Spending time, savin' money

Guess what I did last night... saved some bucks!

Thanks to my awesome sister-in-law Julia and http://www.pinchingyourpennies.com/ I'm getting into the art of couponing (there really is some "art" to it). At PinchingYourPennies you will find all the ads and what coupons are floating around out there. Then the idea is to use those coupons to purchase items on sale. The biggest hitter is Albertsons. They have the biggest ads with the most sale items. (But there are others too like; FredMeyer, Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc.)

Here are some of the HIGHLIGHTS of my shopping trip:
I bought a 16 pound turkey for around $6 ,after purchasing a few Nabisco items. (The FREE turkey was for turkeys that were under 12 pounds, I think.)
Pillsbury brownies and frosting for .50/each, DelMonte canned vegetables for .38/each and Jollytime microwave popcorn 3/$5, then if you send in the rebate, they send you back $5... so eventually almost FREE.

Green Giant frozen "Steamers" vegetables almost FREE. They were on sale for $1 and I had a coupon for 1/$1 off. I say almost FREE because of sales tax and cost of purchasing lots of coupons (60 to be exact). So when I added the sales tax and cost of coupons, they ended up being around .25cents... not too shabby.

**Thank you Tim and Karen for housing our turkey and some of the veggies in your freezer. **

We need to purchase a big freezer in the near future.

Don't get into couponing if you don't have a little time to spend. It does take time, but I'm willing to spend some time, to save some money.

Because this was my first big coupon purchase, I'm finding there's a learning-curve. I was at Albertsons for about 2 hours! Partly shopping, but mostly waiting. I'm having to train the Albertson employees too. :o) I had pre-ordered my big purchase, so it would (in theory) be waiting for me, but someone dropped the ball and not everything was ready. I've told them to get used to seeing my face, because I think I will be frequenting Alberstons a lot more than I used to. Next time, I will call ahead and make sure my order is there and waiting for me.

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Side note- To make a long shopping trip just a little bit longer... on my way home I noticed I was almost out of gas. When the gauge hit "0 miles til empty" I got a little worried, that I wasn't going to make it. I did make it to the gas station, but once there, I was so distracted and unthinking that I locked my keys in the car!!! I was frustrated, because I don't lock my keys in the car...I'm not that kind of person (this was my first time ever). To add to that, Jason's truck is not working (so he couldn't come rescue me)and I lost Jason's set of van keys this week (I'm not usually that kind of person either. What's up with me?) What to do???? After calling around to my family, searching for a AAA member (to no avail), I called a locksmith. He was a cheerful young guy, who drove a yellow VW bug. I asked if there were any discounts for previous good customers (Jason had used this same company for carwash vehicles). No. But I found out that my car insurances includes "road side assistance". Wa-hoo! So he billed the insurance company.

Even with that little "hiccup", I drove home pleased and happy with the nights results.