Wags & CVS Shopping

I haven't done much drugstore shopping over the past few weeks (except for free Crest at RA 2 weeks ago), so today I headed to WAGS to use some rewards. I have no clue when the rewards are expiring, so I figured I might as well use them before they do.

There were quite a few DQ (digital coupons), so I headed to the store with my list

1 x All Detergent $2.99
1 x Oxi Clean 3.99
3 x Covergirl B2G1F $10.98
2 x Schick disposable razors $14.00
4 x Crest t/p $11.96
2 x Colgate t/p $5.98
Less All DQ (1.00)
Less Oxi Clean DQ (2.00)
Less Covergirl DQ (3.00)
Less Schick DQ (7.00)
Less Crest DQ (4.00)
Less Crest MQ (1.00)
Less Colgate qs (4.00)
Less Reward (20.00)
Tax 2.99
OOP $10.89

Received $6 RR (Register Reward) for Crest. I also received a CAT for $5 bonus points WYS $20

I started with 44160 points ($50 reward) and ended with 45450 points ($55 reward)

Don't ask me how. I still don't understand WAGS math. I know that I earned $4 for the Colgate & Schick. The other $15 was bonus points ($5 Beauty, $5 for spending $25, $5 August boost).

Now unlike other drugstores, WAGS doesn't give you a detailed list of rewards earned on your receipt. I had to wait until I got home to check my online account. Ugh.

I also noticed that 2 of my DQs didn't deduct ($3 Covergirl, $1 Crest). I'm so upset, because I actually have paper qs for these items too. I also wish that they would allow you to use available rewards for the entire total. I have $50 worth, but could only use $20. Sigh. I know they're doing this to get you to keep spending money there. I'm trying not to spend much OOP there, but it's hard when the DQs don't work in your favor. With a paper q, you know exactly what has/hasn't deducted.

Oh well, I guess $4.89 after rewards for everything above (13 items), isn't too shabby. I should go back and get more Colgate, since I have 2 more qs. Who doesn't like free t/p

Last week CVS had 30% off online orders. I've never shopped drugstores online, but they had a great offer on PG detergent and also DQs to use. Buy $15 detergent get $5 EB, Buy $20 Tide or Gain, get $5.

So I bought:

1 x 100 oz Tide 15.29
1 x 100 oz Gain 14.79
Less Tide DQ (3.00)
Less Gain DQ (2.00)
Less 30% (7.53)
Less $4 EB (4.00)
Tax 1.35
OOP $14.90 and earned back $10 EB

I really need to hit RA, cause I have BC expiring soon. I have a plan, but of course that got waylaid by our printers this time. There's always something. My new printer's barcodes don't seem to scan at any stores. DH's printer is low on ink, so no good printing. I have to switch printers with DS (who has my old printer, that hasn't been connected yet). So hopefully I can get that done tomorrow and get my shopping done. Not to mention I'm still dealing with this spreadsheet problem. I haven't even looked at the current CVS ad yet. I need to see if there's any good deals.

South African Frikkadel (meatball) recipe

I'm still here. I've been so busy going to tractor pulls this summer, so please excuse my absence.  I'm always exhausted from too much sun, the day after. I'm also still working on spreadsheets. Ugh, it looks like I'm gonna have to buy new accounting software and I really don't want to spend that $200+ on it. However, it's much needed so I'm just gonna have to suck it up and buy the software.

As requested by Linda, here's the South African frikkadel (meatball) recipe. Now, this is not the exact recipe I grew up eating. The old school recipe omits the Paprika, thyme and mint. Instead we added some grated green pepper and tomato.  I also replace my ground beef (mince) with ground turkey.

Of course this recipe has been tweaked over the years by people adding different herbs and spices. So you can mix this up any way you want.

Frikkadel is typically served with mashed potatoes and sweet corn and maybe a tomato/onion relish (just fry some diced tomato, onions, green pepper, salt, pepper, a dash of sugar for the tartness, until tomato is cooked down).

Bon Appetit

Frikkadel

My workout gear bargains

While running errands last week, I stopped at TJ Maxx to see if I could find any clearance t-shirts for DS. I'm currently trying to stockpile summer stuff (for next summer) by shopping the clearance sales. Well I didn't find anything for DS, but scored these Under Armour items for myself.

Holy smokes Batman! Did TJM have great UA clearance in all departments. I've actually been on the lookout for workout bras, so I was very happy to find these babies. They were $8, originally $24.99 each.

Boy am I glad I can still fit into kids sizes. The t-shirt and shorts are both teen size XL (age 16). The shirt was $4.50 (orig $24.99) and shorts $3 (orig $19.99)

My oop was $24.91 (incl tax). Original retail value $94.96 (excl tax). So almost 75% saving.

I was really happy with my score, because I love this brand. My store had lots of other clearance items. The yellow stickers are Final clearance prices. They normally run this sale over 4th July, but moved it back this year. Probably because most people don't care to shop over the holiday.

Over the weekend, I also noticed a $25 coupon from Chico's in my email. I only noticed this email on the last day it was valid. I scored a pair of jeans and sweater for $11.58 oop.

$4.98 items
$5.95 shipping
$0.65 tax

I've only shopped at this store once, because their prices are so high. However, this is the 2nd year that I've received this q. Last year they offered free shipping though, so I scored a free pair of jeans.

Now y'all might think that I'm crazy to just spend money oop on things I might not need. Well there's method to my madness. I can wear these items (I practically live in jeans during cold weather season) and when I'm done, I can sell it for $30-40 total (people will pay for the brand) So I'll be making a profit on something that I get to enjoy too. Saves me from spending extra cash to buy new jeans when I need it.

