Truly my final Frys Run and of course there was a major issue...

Ok so 20 items, should be (2) $5 Mega Sale discounts... unfortunately that didn't happen...
5 Chex Mix $1.47- $.50 MQ= $0.47 each
2 Sunny Ds $0.89 each - $.55 IPs= $0.11 overage each
8 Dole Mandarin Oranges $0.49 each- $0.55/2 MQs= $0.01 overage each
2 BC Potatoes $0.99 each - $0.40 IPs= $0.01 overage each
And the problem child in the order...
3 cheezits Rang up $2.97 each, not $0.99 and not a mega sale item... - $0.75 MQs... I paid $1.97 each and then was shorted a $5 discount..
Total on a gift card $10.94 (yuck)

A manager checked me out, but a very unhappy one that either hates her job or her life, she is never very friendly.. and was basically like. you only bought 17 items, I tried to point out the cheezits, but she just repeated my total.. and of course it was like 8pm, so no customer service person available to figure out what happened.

So I leave.. plan on returning tomorrow to fix it.. When I returned home, I realized my cheezits are a bigger box.. of course they were in the space for the sale ones.. so tomorrow I will have to exchange and get my extra $5 back..

I should get back $9.44 back, leaving my real total to be $1.50! Which is great, particularly for 5 bags of chex mix which I really wanted!

Oh and they were out of the cheap hormel pepperoni, and the manager wouldn't give me a rain check because she couldn't find it in the sales ad. Bummer!

Frugal Ramblings 11/10

I plan on running out to Albies (free puff tissues, pineapple and progresso broth with a raincheck and Quadruple Qs), Safeway (free frosting) and yes one more mega frys run in a little bit, once Peter is home from an appointment. However, I have a little time to Ramble for your pleasure...

• First and Foremost.. Please take advantage of the Free Holiday Photo Cards I posted about earlier today. I have no idea how long it will last, but I made mine yesterday and received my order confirmation this morning and shipping confirmation this afternoon!! I am so stoked for this deal, I was only hoping for cheap photo cards this year, but free ones totally rock!!!
• I really liked 4hats post here about challenging herself to only spend $20 this week. I am going to try it too.... so far I haven't spend any cash OOP!!! I plan on just getting freebies or super cheapies tonight, so we will see how I do!!
• I evaluated my xmas gift situation and we are sitting pretty good. I still have some gifts to purchase on Amazon.com, but I have plenty of amazon gift cards from Swagbucks! If you haven't joined you should! Plus, I saw starting on black Friday they are doing a gift card blowout where they will reduce the cost to redeem for a specific gift card each day, it will change each day. Normally amazon $5 gift cards cost 45 swagbucks and are the biggest bang for your BUCK as far as I am concerned!
• I also plan on rolling some Walgreens RR into another gift card or too. The fine print does exclude gift card purchases, but one way around it is to buy super cheap fillers, and use the overage towards the gift card. For example, if you buy 4 boxes of Jello for $0.25 each, then use (4) $5 RR, you would have $19 towards the gift card purchase! Couponers use overage all the time and this is no different!!
• Anyway, I have only a few extra things to buy and ideas on what I need for ALMOST everyone, just one hard gift to figure out... but we will figure something out by xmas I am sure!
• Speaking of extra funds for xmas, if you have loose change sitting around Coinstar just announced their fabulous extra $10 promotion. I took advantage of it last year. Redeem $40 at a coinstar and you can send off for a bonus $10 certificate! How it worked last year, was I redeemed $40 in store for a gift card/certificate (to avoid any fees) and then sent in the form, and after about 6 weeks, I received an extra $10 certificate to the store I had picked. I am thinking about CVS this year, because I have an extra gift I want to splurge on during their black Friday sale and do not have enough ECBS right now.
• Speaking of ECBS, I plan on redeeming some of my rainchecks for freebies, particularly Bayer Meters, to beef up my sadly lacking ECBS! That will help with my black Friday shopping!
• I have been doing extra cooking lately, particularly experimenting with soup recipes, since I am a big fan. I made a Roast last week, that fed us dinner (plus 2 more adults) and then lunch for peter the next day.. Plus I used the leftover carrots, potatoes and tiny amount of meat to make beef stew. I only had to buy some addition beef stew meat, threw the leftovers in with extra gravy, the beef juices from extra meat and we had a WHOLE new meal! And that fed us again (plus 2 additional adults again) and peter had 2 days of lunch. He loved it!
• Then I made Roast Chicken (2 in the oven) last week.. had chicken, with freebie BC potatoes and steamer veggies for dinner that night. Then I pulled off all the leftover meat from one, and all the meat from the other for use in my Chicken Noodle Soup. I also made my own chicken broth with the icky leftovers and carcasses, that was delish! Then I made home made chicken noodle soup, with the fresh broth, roasted chicken, carrots, celery, onions and mushrooms!! It was great. We added some rolls and again had 2 guests over for dinner, with lots of leftovers, plenty for 2 extra dinners and lunches!!!

