Drug Store Savings

I've been clipping coupons for the past few months now but have been intimidated by the drug stores and their register rewards programs, etc. They seemed really confusing to me. I decided to try it this week and I scored pretty big. Well, at least in my opinion.

I started off at Walgreen's and bought 2 Dove hair products each for $4. I had 2 $1.50 off coupons which made the product $2.50 each. On top of that you get $4 register rewards (RR) for each Dove product (each on a separate transaction). So I paid $5.70 (w/tax) for the shampoo & conditioner then got $8 in (RR)!! I made off nicely with that one! That was in 2 transactions in order to get the $4 RR for each hair care product.

In transaction #2 I ended up buying 4 Arrid deodorants with a Walgreen's coupon for $.99 each, a $4 pack of toilet paper, and Mist chewing gum for $.99 (w/coupon) and used my $8 in RR. All that was practically free..... $.95!



With no coupons or RR I would have paid $29.53

Instead I paid $6.60 total (w/tax) using coupons and RR!

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My second stop was CVS where I bought 2 Oral B tooth brushes which I had a BOGO coupon for. The tooth brushes were $2.99 each but came with a $2 RR. I paid $3.95 for the two toothbrushes and got $2 in RR. That was transaction #1.

In transaction #2 I bought two Vive hair care products which were 2/$5. I had two $1 off coupons for those products. That came out to $3 for the two and I used my $2 in register rewards. With tax I ended up paying $1.44 for the shampoo and conditioner!!



So I would have paid $11.94 for the 4 items but with my BOGO, the two $1 coupons, and the $2 in RR I ended up paying $4.95.



I have found that with some thought these RR work awesome! Match up the coupons you already have for the RR products and you can make out quite nicely!

I am a miserable passenger ...

*sigh*
My first failure
68% on a final
Can I cry now?



*SOB*


*UPDATE*
Got a B in that class!!  Woot Woot!

Karma

I love love love Karma!

My little girl is growing up!

Yesterday Suri asked me if she could have a bra. I informed her of the reasons women wear bras and checked to see if she is developing. OK, so the girl is almost 9 and some girls have boobs at that age. Not this one. She is flat still but I still went ahead and agreed to buy her one. I thought it was super cute. I usually never give in to the "but my friends have it" thing but I gave in this time.

This morning all Suri could talk about was buying a bra so I took her bra shopping. I thought she would be shy about it but she wasn't. She wanted to hold the bras while we walked through the store. I gave her her first lesson on how to fit them and wear them properly as well as how to put them on. How cute!

My cute little flat-chested child is growing up.

"Urban" Word of the Day

One upper:
An annoying person who responds to hearing someone else’s experience or problem by immediately telling a similar story about themselves with a much more fantastic (or terrible) outcome.

My Dirty Thirty Birthday Weekend

So turning 30 wasn't so bad after all.

Friday was my actual birthday. Andrew and I decided to keep it low key and go to dinner and a movie. How lucky he is that I am not a chick flick kind of girl! We watched "The Crazies". Not a bad movie to start the weekend off with. The next day was the big day for celebration though.

The day started off gloomy and I was expecting people to cancel. If you know anything about SoCal you know that we can't drive in rain and guess what it did that lovely day? Rained! I joked that Mother Nature was crying for me because she didn't want me to turn 30 either.

There were 3 things planned: wine tasting, dinner, comedy show. I told everyone to go to whatever ones they wanted to and not to feel obligated to go to all 3. I'll spare all the boring details so here we go.

First was wine tasting. We got a late start on that one. Most of the girls showed up at the same time....which was late but I blame that on the rain..told ya, we can't drive in it. We hit 3 wineries (I did 4 because I got an early start). We were pretty toasty by the end of that.







After wine tasting we headed to dinner at Yardhouse. Oh man, was that a mission!! Our GPs couldn't get us to the right place so we were driving around for awhile trying to find it. We ended up seeing it and ran in looking for the rest of our group. No one was there, yet I had just talked to a few of them and they said they were waiting for us. We went up to the greeter and asked them where our party was. They couldn't find me in the system! I was so confused...then she tells us we're not at Yardhouse! Ahahahaha! Wow, 2 drunk chicks and a sober dude couldn't figure that one out. How sad!

When we finally found our way we were met by a few more of my friends. It was a great time. Aside from my bday, more great news came out at dinner. One of my friends announced she was pregnant with their second child! Yay!!

After dinner we went to Pechanga Casino for a comedy show. Oh man, it was pretty funny. At one point I was crying because I was laughing so hard. Sad part of the night was I lost $10 in the slot machine. Stupid gambling!!

So my birthday bash was a hit and the best bday I have ever had. It was great to see all of my friends.

The next day my family surprised me with dinner at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants. That was really nice of them.

Oh as for more pictures...ummm, this drunk chick typing this forgot her camera during the rest of the evening.