Let me just preface this by saying – it’s big to me, alright?

I’m not even sure if I mentioned that my son broke his Nintendo DS – less than 2 months after getting it for Christmas. I’m telling you this because it is an important part of the story! Let me just stress how really really pissed I was – no question that if I didn’t lock myself in the room, I think I could have easily strangled him. As you remember I was struggling because of budget reasons to buy him anything for Christmas… with the help of all my Amazon gift certificates I have accumulated I was able to buy him 8 various presents for Christmas which allowed me to “splurge” if you will on a Nintendo DS out of my money that I got literally 2 days before Christmas. Considering everything else I got him was bought and paid for from the reviews I do on here – it was technically like I only spent $120 on him, and although I probably already had enough for him, I knew how much he wanted his Nintendo DS. Now, this is a HUGE purchase for me – spending $120 on a 5 year old is truly something I struggled with. BUT I thought he could handle the responsibility. Oh how wrong I was…

I’ll never forget the day – February 20th, 2009. My son was walking up the stairs with the DS firmly in his hand. He tripped and fell and the DS slammed to the ground. I turned around and immediately was like “What are you doing?” because he was fooling around when he fell down. He knew I was mad about the DS and proceeded to tell me it was an accident before deciding it was okay to SHOW me again what happened, complete with slamming the DS down on the ground AGAIN. Yeah, not so smart. But the DS was still working! Until about 30 minutes later when he had it sitting on the bathroom counter while he took a break to um, do his business. While washing his hands he accidentially knocked it off the counter onto the hard tile floor. Well, the DS was done after that – 3 times in one day being slammed to the ground was quite enough and it reached its death. It wouldn’t turn on, it wouldn’t charge – nothing.

I.WAS.SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.MAD

Fine – what is done is done and of course I gave him a big lecture about how he was not allowed to get another one till he earned the money by doing chores. At 5 years old, I knew it would be a considerable amount of time before he got another one.

It was that day in particular that I looked again at my Amazon balance which I had built back up and I had enough to buy a 2nd DS for myself (as anyone who remembers will know of my addiction to it as well!) I was going to buy a 2nd one so that we can play together because they wireless connect to one another. Well, since his was broken I decided that I was not going to order the 2nd one.

So, I continued to save my Amazing gift certificates… and save… and save… and save.

Until this weekend when I reached an all time high of well over $300 – enough to buy a Wii.

I BOUGHT A FREAKING WII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not only that, I had enough to buy the Wii Fit as well! And a numchuck!

With my gamestop gift certificates I have also accumulated I was able to buy another controller and the game My Fitness Coach for the Wii. Anyone from Our Wicked Weighs knows how obsessed I was about getting the Wii and the Wii fit… I only talked about it ALL of the time. And now it has happened! It should be delivered Saturday :-) I’m so excited I can’t even tell you… I know most of you who want it already have it, but I don’t, lol… so for me, this is super huge! I even joined the Wii Fit mommies blog and believe me, I will be using the Wii fit to get into shape and have fun at the same time.

To me it is unbelievable that I was able to save up so much so quickly, and it is really all thanks to the reviews I do… and I’m so thrilled. And what is even better? I didn’t spend one cent on it ;) I only wish I was this good with saving money ;) And in answer to your question – no, my son will never be allowed to play it without me – I’m not taking that risk again

Okay, I realize how sad I am because not only am I posting my big haul of savings, but I also took a picture which you will see below, posted it on Facebook about my savings, AND texted my friend Amy to tell her how much I saved. Can you tell I’m excited? In fact, I couldn’t wait to come home and blog about it!

Today through Sunday is triple coupon day at my local grocery store Harris Teeter. So, as soon as I dropped my son off at the bus, I ran right over to Harris Teeter to start my shopping. 20 items later (you can only use 20 coupons per trip) I went home and put it all away, only to get back in the car to head back for another 20 items. In all total I bought my full 40 items of food.. and do you know what I paid in total? $30.48!!! Yep, you read that right – $30.48!

