The $200 mission....: BIG take from Shaw's and some little man pics :)

I haven't posted about my shopping trips lately, because I haven't really hit any earth-shattering sales and I've been pretty well on budget all month. But THIS was just too good to pass up - if you live near a Shaw's, today is the last day for this week's sales, so GET THERE!!!

Their promotion is a big General Mills sale - 10/$10, 6/$10, 4/$10 and 3/$10. 90 percent of what they offered had printable and circular coupons more than once over the last month or so. AND, if you buy $30 worth of stuff, they gave you $15 Catalinas towards your next purchase! Now, I think some stores are spitting out one $15 Catalina. My stores are giving out three $5 certificates instead. BUT you can still clean house, if you either have a patient cashier or you just don't care if they get mad :)

I will post a photo of my booty as soon as I can get the pics developed (My camera is busted and we had a disposable digital on hand!) but I took home $130 worth of goods including 2 Sunday papers, I paid $42.11 out of pocket AND I still have about $30 worth of catalinas left! SOOOO, after coupons, store sales, and catalinas I brought home FIVE BAGS of goodies for $12.11!!!

I split my transactions at the register - I let her ring in about $30 worth of stuff and then cashed out with my coupons - I WISH I had read THIS POST over at "Cent"sible Sawyer because apparently the $15 catalinas print based on presale prices not after coupons! I could have done even better. Anyway, after that transaction, the register printed out six $5 off catalinas. So I let her ring in a few more items, and handed her a catalina and my coupons. I did that twice more and got pretty much everything else for free! AND I still have $30 in coupons left! Like I said before, the cashier was getting kinda snippy with me...but I made sure there weren't a lot of people in line behind me and I shopped at an off-time. So I just let it roll :)

A lot of what I got was non-perishable, and I will probably be donating a bunch of it when the Thanskgiving food drives start - that's one of the wonderful things about learning how to shop like this - not only do I have MORE than enough on hand to feed my family, I can still help others even on our limited budget!

And as promised, here's a few pics from my nephew's 2nd birthday in September - the boys don't get to see much of each other since my bro lives in NY but they didn't seem to have a problem getting along :) Click to view the album...