Celebrating a 5th Birthday!

Today is my middle child Calebs 5th Birthday and its really hard to believe he is turning 5 and just finished the summer session of Kindergarten.  I have to admit I love to plan parties, I love all the details BUT I honestly can say I didnt quite do all I wanted to do for his, last week was VBS and I am still recovering from that.  However, I think his party turned out nice he had a few friends over to celebrate super hero style and the scavneger hunt I did with super heros was fun for the kids however a few of the older ones found some of the clues prior to the hunt . 

Here is a quick picture I took of the tablescape I did - the city scape background is just black poster board cut with yellow squares and rectangles added for lighted windows super easy and cheap to do.  I made all the cupcake toppers and food labels and all the food too including those cupcakes, so glad he had a good time and its all cleaned up so I can sit and relax.

Caleb was very very eager to open his gifts he has always had a joint party with his sister so his own party was very exciting to him. 

I am wondering if things will start to slow down and I can spend a few days relaxing.

It was a Kmart kind of day AGAIN!!

I have to admit if I have to make a trip into town and I know I have coupons that I can make some deals with at Kmart Ill stop there each time I run in town, I might as well since they limit you to 5 coupons at the $1 value doubling per a transaction. So today I did two checkouts.  I have a few people that I generally try to check out with because I know they know what they are doing, Kmart is notorious for having only one cashier and well my second checkout today was with one that definetly did not get five stars in my books (attitude!!!). 

Just so you know we dont live on junk food in our house and if I can get a deal on healthier food I do however with three kids, summertime and letting them have friends over I wont refuse great deals on food I can offer for snacks.  I do love when I can get fabulous deals on lunch meat and other items but in our area thats rare.  Plus I am stock piling some stuff to pack for our vacation I hate to pay regular price to purchase food while on vacation so my plan is that I will pack anything and everything I can from my deals when we go to Florida. 

So how bout todays purchases??? Now this picture is actually missing 1 box of granola bars that we opened right away so keep that in mind.

Transaction #1 Remember you need to get $25 of food and beauty items before coupons to use 5 $1 coupons that can double
ALSO GIVE THEM THE PUNCH COUPON FIRST WHILE YOUR AMOUNT IS OVER $25 AND WATCH THIS WEEK I FOUND THE FREE GRANOLA BARS AND THE PUNCH ARENT NECESSARILY RINGING UP HAVE YOUR AD WITH YOU.

(1) Gallon Tub of Hawaiin Punch 2.89
(1) Package of ALL Laundry Pods 4.00
(2) Quaker Cappin Crunch Cereals 2.00 each = 4.00
(4) Packages of Various Granola Bars 2.00 each = 8.00
(2) Boxes of Special K Cereal 2.50 each = 5.00
(2) Packs of the M&M Snack Mixes 2.50 each = 5.00

Total before taxes / coupons 28.89

Coupons Used:

(1) Members Reward for this week FREE Hawaiin Punch with $25 purchase so 
(1) ALL Coupon $1 doubled - 2.00
(1) Quaker save $1 on 2 cereals doubled -2.00
(1) Members Deal for the week also on buy 5 Quaker Items get a box of granola bars free so $2 value -2.00
(1) Kelloggs save $1 on 2 cereals doubled -2.00
(2) M&M Snack Mix Coupons for save $1 doubled both of them - 4.00
(1) P&G Coupon I had this from last week its a $10 off coupon have to have $10 purchase

So I spent just over $4 on my first transaction!!

Transaction #2

(1) Gallon Tub of Hawaaiin Punch 2.89
(1) Package of ALL Laundry Pods 4.00
(2) Packs of Chips Ahoy 2/$4 so $4
(2) Boxes of Ritz mini cheese crackers 2/$4 so $4
(2) Boxes of Peanut butter mini Ritz crackers 2/$4 so $4
(2) Boxes of Ritz Pretzel like snack crackers 2/$4 so $4
(1) Box of Special K Bars 2.50

Total before taxes / coupons 22.89

Coupons Used:

(1) Free Punch coupon again (look for these at the service desk they are in the monthly ad)
(1) ALL Coupon $1 doubled -2.00
(4) Nabisco Coupons that were Buy 2 save $1 they all 4 doubled so -8.00

This one came to just over $12 HOWEVER I had $3 in rewards that I used to make my total just over $9

So everything was purchased for just under $14!!

My afternoon deals!

So after lunch today I cut my new coupons and ran out while the little one was napping and the other two were busy playing.  I knew my one and only stop would be Kmart.  Before I left my husband says What do we need?? I replied its not what we need its what I can stock up on and pay little to nothing for that way we wont need those items and yes my kids will eat whatever is in our pantry so if it means we have lots of cereal they will snack on that if its granola bars thats the snacks ..

So here is todays outcome ALL for $4.81I could of paid just a few cents but I decided to get the lunch meat I always worry that my addition will end up wrong so I like to add in an extra item to be safe.

Here is what I did:

Quaker cereals and granola bars are on sale 5 for $10 and if you are a rewards member and but 5 of these items you can mix and match you get a FREE box of granola bars (Word to the wise make sure that your box thats extra rings up free I noticed mine didnt and had to have them fix it) So $10 for 4 boxes of granola bars and 2 boxes of capn crunch then I used a $1 coupon on the granola bars that doubled to $2 so $8 for all these items.

