CVS

Yes, I'm addicted. I realize this. I actually originally went to CVS to fill a script, but it turns out the medication has been on back-order for over a month! At least now I know to get my doctor to write me a script for another one.

Anyway, this is what I wound up getting:

$4.00 Gatorade 32oz (on sale 5/$5)
$4.99 Extreme Energy

- $8.99 Extrabucks

(actually this transaction was a mess. I originally brought up a different Extreme Energy, but it wasn't ringing up on sale, it was $5.99, then she returned that and put it on a giftcard and sold me the correct one for $4.99, using the $5.99 giftcard, which now has a balance of $1.00 - although I spent $1.00 out of pocket because she over charged me originally)

= $1.00 Oop

And I received $4.99 for buying the Extreme Energy which is going to my younger brother in college.

CVS Black Friday III

Ok, so on the way to see a family friend and their new arrival, I stopped at 2 CVS's to finish the Black Friday deals.

First stop:

$8.99 Maybelline foundation

- $3.00/1 Maybelline
- $4.69 Extrabucks

= $.50 Oop

Received $8.99 back for the Maybelline deal.

Second stop:

$7.99 Schick Quattro Trimmer

- $4.00/1 Schick from "All You" Magazine
- $3.99 Extrabucks

= $.24 Oop

Received $6.00 back for the Schick deal.

Weekly tally:

Sunday, November 23rd Shopper's: $14.73
Monday, November 24th CVS: $0.00
Thursday, November 27th CVS: $.43
Friday, November 28th CVS: $.49
Saturday, November 29th CVS: $.50
Saturday, November 29th CVS: $.24

= $16.39 Oop

And I have a stash of roughly $50 Extrabucks to use in upcoming weeks!

Some deals for this week include:

• Spend $10 get $5 extrabucks when you buy Febreze fabric refresher 27oz (2/$7) or Febreze air effect 9.7oz (2/$5) limit 1

• Pay $4.99 for Extreme Energy Orange or Berry flavor 2pk, 4 oz total, and get $4.99 in extrabucks free! limit 1

Well, that's really all I see this week, though not surprising after the awesome Extrabucks deals for Thanksgiving. I won't be really participating because we have enough air freshening products to last us quite some time and we don't celebrate Christmas so none of the cheaper decorations are of all that much interest.

Hope everyone has a great week!

CVS Black Friday II

So I went to CVS again today to do some more deals and grab some milk. I want to go back tomorrow to get the Schick razor that I have a $4 off coupon for and maybe some more Maybelline.

Anyway, I bought:
$5.69 Johnson and Johnson lotion
$2.99 Colgate Total
$6.99 L'oreal Colourjuice
$3.79 gallon skim milk

- $1/1 Johnson
- $1.50 Colgate
- $2/1 L'oreal
- $1 Extrabucks
- $4.47 Extrabucks
- $9.00 Extrabucks

= $.49 Oop

And received the following in Extrabucks:

$6.99 for the L'oreal
$5.69 for the Johnson and Johnson
$2.99 for the Colgate

= $15.67 back in Extrabucks (still profited roughly $1 even after the milk and used extrabucks)

CVS Black Friday

So my plan was to leave the house at roughly 11:30pm last evening to get to CVS in just enough time to grab the items before the sale started at midnight but I was exhausted and fell asleep at 9:30pm! So by the time I actually got to CVS 12 hours later at 9:25am this morning, I wasn't expecting everything I wanted to be there, but lo-and-behold, it was! I was psyched. I was in and out of the store in a half hour even with the issue that not all my Extrabucks spit out of the register after I paid.

However, I was a bad blog-mommy and forgot to blog about a recent very cheap CVS purchase on the 24th:

$8.99 Maybelline foundation

- $2/1 Maybelline foundation

= $7.53 Oop but paid with a gift card and received $8.99 back

During that visit a $10 off $50 spitted out during the red machine of awesomeness which I used on my trip this morning.

