Disney - Yes, it can be done!

Well, we just returned from 5 days at the Happiest Place on Earth. I can't believe we went! We started planning a trip to Williamsburg, and we ended up in WDW. Now, how is this frugal?

First of all, we paid cash for the WDW portion of the trip. Now, we do have to save that cash back up again, but it was wonderful knowing that we didn't put everything on the credit card. We did, though, put the airfare on the Visa.

Speaking of airfare, we flew out of Charlotte instead of our local airport for roughly half the price. We found airfare for $59 each way, which is just a bit more than the $49 each way we had 3 years ago on Southwest. If you're willing and able to drive to a different airport, you can really save! Of course, unlike our 2006 flight, we had to buy four seats this time, and US Airways also charges extra for checked bags. But still, it was the cheapest deal around. We also discovered that we really like the Charlotte airport better than our local airport or our closest Southwest serviced airport.

I had some really strong opinions about our trip this time, so I'm going to be posting most of it. Keep looking!

First shot at baking bread

We love bread. That's actually an understatment! We adore bread. Bread amatus. Whatever - it's in demand around here. But 1) bread at the store is expensive; 2) it's usually overprocessed; and 3) so much of it has HFCS.

So, I'm trying to start making my own bread. I don't bake, so I'll guess I need to start. I'm talking to everyone, including the check out lady tonight at the grocery store. There's so much to learn.

Speaking of starting, I got a sourdough starter going about a week ago, and I made my first loaf tonight. It isn't pretty, and it's slightly underbaked, but it's not bad! The starter isn't old enough to have a great sour flavor yet, but at least I know that it is alive and working.

Have you ever tried Kiss My Face products?

I am IN LOVE! Kiss My Face is all about natural products without any harmful additives. I've been buying their products at wholesale prices through my Frontier co-op, but even at retail prices, they are reasonable when compared to other natural brands.

The fam went to the beach about two weeks ago, and I tried their sunscreens for the first time. We used SPF 30 spray and regular lotion. E Belle and Dear Hubby are fair skinned and were burn free, and Little Man and myself were able to get our natural shade of brown with no hint of red at all. I paid less than $8 a bottle for the sunscreen at wholesale price.

Megan over at Focusing on the Bible, Family and the Great Deals is giving away a $250 package of Kiss My Face! Head on over before May 28 to enter.

First Time with Triples

Just got back from my first trip to Harris Teeter for triple coupon week. Decided to go super early so that E Belle would be in a good mood.

Here's how I did:

Total before coupons and discounts: $226.94
Paid out of pocket: $159.51

I ended up with $41.01 in coupon savings, in addition to the $26.42 in loyalty card savings.

Not too bad! I was hoping to keep it under $150, but I definitely feel like I did a good job and good some great deals. It definitely helped that I did at least an hour of homework the night before pouring over websites to match coupons with good deals. I was totally ready this morning. The savings was worth the time.

I just saw a stat that said that people who use coupons spend well more than people who don't. I don't want to be that person! I'm trying to stay within my budget, and I only went over this week by less than $10. I will accomodate for that later in the month.

Target Deal

Ladies, have you seen the new Always Infinity pads? Evidently, they are made of gold (just kidding!). They are crazy expensive, and my first reaction was like, hey, do they know what those are for? But since they were new, I knew that the deals would not be too bad.

I ended up with two $3 off coupons for Infinity, and I honestly didn't plan on using them. But Target has a deal this week where if you buy two packages of either Infinity or Tampax Pearls, you get a $5 gift card. Target gift cards NEVER go to waste around here!

I bought two boxes of 36 count Infinity at $8.99 each (actually, the boxes I picked up had one of those "extra bonus free" in them, so they're more than a 36 count). With my coupons, that made them $5.99 each, for a total of $11.98 plus the $5 gift card. Not too bad for us frequent Target shoppers!

Couponing at Walgreens

I've always stayed away from going to drug stores because traditional wisdom is that they are more expensive than someplace like Target. Yes, in general, they are. But then again, I can't walk into Target and NOT spend at least $40, so perhaps it's better for me to hit the drug stores.

Walgreens opened up a few months ago just up the road, and I love having it so close! So, I clipped some coupons, did my homework and headed up there yesterday. Here's my bounty:

1 box Dora bandaids - $3.49
1 .5 oz Neosporin - $4 on sale
1 Neosporin To Go - $4 on sale
2 Huggies Size 5 (30 in pack) - 2/$19.98 on sale
1 Replinish Contact Solution - $7.99 sale
1 Schick Quattro razor with blades - $8.99 sale
1 breath mint package - .79 cents

Total before coupons: $55.82 w/o tax
Total after coupons: $41.56 w/ tax (so, $11 in coupon savings)
Total Register Rewards: $9.00

Actually, out of pocket I only spent $37.17 because I had a balance on my gift card from the March Easy Saver. Of course, my latest Easy Saver money was uploaded later yesterday afternoon! Unfortunately, Walgreens is discontinuing the Easy Saver program as of May 1, but supposedly, the in-store deals and Register Rewards are supposed to be better.

The important part here was that I had a coupon for everything but the mints. The Walgreens register is set up so that you have to have an item for each coupon. Now, you can have a manufacturer's coupon and a store coupon for the same item, but you would have to pick up a second item as well, or the register just won't put it through. Weird, but that's how it is. My lowest value coupon was $1.00, and my best coupon was $4 for the razor.

I now have $9 in Register Rewards for a return trip. So, I'll just wait for next week's deals to come out and see what I can do between the coupons and RRs!

I'm finding it expensive to get started couponing, but evidently, I'm not alone. Funny thing was that as I was looking for the razor, another woman showed it to me without me asking. She was also a couponer, and on top of that, her husband was a manager at the same Walgreens. We started talking, and she said it definitely gets much easier and cheaper once you get that stockpile going. We agreed that you should never have to pay for razors, shaving cream, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes and shampoo (except I don't use drug store shampoo) because of coupons and deals. We'll see how fast it takes me to get there!

Couponing

I'm really new to all this couponing stuff. I mean, I've used coupons for years. But to actually attempt at trying to buy like $100 worth of stuff for 50 cents or something crazy like that, it's all new to me.

So, I've been checking out other mama blogs who are much better at this than I, and I've picked up both pointers and coupons.

I went to CVS just now, and this is how it broke down:

Dove Skin Revitalizer Machine – on sale for $4 (was $12)
Dove Replacement pads – on sale for $3.49 (was $4.99)
Two Hot Wheels toothbrushes - $3.29 each

So, my total should have been $14.07

I had $4.50 in ExtraBucks
A $3.75 off the Revitalizer Machine (making it only a quarter)
A BOGO coupon for the toothbrushes

My total: $3.18

I'm pretty excited, even though this is so small. Dear Hubby is all about me doing this, of course. I think I'm excited not only about the saving money part, but also because it really does work your mind trying to figure out the coupon game.