Wags and CVS!

CVS
I had $12 in ECBS expiring that I had to use... and not of lots of choices for rolling this week ++ I needed soda and TP. So I could of simply bought the soda (4) for $12, used my ECBs and been done. I did receive a $5 off 25 CVS email Q though, so I figured if I could find either the Nova Max Meter or Ear Rinse that is Free after ECB this week, I could make a better deal. No ear rinse in my store, but they had lots of nova max meters.

4 Diet Coke 12 packs $12
1 Nova Max $9.99
1 CVS TP $3.69
-$5/25 Q
-$19 ECBs
Total $1.87 on a gift card, Earned $9.99 ECBs (nova max).

It wasn't a money maker run by any means, but it was only a net loss of 11.88 in CVS funds... which isn't bad for 4 packs of soda and CVS TP that we DESPERATELY needed!!


Walgreens
3 orders, each with just a Contour or Breeze Meter on sale for $14.99- Free MQ= $0.91 tax each. Earned $5 RR for each one. So $15 RR for $2.73 on a walgreens gift card. I have 2 more Qs that I HAVE to use this week, because they expire Nov 30th.

Can you say free Xmas photo cards?? Yeah!!!

I so love this freebie.. although 50 is a little much for how many xmas cards we normally send out. I placed my order yesterday, the website is SUPER slow and does error a lot (because of lots of deal seekers??). But I did get an order confirmation this morning!!! Free photo xmas cards, one more thing off my xmas check list!! I was hoping for super cheap ones, but you can't beat free!!!


Here is the website: SeeHere (fujifilm)
Order 50 4x8 or 5X7 Photo Cards!! Use code: freebies4mom-1109
(Another great deal found on SlickDeals!, I can't recommend browsing their deals enough!!)

Free shipping too!! Yeah!!

My last Frys Mega Run... Making $ :-)

I had to run in and grab an RX tonight at Frys, so I decided to buckle down and do the last of my frys mega sale runs. I do have a few random Qs for freebies that I could use, but I just don't NEED any of it and I am getting sick of Frys. :-)

Anyway...

Order #1

4 ICBINB $0.99 each - $1.00 IPs= $0.01 overage each

1 Bumble Bee Tuna $0.69 each- $0.55 MQ= $0.31 overage

4 Uncle Bens Rice $0.99- $1 MQs= $0.01 overage each

1 Mini Baybel Cheese $1.99- $1 MQ= $0.99

Non Mega Sale Item (filler)

Sara Lee Bread $2

-$2.50 OYNO Q (from clorox wipes deals a few weeks back..)

Total $0.10 OOP!!! (I actually used $0.07 on a gift card and then $0.03 in cash)!!

Earned (2) $2 OYNO Qs for the ICBINB and $1 OYNO Q for the Uncle Bens!

Order #2

4 ICBINB $0.99 each- $1.00 IPs= $0.01 overage each

3 LOL Butters $0.99 each - $0.50 MQ= $0.01 overage each

2 Dole Tropical Fruits $0.49 each - $0.50/2 MQ= $0.01 overage

1 Uncle Bens Rice $0.99 - $1 MQ= $0.01 overage

Total NEGATIVE $0.10!! Yup they paid me 10 cents for this order.. sort of cancelled out my first order!!!

I also earned another (2) $2 OYNO Qs for the ICBINB!!!

So $0 OOP between the two orders, but I did walk out with $9 in OYNO Qs!!! Awesome, paying me for my groceries!

It is POURING butter at my house. I seriously can't believe how much butter or butter spread I have in my fridge right now. I need to freeze most of it for the future. I of course just bought that HUGE, HUGE tub at costco like a month ago, just before the butter deals started pouring in... I swear that is always how it happens... Oh well, I won't be paying for butter anytime soon!!!