Yesterday’s trip to CVS was a booming success. If you need diapers, sodas and/or dish soap, this is a great deal!
I bought three packs of Huggies diapers, three 12 packs of soda, two Palmolive dish detergents, a small mouthwash and a body mist.
Huggies and Palmolive were part of a deal where you get $10 Extra Care Bucks if you spend $30. I bought three packs of Huggies diapers at $9.49 each, used two coupons (if I had found the third that had fallen out in my purse, this deal would’ve been $2.00 better) and got two Palmolive dish soaps to complete the $30 minimum.
There is a coupon printing from the magic red machine for a travel size Colgate mouthwash, making it 50 cents.
I got a free body wash coupon for my birthday.
The 12 pack Coke products are three packs for $11, with $2 Extra Care Bucks for buying three packs.
I had $10 Extra Care Bucks left from a previous shopping trip a few weeks ago.
I also had a $5 off of $30 and $5 off of $15 coupons, one loaded on my card from an email and one a printed coupon, which both were able to ring on this transaction.
Total: $66.70
Cash Out of Pocket: $14.57
Extra Care Bucks for Later: $12.00
Savings Percentage: 78 (not counting the ECB to use later)
If I hadn’t had a 4 year old acting like a lunatic at the register, I’d planned to use the $10.00 Extra Care Bucks from the diapers and dish soap to pay for most of the drinks, which is what I’d suggest you do. In that case, you’d have only $14.47 out of pocket, or $12.47 if you can get the three Huggies coupons, unless you come in with the Extra Care Bucks like I did.
Want to take advantage of this deal? I’ll tell you where to get the Huggies coupons. Just make sure when you go in CVS to go to the red coupon printer for the in-store coupons. 🙂
If you want to earn points while printing these coupons, like I did, you can do so by joining Swagbucks and printing the coupons there. You can do so by following the link here:
If you don’t want to join the program and earn points toward gift cards or other great items just by printing coupons you are going to print either way, you can just follow the link below to simply print the Huggies coupons, although I am only seeing coupons for Slip-ons and Overnights, and I’d printed for regular ones on Swagbucks a few days ago:
The mask & cape were gifts purchased with Mommy’s rewards programs
This post has been updated to add some tricks I’ve learned since I originally posted this last year. I hope that you will enjoy Swagbucks as much as I do! Please follow my referral code at the end to join and reap the benefits of this awesome program!
I want to share one of my very favorite points earning programs with y’all! Swagbucks is easy to use, and the points add up very quickly. I actually paid for most of my daughter’s 4th birthday presents using Amazon gift cards that I earned through Swagbucks and SavingStar by doing things that I would do with or without rewards programs!! I got over $35 worth of adorable gifts for my daughter from Amazon, with only $6 out of pocket expenses after using the gift cards I’d saved up from those two programs! Talk about doing the penny pinching mama dance!! 🙂 I’m already racking up points to use for some of my Christmas shopping in a few weeks. (There are other pay-outs, but the Amazon gift cards are my favorites.)
By now I’m sure you’re wondering how it works, right? Well, let me walk you through the basics…
450 points can be exchanged for a $5 Amazon gift card. There are other payouts, including Paypal payments, gas cards, gift cards to many other popular stores, travel expenses or items in their own Swagbucks store, but this is the only one I’ve used and a simple reference for the value of the points you’re earning through your activities. It is also the best value I have found.
You earn random points by using Swagbucks as your search engine instead of one of the conventional search engines like Yahoo or Google. Just today, I got 10 points for doing a search for photo coupon codes using their site. It pops up when you do the search if you got a code, then you just type it in and enter and it is added to your account balance toward your next payout. Easy peasy!