$.50 Hershey's chocolate bar
$3.49 Crest Pro Health
$3.49 Crest Pro Health
$1.00 large size Hershey's chocolate bar
$2.99 Aussie leave in conditioner
$5.99 Bic Soleil razor
$6.99 L'oreal colourjuice
$6.99 Universal remote (was hoping to get the earphones, but they were gone)
$3.99 5 hr extra energy
$8.99 Maybelline mineral foundation
$1.49 Gatorade G2
$1.49 Gatorade G2
$1.49 Gatorade G2
$3.29 Blade sensitive shave gel

(ok, I just found something, the cashier forgot to ring my Garnier - that would explain why the coupon didn't scan but he pushed it through, oops)

- $10/$50 CRT
- $.50 free Hershey's bar
- $2/1 Blade from beauty book
- $3/1 Maybelline foundation
- $1/1 L'oreal lipcolor
- $3/1 Bic Soleil
- $1/1 Crest
- $1/1 Crest
- $1/1 Aussie
- $1/1 Garnier
- $15 Extrabucks
- $8.69 Extrabucks (out of the $8.99 coupon)
- $4.99 Extrabucks

= $.43 Oop

Then I received the following in Extrabucks:

$9.00 for the Maybelline
$2.12 for the Blade (monthly deal that didn't print, it's on a giftcard - wrong amount because the CVS didn't have any November ads and I had forgotten)
$2.99 for the Aussie
$6.99 for the L'oreal
$5.99 for the Bic Soleil
$6.98 for the Crest (monthly deal)
$6.99 for the Magnavox
$3.99 for the 5 hr energy
$1.00 for the Hersheys
$4.47 for the Gatorade

= $50.52 in Extrabucks!

I might go back to actually buy the Garnier and possibly do the L'oreal gloss deal again, we'll see.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Another Shopper's Visit

Since we needed the "boring" stuff (milk, eggs, bread, etc), I went out to Shopper's again about an hour ago. I spent significantly less than my Thursday trip and bought less too.

The loot:

$1.00 1 box brown sugar
$2.59 100% wheat bread
$3.49 Eating Right veggie chips
$3.49 Eating Right veggie chips
$.89 Thai Kitchen instant noodles
$4.00 4 Sobe Life waters
$2.25 Simple Asian teryaki noodle side dish
$3.50 Hillshire Farms turkey
$3.50 Hillshire Farms turkey
$3.50 Hillshire Farms turkey
$1.69 dozen large eggs
$3.99 gallon skim milk

- $1/1 Eating Right that doubled
- $1/1 Eating Right that doubled
- $.50 Thai Kitchen that tripled
- $.50 Simply Asian that tripled
- $.40/1 Sobe Life water that tripled
- $.40/1 Sobe Life water that tripled
- $.40/1 Sobe Life water that tripled
- $.40/1 Sobe Life water that tripled
- $1/1 Hillshire Farms that doubled (on packaging)
- $1/1 Hillshire Farms that doubled (")
- $1/1 Hillshire Farms that doubled (")
- $.55/1 bread that doubled
- $.50 coupon from buying yeast last shopping trip

= $14.73 Oop

"You saved a grand total of $19.40, that is a savings of 57%"

Our Budget and Good News!

Before I get into a post about money, budgeting and food shopping, I just wanted to share the news with this side of the internet world. My boyfriend proposed to me this morning and I said yes, so I'll be mentioning him as my fiance now. I am very excited, as is expected and very happy. We are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate (as well as celebrate my 25th birthday, which is today). We are planning an early Spring 2009 wedding and I will try to keep that out of my budgeting blog as much as I can, but I'm sure I'll be mentioning it.

Back to the fun stuff.

