirmative. I say "you mean the flying kind?" (because obviously there might be a baseball bat hanging out in the sink that would be worth waking me up for at 3am right? but hey - I was asleep!).

So I get up and look and sure enough there's a bat in the sink. It's itty bitty talons were hooked in a washcloth I had left there. Hmmm. What to do. Normally, I'd say turn off the lights, open a window, close the door and it will get out. But it was stuck. So I told him to toss a towel over it and throw it out the window. So he grabs MY towel - NO! Not my good towel - use one of the older ones in the cabinet (because obviously we need to not use the good towels for the bat, right?). So he grabs one, opens the window, covers the bat, scoops it up and whoosh - out the window it goes.

I go back to bet and he finishes getting ready to leave. Of course it took until well after he'd left for me to get to sleep. Because there had been a BAT in my SINK! I like bats. And I know that the reason we don't have a lot of bugs is because we have a LOT of bats. They seem to like the house and the garage a lot. I'd just prefer them to not share living space with me.

When I went out later today to get the towel (I kicked it, it didn't move so I picked it up by a corner and flipped it over the gate, then dragged it to the back door. It's raining now, I'll check it again tomorrow, then wash it. A lot.) I heard a peep peep peeping. And found a teeny tiny baby bat. It didn't even have any fur. After reading about these nocturnal guys it may be that this baby had been clinging to the one that got chucked out the window and maybe fell off when it landed. I assume the adult was OK, because it's nowhere to be seen. So I called animal control and a woman came out to retrieve the baby. Adorable - No really, it was tiny - about the length of my thumb, and just totally adorable.

Later on in the day I found a guy to come out and look at our bat issue. We know there's a colony in the attic and there are babies. They all peep and squeak when we knock on the ceiling. They need to get out and it's going to cost us. Ugh. Why couldn't they nest in the garage like the other colonies??? I like bats - just not in my HOUSE!

At any rate, I also spent some time reaching out to the Environmental Health department - we were worried we might need to get rabies treatment (and I hadn't thought about it when we were tossing it out the window...). Turns out they don't consider our scenario 'contact' because we didn't wake up to a bat in our room. Steve had gotten up on his own and discovered the bat in the bathroom sink - and it probably crawled/fell out of a small hole in the ceiling directly from the attic - so very little chance of exposure.

That was our bat adventure. The hole now has a washcloth shoved into it. You'd better believe the bathroom door, the attic door and the window that has a hole in the screen will all be closed up tight tonight!!! I think all the bedroom doors too for good measure!

Finally got over to the bank to deposit what had been sitting on the mantle...
I exchanged around $140 in change!!! All those coins really do add up!

From Cruise2

Initial deposit: $200

Stay tuned to watch this grow :)

Royal Carri bean is teaming up with Dreamworks to bring animated friends to live on Allure of the Seas. Guess I know what our travel fund is targeting now ... :)

So I found money in my shorts pocket yesterday. Not a buck, not even $5... but $30!!! I stuck that in the Travel Fund cup :) At some point I need to open an account and deposit what we have. We're up to aroune $70 in paper money, and two plastic baggies of change...

Being that I'm not the best blogger in the world, of course these SR prices are only good through tomorrow :)

All of the coupons below are currently available at www.coupons.com
(I use Mypoints or InboxDollars to print my coupons and get $.10 back for each one I use)

GM Cereal 1.99
$1 off 2
$1.49 ea ($2.98)


Betty Crocker Cake Mix and Frosting
Cake Mix 4 for $5 (MUST buy 4 or it rings up as 2 for $3)
Frosting 3 for $5

4 of these:
- $.50 of mix and frosting
- $.50 doubled
Comes out to about $.96 each


Shoprite is offering a pizza bundle
Pillsbury 8 to 13.8 oz pkg (pizza crust, breadsticks, french loaf) 2.49
Borden Shredded Cheese 1.88
Hormel Pepperoni 2.99
Cento Pizza Sauce .99
bundle will ring at $5.99 (saving 2.36)

I have a $1.00 off 3 pillsbury
$.55 off 2 hormel pepperoni (doubles)
My full cost for 3 pillsbury, 2 pepperoni, 2 cheese and 2 sauce would be 18.99
but I'll pay $12.37 (saving $6.62 total)

I could add in one more pepperoni, cheese and sauce to make one more bundle with my 3rd Pillsbury, and then pay 15.87 for all of it, but I'm already pushing the limits on storage space. And we love pepperoni, but it was on sale last week too so we've already got some!!!

My total savings of on sale items and coupons today was $117!!!
Just a touch under 40% (39.7959 says the calculator...)
About $65 of that was in coupons alone.