How to coupon at the commissary!

In order to coupon at the commissary, you need to know what the sales are. Lucky for us, http://www.commissaries.com tells us the price of EVERY SINGLE ITEM THAT IS IN THE STORE along with what's on sale. Couldn't be easier!!

Once you're on commissaries.com, you can click the quick link "What's on sale" to view promotional prices. You'll login with the active duty member's social and birthdate because this info isn't available to the public (we're special), and then choose your commissary (I am Camp Lejeune MCB).

A huge huge list of all products and brands will come up with their sale prices, and how long that price is good for. They really make this the easiest thing in the world for us.

Once you've got your price list, you can search through coupons online or through the circulars if you get the paper. Every coupon I have in front of me or see online, I will normally go back to this sale guide to see if the item will be free or an overage. The general rule is that an item goes on sale once every 3 months, so when you see something that yo use often on this sale list, you need to stock up and google some coupons for it!

Example: Pampers baby wipes are $1.76 right now. Now I know as I'm looking through coupons that if I find a $2 off, I'm going to get paid to take baby wipes.

You'll start to learn what things cost at the commissary, so when you see a high value coupon, you'll just start to learn that the store is actually going to end up paying you to take it when you give them your coupon!

I absolutely love that this is online, it saves me that moment of having no idea how much something is going to actually cost there.

Now's the time for VS undies if you need to stock up!

For those of you who wear VS Pink underwear, they are normally 5 for $25. When I'm done they will be 8 for $15 and you'll get a free lip gloss too!

Right now (and I don't know how long this will last), they are 7 for $25. By signing up here at VS Pink Nation, you get a pair for free as a new member (printable coupon), making it 8 for $25:

https://www.vspink.com/pink_nation/login.jsp?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term={pink%20nation}

AND they are doing the Victoria's Secret rewards for the next couple of days, where you get a rewards card good for $10, $50, $100, or $500 for the month of April. Most always it's just $10 so I'm assuming yours will be $10 in this case.

8 pairs of underwear, $25 bucks, $10 gift card. Bam! Might want to stock up before this is just 5 for $25 again and the rewards card is over!

Here's your free lip gloss coupon with any purchase, expires TOMORROW:

http://dealspl.us/victoriassecret-coupons/233213p

Print off some coupons, go get some good deals!

These are some great deals at Riteaid and Walgreens, and they're valid until Sunday so if you want in on these you CAN order these coupons from Ebay if you pick a seller than ships same day or next day! And the closer they live to you, the sooner you'll get them.

Riteaid has Airwick starter kits for 50% off this week. Last week Walgreens had Airwick starter kits for buy one get one free, but they were sold out and are still sold out so I was never able to pick mine up. But Riteaid had a ton in stock, I guess because they seem to be the less popular pharmacy.

These starter kits are 9.99 before any discount:


I puchased these three for $2.97

Half off, they're 4.99. There are a TON of 4.00 off coupons for Airwick starter kits and you don't even need to order any off Ebay, because you can print them off here!

http://offers.e-centives.com/siflo/reg/survey.cfm?s=Yz0xJmY9MSZjdT0xJmJxPTEmdmlkPTEwMjUmbz0xODIwMDY2JnA9MTgyMDA2NiZwdD00JmNvPTU2OSZmd2ViPTEmc2M9NTImclVSTD0lMkZzaWZsbyUyRnBvc3RyZWdpc3RlciUyRWNmbSUzRnZpZCUzRDEwMjUlMjZ0JTNENCUyNnMlM0Q4MDE5MjI1NyUyNm1iJTNENjQ4MCUyNmZ3ZWIlM0QxJTI2Y28lM0Q1NjklMjZzYyUzRDUyJTI2aWQlM0RiYTdiN2U2ZiUyRGYxNjglMkQ0MzZiJTJEYTYxNiUyRDFkNTgzMjhjYmVjZSZzPTgwMTkyMjU3Jm1iPTY0ODAmaWQ9YmE3YjdlNmYtZjE2OC00MzZiLWE2MTYtMWQ1ODMyOGNiZWNl&CFID=4932112&CFTOKEN=45143514

Register with airwick.com and print away at your $4 off starter kits (you can print multiple times), bring em on down to Riteaid, and walk out spending $0.99 for a starter kit as many times as you want. Get four or more, and Riteaid will give you $5in rewards to use on your next purchase!