You can shop through their shopping link with many online retailers, and earn a designated amount of points for every dollar spent. The average points per dollar seems to be from 2 to 7 points, from my observation. This is great if you are doing online shopping already! I earned almost enough for a $5 giftcard just by clicking through their links to order ink for my printer a couple of months ago. I was going to order it, anyway, so that was free money to use for my daughter’s gifts later. 🙂
You will earn 10 points for every coupon that you print and redeem through their coupons link. These are pretty much the same coupons that you get from coupons.com, but you’re getting rewarded for using them. If you’re like me, and use alot of coupons to stretch your budget, this is an awesome way to rack up those rewards quickly! Sometimes you are also entered into sweepstakes for every coupon you print. The other day when I was printing coupons for diapers and groceries, I was also being entered into a sweepstakes for $250!
Swagbucks frequently releases “Swag Codes” that you can enter in a special box in the top of your screen for bonus points. These are usually only good for a short period of time. For example, today there was one that was only good until 5pm EST, and I earned 3 points just for entering “Wagbucks” into the little magic box up there. My favorite site for keeping up with the codes is .
You can also install a tool bar, which I have chosen not to do, since I’m not too fond of tool bars in general. Every day they havea “Daily Poll”, which pays 1 point just for choosing your answer. You are able to participate in surveys, which will pay you a varying amount of points per survey. They have different “tasks” you can do for extra points, such as completing certain searches and informing them of the top 3 sites that show up. If you choose to join various programs using their links, you’ll earn points for doing that. There are video advertisements available at times to watch in exchange for more points. I’ve not taken advantage of all of these opportunities, but there are alot of different ways to keep adding onto that points balance if you have the time and inclination, most of them without spending one red cent! 🙂
Birthday girl. She had a ninja turtle/princess party. 🙂
Another way that you can earn points is through referrals, of course. If you like the program, you share it with others. If they join through your link, you will earn some points from that. If you’re interested in joining Swagbucks after my honestly enthusiastic review here, I’d be tickled pink if you’d use my referral link below. 🙂
If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to try to answer. This really is a great program that I enjoy immensely, and I’m happy to be able to share about it with anyone who will listen! 🙂
*Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
There are some great coupons available for printing right now if you have any diapered bottoms in your house! I’ve already taken advantage of using these with some sales last week, but didn’t do a post about it in time for y’all to take advantage of that bargain. I was very sick for a couple of weeks there, and neglected almost everything other than my children & husband, unfortunately. The coupons are good for awhile, and regardless of where you shop, they’ll rack up savings quickly. The best coupons are on Huggies diapers & wipes and Pampers diapers, but there are other baby coupons, as well.
If you want to earn points while printing coupons you’re going to use with or without the points earnings, please see this post and sign up for this awesome program and print your coupons there:
I must admit. This recipe was born from the same place many of my “recipes” are born from: It was simply a case of me wanting something quick and easy to make to fill up my family’s grumbly tummies with ingredients I had on hand. I actually had leftover mac and cheese when I first made this, and just scrounged around the cabinets for something different to make a dinner-in-a-dish with my leftovers. My kiddos really enjoyed this Mexi-Mac, but if you don’t like any spice at all, you could probably do it with plain diced tomatoes or half plain and half the kind with chilies. It would be good with ground beef added, as well. There are so many ways this could be changed up, and it would still be yummy. It’s really just up to your family’s tastes and what’s in your cabinets that day. I’m the queen of playing with recipes to make them work for my family better, or just to use ingredients I don’t have to run out and buy. 🙂
Mexi-Mac
1 10 ounce can Rotel mild green chili and diced tomato
1 16 ounce can black beans
1 box mac and cheese, prepared according to the instructions on the box
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix Rotel, beans and mac and cheese together in a 9X13 baking pan.
Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until everything is warmed through and cheese is melted.
Enjoy!
*keep reading*
Do you have any dishes that were inspired by leftovers? Does you family eat leftovers or turn up their noses to them? I know some folks hate leftovers, but we hate wasting ours! We often eat them just reheated, but almost as frequently we have leftover makeovers. Sometimes you wouldn’t even know what the original meal was. Yep, I’m that good! 😉
There are no coupons for these specific ingredients, but they are so inexpensive that it almost doesn’t matter. There is a coupon for frozen Hanover beans here, if you want to try those, though: http://www.coupons.com/coupons/Food-Coupons-107/
How many of y’all out there are night owls and love movies? If that fits you as well as it does alot of my kinfolks (hello, my night lurking relatives! 😉 ), then this is a deal that I’m super duper excited to share with you!!
