This Week's Shopping Trips

Well, this week so far has been a week of some severe ups and downs.

First the good!  My son's birthday was probably the best birthday we've ever had with him.  My husband and I went running around last week to the used stores to see what we could find for gifts for him and found a bunch of things to give.  I found a brand new oversized Minion throw still in the package for 5.00 (and they MEANT oversized.  That thing is as big as a twin sized blanket).  A Spongebob DVD with a couple of episodes we don't have for 1.00.  A large scale die cast Mack (from the movie "Cars") for 3.00 that was still new in the box.  Overall my son loved his birthday gifts and has been having a great time playing with them.  He also, for the first time EVER blew out his birthday candles (normally he just tries to grab them and we have to stop him from burning himself) and he also helped to open his gifts.  These were huge steps forward for him and I think Christmas might be a lot more fun as a result.  I'm very, very grateful at the progress he's made.

Now onto the bad. 

Right, say theoretically you screwed up on keeping track of finances.  And then other things happened.  That was me so far this week. 

First, I spaced a payment that was scheduled to come out of the checking account.  Now this is one of the Care Credit payments.  I KNOW it comes out the first week of the month.  Heck I'm the one who schedules it to come OUT of the checking account the first week of the month.  And yet, somehow, I forgot it was coming out this week.  This is, I'm like 99.9% sure the first time EVER that has ever happened to me.  I've been beating myself up pretty good about doing that.  I know I haven't slept in a good month or so more than an hour at a shot and I've been fielding sick husband and son the last little bit on top of everything, but MAN I can't believe I did that!  Just...ugh!!!!

Then my husband had to rush himself to the doctor yesterday as he was not being able to breath with his cold and was worried at one point he was going to pass out.  His cough had been bad over the weekend, so I knew no matter what we were going to have to pay for that as he needed it.  Luckily, after the doctor and the medicine there was enough money in the checking account to cover it all.  Just.  Why do these things always happen on short weeks?

I decided I needed to spend as little money this week as possible on groceries, so perusing the ads I decided that Carrs was definitely the place to go for groceries.  Luckily we didn't need much.  Unfortunately we also needed the usual processed overpriced stuff for my son.

But hey, here's how I got 10 containers of yogurt and two dozen eggs for free!

There is a deal this week where if you buy 10 Oikos yogurts, which are on sale for 10 for 10.00 (of varying types) you can get two freebies, mix and match, of a dozen eggs or a free container of orange juice.  I decided to get the eggs since that will go further for me, meal-wise, than orange juice will.  

I dug through my coupons knowing that I had a bunch of coupons that printed off at the register a while back for 1.00/2 Oikos yogurts and found that I had five of them that weren't expired.  So, I figured, if nothing else, a 5.00 investment and I'd get 10 yogurts and 2 dozen eggs.  When I got into the store, though, I ran by the clearance dairy as I figure they usually have reduced yogurt and maybe I could find some Oikos to make things even cheaper.  And I found TEN (well actually there were more like 30, but I only took ten) on 50% off (or .50 each :).  I used all five coupons to get the 10 yogurts for free and the computer automatically took off the eggs for free once it read 10 yogurts were bought.  So, I ended up getting 10 yogurts and 2 dozen eggs for free.  The yogurts will be going into lunches in the coming weeks and the eggs will be used for cheap dinners this week (sausage pattie and fried egg sandwiches are on the menu tonight) and baking. 

See, holding onto coupons that you don't think you'll ever use sometimes comes in REALLY handy.  I never would have bought Oikos yogurt at regular price as it's pretty spendy, but now thanks to coupons and reductions I have 10 for free.  Totally worth sitting on those coupons for a while!

I also got milk (2.99 on sale with in-ad coupon this week) and the usual soda and chips for the son.  All totaled I spent 24.32 on groceries this week.  Not terrible, especially since I had to buy overpriced processed stuff.  Now to wait for payday so I can breath a bit again. 

How about you?  How did you do this week?