After Halloween Shopping!

I normally do my weekly shopping on Monday, but Halloween shifted that somewhat!  But, since I ended up doing the shopping the day after Halloween, I was able to take advantage of the after Halloween specials -- like we really need more candy around here!  This week's shoppping consisted of 3 main stops that I'll share with you.

Wal-Mart

Kroger has a Mega sale going on this week, and I had several coupons to coordinate with that, so normally, I would not be going to Wal-Mart this week.  But, I needed to pick up some lightbulbs there, so I also slipped down the Halloween aisles.  I was there by 9:15 and they already had the Halloween marked down to 50%.  My sister was at Target earlier in the day, and they had theirs at 30% off.  I didn't really NEED anything, but I kept an eye open for things we could use next year.  I also fell to the temptation of buying a 230 piece bag of chocolates for $6.74!  Let me show you the picture of my Halloween haul.

 Here's a breakdown of the items:

Candy Bag ................................................................................................6.74
2 packs of Puffs (2 packs)........................................................................ 2.94  ($.74 each box)
Smarties (candy for my allergy child, and everyone else too!)................ 0.99
Halloween confetti (2 packs for my paper crafting!)............................... 0.94
Halloween Lights (4 -- my 3 kids plus cousin).........................................1.88
DumDums (another allergy friendly candy)..............................................0.99
Glow-in-the-Dark Bracelets (3 packs for next year)..................................1.41
Fruit-By-the-Foot (kids' favorite!).............................................................2.48
                                                                       TOTAL:                         $18.37

Lessons Learned:

1. Get there early.  The Halloween aisle was filling up quick with folks snatching candy!
2. Scan your discounted items in the aisles for a price check.  Not all candy is on sale.  If they carry the item regularly throughout the year, it will not be on sale.  An older lady got very perturbed at the checkout b/c here candy bars weren't on sale, which the overall signs can be confusing, but you have to know their policy or you run the risk of overpaying and/or being disappointed!
3. Why did I get 4 boxes of Halloween tissues?!?  The boxes are cute and would be great to use next Halloween, but we need tissue now!  I don't mind using the boxes with pictures out of season, but I am planning to make a decorative tissue box cover that will be on my crafting site soon -- www.crafteegirls.blogspot.com.

  Rite Aid

I usually go to RA every week, but haven't found that much that we need in the ads the last few weeks.  I had an UP+ reward expiring this week though, so I needed to go get something.  In my area, we have the short ad, which differs sometimes greatly from what they offer in the long ad.  Most couponing sites give the details for the long ad, but I am often disappointed b/c my store only offers a subset of these deals.  I went to the ad itself and came up with this deal on my own!!

(Sorry for the glare in the pic!)  RA has Finesse on sale B1G1, at a starting price of $3.79.  The Aussie products are on sale for $2.99, but you get $1 UP+.  Here's my deal:

Finesse, plus $1 off coupon..................................................... $2.79

Finesse, plus $1 off coupon.....................................................-$1.00

Aussie, plus $1 off coupon.......................................................$1.99

Aussie, plus $1 off coupon.......................................................$1.99

                                                     SUBTOTAL:                       $5.77

                                                     UP+ Applied:                       $3.00

                                                     Rebate Check:                      $2.00
                                                     New Total:                           $0.77

***PLUS, I got $2 in UP+ rewards!  Good deal!

Kroger

I had a pretty big purchase at Kroger this week, even though it was a MEGA sale.  My total was over $200 before coupons, but I was able to get it down to $152.22.

Great Deal:

Crest is on sale 10/$10 this week, so I used a P&G coupon for $.50 off any Crest.  Since my Kroger doubles coupons up to $.50, making it $1 off, this Crest was FREE!

Lessons Learned:

1. Why 5 boxes of kleenexes?  I told you we need tissues around my house!  For real though, last week, when the receipt was printing at Kroger, one of the items that printed off was a notice of a catalina special coming up.  These are deals that occur when you purchase a certain amount of an item, then a coupon is printed at the register for you to use on your next purchase.  For purchasing 5 Kleenexes, you got a $1 off coupon.  The Kleenexes are on sale for $.99 as part of the MEGA sale this week.  That makes each box $0.79 each -- if only I had a Kleenex coupon to pop on top of that, but it expired 10/30 (should have been to Kroger on Sunday!).
2. Nice story: For the MEGA sale, you have to have 10 specially marked products to get $5 off.  I am careful to tally on my sheet everytime I put a MEGA deal item in my cart to make sure I'm buying them in 10's.  I thought I had 40 MEGA items.  When placing items on the checkout conveyor, I usually don't recount, but just put them up there. Something told me to count, and when I did, I had 37 items!  Yikes, sure enough when she gave me my total, it showed my to have 30 MEGA items (they only count in 10's!). I asked if I could add something, and she's thinking, you're not leaving this line!  But, I had already spotted 3 cans of Campbell's soup (part of MEGA deal) right behind her cash register!  I asked if I could add those, and she said "yes".  That gave me 40 items!  YEAH!!!  COUNT YOUR ITEMS AND BE PREPARED!