Walgreens:


Everything pictured here cost $10.22

Secret deodorant, this was on the P&G website and is probably available online. It is a $3 off Secret clinical deodorant. The coupon does not say "excludes trial sizes" which is the ultimate gold, because most coupons for shampoos and health items excluse travel size items. When they don't you can grab a travel size for free or even make some money. In this case, it was free. Well, I made a penny. These Secret deodorants are $2.99 in the travel section at Walgreens. Might be work checking to see if you can spend a dollar on a few of these coupons on Ebay and getting a few of these guys! They also have mini Degree deodorants for $1, and there are $1 off any Degree deodorant coupons as well (I didn't have that one).

Schick Hydro products are having an AWESOME deal at Walgreens this week. If your husband uses Shick Hydro razors stock up this week! (and mine likes them better than Gilette Fusion and they are cheaper, so they may be worth getting for him to at least try!) All Schick Hydro products are buy one get one free this week, shaving cream, razor starter kits, and cartridges. That already gets you started at 50% off before coupons. There are $3 off Hydro cartridges online, $0.50 off shaving cream online, and some amount off the razors online. I used two $3 off cartridges coupons that I had. One pack was $8.50 for 4 cartridges. Buy one get one free, two packs are $8.50. Two coupons for $3.00 off one pack, both packs become $2.50. I don't think I have ever been able to get Matt two boxes of razor cartridges for about a buck each, so I will probably order some more of these coupons and try to grab some more of this deal since cartridges don't go bad haha.

I also use Pur filters which annoy me because they are so expensive but I have a fear of tap water. I rarely find a sale on Pur filters so I basically wait until there is one. Walgreens is having 25% off Pur and Brita products this week, so this $11 filter became about $8.25. I had a $2 off coupon (you can find it online) to make it $6.25. That's about half the original price!


I am definitely Ebaying Schick Hydro coupons, I can't get over the fact that I just got Matt's razors for a dollar a box. I swear if your husband uses Gilette Fusion, buy a Schick Hydro razor and see if he likes these better, they are about HALF the price of Fusion cartridges and that will save you a lot of money if he likes them. My husband is picky and slightly metro and he prefers these!

No title.. instead: "Prince symbol"

I want to publish some of my recent finds instead of making myself go to bed so here we go!



This is something I ordered from an Etsy shop. I wanted a leash holder for Izzy and I just couldn't find anything I liked, and I wasn't willing to spend more than 5 or 6 dollars. This poor little thing was in my price range, and it's not staying that color. That would probably be the worst thing for my darker olive green walls. Light green on dark green? Gross. I'll probably end up painting it white. This room is screaming for some brightness, which is why I did a white frame and white mat photo collage, white curtains, and white accessories. I'm trying to brighten up what could be a hibernation cave- olive walls, dark wood floors, dark wood furniture, dark leather couches. I'm starting to regret painting this room olive, but I'm absolutely not painting it again until we move out. I'd rather just make it work! So this little guy will be another white accessory trying to add some light into this room, and it will hang out by the front door.




Dinky little Michael's finds! The birds were 1.50 and 3.00 from the Ashland collection at Michael's (they were half off of 3.00 and 6.00). The little vase was probably 2.00 at the same store, with 2.00 worth of flowers inside it. The other vase/tray/former jellybean holder until I ate them all was an Etsy find.



This is from the Ashland collection at Michael's. Everything was half off for some reason and I got really excited. I got even more excited when I took this to the register, and for some reason the cashier started wrapping it in paper and put it straight in my bag. She scanned everything else in my cart but didn't scan this? Worked for me. I'm a horrible person so I pretended not to notice. I actually stood there and flipped through an empty calendar to look busy.

