I posted a photo of today’s deals and I’ve gotten people commenting on it. Why? Because this is probably the best deal day ever for me!

But Oz, you’re always posting about great deal! Oh yes, I might, but today it was extreme deal having! So buckle up and enjoy the adventure of my day!

So there you have it. The picture of wonder. Now here’s the stats. That would be $151.92 worth of stuff before taxes for only $19.25 after taxes.

Your mind boggling yet? Yeah, don’t feel bad. Mine did, too. In fact, I added up the totals three times. It kept coming out the same. Woah!

I ended up with a high OOP this week because of the batteries. How could I pass that up, though? Here’s the details!

First, let’s start with the paper towels. They were a huge adventure, to say the least. I got these coupons from my inserts that look like two overlapping coupons. So I cut them out as one and figured I could figure it out. But, where do you find Marcal paper towels? I’ve looked in two grocery stores! Good for me, I found the answer on a message board. The Family Dollar has these things, and yes, the really are only a buck!

Always read your fine print on coupons! These things said that only one can be used per person. That’s fine, they are free after coupon. I have nickles and two boys and six coupons. In we go and we nab our towels. Now because of the confusion of the paper towels, we each picked up two. Up we go to the register where we get a new trainee. Always fun. She couldn’t figure out how to scan the coupon. We finally figure it out, but not to work with two. So Joram bought two paper towels for 2.10 minus 1.00 with the coupon equaling 1.10. We just paid it, and I sent Caramon back to put the extra two away. I didn’t want to buy anything! So then it’s my turn. One paper towel, one coupon that the poor trainee couldn’t get to work. Her neighbour cashier didn’t read the coupon but kept swearing I had to buy two. Nowhere on the coupon did it say this. I pointed that out. She said to me, “Well you can’t get something for free, of course you have to buy two!” One of the merged coupons said “FREE” in real big letters. I point this out and she swears again you just can’t get something for free.

You people know by now, I get free stuff all the time. You can so get something for free!

We finally got a manager by the trainee hunting down said manager. The manager informs the cashiers that yes, the paper towels are free and just how to use this coupon properly. So I get my one paper towels for only the tax, .05! Score! I felt bad and so I asked the trainee if she was up for Caramon’s transaction. She said, sure. Good for her! She manages to get it to work like a charm and we were like “WOOOOT!” One more paper towel for .05!

Now, do we dare go for another day to use the other three coupons? Yikes! But that’s four rolls of paper towels for only 1.20! Fantastic! (Yes I probably could have returned the on we paid for, but please. I had to take pity on this poor trainee!)

The fingernail file and little lotion came from Bath and Body Works. I signed up for their email deals. The deal was that lotion was FREE with ANY purchase. The files? One sale for a buck! So in I go with my coupon. File priced at 1.50 and lotion priced at 3.50. That’s $5.00 worth of stuff for a mere 1.05. Woot! This is a printable coupon and the rule is only “one use per person per day.” So yes, I can print off a slew and take in the kids again. It just so happened that they weren’t with me at this time, otherwise… HA!

My kids love our deal bargaining! They help me keep track of my coupons, tally my OOP and my retail prices, and even set up these photographs I take. They go through ads and look for deals, they scan my cards for coupons in store, and they even run price checks for me. Over the last month, they’ve learned a lot about bargain shopping. Right now their real passion is collecting Happy Points from Bloom. They want those free pots and pans more than me, I think! But, they are upset because there is no retail price listed so they can’t figure out the deal!

So what about everything else? Let’s just say, I LOVE CVS! In fact, the bulk of the total came from CVS. About 140 of that 150 total came from there. What can I say, batteries are freaking expensive!

The battery deal is to die for. I am going to do it three more times, but I am out of coupons. I’ve got pleas out for more coupons, so we will see what happens.

What’s the battery deal? If you buy $20 of Duracell batteries (certain packs and before coupons) you get $15 ECB’s. I love those ECB’s because they are CVS Store Credit! I just keep using those puppies!

