Works For Me Wednesday - Frugal Edition

So I've been getting into this Works-For-Me-Wednesday blog about deal. Here's a link back to the original site and you can view lots of other blogs linked up to read more helpful (and this week frugal) tips, here. Thought I'd share one of my own tips this week!

My helpful frugal tip:
Instead of leaving all those take-out food napkins in your car, stuffed into your glove box, or thrown into the trash - bring them inside! I have a napkin holder, like most people, and just add them in with the store bought napkins. We got through a lot of napkins so the less I have to pay for the more money I SAVE!

Freebies on Vacation!

So I'd thought I post a few of our FREE and FUN activities we've been taking advantage of here in Branson, Missouri. Our resort offers many free amenities inlcuding:

Indoor Pool and Hot Tub:

Miniture Golf:

Playground:

We also visited:

The Fish Hatchery ($1.00 if you count fish food):

We also found out Michael's Arts and Crafts is having free daily crafts through Mother's Day and there is a really nice one in Branson!

And I'm proud to announce we have not eaten out ONCE in the last 4 days we've been here. I did as I do at home and came up with a meal plan for lunches and dinners and brought a lot of different choices for breakfasts so we could choose what we felt like eating in the mornings. My parents are joining us tomorrow and we do plan to have dinner out together and my husband and I have a traditional crab leg dinner every time we go on vacation that is budgeted for. We still have 3 1/2 days left to enjoy and there are plenty of free and near free things you can do here and have fun doing. We all deserve a vacation away from it all, you just don't have to save for a year and spend a lot of money to have a memorable trip.

Old Navy Outlet!

So I've had my heart broken more then once trying to get my hands on one of the coveted $75 off $100 coupons from the www.OldNavyWeekly.com website. If you haven't heard of this Old Navy resets this website once a week (Thursday, but you never know what time) and hides coupons throughout the site. I follow www.Hip2Save.com because they have a fabulous community that help one another out so everyone has the best chance of snagging a coupon. Well... this past Thursday I watched this site for more then 4 HOURS!! I finally threw my hands up and said I'M DONE! I checked the next morning finding that it wasn't up for another 3 hours after I'd gone to bed and it was very difficult to get this past week. Well I think I just made up for my loss shopping today at the Old Navy Outlet here in Branson, Mo. They were taking an additional 50% OFF all of their clearance merchandise!!

Everything you see above I paid a whole $16.00 for!! I figured up if I'd have paid regular price it would have been $185.00!! (Savings of $169.00) Four of the shirts I paid less then $1.00 for and the most expensive item was a dress for my daughter a whole $2.49! To me, that's 100 times better then the $75.00/$100 coupon considering I'd have paid a minium $25 for $100 worth of stuff.

So even though my post previously stated I was on vacation and there would be no couponing - that doesn't mean I'm not still looking for a good deal!

Vacation = No Couponing

Me and my family are finally on our week long vacation to beautiful/rainy Branson, Mo. I decided that no coupons were allowed to join us (even though there is a Walgreens very close to our resort). We are due to arrive back home this Friday, so if I get a chance to venture out before Sunday rolls around again I may try to snag a few of the good deals this week. Another BIG bummer - as I mentioned in a previous post, Kmart hardly ever doubles coupons in our area - well they are AGAIN within 2 weeks of each other. So I'll be missing that as well. But it'll be a nice break from all the hard work of planning and clipping. Off to enjoy our vacay!

CVS 4/26

Well this photo is a combo of mine and my husbands two separate transations. He finally got to roll his first ECB's this week! His transaction went smoothly... mine became a BIG mess. I wanted to do the spend $20 get $10 ECB's when you buy visine and select Johnson & Johnson products (Page 18 of their ad).... well I guess I've got to learn the hard way. I choose my products and went to check out later realizing that my total came up EXTREMELY high and that something wasn't right. I cleared out my debit card info I'd tended to use to pay for it with when I had the cashier check to make sure the prices were right... the ad states "Prices Starting At $3.99, ect." NOT a sale price of. SO she went to void it out when the register went ahead with the transaction and charged my card. She went back and had to do a return and had to put my used ECB's and my coupons I used on a gift card and refunded the rest to my debit card. I told you a BIG MESS! Lesson: read the fine/not so fine print in the ads, lol! (cashier, luckily, was VERY nice)
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My CVS:
(minus coupons since they had to go on a money card after my massive return)

1x Garnier Shampoo: $2.99

2x Oral B Toothbrushes: $1.99 each

1x Schick razor: $8.99

Total: $17.00 (on money card)
ECB's earned: $8.00
*Still have $10.82 on the money card*
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Hubby's CVS:

1x Garnier Conditioner: $2.99
-$1.00 coupon

2x Oral B Toothbrushes: $1.99 each
-$1.00 off 2 coupon

ECB's used: $2.98
Total OOP: $2.31
Earned: $4.00 ECB's

Total Saved: $6.28
**78% SAVED**

Walgreens 2/26

Walgreens:

2x Sun Detergent: $3.49 each (SALE)

2x Got2B Hair Products: $4.99 each
-2x $2.00 IP coupons
*Littlest bottle came free*

3x Scotch Packaging Tape: $.99 each (with ad coupon)


Used: $7.00 RR
$5.76 on a gift card
Total OOP: $8.78
Earned: $10.00 RR

Total Saved: $23.90
**77% SAVINGS**

K-Mart 4/25

I headed over to KMart for one more round of double/triple coupons on Saturday... sad that it may be a few months before we see this excitement in our area again. So I took a few coupons along, knowing most of the shelves would be long cleaned out of any freebie items. However I did find a few good deals to be had. Without breaking it down my subtotal before coupons was $25.00 and I ended up paying $8.00 OOP for everything shown above. $17.00 saving - not bad.