At select AMC theaters this summer, they are hosting special 10pm showings with tickets for only $3!! Even better, the proceeds go toward causes that benefit autism! These are not just lame-o boring movies, either. The next two movies are The Amazing Spiderman and The Hunger Games, both of which I gather were very popular at their first showings. 🙂
If you’re like the hubby and I, you’d be too sleepy to enjoy these movies, although we are seriously overdue for a date without munchkins. However, alot of our relatives, especially mine, have schedules almost more vampire than human, so I’m sure some of them would love to go to one of these movies! 🙂 How many of y’all are nightowls who would love a good movie on the cheap? Which of these movies would you be most interested in seeing?
Now for the magic link with the schedules, movies and other pertinent details…
There is another greatdiaper deal going on at CVS this week, just in time for me to re-stock on diapers for my little Peanut! 🙂
If you buy $30 of certain items, including Huggies, you get $12 in Extra Care Bucks back. I bought three packs of Huggies at $9.49 apiece and one container of wipes for $3.00. I had three $2.00 off Huggies coupons and a 50 cents off Huggies wipes coupon from this past Sunday’s paper and one $5 off any $20 worth of Huggies products from CVS.
I used the ECB to stock up on sodas with the deal they have going for three 12 packs of Coke products for $10 with a coupon from the magic red machine and get a couple packs of M&Ms as a treat.
My total out of pocket between the two transactions was: $22.63
My savings: $41.98
Percentage saved: 65%
I could’ve done better had I bought things I had coupons and a sale both on, but I only bought things that I wanted that were on sale. I didn’t have time to plan more than what I had to.
The Huggies products, though, worked out to $2.50 each!! AMAZING!! 🙂 I wrote this post Thursday, minus the numbers, with my baby sleeping on me, and had things happen to prevent me from making it to the computer to complete it in a timely manner. This deal is probably expiring tomorrow, so hurry on out!
That’s a pretty amazing deal, if you ask me! It was so easy that it only took five minutes to clip and write my list, and no time at all to shop. I was able to run into CVS alone while the kiddos and hubby waited in the car without coming back to cranky people, and that’s saying it was pretty stinkin’ quick. 🙂
I was holding out for another good diaper deal, and this one came just in time. 🙂 Who else is going to take advantage of this?
This is one of those recipes I love, because it has your veggies for the healthy appeal, your hot dogs for the kid appeal, and the ease of throwing it together for the busy person appeal! It’s also very budget friendly, which teetotally appeals to the penny pincher in me! The doggie in the picture isn’t exactly the kind that goes in this casserole, but I think she’s pretty cute! I hope y’all enjoy this recipe! I’d say it’s a keeper. 🙂
First comes the recipe…
♦ Hot Dog Casserole ♦
16 hot dogs , cut into 1/4-inch slices 2 (15 ounce) cans cut green beans with liquid 2 (14.5 ounce) cans stewed tomatoes with juice 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a 2-quart casserole dish, stir together sliced hot dogs, green beans with their liquid, and stewed tomatoes with their juice.
Bake in the preheated oven until the juice is thickened, about 45 minutes. Remove from oven, stir again, and sprinkle the casserole with mozzarella cheese. Heat the broiler of the oven, and place the casserole under the broiler until the cheese is melted, bubbling, and just starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Keep an eye on it, as the broiler works quickly and could burn.
Today was one of my fun little saving while shopping trips. 🙂 I know there are other great drug stores for savings. The truth is that, with two munchkins to take shopping with me, I usually choose one place for non-grocery couponing and one for groceries each trip. CVS is my primary non-grocery couponing spot. Ingles is my usual choice for groceries in our fairly small town area, since they double coupons up to 50 cents, give treats to the kiddos and are pleasant to shop with.