I've done a big wall collage of white frames with white mats to take some of the drabbyness of a big olve wall away. Two of my favorite pictures are up here now. Because I am obsessed with my dog, here she is fresh from the groomers one morning, and I'm not sure why I love this picture so much, I just do:



One of my favorite pictures of Matt and Izzy is finally on the wall and not stuffed in a scrapbook. She is about two months old here and I just love how she's looking at him. My camera flash and the fact that I'm not getting any sunlight in are making my walls look like vomit. I swear they don't look this weird?



I framed a piece of scrapbook paper, which I've never done. I feel awesome. This was a clearance sheet of paper at Michaels and rang up 14 cents. I just loved the design and that it had my wall color in there also, the green:



And voila, it becomes this:



I shoudn't be this proud because this is a pretty common thing to do, but the reality is: NOT FOR ME IT'S NOT!!



You know how when something goes horribly wrong someone tells you in an annoying effort to cheer you up, "Someday you'll look back at this and laugh"? That always bugs the shit out of me but I just feel like this is that moment where it's appropriate. To sum up hours of chaos and even some tears because I'm dramatic, I wanted a pawprint picture of Izzy. I'm copying my friend Leah on that one. I went with navy because.... all I had was navy and I just wasn't going to do my makeup to go get a bottle of paint. I don't like to waste my makeup, it's expensive. So I put Izzy in the laundryroom along with this piece of paper (it was much bigger), paint on a paper plate, and towels galore. Shitty towels. For some reason she was just super freaked out and wanted to leave the room the entire time, wouldn't walk on the paper, and this pawprint was the only successful one. The rest of the paper looks like she's flailing around for her life and happens to have her paws dipped in paint at the time. It looks like a cat fight really, not a solid paw. She ended up getting out of the laundry room before I cleaned her and I have paint:

- In the kitchen
- On the fridge
- In the hallway to the stairs
- On my carpeted stairs
- On my bedroom floor
- Under my bed where she hid from me to avoid more paint projects

I would also like to add that even though this paint was water soluble, and even though she has had two baths, my white dog is half blue. Like a baby blue, it's kind of pretty. Reminds me of my last pomeranian OJ, who I dyed hot pink. He was awesome. Yep, he.



I love lamp. I have NO clue why this was on clearance at TJ Maxx, but it was $13 with the shade. It just makes me happy. Thought I'd SHED SOME LIGHT ON THAT TOPIC!


This is my summer setup for my table! I have seriously had fall colored placemats and napkins until this week (and it's March.) This setup was less than $20, I just refuse to spend money so if I can't do it for cheap I'm just not doing it!

The runner is not a runner at all, it's four Ikea placemats that I found online and they're basically just lined up. I couldn't find the runner I actually wanted (sold out) so I made this work because I already owned them. The middle piece is from TJ Maxx. The bottle of wine is Matt and I's last bottle of wine we shared before he deployed last August (three cheers for Moscato- hip hip, drunk!). The left piece, which is so simple that decorating pros are about to laugh at me, is actually something I'm really proud of because I didn't just buy it as it was and sit it on the table! I bought the vase at Walmart for 3.50 and each piece of fruit was 1.00 also at Walmart. There's 8 pieces in there, so 8.00 in fruit. I know everyone has lemons and limes or some other fruit in a bowl and it's not original but who cares. I feel good about it and that's all that matters.

So far my only projects that I've done have been tackling a big wall collage, redoing my table setup in under $20, the pawprint project from hell, spray painting a green frame white, and now painting this leash holder. I'd love to step my game up and do something out of my comfort zone, I definitely don't want to jump right into reupholstering or redoing a dresser though. I need a baby step idea! It will come to me soon... I hope!

Propel yourselves

Allissa and I at our first Food Lion of the day


Poppin [water] bottles in the ice, like a blizzard


So as you can pretty much tell... I bought a crap ton of Propel today. But I don't even know if I want to say that I "bought" it, because really I stole it? But it was legal?

....Today I found a great deal on Propel at Food Lion and bought 20 bottles at next to nothing. Allissa called me at noon and naturally I didn't answer because Allissa should know that this gal sleeps til 2 in the afternoon. Then she texted me that she was going to pee her pants, and concerned that Allissa had some weird bladder infection that I needed to be informed of, I woke up. But it was pee from excitement, and as far as I know her pants stayed dry. We have been searching for a really good deal on Propel (we as in she kind of just lets me know...), and she found it today! Propel water on sale at .50 cents a pop at Food Lion. POW POW!