The Belvita breakfast cookies these are new I havent tried them yet but new items tend to have good coupons and Kmart is one of the few places I know you can do this at I used a $1 on one box coupon first that doubled so giving me $2 off the boxes were 2/$6 then I used a buy 1 get 1 free coupon so they took off $3 for that 2nd box so I paid $1 for both boxes.  We are trying the blueberry and the apple cinnamon.

Next the Hawaiin Punch is this weeks reward members deal for FREE .. I got the Berry Lemonade since we are not fans of the Punch flavors in my house so that was FREE!

The shaving gel is on sale 2/$5 I had a 75 cents coupon that doubled so that made the gel $1.

The Sally Hansen nail polish was $1.99 I had a $1 coupon that doubled so FREE!

Then lastly I added in the lunch meat because I had to have a total over $10 after my coupons to use my P&G $10 coupon I was worried without that it wouldnt make it and well you can freeze lunch meat it was 2 for $6 I used a 55 cents coupon that doubled so not a fabulous deal BUT...

all things considering I got all of these items for less than the cost of the luncheon meat so can you complain??  At the end I used the $10 P&G coupon I had earned from last week and that bascially covered the cost of those quacker items that were on a deal,  I have another $10 off to use so Ill prob stop in tomorrow and do another deal.

Lisa

Loving Kmart this week...

I tend to have a love/hate relationship with K-mart, I love when I can put together great deals but I sometimes dread the checkout line something always rings up wrong or freezes or something.  BUT, despite the issues that occur at checkout some weeks K-mart can be great for saving.

I have to admit I have been to Kmart a few times this week to get deals Ive been busy so the first set of deals I just put away but if I get some time tomorrow afternoon Ill post those deals I did, however tonight I snapped a quick picture of the items I purchased.  I spent $7.14 on all of this!!! I was rather impressed since I hate paying alot for makeup.

In all I got:

2 Containers of Purex
2 Scrubbing Bubbles
4 things of nail polish
2 bottles of foundation
3 lipsticks
1 package of oreos

So here is what I did... now I will warn you need plenty of coupons to make this deal work.

(3) Maybelline Lipsticks they are normally 6.99 I had seen a post on a blog from others earlier this week saying to check clearance mark downs on make up and so sure enough I found some (dont worry I got my eyes covered in an earlier purchase this week).  These were all on clearance for $1 each - and I used a $1 coupon on all of them so FREE!

(2) Scrubbing Bubbles Active Scrub these were 2.49 each, I had coupons that made these free and actually gave me some overage now I will tell you normally Kmart doesnt give you overage but my check out guy was a little goofy tonight and so I ended up actually getting the slight overage here to use against some of the other costs, so FREE!

(2) Cover Girl Foundations 6.99 Each they were running a Buy 1 and get 1 50 % off so one rang up as 6.99 and one had 3.50 taken off of it then I also had 2 $1 cover girl coupons, one bottle came to 4.99 and the other 1.50 after my $1 coupons doubled not bad you cant buy one bottle for that

(1) Package of Oreos - these were 3.85 BUT they are Kmarts special free item this week for rewards members whos cost prior to coupons exceeds $20 I think so I had a coupon to cover the full cost they were FREE!!! My husband actually complained we are watching what we eat but seriously should I refuse free items, the kids will love them!

(2) Sally Hansen Nail Polish .. one rang up at 1.99 and well the guy couldnt get the other to ring up so he rung it up for 1.00 I had $1 coupons again so the one doubled made that bottle free and the other stayed at $1 made that FREE so both bottles FREE!!

(2) Bottles of Rimmel Nail Polish on clearance for 2.24, I had a $1 coupon it doubled so thats $2 and I paid 24 cents

(2) Purex Laundry Detergents they are on sale this week for 3.99 however in this weeks ad there is a 2.99 coupon for rewards members limit 3 .. so that brings that down a dollar and I had 2 - $1 off 1 coupons to use on them one coupon doubled so that bottle of detergent ended up being 99 cents the other 1.99 since I just got the $1 off .. remember they only double the 1st 5 coupons. 

So grand total was a little over 9 but that overage from the scrubbing bubbles left me actually at just over $7 and I loved getting this savings!!

While I was out I hopped over to Schnucks to see what deals I could get there, I got a few things .. 2 taco seasonings for 39 cents, some deodrant for 50 cents a piece then some tooth brushes for 25 cents .. while browsing the isles yes I love to do this especially if I am by myself its relaxing I happened to notice the fun size packs of butterfinger things were marked down to $1 from 3.99 and I had 55 cents coupons .. so 45 cents for each bag .. check it out.  They were down on the bottom shelf in the candy section.

I dont actually like them but 45 cents I cant just let that go by I bought them and thought I can use for something, our soccer team, maybe my vbs kids not sure yet.

Well I better get to work for a bit, its been a busy week with VBS every morning, I need to post some of the pictures.  I love working VBS but every afternoon the kids seem to be wild and so I am getting very little work done after we get home daily.