Before coupons and the store discounts it was $122.45 but nooooooo, I didn’t pay that, I paid $30.48!

I won’t bore you with the entire list, but I did manage to get:

3 toothpastes
3 things of pasta
3 steamfresh vegetable varieties
3 things of betty crocker cookies (good for school and bake sales and stuff)
2 brownies (good for school and bake sales and stuff)
2 things of palmolive dish detergent
3 things of chex mix / cheerios mix
4 different types of bars – 2 curves bars, 2 granola bars
2 mustards
2 tunas
2 grands biscuits
1 country crock butter
3 boxes of cereal
1 toilet paper
2 hungry jack pancakes
1 reese’s 100 calorie pack
1 jiffy peanut butter
2 hunts tomatoes
2 cans of fruit
2 cans of veggies
1 bacon
1 blistex

Whew, lol… okay, maybe I will bore you with the list ;) My entire point of coupon shopping is to stock up so that I won’t have to go every week with the exception of the basics. Like for instance, over the past few triple coupon times, I now have 6 things of toothpaste! I’d say I’m stocked up ;) And what is best about that? I got every single one of them for free after my $.75 coupon was tripled (they were on sale each time). Much of this stuff I got totally for free!

Look – here it is :-)

Gosh, I just love triple coupon weekend! Tomorrow I’m going back for another 2 trips and hopefully I’ll be done – AND – be able to keep my weekly budget under $60. I think I can do it!!

Been there. Done that. Home by 7:55am. Got huge deals :-)

Anyone else?

No not that C word – I’m talking about the word Coupon…. my new favorite word.

Everyone is trying to save money, but I think I’m becoming obsessed about it. I found out this weekend that Harris Teeter – one of our local grocery stores – was having triple coupon weekend which comes only once or twice a year. Up until recently I have not been much of a coupon clipper – the occasional one sure, but not a die hard like some people I have come to know this weekend.

So I collected some coupons that I had cut out this past few weeks and then I went online to get more. I ended up with over 100 coupons but the limit is 20 per person but you can go as many times per day as you want! To make a VERY long story short, I went 6 times because I kept collecting more coupons and I wanted to use as many as I could on each trip.

The deals were AMAZING! For example, I had a .75 coupon off of Betty Crocker Muffin Mix… well Harris Teeter had it on sale for $2.00 so if you triple .75 you get $2.25 which means I got it for free! Crazy right? Well, once I figured out I could get some stuff for free I was all about finding as many coupons as I could!

These were my big deals of the weekend –
4 boxes of 50 Excederin Migraine – a total of $4.00!
11 boxes of cereal (Honey Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cookie Crisp) – $2.10
4 boxes of Betty Crocker Muffin Mix – FREE
4 bags of Better Crocker Cookies – FREE
2 boxes of Lipton Ice Tea – $.50
2 lysol wipes – FREE

And so, so, so much more!

All total I spent $61.62 this weekend in food and do you know how much I bought?? C’mon, I know you want to know!

When all six receipts are added together, the before coupon price came out to ….

$277.17!!!

Yes, I saved $215.55 and I have enough food to last me about 1 to 2 months at least – not including the basics of bread, milk, meats, etc.

I spent less than what I would normally spend in a week and I’m so freaking happy it’s pitiful. There is a whole thing to this and it’s amazing quite frankly. I had to go get a binder, save all my coupons, print a ton of coupons, check out the local sales not only at Harris Teeter, but Kroger and Food Lion as well. It took a few hours to get organized and about 4 hours in total for all the shopping but it was so well worth it. Now I think I have the organizational aspect down, I just have to work on the timing. Although granted not every weekend will be this profitable because triple coupons aren’t all the time but most people on the new coupon forum I belong to estimate that they save between 60% and 70% of their grocery bill every WEEK! That is crazy. Although I don’t claim to be that good yet, I sure am working on it ;)

This week I go to my first coupon swap and I am WAY excited, lol. Can’t wait to see what goodies I get!