Return of Mister Deals: Giving Honeymoon

It is hard to believe about 3 weeks has passed by without a new entry--life really gets busy at times. Since I haven't filled everyone in for my last three weeks of deal huntings, I can summarize it very briefly:

Last weekend I had the pleasure of marrying my lovely bride, Mrs. Deals. So, for the two weeks previous to the wedding we purchased almost no groceries. I say almost none because for the grill out before the wedding we purchased buns.

Since this left most of my average $25/week budget free and to celebrate our wedding, Mrs. Deals & I enjoyed a few evenings out to dinner...so we didn't really end up saving any money.

This past week I took a few days off from work and we had a local honeymoon themed with the spirit of giving. This included my first ever trip to Aldi, some Target deals, a local Health food store, Walgreens, and of course Copps.

Since we were so frugal in our wedding planning and were blessed with so many lovely wedding gifts, we didn't feel quite right about keeping such good fortune to ourselves. We set a budget of $250 to spend this week, with the idea of giving everything away. For people who don't spend more than $25 a week usually, this was hard. We are actually still just under $200 spent, but we are waiting until this Wednesday to pair it with a sale on Tuna Helper at Copps.

A short summary of things we purchased:

At Aldi:

48 cans of Tuna .59 each

36 cans of Vegetables .49 each

12 Spaghetti Sauce 1.09 each

48 Ramen Noodles .15 each

At local health food store:

48 Organic Baby Foods $36.00 (kind of high, I know...we don't really have a history of buying baby food... yet ;)

Walgreens:

School Supplies (10 free bic highlighter packs , several folders, a lot of #2 pencils, 4 packs of papermate pens, 2 free Gel pen packs)

Target:

School Supplies: Glue, 56 note books (.15 ea), and 50+ boxes of crayons

4 Similac Formulas .84 each (HUGE savings with rebate checks)

Baby Bottles

2 Baby Cereals

32 Babyfoods (Earth's Best & Gerber) ~.64 each

Copps:

14 Skippy Peanut Butters $1.20 each

8 Gerber Babyfoods $2.00 for all

17 Beechnut Baby Foods $1.65 for all

27 Beechnut Baby Cereals .50 to .75 each [One store had only a few of the type on sale left, but they said they were fine with what we were doing & brought out a box from the back of a different flavor for us to use]

Overall this was a learning experience on the prices of baby food, it was shocking on how high the prices were--and how much they varied from store-to-store (Sometimes over twice the price, which seems inappropriate for a product meant for babies).

The deals this week were not so hot at any store, but since we had the time we thought we would explore around some different stores and spend the money as best we could!

As the next week of deals begins, you can expect more posts from me, Mister Deals

How far can $50 go?

This week there was a great sale on Kelloggs cereal, and I thought it would be a great chance to use up the various $1/1 Kelloggs coupons I had. We had a lot of coupons, so my fiancee and I decided we would go all out. We set a budget of $50, and worked out a series of 8 transactions. We couldn't believe our eyes at the results:

That's what 54 boxes of cereal look like.

Most of the cereals were on sale 4/$10, some were on clearance for only $1.89. With doubled $1/1 coupons, and some $1.50/1 coupons (Mini Wheats on box coupon), plus $5 off next purchase for every $20 of qualifying items (Kellogs Cereals (52), Huggies (2), Hellmanns Mayo (2)), resulted in final costs of $0.25 - $0.50 per box.

On top of the cereal we also got:

(16) Smuckers Toppings (10 Free, and 6 for $0.50 each)
(6) Colgate Toothpaste ($0.11 Money Maker: 89 cents - $1 coupon)
(2) Cascade Rinse (Free after coupon)
(2) Hellmanns Mayonaise ($2 after $1 off coupon)
(2) Ritz Crackers ($1.75)
(2) Wheat Thins (Free w/ purchase of Ritz)
(2) Huggies Bath Products ($1.50 with $1 off coupon)

Not Pictured:
(12) Steamfresh Frozen Vegetables ($1 each, plus $1/3 coupon)
(1) Bagelfuls ($2.19 plus $1 coupon)
(1) 3 lb bag Fuji Apples (99 cents w/ rain check)
(1) bunch Bananas ($0.49 / lb)
(2) Digiorno Flatbread Melts ($3.19 each, plus $1.50/1 coupon)
(2) gallons Milk ($2.69)

and:

The coke was on sale 4/$8.88, we picked them up for my soon-to-be in-laws, as well as a few other items (the Hellmanns and half of the Smuckers).

Our total out of pocket was = $49.76
The items for my in-laws = $25

Our Personal Total = $24.76

In case you are wondering how 2 people could ever eat this much cereal, or where we could even store it, we actually are only keeping 10 boxes of cereal for ourselves. We are giving the other 44 to a local food pantry, along with the Huggies baby products and the 6 toothpastes. It amazes me that giving to others can come from such a low final cost, with time being the real investment in taking advantage of these deals.

I know a lot of other couponers out there are very giving, and I would like to hear other ways that you are giving in your community. Please share your stories by leaving a comment below, so I can gain inspiration from your ideas.

- Mister Deals

Diapers and WalMart

So, this week I left my camera with my fiancee, thus I also left with her the pictures of last weekends deals.  

So, here is a delayed post about deals we got at Walmart:

(12) Boxes of Mini-Wheats ($.50 each after on-box coupon & Walmart's $2 sale)

(4) Kraft BBQ Sauces (FREE after $1/1 coupons)

(3) Kraft Dressings ($0.09-$0.59 after $1/1 or $1.50/1 coupons) 

(1) Dole Pineapple Canned Fruit ($0.22 after coupon)

Total cost: $7.69

After Walmart we stopped quick at the local Walgreens to pick up some diapers, which were on a B1G1F(buy one get one free) sale.  Using a Walgreens coupon, we picked up both packs for $4.00 total.  These are going straight to donation, but it felt like something worth picking up at such a low price.  

Overall the deals went by very quick, we knew what we were looking for and were in and out of stores fairly quickly.

Till next time,

-Mister Deals