Trying some new couponing tools, "savingstar" e coupons and couponsthingsbydede !!

I'm all about new ways to save and this week I have tried two new things!  So I've been into this coupon thing now for well over a year, not EXTREME couponing just a little better than your average beginning couponer.  NO I don't have a stockpile of 500 deodorants and 250 salad dressings. However I do have a few extra condiments, toiletry items and cereal stashed in cupboards to last over a month. 
Like any new hobby it wavers with enthusiasm.  Sometimes I get annoyed with it.  Sometimes it feels like too much work. Sometimes it takes too much time to do in addition to running a house with two kids.  But sometimes I am really on my game.  Today I did very well at CVS!!!  I bought two 12 packs of Pepsi, Herbal Essences conditioner, shampoo, hairspray and hair gel, two softsoap hand soaps, one soft soap body wash and a box of Uby Kotex.  All for only 9.00!!!!!!!  I used 8 coupons! and a total of $6 in xtra care bucks to do it!  Yay!  At least it doesn't take a lot of money to make me happy! : )
So back to my point, Lately I have discovered two new couponing tactics to try that have sparked my renewed energy in couponing.  Don't get me wrong I have been using coupons through my recent lull of interest but now I am re energized with these two new ways of obtaining coupon savings.

The first is www.savingstar.com You may have already heard of this and I have been seeing it around in my favorite blogs and such but now that I have a smartphone and have added the app. I am totally into it.  Anyway this is a program that you can use on your phone or online to load your rewards cards such as CVS, Giant Eagle, Weis etc.  Then you go through and activate your available coupons and when you shop at your stores and scan your rewards card it will not take money off of your total but put in into your savingstar account to be redeemed later for money in gift cards or paypal. 

The second new thing is www.couonthingsbydede.com I have also heard of this coupon clipping service and have been skeptical to use it because it feels too EXTREME.  But there are limits to how many coupons you can order. And I only want a few at a time so, as suggested by a new friend, I tried it out and bought about 50 coupons this week for only $5.00.  This was great because when you buy a paper for $2.00 you may like only a few of the coupons in the inserts, on couponthingsbydede.com you can pick and order the exact coupons you like and know you will and can use!!   The best thing about this is that I am waiting for when I am going to combine these two new great savings strategies with a new sale!!!
For example I buy purina cat food for my cat.  I ordered $1.00 off coupons for it from the clipping service and on www.savingstar.com I activated a coupon to give me $2.00 back when I buy one! So I will get a total of $3.00 off and If I am lucky I will find it on sale for around $4.00!  And if I am even more lucky CVS will have it on sale with reward bucks on it to make it an even sweeter deal! We'll see. LOL  So I hope any of this may help anyone else currently in a "coupon slump" or just trying to vamp up their couponing style. Good Luck!!!

LOVE Charlotte Russe!!

I signed up to for the newsletter for Charlotte Russe and sometimes I get great coupons like these! 3 charlotte russe coupons here!!  One is for $5.00 off any $25.00 purchase, one is for $5.00 off a dress and last $5.00 off a pair of shoes!!  So print it out, print more than one to share with a friend or to possibly go back in to use a different one of the three options!!  And Shop, shop shop!!

Walmart and Target savings!

So we were out of just a few things today that I had to get a "coupon game plan" together and head out.  This time no more school for miss. Emma so I had both a 2 and 5 year old in tow.  I guess I should get use to it, we have a long summer ahead!  So anyway we went to target first and I did fabulous of course cause you can stack Target coupons with manufacturers coupons! yay!  So here are a few of the things I found.  (The target coupons can be found on http://www.target.com/ .)
-Beach Tote only $8.99 - Target coupon $2.00off
-Market Pantry golden squares cereal on sale $1.88. - Target coupon for $1.00/2
-Quaker granola bars $2.48ea - Target coupon $1.00/2
-Kelloggs Cereal $2.50ea - $1/3 Manufacturers coupon and $1/3 Target Coupon makes them Only $1.84ea!! PLUS there was a peelie on the fruit loops for a free CARS2 die cast car!!!  worth $3.99!! we went straight to the toys to pick that one out!! lol
-Neutrogena Men's Shave gel $3.48 - $2.00/1 Internet coupon And $1/1 Target coupon ONLY .48cents!!
-Neutrogena Men's aftershave lotion $4.19-  $2.00/1 Internet coupon And $1/1 Target coupon Only $1.19!!
-Kandoo Wipes $1.49ea I bought two with two $1.00/1 Manufacturer's coupons (www.kandoo.com) making them .49ea!
-Men's Sure Deoderant $1.97ea I bought two with two $1.00/1 Manufacturers coupns from an insert in May, making them only .97cents ea!!
Total was only $27.85!!  (I also let my kids each pick one thing from the "dollar spot" to make them happy enough to sit and chill in the cart while I did my deal hunting! : )

Walmart went great as well, I bought a whole bunch more so I will just list some of the best scores!
-A great watermelon for only $2.50!!!
And after coupons I scored 2 packs of kids yogurt for .97cents, and two more for only $1.00ea
Also Ronzoni Spaghetti, 4 boxes for $1.00ea, Capri Sun's for $1.50ea AND 2 Bryers ice cream blasts for only $2.23ea!!
Just to name a few.
This is why I love coupons!

Great Savings Strategy at JCPenney!!!

There is a great coupon in this weeks JCPenney ad. You can find the ad in the store at each entrance or in today's paper!  Also there is a  Printable Version  you can take with you in case you can't find the ad in the store.  It is only good for today and tomorrow.  I was able to score some great savings today.  So many things are on sale and when you add a coupon of $10.00 off a $25.00 or more purchase you score big! Great for Fathers day and graduations!