To prepare for this trip, I spent about half an hour this morning making my grocery list, browsing the sales ads and looking at the CVS coupons I had from my last trip. Next, I glanced over the coupons on a coupon site (one of the ones I use to print coupons from coupons.com while earning points toward gift cards) to see what was on there to go with the items I needed, the sales bargains this week, my 30% off coupon for non-sale items at CVS, and the CVS coupons I already had. I threw the coupons I intended to use at each store into their respective folded store fliers, stuck them both in my purse with my shopping lists, and off we went.
CVS was decent today. I had to get diapers, “needed” some sodas, and have been wanting some new serving spoons and such. The first two things were on my automatic list. The rest were dictated by good prices on things we do use, but didn’t absolutely have to have today. We got diapers, facial wipes, nail polish, makeup, sodas, kitchen serving utensils, and protein bars. Princess Peach was excited about the super sparkly nail polish. 🙂 I keep her little fingers and toes painted pretty colors all the time with the nail polish I get for pennies on the dollar or even free.
Total Spent? $17.50
Total Saved? $53.84
Percentage Saved: 75.4%
We also did our grocery shopping at Ingles, which wasn’t so much a couponing trip, but getting what we needed while using coupons on whatever we could. In other words, there were things we needed that I got even though there wasn’t a sale or a coupon on them. Ohhhhh, the pain! 😉 Seriously, though, I’ve made it clear I’m not extreme.
Total Spent? $27.10
Total Saved? $11.82
Percentage Saved: 30.3%
I’m also going to get 40 cents back on my SavingStar account for buying yogurt.
Like I said, this wasn’t my best saving trip, but it only took me about 30 minutes this morning with two munchkins crawling all over me to get everything together and head out. It took two hours to do the actual shopping trip, but that had alot to do with Baby pulling Princess’ hair, throwing stuff out of the cart and feeding them their snacks to survive the shopping time. 🙂
It’s a beautiful spring day here in Georgia, and wonderful weather for a picnic! With this in mind, I’ve gotten together a perfect picnic for pennies on the dollar. Not only is this a cheap menu, but it is both a simple and unique twist on classic picnic foods. We’ve got a main dish, side and dessert, all very easy to throw together and equally easy on your pockets!
A healthier version of corn dogs…
Quick & Crunchy Hot Dogs
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup prepared yellow mustard
1 cup cornflake crumbs (Total cereal may work, and it has a coupon)
1 (16 ounce) package all-beef Ball Park hot dogs
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with a sheet of aluminum foil.
2.Stir together ketchup and mustard on a plate until mixed. Place cornflake crumbs in a shallow bowl. Roll each hot dog in the ketchup mixture, then roll in cornflake crumbs to coat. Place on prepared baking sheet.
3.Bake in preheated oven until the hot dogs are hot on the inside, and crispy on the outside, about 15 to 20 minutes.
An unusual side dish…
Awesome Brown Rice Salad
2 cups water
1 cup Hinode brown rice
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/2 cup diced celery
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing
1 tablespoon sugar
1.In a saucepan, bring water to a boil. Stir in rice, cover, and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 45 to 60 minutes, or until done (or use instant brown rice for quicker results).
2.Transfer rice to a serving bowl, and stir in onion, celery, cranberries, salad dressing and sugar. Cover, refrigerate, and serve cold.
And for dessert…
S’mores!
There is a rare coupon covering the three basic s’more ingredients- marshmallow, chocolate and graham crackers.
You can make them over a fire in the usual way. If it a backyard picnic, though, you can also put them together (without the top graham cracker) on a baking sheet and broil them until they are lightly browned and all puffed up, then just slap the top graham cracker on when you pull them out of the oven. Either way is a delectably gooey sweet treat to top off a nice spring picnic! 🙂
Our family loves spending time outdoors, especially this time of year when the weather is absolutely perfect for it! Eating outdoors is just one of many fun & frugal things to do in the springtime. There are so many things to enjoy outside for free or nearly free when it’s gorgeous out! What are your favorite picnic foods? Do you prefer to picnic at the park, in the woods, in a field, in your own yard, at a playground…what’s your preference?
Penny Pinching Peach 