My shopping trip 9/14

Since I started couponing a few months ago I have had a few people ask me to blog about all the great deals I am getting. So I thought I would start with my shopping trip today.

Today I headed out to Bashas and had 10, .50 off coupons for Barilla pasta, plus 2 coupons for .55 off Hillshire farm lunch meat. Since Bashas doubles coupons I was able to get all of the pasta for free (on sale for $1) and the lunch meat for $1.88 a piece.

5- whole wheat spaghetti
5- mini rigatoni
2- Hilshire Farm lunch meat

paid $ 3.74






This photo is for my trip to Walgreens. Walgreens has been my new Walmart lately... It is weird never to go there anymore. Walgreens has deals called Register Rewards (RR) that print out after you purchase an item that is on sale that week. You can use your RR on your next purchase, but not on what you just bought or a new RR will not print out! The goal is to buy things that "roll" (use your RR on items that offer RR) making alot of the things you buy really cheap. Today I did 6 transactions.

1. Bought bag Northern Crisps on sale for $3. Used a $2 RR from a previous day paid $1 oop (out of pocket) got back $3RR for next purchase.

2. Northern Crisps $3. Used $1 RR from a previous day paid $2 oop. got back 3 RR

3. Northern Crisps $3. Used $1.50 RR from a previous day paid $1.50 oop. got back 3 RR

4. 2 Triaminc cold strips 2/$10. Used $2 off coupon in Walgreens Healthy Savings book next to Register (since it is a Wags coupon it takes off $2 per item and you can keep the coupon). Then I used 2 of my $3 RR from the Northern Crisps. So $4 off from Wags cpn and $6 off from RR. Paid .81 oop (I technically got these for free but had to pay .81 in tax). Got back $5 RR

5. Northern Crisps $3 and Pringles 2.29 (thanks Blake, extra buys when you bring along kids :).
Used $5 RR from Triaminic. Paid .29 oop got back 3RR

6. Decided to do the Triaminic deal again. Used two $3 RR from the Northern Crisps and the $4 Walgreens coupon. Paid oop .81 got back $5 RR.

Few that was a long explanation. So I calculated all of my purchases from Walgreens and paid a total of $6.41 for
4- Norther Crisps (hope they are good)
4- Triaminic cold strips
1- Pringles can

Timber

I have the pictures in the wrong order so a few pics down is the picture of our hideous bottle tree that we had cut down this weekend. This tree makes a mess all year round and was not providing any shade for our home so we decided to get rid of it and plant something else. We do feel a little bad for cutting down such a mature tree but it is too late now.

These guys did a pretty good job and had the tree down within an hour, the clean up took a little longer though seemed like they were here for at least four hours. It was quite the show, I think every neighbor that was home came out to watch the tree fall.

So here is the before picture of our overgrown tree and here is a video of tree falling. Enjoy.

New AC Units

When we bought this house we knew one of the first things we would need to replace would be our 22 year old ac units. I got a few quotes and decided I would call one more place to compare prices, glad I did they quoted us 3k less than the other places. We had them installed the next week. Here are a few pics of the replacement.

I thought this picture was fun with our old "large" ac unit in between the two new units.

These are the two old units looking pretty sad getting ready to be hauled away.

Wahoo our new units in place. Thank goodness it was starting to get really hot in the house with out the AC on all day! We spent most of the afternoon in the pool. :) Now bring on lower utility bills.

strep throat

Last night after I posted about Kayla being sick she told me her throat hurt. I took a look and she had tons of white spots in the back of her throat. Poor kid. I took her to the Urgent Care this morning and the Doctor didn't even swab her throat, she took one look inside Kayla's mouth and said I will go write you a prescription. She is doing much better this evening after two doses of antibiotics. She will have to stay home from school tomorrow since she will not have been on antibiotics for more than 24 hours. I hope she is feeling well enough to go to K-Mart tomorrow they are doubling coupons up to 4 bucks! It is hard enough not being able to go on Sunday I will be upset if I can't go tomorrow too. I know I am way obsessed with my new hobby, Elizabeth was glad to go back to school so she didn't have to go to the store all the time. :)

Backyard campout

We had told Elizabeth she could sleep out in the backyard this summer and we never got around to it. So with the first week of school behind us she convinced Jared to set up the tent in the backyard. Jared even made them a campfire out of some scrap wood he had laying around. It was quite the fire, maybe a little too big for a backyard fire :) but oh well it didn't catch the house on fire. I don't know if you can see Blake's arms in the picture it is a little dark, but he has his arms up around his head just relaxing like his dad does, he is so cute. :)
We weren't going to let Blake sleep outside with the girls but he went into the tent and got in the sleeping bag and was very content, so we thought why not.... Jared and I went inside and watched a movie, about an hour into it we decided to just go check on the kids. When we peered into the tent with the flashlight Blake's face was right there. He had been up the whole time playing with Cleo and running all over the tent. That was the end of Blake's camping adventure his mean old parents made him come inside and sleep in his room. :(

About 5 in the morning Kayla came in crying that she was scared and that her stomach really hurt. Well we knew what that meant... Blake had the stomach flu a few days ago and when we felt her forehead she had a fever. I got her a bowl because I knew the vomiting would begin soon and got her to take some medicine before it started. She has been pretty sick today, slept through most of the day and couldn't keep anything down until this evening. Hopefully she will be doing better tomorrow and then ready for school on Monday. :) I know I am a mean mom.

Winter Cabin

Jared got drawn for 6B bull this year which is in Sycamore Canyon. Since we were headed up to Flag to see Jared's brother Mac come home from his mission he thought we should hike down to Winter Cabin in Sycamore Canyon. It is about an hour drive out of Flagstaff on a dirt road.
The hike wasn't too bad getting to the cabin it is hiking out that sucks. :) Oh and we forgot to bring Blake's hiking backpack so Jared and I (mostly Jared especially on the way up) got to hold him for most of the hike.
There is a little Spring just a little ways from the cabin so we hiked down to it so Cleo could get a drink. When we got to the Spring there were a ton of Wasps flying around getting a drink so the girls are telling Jared to hurry and take the picture so they could leave.
Like I said before the hike going up the canyon is pretty tough and with the altitude change it was hard to breath at times but we made it and we were all so happy to sit in the air conditioned truck when we were done. Sitting I think we take for granted, while I am sitting I don't usually think, oh wow this feels so good.... But that day just a little rest of sitting on the ground in the woods for a few minutes was like a gift from heaven. :)

The toothfairy is going broke

So in the past month Elizabeth has lost 2 teeth and Kayla has lost 3! Kayla who previously swallowed her first two teeth actually pulled out her dangling teeth with the help of Elizabeth. The first tooth she lost this month was around the time Nick got married, so with grandparents, great grandparents, and the tooth fairy in town she made 16 bucks on one tooth! Unfortunately her other two teeth she only made a buck a piece. :(