Great Target Coupons!!

Once again I must say how I love Target.  This is the only store that has a great variety of generic/store brand item coupons!!   That is putting a coupon to an already low price.  Right now my favorites are out to print and you can go back and print a second if you like them as much as I do!!  $1.00 off 60ct or larger up & up diapers, $1.50 off of two frozen chicken items (you can buy nuggets or frozen chicken breast tenders etc.!) , $1.00 off two market pantry refrigerated orange juice (we go through orange juice as quickly as milk and cereal around here!).  Also another great one for this time of year is the $1.00 off three greeting cards, with mother's day, birthday's and Easter this is a good one to print twice and take advantage of some great savings cause those cards can add up quickly.  The last two that I really like right now is the .50/1 toilet paper or paper towel pack and the $1.00 off 20ct or larger up & up trash bags.  Both of which are hard to find on sale plus coupon to make it cheaper than generic.  Plus even though these are store brand  I think they are of great quality, better than some of the name brands I have used in the past. 

We browsed Target today just for the fun of it, and made a small purchase of a few odds and ends and I received a FREE reusable Tote!!  Yay!  I will also be making a trip to CVS where they have their bag tags on sale for .99cents with .99cents xtra bucks back so its like FREE.  If you are not familiar with the bag tag it is a tag you put on your reusable bag, and every time you shop you have the cashier scan it, (it has a little bar code) just like your cvs extracare card.  This "bag tag" will will earn you one buck every fourth visit.  So if you shop at CVS on a weekly basis like me you will quickly earn bucks just for shopping!!   woohoo!

Some great savings today!!

So I was super excited to find some great deals at some of my favorite stores!!  I pulled off 2 free packs of yo crunch yogurt by pairing 2 manf. coupons with one store coupon, 1 free gallon of milk, large jar of smuckers for only 50cents! and some other random good finds.  Love getting what I need for super cheap!    One thing I learned today, when checking out the smuckers fruit spread/jam/jelly prices, was that the bottom shelf with the bigger jar was on sale for cheaper than the smaller item at eye level.  So definitly compare those prices! 
On another couponing note, that extreme couponing show on tlc is tonight.  I missed it last week so I plan on watching last weeks and tonights.  I did see online that there was a big controversy over one of the ladies last week using coupons in a fraudulant manner.  Supposedly she uses coupons on items that are not included or even related to the products listed on the coupon!!!!  First of all how do you live with yourself cause that is stealing, and second how does this even happen??  Sometimes I have trouble with a coupon being redeemed at the register when it is clearly for the item I am buying?!  How can she pull this off. I am still confused but I definetly have to tune in to figure that out.  Any way, I love coupons, I love to use them correctly and i hope there arent others like her out there going to ruin all of us "good couponers's" fun! lol

Huggies Coupons! and other diaper "cheapies"! + Kellogg's cereal freebies!

I have been super busy lately with kids, house and the everyday figure out dinner and lunch that I have not had much time to put into my little blog.  Hopefully this summer I can get into a better routine!  We'll see.  What I did notice are some great coupons at http://www.coupons.com/ for Huggies diapers one for $3.00 off and another for $2.00 off.  And if you were able to print the huggies target coupon on their website before it was pulled you would be able to stack another $2.50 off of that!!  The best part is you can print them twice!!!! Lately I have not had to buy the store brand diapers because of all the great deals with coupons and sale matchups, it has always come out cheaper to buy the name brand.  I am lucky with my little man, his bottom does not have a preference so that means I can buy the brand on sale for the best price.  Unlike my daughter who got a rash with every diaper but Huggies!  Don't know why, just did.  When I do buy store brand I usually get Target's diapers because they are decent quality and if you regularly visit http://www.target.com/ and browse their coupons they will frequently run a $1.50 off coupon for their diapers.  Remember always go back and print a second or even a third if it lets you!!  Hold on to these for when the name brands are not on sale or have no good coupons to match.  Sometimes Target will also hold a gift card deal when you buy so many boxes of a certain brand you will get a $5 or $10 gift card.  With this I will "roll" my purchase.  i.e.  Purchase the diapers in your first transaction, receive gift card and use that to put towards paying for your second transaction.  I always make sure to ask the cashier if I can make two purchases first. Explaining what I am trying to do.  None of them have ever given me a problem.

As far as this Kellogg's cereal deal I have seen at numerous grocery stores you should be able to earn yourself a free gallon of milk And a reusable grocery bag!!  I was able to do this at Weis this week and I have seen it in numerous other grocery store ads as well.  They do not advertise the reusable grocery bag.  It is on a cardboard stand in the cereal isle and states that if you buy two boxes of participating Kellogg's cereal you get the tote FREE!  Well I was already buying 3 boxes of Kellogg's cereal for $6 to earn my Free gallon of milk and on top of that I had a $1.00 off wyb3 Kellogg's coupon!! so for $5.00 I scored 3 boxes of Kellogg's cereal, 1 reusable grocery bag AND a FREE Gallon of MILK!!!   That is only $1.00 per item!  I was pretty proud of myself.  There have been tons of deals like this in my weis flyer.  So check your fav. grocery stores out and see what you can earn free!  And then look for the coupons on the items you actually have to buy to make your total " out of pocket"  even cheaper!   Not sure where to find the coupon you are looking for??  Head over to http://www.coupondivas.com/ and click on Kitty's deal dashboard where it says coupon database and this will expand your coupon accessibility for sure!!!!