Shopping trips this week included:
November 16th CVS: $10.25
November 16th Safeway: $25.21
November 17th CVS: $.63
November 18th Giant: $1.73
November 20th Shopper's: $42.34
Total: $80.16 (or $30.16 over budget)

DAYS	MONEY SPENT
AUG 10 - AUG 16	$118.24
AUG 17 - AUG 23	$48.11
AUG 23 - AUG 30	$40.78
AUG 31 - SEP 6	$57.87
SEP 7 - SEP 13	$57.39
SEP 14 - SEP 20	$71.10
SEP 21 - SEP 27	$1.83
SEP 28 - OCT 4	$49.18
OCT 5 - OCT 11	$13.88
OCT 12 - OCT 18	$75.08
OCT 19 - OCT 25	$10.04
OCT 26 - NOV 1	$43.58
NOV 2 - NOV 8	$42.00
NOV 9 - NOV 15	$20.94
NOV 16 - NOV 22	$80.16
NOV 23 - NOV 29	$16.39

Our budget is $50 a week, or $200 a month, and while I usually like to stay under the $50, sometimes I go over knowing well that I'll still stay below the monthly amount. This way, I am able to take advantage of deals (like the double triple promotions at Shopper's and other area grocery stores) without feeling guilty and know that in the end, I will still be under budget, because the stockpiling allows us to spend less other weeks. I may very well go over budget in November (I am heading back to Shopper's tomorrow and will probably buy more stockpiling items though not nearly as many as my last trip) and then there are some drugstore deals and Black Friday drugstore deals that I want to take advantage of, but I feel that limiting myself and our budget makes me stress out about money more than I should.

We are doing fairly well and to stress out over going over a grocery budget - food that we are eating to sustain ourselves - not exactly anything extravagant is somewhat silly.

This is what works for us.

I just wanted to make another note that thanks to Capital One, I will be receiving another $100 giftcard to Target shortly. I will have made $221 from Capital One this year and have not paid them a dime over what I charge on my card.

Recipe: Onion Garlic Sauce with Pork (and rice and peas)

I promised my boyfriend I would write this recipe down because he really liked it. This is my own invention and basically that means that I throw ingredients into a pot, sniff, add some more, sniff, add some more, etc. Somehow this works out but don't go by these measurements exactly.

The most important part of this recipe is the onion garlic sauce.

It starts with 1 onion (I used sweet yellow - I'm sure any would do).

I sliced the onion and put it into a pot with about a Tbsp of oil (canola) - waited till they cooked down and turned clear.

I then added the following:
1 dash salt
1 dash pepper
a pinch of ground ginger
1 Tbsp ground garlic (the kind in a jar that's refrigerated)
2 tsp parsley (used dry)
1 tsp sweet basil (used dry)
a few generous shakes of onion flakes
1 tsp garlic powder
a few generous shakes of minced garlic (dried from jar)

When the onions start to turn golden I turned off the heat, and transferred the onions to a blender, added about 1/4-1/2c of teryaki sauce, 1/4-1/2c olive oil and about 1/4 c brown sugar. I then blended on liquify for about 30 seconds and then pulsed for another 10 seconds and transferred the contents back to the pot and turned it on low.

I then used the already cooked pork tenderloins I recently purchased at Shopper's. These are usually $6.99 for 5 small medallions of smoked pork, but I paid $4.99 because of a doubled coupon, and in the greater scheme of things, under $1 based on the number of items I purchased and the total for the grocery bill.

I took the tenderloins straight from the refrigerator and heated some more canola oil (not very much - just enough to coat the bottom) in a pan on high. I then sauteed the tenderloins till they were golden on both sides. I plated the tenderloins with some leftover rice and then added some frozen peas to the pan and sauteed them in the leftover "juices" from the pork.

Adding the peas to the plates, I added about 1 Tbsp of onion sauce to the plates and served. I wish I took a picture but the boyfriend was very hungry and it smelled so good.

There is about 1/4 cup of sauce leftover and 1 pork tenderloin (the boyfriend will be having it reheated tomorrow for lunch). This recipe would probably be good with chicken or salmon as well as the pork and could easily be doubled, tripled, etc.

Because of the coupon deals at Shopper's, I was able to make this for well under $5