Frugal Friday – Link Love – Coupons + Sales

This is the coupon and cooking link love edition of Frugal Friday.

My favorite websites for deal searching.

• Refund Cents
• Retail Me Not
• Hot Coupon World

These blogs are my favorites for finding all the best deals, coupon + sale matchups, freebies, and coupons.

• Money Saving Mom
• Centsible Savings
• Mommy Snacks
• The New Frugal Mom

Cooking and meal planning makes quite an impact on your budget so I’m also going to share my favorite meal planning and menu blogs.

• $5 Dinner Mom
• A Year of Crockpotting
• Once A Month Mom

These sites will give you great information about being frugal.   Enjoy!!

Coupon Craziness 6

This week, I only went to Walgreens.   CVS didn’t have enough Revlon stuff that I wanted to hit the $20 and my ECB’s were in no danger of expiring so it was just two trips to the WG.

On Sunday, I went and got a 2 papers ($3.00) and the FAR Revlon Creme Lip Gloss ($9.99).

Total Cost – $12.99

Less RR – $6.00

Total OOP – $0.99

Less MIR – $9.99

Total Trip Cost – $3.00

Savings -77%

Today, I bought:

4 Hershey Candy Bars – BOGO + a BOGO coupon – $3.17 – $1.39 (WG Q) – $0.89 (MFG Q) = $0.89/4 or $0.22 each

4 Twizzlers – 2/$3 – $0.83 (WG MIR) = $2.66 for 4 or $0.67/bag!

2 Hershey Kisses (Dark) – 2/$5 – $0.83 (WG MIR) = $3.34 or $1.67/bag!

I also bought some perfume I’ve been eyeing on clearance – $11.00 to use up the rest of my RR expiring this week.

Total Regular Price – $43.64

Total Sale Price – $25.75

Less Coupons – $2.28

Less RR – $17.00

Total OOP – $5.89

Total Trip Cost – $18.47

Savings – 58%

Planning Your Wardrobe

At first glance, having a wardrobe plan or having your colors done seems like something rich people do.   It just isn’t something for us regular joes.   I’m here to tell you that after 30 years, I’ve realized that everyday people need it more than ANYONE else.

In moving to our camper, I had very limited space available for bringing clothing.    It was surprisingly easy to pack.   I packed only my very favorite clothes that fit, I felt good in and were weather appropriate.    That amounted to about 10 shirts and 2 pr pants, 2 capris, and a skirt.   The rest I haven’t missed…well, there are a few pieces but generally, I don’t miss the rest.

I have a walk-in closet the size of a small child’s bedroom.   It’s full.    It’s full of clothes that don’t fit, are in the wrong colors, I don’t like them (but they were CHEAP!), or don’t match anything else I have.

Missus Smarty Pants is a very affordable way to get the services that wealthy people pay lots of money for.   For $10.00 she will determine your season and show you what makeup and clothing colors are best for you.    In addition, she will ID your body type and tell you what types of clothing will play up your assets and camouflage your flaws for less than $50.00/year.

I have found her services to be completely invaluable.    In addition to confirming that I look best in some of my favorite clothes, she has shown me concrete tips to make sure that I can INTENTIONALLY look for those items.

The best thing that I have learned by reading her emails is to have a wardrobe plan.

What kind of life do you live?   The clothes you purchase should be in proportion to the amount of time you spend in them.    I am a SAHM.   I don’t need to buy another suit, no matter how cute it is.    What I DO need is clothing that is easy to nurse in, easy to clean (no dry clean only!!), and is comfortable and classically stylish since I will be spanning years between maternity clothes and non-maternity clothes.

What do you need for your climate?    Now we are in a warm climate.    I don’t need 15 pair of black work pants.    Now, I need capris and shorts that fit well as well as a lot of short sleeved shirts.   I no longer need 4 winter coats and a box full of scarves, mittens and hats.

PLAN a wardrobe to mix and match.   MSP offers a list of items to build the basics of your wardrobe with suggested numbers and types of items in your wardrobe.    I just got my colors done and decided to plan all future purchases (and keepers from existing wardrobe up north) around them.   My MAIN neutral is brown with my secondary neutral as a soft gray.   Thanks to MSP, I now have a signature color – aqua.    And most of my other purchases will be in 2 coordinating colors (soft pink and a lime green) and a coordinating neutral (ivory).   This will ensure that all my clothes will be able to be mixed and matched.   I also picked 2 secondary colors (lilac and yellow) for accessories that will coordinate with my 3 core colors.