We have previously ordered one dollar off two bottles coupons from Ebay. I had ten and Allissa had forty. Ten coupons = twenty bottles. One dollar off two bottles when each bottle is only 50 cents = free. Well.... = tax because nothing is ever free. Except hugs.. Unless you want to charge someone for one and then I guess it wouldn't be in that case.

We went to the closest Food Lion to us, the coupon saving trio of Allissa, me and Ryleigh. Ryleigh was probably the most pumped. Armed with the Food Lion coupon policy, we ask how many coupons we can use at one time. We're told ten. Fail. So I buy all of the green Propel there is (12 bottles, so 6 coupons) and Allissa buys 20 bottles and uses 10 of her coupons. She spent 80 cents and I spent I believe 36 cents. OFF TO THE NEXT FOOD LION!

We went to the next Food Lion and they didn't have much Propel, but naturally Allissa bought it all. We started getting really annoyed at this point that there is a lot of grape and really nothing else. I didn't use my 4 coupons here because I hate everything but green. (Green is not a flavor, but I am from Atlanta and we use colors for flavors. My favorite flavor of Koolaid is red. Make of that what you will.) Allissa spends another 80 cents, I walk out empty handed and Ryleigh is really upset about juice.

Next Food Lion, and Ryliegh gets her juice. She's ready to move forward. I grab 12 more greens and Allissa uses more coupons and gets more free water. At this point people think we're cool, which is nice. At the first Food Lion, people were just pissed off and doing the heavy attitude sighs and moving to other registers. F 'em.

Fourth and final Food Lion. Allissa has 14 coupons left and I am spent. The big plot thickener: Will this Food Lion limit her to ten coupons or can she buy 28 bottles of Propel and use her 14 coupons all at once?

Dum dum duuuum....

No one cared and she used her 14 coupons. This was the big splurge purchase because I'm pretty sure Allissa's 28 bottles of Propel hit a dollar. Fast forward to lots of bags breaking, Allissa breastfeeding in a parking lot, and Wendy's to celebrate, we spent a total of $4.00 between the both of us and we got 100 bottles!!!!!!

COUPONING RULES. END.

This all goes back to the concept of figuring out what you buy often, and searching for coupons for it. Figure out what you spend money on, what's expensive? Like razor cartridges, or cases of energy drinks, or even cigarettes. What do you buy often? Water bottles, dog treats, whatever. But the pricey items that you purchase and the very common items that you purchase are the biggest things that you need to be looking for coupons for. A coupon for your $10 razors is going to be a lot more helpful than a coupon for a can of potatoes. I don't think potatoes come in cans? A can of beans.

It is very easy to just figure out what you buy a lot of, or what you know you spend a lot of money on, and google "______ coupons". You can ebay "_____ coupons" and normally find something for everything. I wasn't even kidding about cigarette coupons, they exist. When I was a smoker I Ebay'ed Marlboro coupons and Basic coupons. Dip has coupons too, I know that can be a big hit for the budget because lots of husbands have one of those vices.

I drink a lot of propel so I Ebay "Propel coupons" and just find the cheapest way to get some. Ebay is my savior. I pray to it at night.

Some other really awesome things to Ebay are things that never expire really, like nonfood things. You can stock up and just keep them in your house.

Some ideas to get you started and thinking about what you spend your money on:

"Gillete coupons" - $2 - $4 off our husband's razors
"Propel coupons" - $1 off two bottles is still out there
"energy drink coupons" - these are ridiculously expensive and there are coupons out there
"gatorade coupons" - these are less than a dollar at the commissary and coupons make them even cheaper
"deodorant coupons" especially for clinical strength deodorants
"pet food coupons" - Izzy eats Eukanuba diet food because she's just so fat. The bag is $7 at the commissary, and whenever she starts running low I ebay "eukanuba coupon" and there's always a $10 off one bag. I spend about $2 on the coupon, and get $10 off my commissary bill.

