Money saved!!

We have been making a real effort to be better stewards with our money and honestly we have been having a great time trying to figure out how to save money in different areas. With lots of planning, we set out to stock up on many items we were running out of. We have been making a weekly menu and even planned for dining out...with a coupon of course. We are learning that as much as we want to be spontaneous, we do much better financially with a plan. It is all about planning! Here are a few ways we "saved" money today!

1. We headed out to lunch with our coupons....we knew we would do better grocery shopping with full stomachs! We headed to Sonic and used some coupons we purchased from a friend to help her school...it was only $5. and well worth it since we still have lots of coupons left on the card. Jeff, Britt, Radlee, and I ordered buy one get one free route 44 drink, "bogo" chicken strip dinner, "bogo" chicken wrap. I believe our total was around $10, so that equals $10 saved. oops....she forgot to take our coupons, so I guess we will have to use them again sometime!!! (I know that is borderline dishonest....ok it is dishonest..next time I will hand over the coupons)

2. We already had our list made of all of the things we were out of such as shampoo, conditioner,& deodorant. I had some Walgreens plus Manufacturers coupons, so figured Walgreens would be the best place to purchase these items. We also had a $5. off $20 purchase coupon that I found at bargainshopperlady.com ( sorry I can't figure out how to put this as a link..for some reason my computer is not letting me do this) Here are just a few of the deals I found at Walgreens.

1. Yardley Lavender soap .69 each with Walgreens coupon.
2. Dove shampoo and conditioner 4.99 each but buy one get one free and
a manufacturer's coupon of $2.00 off.....so that makes each $1.50.
3. Sunsilk shampoo and conditioner....1.49 each with manufacturer coupon.
4. Also, I had the $5. off coupon on the entire purchase.

3. After or Walgreens shopping, we headed over to the new Kroger in LaVergne. We planned our menu from the sale add, and incorporated a lot of the 10 for $10 items into our menu. We also used a few coupons, but we have decided that it is cheapest to buy the store brand or what is already on sale. Also,the biggest money saver is planning a menu and purchasing only necessary items. Next, we headed over to Smith's grocery to purchase all of our meat. They usually have the best deals on meat.

5. To finish off our night we went out to dinner....this was a planned event that was on our menu. We went to Restaurant.com and purchased a $25. gift card for $5. That saved us $20 on our meal. There are limited restaurants to choose from. We decided to go to the restaurant inside the Hilton hotel in Smyrna. The food was fairly good....not excellent. The good things was there was no one in the restaurant, so the kids had a little bit of freedom. This made us more relaxed; therefore, our overall dining experience was more fun. We will definitely be purchasing some more gift cards from this website.....it is a good deal!

Anyway, those are the deals of the day. This kind of lifestyle takes lots of planning.....I am sure I will get the hang of it and learn how to do all of this a little quicker in the future. I am starting to think I never want to do anything without having coupons....why pay full price??