The large packs are on sale for 9.99 and the small packs are on sale for 5.99. Except Caramon made a boo boo. We were having trouble finding an 8 pack of AA, and he found these Digital ones. We didn’t realize it, but those puppies didn’t cost 5.99 but were 9.49! OUCH! Oh well, they supposedly do better for electronics and guess what we use these stupid things for? So, we’ll deal with the extra money. I mean, can I really complain? Nope!

All those candles were a good deal as well. If you spend $10 on various Glade’s, you can get $5 ECB’s. Lucky me, I had Buy One Get One Free on those big suckers. The red ones were only 5.49. So I grabbed two and that’s 10.98. But then you take off the price of one, and I had an ECB for $5 already. Voile, .49 plus tax for two giant candle things!

No one was in the second store I went to. (The first store didn’t have any more.) I thought i only had two coupons, so I had four of these things. I ask the lady if I can do it as two transactions and she had no problem with that. Each transaction was like .79 with tax and she said, “Woah, that worked out great! I’m going to have to figure that deal out!” I said, “Yeah it did!!!!” After getting out to my car, I found another coupon so I went back later and saw the same lady. She said, “You’re back!” I said, “I found another coupon!” She just grinned.

The blue candles, for whatever reason, were more expensive. I’d already scanned, having noticed that. This lady was so nice she even price checked. She’d remembered my awesome deal and was like, ‘Well that sucks! I bet they just want more money for no reason than to just rob you.” I said, “Probably. It claims ‘new’ on the package. But, I got the two for like 1.78 so that’s not too bad.” She said, “True that!” We got a good laugh.

The staff at CVS are just delightful. I really haven’t had much to complain about. I mainly use two stores that are about half a mile apart. There’s a couple of others I have gone to on occasion. I’ve had several comment on my good deals and how savvy I am. The response has been positive, so that’s cool!

I’d actually forgotten about the darned Glade deal at the first CVS I went into. Dummy me! I’m so glad I remembered them!

For anyone who wants to know, the nail polish was on sale for Buy One Get One Free and I used two coupons taking them down to .99 for the both! Score!

So mostly what I did to get such good deals is:

1. Collect coupons
2. Use coupons in conjuction with sales
3. Live by my store reward cards!

Oh, and not pictured was another awesome deal I stumbled upon! My Bloom (local grocery store) has Stove Top Stuffing on sale for buy one get free. And a lowered price to boot. In the back of the store is a huge display of Stove Top with a fat tear pad of coupons. Buy 4, get one free. Bloom’s deal is only 2 free per transaction, so you can only get four in this deal. Except you can use the coupon. It ended up being about 2.5 dollars for 5 boxes of Stove Top. I so gotta do that deal again! I only wanted a loaf of bread because I hadn’t gotten mine baked. The woman in front of me did two transactions to get all the stuffing she needed for some Church event. (Travis at Bloom, I ❤ U because you are always awesome at the check out!) The second transaction was only the stuffing and he asked the lady if that was a doable amount. She chuckled and said, "You betcha!" I said, "Dang, I wish I had that coupon! That's awesome!" Both the cashier (Travis) and the lady told me exactly what to do. You better believe I booked it out of line ASAP and got myself some stinking Stove Top.

I was real happy to see this awesome battery deal. You can do it five times. We have kids and Christmas is coming. With everything bearing a giant stamp stating "Batteries Not Included" you know how that goes. The worse thing to do is get to Christmas morning, have your kiddo open a gift, and realize: *head smack* "We forgot the batteries!!!!!" Nothing is open on Christmas Day. You're lucky to get Chinese food!

Guess who's going to have batteries on Christmas morning? ME! Best of all, that second transaction, my total was 19.98 and I had coupons to take $3 off. I ended up with 16.98 and used a $15.00 ECB. My OOP for 32 freaking batteries was 1.98. You cannot pass that up.

19.25 and I ended up with:
4 Paper Towels
1 Big huge nail file (that stripey thing)
1 pocket sized lotion
2 nail polishes
8 Glade Scented Oil pots
1 pack of Glade refill oil with plug in
1 pack of Glade plug in with fan with oil
3 packs of batteries – count 16 each
2 packs of batteries – count 8 each
Loreil moisturizer

I turned $23 in ECB's into $30.99. Which is great because wait till you see next week's ad!

So how did I do?

–Lady O