Where do I begin? So much is happening. We'll start with all of the fun things happening in my quest to improve my frugaliciousness! Tomorrow I'll update some other happenings lately with the family on the home front. So let's get started...Mi & I went shopping last weekend in Des Moines for some additions to my wardrobe for my new job. I was looking for some casual tops and jeans since that is the dress attire in this particular office. We were pretty lucky with a few tops I could live with and most were on sale by at least 20-30%. Younkers & Kohl's as always seem to have the best deals. If we had remembered to take any slightly used clothing we didn't want any longer we could have saved more since it was Younker's annual Goodwill sale. We looked all over for just the right lunch cooler for me too. Finally we remembered the Sportman's Warehouse in Ankeny we'd stumbled across before and they had just what I was looking for! Even with all that inventory at the Bass Pro Shops they didn't really have what I was looking for. I was able to find 1 pair of jeans I loved at Kohl's from Lee jeans. They have a comfort fit line that really makes jeans not feel so constricting and very stretchy without looking matronly or stretch pantsish. We went to 3 of the 4 stores in DM and only found the 1 pair in my size in petite because it appears this year they are making them really long!! I was hoping for a sale on Leejeans.com to purchase 2 more pairs but alas it was not meant to be this time. Of course LAST week when I wasn't thinking about it they had sales of course but it's all about the timing in frugality!
Either way the jeans came without issue this week and at least I got free shipping!
I did decide to stop by our local mall here in town for Younkers & JCPenny. They every so often have something I'm looking for but it's very hit & miss. If you are plus size and going to the JCP store at Valley West be prepared for a TINY selection of anything! They got rid of nearly everything. It appears they are remodeling to accommodate Sephora coming into the store in the next couple months. I had luck in town finding ribbed tank tops 2 for $16.99 in a nice array of colors so I picked up 4. Then after heading over the kids department I was able to pick up 2 pretty spring pastel polo's for Chase in green and another in a burnt orange color for $5 each! Once I was ready to check out the sales girl was super sweet and scanned their customer appreciation sale 15% off additionally! So I ended up saving $70 off the regular price of everything. Considering I was only looking for things I needed and could use rather then just impulsively buying sale items I found this to be a really good day.
Next I hit our Younkers new expanded shoe store in the mall which I have to say I love love love. Much more room then when they had a tiny department in the store and much less selection. I am gonna MISS shopping at 2pm on Wed afternoons for things because man is it nice to have sweet sales people, no crowds and very clean, organized stores to shop in. I was looking for sandals and anyone who's ever gone sandal shopping with me knows how picky I am! My feet are delicate and I don't give up comfort for fashion but they also can't look like my Grandma would've worn them either. So needless to say I don't often come home with any when I go out looking. This season though there were at LEAST 6 pair in 2 different brands, Studio Works & Baretraps, that I loved! Only 1 pair was on sale and it still wasn't cheap at $40 but I decided to seize the moment and stock up because you never know when this will happen again! I asked the sales person if they had any additional sales going on (hoping she had a special coupon behind her register to offer me) but she said sorry no. But if you want to open a Younkers charge you can save 20%. Now I'm leery of doing this for many reasons and don't use credit very often as a rule because I'm just not good at it. But when she said "You would save $28 if you do", I said where's the form?! I made sure to pay for my purchases immediately after she ran them through the charge and hopefully I'll be getting some coupons arriving in my mail or inbox in the near future.
More savings abound today at the local grocery stores! I learned this week that Fareway stores will match any other Fareway store ad. Now they all get to make up their own ads in their individual areas but they don't always coincide with the things I would need a particular week or with the coupons that I'm collecting for additional savings on top of the sale prices. So when I heard this from one of the Frugal Blogger's on Facebook I befriended I called our local store to confirm and voila! They said sure. Just be sure to print the ad and bring it in with you and they would match it at time of checkout. I also made it easier for the checker by grouping the items from the OTHER sale ad together and circled the items on the ad to coincide with them so she could match them up. I ended up saving $4.92 just for doing that and making sure I spoke up for my savings! Once you paired that with the coupons totally $7.90 I was using on most of those sale items, I ended up saving a total of $12.82 today! To me that's a fantastic deal and nearly paid for the new mini food chopper I bought at WalMart for $15 on sale to make homemade salsa easier for Jeremiah! -whispers- He tells me I should bottle it! ;) We end up with fresh salsa for nearly half the cost of store bought and it's soo easy when using canned stewed tomatoes as the base with fresh cilantro, garlic, lime juice, jalapenos and green onion. And tastes so much better because it's all natural, low fat and low calorie too. I also had to speak up at Walmart the other day when going to get dog food. They had a sale on IAMS 40lb minichunks at $33. Regularly $36.67 PLUS I had $1 coupon that was expiring that same day. I decided on a whim to bring the ad I'd gotten in the local flyer with us just in case and it came in handy. The shelves were empty but had the AS ADVERTISED sign showing so I had to ask a stock person to check the back room. Luckily they had one for us! He was very helpful. Then when checking out I noticed it still rang up full price so I told the checker and handed her the ad. She showed it to the floor manager who asked me where I got it and I told him THE LOCAL PAPER! He was nice though and chuckled and I added it was kinda funny they're system wasn't updated considering the AS ADVERTISED sign had been put up by them AND they were completely out so someone else had to have been buying them too. Made me wonder if those customers actually noticed they had still paid regular price or if they spoke up too. Either way I took home my 40lb bag for $32 which was even less then what we can get it for at Sam's Club normally so it was again worth speaking up and being prepared. Chase got a real kick out of the whole process but I think he learned a good lesson on how to shop smart! It's too bad he was at Mark's for the first time in months today because he would have thought the Fareway deals/coupons were even more awesome!! :)
And last but definitely not least, since I'm getting typing cramp in my fingers now and you seriously are probably not even going to read this far down anyway! I had a $3 coupon my sister Lisa was kind enough to give me out of her Sunday paper insert off of Snuggle fabric softener. They were on sale this week 2/$5 in the 64oz size and once they took off my $3 I paid only $2.35 for 128 ounces of Snuggle! That would normally cost me at least $8 so thanks Lisa for helping contribute to our saving yet another dollar in the frugal battle of today's never ending price increases. Thanks for reading if you're still here! I really appreciate being able to share my excitement for finding the deals and I hope you too can find ways of incorporating the same tools to keep your family FRUGALICIOUS!!
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