If you weirdly go through dozens of hot dog packages a month, obviously you need to ebay your brand of hot dogs and "coupons". Not everything has a coupon, but it's still not the end of the world- you can go to their website for any kind of deal going on or sign up for their email for deals, or become their fan on Facebook to get heads up on things going on!

A good coupon savings

Target's weekly ad came out today, and they are giving a $5 gift card to everyone who buys two Pantene products. Pantene coupons are everywhere, you can Ebay them or even google and see if there's printables. But two Pantene products with coupons will be less than $5, and you'll get a $5 gift card, so that's a Target overage.

Just one more step to never buying things! Health and beauty products are, in my opinion, the one area of items that you never need to pay full price for. There are coupons for all of that stuff out there, and on top of sales like what Target has going on, or just the commissary's low prices, they end up being cheap cheap cheap!

Coupons!

How to buy all of this for $9.22




Tide stain release- 2.94
Box of tissues- 0.75
Eukanuba dog food- 6.99
Dentastix- 1.99
Dentastix (2)- 1.99
Yogurt- 1.64
Tampons- 3.60
Tampons (2)- 3.60
Old Spice deodorant- 1.51
Old Spice deodorant (2)- 1.51
Toothpaste- 1.69
Gilette deodorant- 5.70
Gilette deodorant (2)- 5.70
Moisturizer- 7.35
Body wash- 2.29
Dove deodorant- 2.39

= 51.64

- $3.00 off a Tide Stain Release (.06 overage)
- $1.00 off the brand of tissues I got (.25 overage)
- $10.00 off Eukanuba (3.01 overage)
- $2.00 off Dentastix (.01 overage)
- $2.00 off Dentastix (.01 overage)
- $1.00 off yogurt (cost .64)
- $2.00 off tampons (cost 1.60)
- $2.00 off tampos (cost 1.60)
- Buy one get one free Old Spice deodorant (both for $1.51 instead of each $1.51)
- $1.00 off two Old Spice deodorants (both for .51)
- $0.75 off Crest toothpaste (cost 0.94)
- Buy one get one free Gilette deodorant (both for 5.70 instead of 5.70 each)
- $1.00 off 2 Gilette deodorants (both for 4.70)
- Buy a Olay body wash and get a moisturizer free (went from 7.35 to free)
- $2 off Dove deodorant (cost 0.39)

= Coupon totals of $43.31

And then a commissary surcharge of 2.58 and my total is $10.91. That's a savings of 83%!!!

How I got my coupons:

1) Sunday paper! The Jacksonville Daily News is a joke of a Sunday paper so if you are in the Jacksonville area, you will benefit from having your family mail you coupon inserts from Sunday papers in their areas instead. Every other week my grandma spends about 3 dollars mailing me two weeks worth of Sunday paper inserts. Those inserts save me so much money, so it's definitely worth it.

2) Sales. After you shop at one store for a while and you pay attention to prices, you just start to know how much things cost. For example, I know Izzy's dog food is going to be $7 just because I buy it all the time. When you're going through your coupon inserts, you will get to learn what those items normally run for in the stores you shop at. I clip coupons for anything I'm going to buy already, because that makes sense, and I also clip what I have a feeling will be an overage or will be close to free. For example, the Tide Stain Release. I've never used that in my life and I probably never will, but when I saw $3 off, I figured it's going to cost about 3 bucks. I was right, and it was free. When I'm wrong, I normally don't buy it, because even though something is very cheap, if you never wanted or needed it you shouldn't get it. Money trap!

I do not shop at Riteaid, CVS, Walgreens, Food Lion, Walmart, or Target like a lot of other couponers do. I am 100% commissary because I am lazy. So if you shop at other places, just check their sales! Every Sunday on their websites they will have online circulars and you can check out the deals before you head out.

If you can't get coupons mailed to you and you don't live in an area with a good paper, you can also look online. Or look online in addition to getting the Sunday paper coupons! You can print coupons from coupons.com and redplum.com.

You can also look on mymilitarymommy.com, this is a really great place that has everything: They let you know when stores are having great sales, they will give you a heads up when something in the Sunday paper is going to result in an overage or a free item, and they stay on top of deals in stores and online so you don't have to, they just bring you a summary of the best.

High value coupons can get you 83% off your bill too!