Monday, December 28, 2009

Concentrate...

FINALLY, the finished Christmas Stockings:



I was so happy not to put "finish Christmas stockings" on my To Do List today!!!!!

Recently I have been doing some planning to streamline my life a little. I want to CONCENTRATE on smaller areas of the things I want and/or need to do. So many times I simply try to do too much and so NOTHING gets done.

One area that I plan to apply this to is COUPONING.

Even in the small towns I live and work in, there are many stores to choose from. Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Walmart, Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly, Dollar General, Family Dollar, just to name the most prominent ones. I often see deals on line and in sale papers for all these stores.

Well, my friend, I just can't keep up with them all. I have tried in the past and then I just gave up and didn't worry about any of them.

So, I've decided to pursue the deals at one drugstore and one grocery store. I will only be concerned about Food Lion and CVS. If I CONCENTRATE on these two, I can do a much better job of making use of coupons for items on sale.

Even then, I can't take advantage of every deal that CVS and Food Lion have. I also don't need to buy things that I really don't need or want, even if its a good deal or free.

With that in mind, here is what I plan to buy at CVS this week:

First Transaction: 1 Colgate Total toothpaste for $2.99. Use 1 $1.00 coupon. One 3/pack of Ivory soap. Use $1.00 off the soap, makes it free. Out of pocket, $1.99 plus tax. Receive $2.00 extra bucks

Second Transaction: 2 Pantene Shampoos for $7.00. Use 1 $1.00 coupon on one and 1 $2.00 coupon on the other. Use $2.00 Extra bucks from first transaction. Out of pocket $2.00 plus tax. Receive $2.00 more extra bucks.

Third Transaction: 3 bottles of Dawn dish detergent for $3.00. Use 25 cent coupon on one and $2.00 extra bucks from second transaction. Out of pocket, 75 cents plus tax.

So for $4.74 I will have purchased 1 tube of toothpaste, 1 3/pack of ivory soap, 2 bottles of Pantene shampoo and 3 bottles of dawn dish detergent for $4.74, plus tax.

That's pretty good, don't you think?!!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great deals!!! And very good planning on your part.

Now, question on previous post. Who is the ASU grad? In fact, I would like to know the IDs of each of the stocking recipients (or designees). Hope that Christmas was wonderful for each of you.

Marjorie

Susan said...

I like your plan! I've considered doing something similar. Since I live in Canada, none of the deals apply here, but I live one hour from the border and can do some limited shopping there. I saw a Rite Aid pharmacy when I was there last week, and just a few miles farther on are a regular Walmart and a Walgreens. So I'm considering trying to get some deals at one of those stores. The problem is more that I try to limit my stateside shopping to once a month - a weekly trip would be counterproductive, I'd think.

Peggy said...

Susan,
We live in Alaska but are in a similar situation (1 hr from town.) Do you have friends who shop in the States also? You could consider co-shopping... We pick things up for others while in town and vice versa.

Debbie, great plan! We are limited in our grocery stores here even if Fairbanks is one of the largest "cities" in Alaska. There are basically 4 places to shop.. the military commissary, Fred Meyers (west coast chain), Walmart (new to us), and Safeway. But in 3 weeks we move to Indiana where the town we will be moving to has LOTS of stores we haven't seen in years to include CVS!

Thanks for the idea!!!

Peggy
P.s. Sorry didn't mean to hijack your comments!

Little Penpen said...

okay, tomorrow is my shopping day... I"m going to get my coupons out right now... I may be going to CVS tomorrow too. I saw the DAWN was .99.... I had thought of getting that, with or without, a coupon.

Glimpses of Home - first quarter of 2021

I made a list of my 2021 goals that I wrote down in the back of my planner.  Its time to review that to see how I am doing! But, here are a ...