What is better than FREE??

How about going into a store, and having them pay YOU to take things home:) 

Profit: around $6.00

It’s quite the week for deals at the drug stores! I always hit up Rite-Aid, but it is rare when I make the effort to go to all three drug stores.  To get an idea of what I mean as a ‘big week’ I’ve uploaded a picture of all my goodies from Rite-Aid, CVS, and Walgreens.

My drug store goodies for the week include:

• 56 pounds of Tidy Cat cat litter
• 250 oz of Wisk laundry detergent
• 8 boxes of AquaFresh toothpaste
• Clorox bleach
• 2 containers of Wet Ones wipes
• visine
• gas prevention caplets
• 2 bags of Halls cough drops
• AAA batteries
• 3 boxes of Finish dishwashing detergent (60 loads of dishes!)
• 4 pack of Dove body soap
• (2) nail clippers
• Breathe Right strips
• eyeliner pencil sharpener

And best of all…. a black AND color ink cartridge!!

How much did this put me back, you ask? What would you say if I told you I paid 15 dollars for everything…including the cartridges?!?!

Do all your birthday and Christmas shopping…. for FREE

One of the greatest things I have heard about recently is a (legit) way to earn money just for browsing the internet. 

Swagbucks is a search engine that enables you to collect ‘bucks’ that can be redeemed for prizes…. all for searching the internet as you normally would.  Rather than using yahoo or google for my search engine, I just switched my homepage to swagbucks.com and get paid to use the internet.  My favorite prizes are the Amazon gift cards. Just for browsing the internet this past month, I earned enough swagbucks to redeem $25 in Amazon gift cards. If I keep this up, I may not have to spend a penny on Christmas next year!

Check it out, and sign up to start earning today! If you have any questions, I can answer them for you, as well as give you tips on how to earn the most swagbucks with your time

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/akucela

 

New year, bigger savings

Happy New Year, everyone!! As is customary, the new year brings about a list of changes for most people.  For me, a number of my resolutions this year involve finances.  As many of you know, Phillip and I have a big year ahead of us.  We have a wedding to plan and pay for in August, as well as the mountain of student debt I brought into the equation to tackle.  So needless to say, striving to live as frugally and intelligently as possible is very important to us. 

Since merging finances exactly six months ago, we have put over $12,000 toward our debt. My goal for 2011 is to continue down the path toward financial freedom, while helping others out along the way. I plan to update this blog frequently with money-saving tips, shopping deals, couponing information, and knowledge gained from the classes we are taking through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful New Years! Check back in the next couple days, as I plan to post pictures of my couponing trips over the last month.  Several of my couponing trips actually earned me money!!!

Who wants to save some money?

As many of you know, I recently had a month hiatus between graduation and obtaining a ‘big girl job.’  For the past 5 weeks, I have lived the life of a housewife.  In order to save money while Phillip and I were temporarily living off of one income, I decided to start clipping coupons.  When I started this process, I never expected it to turn into what it is today!  One big shopping trip and I was hooked!  Below is a picture from my first major shopping excursion (excuse the poor photo quality… this was a cell phone pic the fiance snapped before I put everything away).

The photo above includes the following items:

• 6 boxes of playtex gentle glide or playtex sport tampons (126 tampons in all)
• Herbal Essence shampoo and conditioner
• 1 can Aussie Hairspray
• 2 degree deodorants
• (2) 50 count boxes of multivitamins
• 2 Gillette Pro Glide razors and four cartridges
• 1.5 liters Listerine
• (2) 50 ounce containers of Tide laundry soap
• box of Crest toothpaste
• (4) boxes of allergy medicine
• jumbo pack of Charmin toliet paper
• Skintimate shaving cream

How much do you think that cost?  Well let me tell you…. without coupons it would have been over 110 dollars.  I paid $13.88 for everything above! I was soooo proud of myself for saving such a large amount of money (97 dollars) on items that we would have eventually paid retail price for. 

And as I said, this was my first big shopping trip, and I have learned so much more since this trip.  Turns out, I should have saved another 10 dollars had I used my coupons and register rewards correctly.  I tell you this because I want you to know that couponing takes practice.  I don’t expect to become an expert couponer overnight, but keep checking back and I will share with you information I have picked up along the way.  Hopefully some of my suggestions and tips can be used to give your own wallet a break!