Passing the Blessing

Our church was holding a food drive for the Baptist Children's Homes of NC. My boys were supposed to take food to their AWANAs meeting last night. My youngest went through our pantry to pick out food to pass along to the "poor children". He gave a box of his cereal (Trix) and the last box of his favorite PopTarts along with the canned vegetables I helped select. So my husband and I dropped off the boys with their food and headed out to do some quick Christmas shopping and grab some supper. After using all of our time at WalMart we rushed to Arby's and ordered in the drive thru. (I whined the entire time about how much it cost) At the window the young teenager said "Merry Christmas, it's free! Our registers are all down and dinner's on us. Just don't go tell everyone." Do you see the pattern here? We gave and in return we recieved. Just a mini lesson in how we can pass along our blessings and how we will be blessed in return. (Although not always so obvious).

How to get started with CVS

I've really been happy with all my experiences at CVS since I've started shopping there. Nothing like the Walgreens where they treat you terrible if you are holding coupons. So I thought you might want to find out how you can get started without putting out a lot of up front cash.
First read MoneySavingMom's CVS 101 post.
Then check out Alyssa's (from Keeping the Kingdom First) CVS Challenge. The challenge is to spend only $5 out of pocket and see if you can end up with that amount in Extra Care Bucks to spend the next week. I check this out every week.
I had a really good week at CVS this week! Today I left the store with a bag of Glad nightlights, refills and $1 more than I went in with! They really know how to make me happy....

Free Photo Calendar

I love these VistaPrint Calendars and right now you can get one for free. I bought these last year and the quality is great! Click here for the details. I love that you can input your family birthdays and anniversaries too. Great gift for the grandparents too (Yes mom, I know you want another one...)

Black Friday website

You really should check out this website if you plan to shop on Thanksgiving and/or Black Friday. There are tons of ad scans and you can start your planning now! I just had time to check out the CVS ad (they are open Thanksgiving day) and they have an entire page of free items!!! Wahoo!
Thanks to Southern Deals and Frugal Steals. Check out her blog here.

CVS and Duracell

Sorry my posts have been few and far between lately. I will try to do a more elaborate post tomorrow.
But I just wanted to mention, for those of you who may have missed it, CVS has Duracell batteries for practically nothing! Just in time for Christmas!!!
Here's the deal:
Buy $20 in Duracell batteries
Recieve a $15 Extra Care Bucks
That equals $5 for $20 in batteries!

Better yet you can take that $15 ECB and put it towards another $20 of batteries to recieve another $15 ECB and THEN do it one more time.

FYI if you spend $23.00 on your first order the $3.00 carries over to the next $20 requirement.

And better yet, there were Duracell coupons in the paper today.

If that was confusing just leave me your questions or email me and I'll be glad to help you out!

Thankful Thursday

This Thursday I'd like to share with you an article my mom wrote and posted on her blog. It is the story of my nephew Jordan and the miracles God has performed in his life.

Read the story here.

Jordan with his mommy and daddy (aka Brad and Sharon)

My CVS Plan for 11/9

My CVS plan

I have a $3.49 ECB and $6.98 ECB from last weeks Crest deals.
I should end up with $12 ECB for next week and only spend $4.70 oop

Transaction #1
L’Oreal Advanced RevitaLift Anti-wrinkle serum $11.99
-1.00 coupon
10.99
(11.99 ECB = 1.00 profit)
2 Palmolive Dish Liquid 2@$1.49 $2.98
-0.25 coupon
$2.73
(2.00 ECB)
Total: $13.72 (plus tax)
-10.47 ECB from last week
3.25 oop
$13.99 ECBs (11.99 + 2.00)

Transaction #2

2 Agent Cool Blue 2@$3.99
$7.98
-1.00 coupon
-0.50 coupon
$6.48
($6 ECB)

2 Garnier Fructis 2@2.99
$5.98
-1.00 Coupon
-1.00 coupon
$3.98
($4 ECB)

2 Palmolive
$2.98
($2 ECB)
Total: $13.44
-11.99 ECB from 1st transaction
$1.45 oop

$12 ECB for next week

What I discovered at the grocery store...

I made my monthly trip to the commissary (military grocery store) this morning. Oh such happiness - the moment I entered the door they had a seasonal baking section. I scanned the items looking for my favorite hard to find treat - Hershey's cinnamon chips. They only sell them in the fall and it is very hard to find them! I nearly cried when I discovered an entire box full. Yes, I bought six bags. Before our sugar free days, I'd have bought the box full. Six bags will last us the next year. If you find them, buy them!!!! If you haven't had them, you don't know what you're missing. They are great in oatmeal cookies.

Here's my own special recipe using Hershey's Cinnamon chips.
Apple Cinnamon Pancakes:

Your favorite pancake recipe (I use Aunt Jemima's pancake mix)
Add 1/2 cup of apple sauce
Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Add 1/2 cup Hershey's cinnamon chips.

Cook as usual.
These are divine!!! They are our special occasion breakfast pancakes.


I also stopped at the Lowe's Food Store for a quick couple double coupon items. They had a promotion where you buy a bag of groceries for $8 and it is donated to a local family. That bag consisted of only Lowe's brand foods and a small amount of food at that. I was a little peeved at them. This was not really for charity - this was for their pockets! This got me thinking of what I could buy for a needy family for $8 using coupons and sales. I'm sure I could double that, and now that is my own personal challenge. Between now and Thanksgiving I will see how many grocery bags I can fill for $8. Thanks Lowe's for giving me a push!

Halloween

We were pretty thrifty this Halloween. I made the boys costumes and believe it or not it is cheaper than buying plastic ones in the stores. Here they are:



Josh is Elliott Sadler (NASCAR) and Jacob is a penguin. It cost about $20 to make the costumes total. And they will last a long time. I made a dinosaur costume for Josh when he was 3 and Jacob wore it last year. He plays dress up in it all the time. It was worth the $10 and time I put into it.

So that explains where I was last week. I can't believe I put it off that long. Now I have time to make a couple new coupon bags for my etsy store.

My Walgreens Plan for 11/2

Here's my well laid plan - Let's hope my Walgreens will cooperate...

2 Celestial Season Tea on sale 2/$3
ES Coupon $1.00/2
(2) $1/1 Coupon (SS 10/5) oop 0.00

2 Ricola
In ad coupon $.99
$½ Coupon (SS 10/5) oop 0.98

2 Schick Quattro 2 @ $5.99 = 11.98
B1G1 (SS 10/19) -5.99
ES Coupon -$3 oop 2.99

Wisp Flameless Candle 5.99
$3 /1 (SS 11/2) -3
MIR (-2) oop 2.99 (after rebate .99)

2 Oral B Cross Action Toothbrush 2 @ 5.99 = 11.98
B1G1 (11/2 PG) -5.99
Get $2 Register Rewards oop $5.99 (after RR $3.99)

Total oop: $12.95 plus tax
$2 RR
$2 ESRebate
Actual: $8.95

UPDATE: On the Schick Quatro the Easy Saver Coupon worked for both and you actual end up with .01 overage, so that is a great freebie. If you don't need them, get them for a charity, homeless shelter, etc.