Once your basics are in place, you can add things like stylish current pieces, handbags, accessories and shoes.    Having a plan enables you to have a plan on how to spend your money.    No more wasting space and money on clothes that you only sort of like and therefore never wear.    You will no longer need to go out and buy an outfit for an occassion because you have a closet full of nothing to wear.    That’s frugality at it’s best–being prepared and avoiding “emergency” expenses.

How has having a wardrobe plan saved you money?

Winn-Dixie Nibble

I did manage to do pretty good here on just the sales.   I bought:

6 eggs – $1.19

8 Starkist Tuna in Water – $1.00 each (10/$10 sale)

2 Hunt’s Tomatoes – $1.49 for 2 + $0.40/2 Q = $1.09/2 or $0.55 each

4 WD Tomato Sauce  – $0.25 each (4/$1)

4 Muellers Noodles – BOGO @ $1.49 each – $0.75 each

2 Kraft BBQ Sauce – BOGO @ $1.69 each – $0.85 each

Ground Beef – $1.99/lb – about 2 lbs.

Total Regular Price – $31.81

Total Sale Price – $22.22

Less Coupons – $0.40

Total OOP – $21.82

Savings – 31%

I feel pretty good about that for not having any coupons to use on these.

Publix Nibble

For my lenten sacrifice, instead of giving up a food item (though I probably should), I’m going to curtail my bargain hunting.   It has become all-consuming and a time-waster all week long, checking for something I may have missed.   SOOOO my coupon and grocery posts are going to be fewer because, HOPEFULLY, I will spend less time dinking around :).

And now for the details.

Not much on coupon + sale for me this week other than the Pillsbury deal I already wrote about here.    We were out of town this weekend so I didn’t bother to buy much before we left in case the fridge died or something while we were gone.   I also didn’t want the meat to go bad.

I went first thing in the AM to get staples for lunch:

Milk – 1 qt – $1.59

Bananas – 1.4 lbs – $$0.97 ($0.69/lb.)

Peter Pan PB – $3.99

Cream Cheese – $1.85

Bread – $3.69 – $0.55 peelie = $3.14

Total Spent – $12.09

Total Coupons – $0.55

Total OOP – $11.54

Savings – 4%

Trip Two was to get what I needed for the week.   Again, I didn’t really have any coupons and not much was on sale.   My limited pantry space has limited my savings.  BUT I spent about $66 this week so I’m starting to get CLOSER to my goal of $50/week.   This is the same grocery budget I’ve had for 3 years even though the price of groceries has almost doubled in that time.   Anyway, I bought:

Italian Sausage – $2.49/lb – 2 PKS – $6.25 total

Pancake Mix (Krusteaz) – $1.89

Pepperoni – $3.89

2 Banquet Sausage – $1.89 BOGO

Kaukauna Cheese Ball – $3.99

Olives – $1.95

Pickle Relish – $1.59

OJ – $3.99 – up $0.20 :(!

Hamburger Buns (none to be found at the WD!) – $2.99

Puczki – $4.49 — it’s not Fat Tuesday without Puczki!!!

Total Regular Price – $40.14

Total Sale Price – $33.02

Savings – 17%

Menu Plan Monday

We made a surprise trip to my in-laws this weekend so my weekend items were never cooked.    We did a pretty good job using our leftovers and cleaning out the fridge before we left though!!    Small victories, right?

Monday – Baked Ziti w/Italian Sausage (thanks to Vanderbilt wife for participating in $5 Dinner Mom‘s bargain meal of the week!) with Garlic Breadsticks from my Publix score last week!

Tuesday – Leftover pasta

Wednesday – Ash Wednesday – Mac & Cheese

Thursday – Hamburgers, Baked Beans and some veggie DD can eat.

Friday – FISH STICKS!, Mashed Potatoes and LO veggies.

Saturday -Hamburgers (again)

Sunday – Homemade pizza (crust scored at publix with the breadsticks.   Yeehaw!)

Thanks to OrgJunkie for hosting!   Come check out others plans this week!

Funny thing…

I realized after 3 trips NORTH to visit Al’s parents, that his dream has been achieved. He has always wanted to just get into his car and go south. Well, we did and now we only have about 40 more miles of south from home. Everything else is North.

We still say we are going DOWN whenever we go anywhere. Hard habit to break ;).