Thursday, September 29, 2016

September - 1 Week of Freebies

I've been having trouble finding time for my 'normal' hobbies lately, but I always seem to find time for couponing! It's been kind of my mindless-internet-time-killer lately. It's nice to have a hobby that is so obviously rewarding ~ I can often go into a store for $30 worth of stuff & spend $5. I've been buying name brand cereals for like $.30 & getting all sorts of crazy deals.

This month I was able to get a ridiculous amount of freebies (and money makers) during one week, so I thought I'd share those pics here.

First I grabbed some deals at the pharamacies ~ CVS, Rite Aid, & Walgreens.

Sept. Week of freebies, 1

Then Ibotta added a ton of mid-month bonuses ~ one was $10, which I think is the largest Ibotta bonus I've seen yet! The amount required varies by how much you use the app. I needed 24 rebates for the $10 bonus, and there were some smaller $2 & $3 bonuses that I could get at the same time. This time around I also checked my husband's app, and he only needed 10 rebates for the $10, so we bought enough to meet both goals.

Sept. Week of freebies, 2

The plastic cups & glow bracelets were money makers, so I got those rebates as many times as I could. I have a ton to hand out for Halloween now! And they pretty much paid for the rest of the groceries.

The Centrum here was from Rite Aid, but I think the rest was from Ibotta ~

Sept. Week of freebies, 3
 
Sept. Week of freebies, 4

Honestly, I could have added a ton more to these photos, but it's hard to keep track of sometimes. I know I have about twice that many cups & glow bracelets! Either way, I could tell I was getting a *lot* of good deals this month.


And for a quick update on the rebate apps (I've talked more about them here & here) - 3 months in my totals are $144 on Ibotta, $42 on Checkout 51, $43 on Saving Star, and $11 on MobiSave. I'd say the Ibotta total skews a little high, because I definitely bought a few things just to trigger the bonuses (like several times I spent $2.60 and got a $3 rebate on those plastic cups. It's not really $3 worth of savings because I wouldn't have normally bought those). But this month I did get $20 worth of bonuses! (And another $12 or so on my husband's.) If you ignore the bonuses, I'd say the Ibotta rebates are on par with Ch51 & SS.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Hectic September


This month has been insane! We managed to avoid extracurriculars until now, but this month Orson (1st grade) started soccer ~

9-16 Orson soccer

And boy scouts ~

9-16 Orson Cub Scouts

Our little Pandora started preschool (twice a week, 4 hours) ~

9-16 Panda's 1st day of preschool

We also started a small group at our new church, and I had to prep clothes for the Fall consignment sale!

Our calendar has basically exploded with meetings upon practices upon games. And the fees for everything have been ridiculous, because there always seems to be another one popping up that we didn't know about. (I'm looking at you, Cub Scouts! Somehow that jumped from '$65 for the year' to $220+. Not cool.)

On the plus side, orders have also picked up, which is busy-in-a-good-way!