I was at Jewel picking up my special order of 40 bags of Kibbles n Bits when I saw a few

All FREE!

items that merited closer attention:  Crest Whitening was part of the 10/$10 group, along with Gold Peak tea.  Remember, that IP I just posted about for $1 off Gold Peak tea?  Well, $1 coupon on a dollar sale equals free.  Make sure you print it FAST!

I had a P&G insert with me and realized that the $1 Crest coupon excludes the Cavity, Baking Soda and Tartar, but not Whitening, so picked up 50 of them (special order paid in advance).  Then the Surprise!  Gatorade Recovery was marked $1 on the shelf, down from $2.  Right on the bottles were hangtags for $1!  Took all they had.

Pushed up the total to well over a $100 so I could use a xx/xxx store cat, along with all my coupons –  my total dropped to $23.57, of which $4.42 was tax.  I will return with coupons for the other $19, which will be added back to my Jewel gift card.

which will make my total OOP  …  .15 plus tax.

I normally hate to post before I’ve bought, but I know this one will work:  Mrs. T Pierogies are BOGO at Jewel this week (until at least Wednesday).  Use the $1/1 coupon in the 10/2 rp for .75 boxes of pierogies ($3.49 – $2 = $1.49/2).  I will definitely be stocking up since these are favorites of the whole family and a really quick meal.

Picked up 36 of the Crave cat treats.  Used a $5/$50 store cat.  Bought three Eggos with overage.  end of story.

“You must have a lot of cats!” “No, I’m just making holiday baskets for the nursing home.”  I am a friggin’ laugh riot to shop with!

I don’t post every time I hit a store – I would assume your lives are a little more thrilling.  That said, the Lisle Jewel had the clearance rack filled with organic juices for $1.50 and $2.00.  Yes, you heard correctly – all those juices bottles were that cheap.  but wait…remember those Mambo Sprout coupon booklets?  There is a $1 off any Knudsen juice product, which gives us .50 organic juice!  The Carnation powdered milk was marked from $12.99(!!!) down to $5, so I grabbed two.  It’s a great way to add calciuim to oatmeal and baking mixes.  There were lots of other things, like packages of pine nuts (I grabbed a few for pesto) for a buck each.

The Breakstone low-sodium cottage cheese is being clearanced out for $1.84 – dates at my Jewel were mid-November.  Based on the “official” clearance tag in the dairy case, I’d say these are being reduced at all Jewel locations, so check your own store.

No coupons except the Knudsen, but still great prices…

Went back a few minutes ago with my six $1 coupons and a $6/60 cat – $12+ back on that wonderful Jewel gift card.  Also picked up one more of the Carnation milk and three more Knudsen juices for .50 each (after coupons).  life is good and juicy… 🙂

Well, this is a new one for me…I’ve now managed to fill every one of partial special orders for which I’ve been carrying the receipts.  We’re talking about six cans of OEP beans, 16 boxes of Riceland Rice and 20 bags of Kibble ‘n Bits dog food.  I also picked up 44 of the Mennon Speedstick deodorants in assorted flavors and sexes, a roll of Bounty paper towels and a carton of Deans cottage cheese.  The Bounty purchase was because I had a FREE paper towel cat when you spend $10 and the cottage cheese was because I wanted to use a $3/30 store cat PITA found.

Naturally, this is all very high tax, $5.40, which I paid using one of my gift cards…

Although the Jewel spend $100 get $10 store cat was originally scheduled to end on the 17th (after having been extended one time already), the Fresh for Fall coupon booklet has a 1/2 page ad for the same deal with an expiration date of 9/24, even showing a picture of a Visa card!  So when a reader contacted me, saying she had tried to buy one this afternoon and been told she couldn’t buy a Visa gift card with a credit card, I was very suspicious.  Dragged my fat ass over to the store and talked to customer service, who was honestly surprised that the promotion was still running.  The only reason they even have Visa gift cards (as far as I can tell) is that they pulled them all off the mall wall last weekend.  boo 🙁

Bought a $500 Visa card with Discover and got five $10 cats.  They put all five on a Jewel gift card (didn’t want to queer the deal by pulling out my other Jewel cards) and thanked me for letting them know the deal was still running.

Bottom line?  The info is in their ad.  If it doesn’t work, it is probably the cat machine!

My first stop was to a Dollar General because I had read from several posters that the Nivea women’s body wash (small size) was ringing at $2 even though the shelf tags were $2.50 and $2.75.  Well, I’m here to say that it’s just not true.  Well, at least in the Chicagoland area.  I would have said it was a wasted trip except for:  1) I don’t feel stupid for posting a deal that doesn’t work here and 2) I got to hang around and harrass MUM – a win-win situation!

Stopped by Jewel to see if my 40 cans of OEP refried beans had  arrived.  don’t know why it took so long…were they coming up from Mexico?  While I was there, decided to pick up a few (22) boxes of the Riceland 1 pound boxes of rice.  The white rice is .89; the brown is .99.  Pair the sale with the .50/1 coupons in 9/11 rp and you’ve got some seriously cheap rice.  We use a lot of rice, mostly to dilute the seasonings in the rice mixes (2 boxes HH with equal amount of white rice is perfect in the steamer:  not too salty, just enough flavor).  Rachel was kind enough to give me some of the Dole FREE coupons she got at the BlogHer convention in San Diego.  Hey Rachel!  MY Jewel has the Dole fruit in jars – three different varieties!  I wanted to get up to $30 so I could use a 3/30 cat.  Ended up throwing a bunch of way-expensive fruit into the order.  Didn’t really need it to go over, but weshould be eating more fresh fruit than we do.  And I kinda have a few bucks on my Jewel gift cards.

Total after all coupons was $11.21; I used an expiring $10 RR and paid $1.21 from a gift card.