So that's my shopping for this month to date. $36.49 oop for $292.96 worth of products

Do you also now see why I don't believe in paying full price? That's because stores mark their products way up (as my dad used to say - you're paying for the designer's name). Well, I like my designer stuff, but not designer prices. Sometimes I do think that I'm a bit cheap to not want to pay more for an item, but then I think of how hard I have to work for that money and that makes me feel better about being cheap :)

Stockpiling item of the week & some freezer cooking

Please bear with me regarding monthly numbers. I'm experiencing computer problems - again! I did get a 'new' computer last month. It's refurbished, because I needed one with Windows 7. The new computers all have Windows 10, which is slower than 7.

So the 'new' computer has been giving me problems and when I tried to install spreadsheet software, it wouldn't work. The download would freeze halfway through. We finally figured it out today. That the problem is with the computer, not the software. So I have to install it on DS's computer tomorrow. Sigh.

I'm always on the lookout for food to stockpile. This week Meijer has Italian Sausage & Brats on sale for $3. Not the greatest price, but I figured it would make some nice meals.  For some reason we haven't bought any Italian Sausage in years. Don't ask me why...lol. I also bought 6 lbs sweet onions that were cleaned, sliced/diced (the diced were frozen). Freezing produce serves a double purpose for me. The produce doesn't get wasted and it's ready to use when I have to cook.

I bought 3 x Italian, 2 x Beer Brats & 2 x Ground Italian.

The ground will be used for lasagna or meat sauce.

The sausage have been bagged with sliced onion. I've kept one bag out for Friday night and the rest have been frozen. I can throw this with some sliced peppers (I need to get more from the produce market) and a can of Rotel (optional) into the Instant Pot for 15 minutes for an easy meal. This will go onto a hot dog bun and served with baked potatoes and salad. Easy peasy.

I like to prepare freezer meals whenever I'm done shopping, with the approach of busy work season. That way I can just dump the contents into Instant Pot, steam vegetables on the side and not have to worry much about fixing dinner at night. This is also great for when you're sick or too busy (keeps us from just picking up fast food constantly)

I also picked up some ground turkey and organic chicken breasts at Sams. I made fajita chicken with 4lbs of the chicken (one package). I added some Mexican rice, black beans, cheese, red onion, lettuce to make the Mexican chicken bowl above. I also made fresh Pico de gallo that I added inside the cheese quesadillas. That was dinner last night. Unfortunately, we were out of sour cream

I'll keep some leftover chicken out for lunch and the rest will be frozen into 1lb portions for easy mexican meals.

I used half of the turkey to make Frikkadel (a South African meat patty) and salads for Monday's dinner. Half were frozen too. So that gives us 3 different meals, but there's enough for at least 7-8  meals. I need to buy some pasta sauce and cook the meat sauce to freeze.

We finally finished this bottle of Cascade on 8/6. Just 2 days shy of using it for 8 months! That's $2.50 for 8 months or $0.01 per day (I just used 30 day months). That's a new record for us, since we run the dishwasher daily. No dishwasher tabs for me. I still have a huge amount of Cascade liquid in my stockpile, so I'm happy about that.

Hoping to be back with July numbers next.

A few things I've done the past few weeks

July was a crazy busy month, so I didn't have much time to shop or blog. Here's a few things that I did the last few weeks.

Redeemed $125 worth gift cards ($100 Kohls, $25 Target)

Used the Kohls gc that purchase a big ticket Christmas item and 2 long sleeve shirts for DS. My total came to over $100, but in true Kohls fashion, some of the items were cancelled. My new total came to $90.51, but I still received $20 Kohls cash. No problem. I used the Kohls cash to buy items to make money towards my $15K goal.

I swear I have the worst luck with online orders. Something always goes wrong. Oy vey. I ordered some sweaters (I didn't own any sweaters) for myself when Gap had 40% off + extra 10% off. So I used the balance of my GAP gcs and $5.14 on my CC. Well, one sweater that was shipped separately, never arrived. When I checked the tracking, I saw that only a shipping label was created. The item never left their warehouse. So they issued me a credit. $5.14 to my CC and a check for $2.28.

They said they couldn't issue a $2.28 gc, because the amount was under $5. So they spent money on paper, printer ink, envelope and a stamp, to send me a check for under $5. Yep, that makes perfect sense GAP...lol

I also splurged on a new dress at Marshalls. After attending numerous important meetings, I realised that I hardly had any dress clothes. Of the few items I have, most were outdated. So when I saw this dress at Marshalls, I fell in love. It cost me $39.99 + tax. Retail price is $89.

So for July, I spent less than $50 on clothes.

I also got DS a new game that he wanted at Target. I told him a few months ago that he could get the game when I have enough gcs to pay for it. So I paid a whopping $63.59 for a game. These video game manufacturers sure know how to rip us off.

I've also been stockpiling blueberries since they are on sale at Meijer $1.25/pint. I've been washing and freezing most, because I pay over $10 for a 4 or 6 lb frozen blueberry bag at Sams during winter. I can buy frozen blueberries at Dollar Tree, but the Meijer ones are locally grown and so delicious.

On Monday I decided to turn on the oven to bake (I rarely use the oven during summer). A friend gave me about a 30lb bag of fresh wheat from their fields. I mentioned that I wanted to try a whole wheat bread recipe, so when they harvested, she asked if I wanted some. I have some really generous friends.

So I baked these 2 loaves and it was so good. The recipe is from a grocery store in SA. I was trying to duplicate the whole wheat bread that they sell. I replaced one cup of flour with a cup of crushed wheat and it made a huge difference. The loaves were small though, so I'll make 6-8 loaves, next time I bake bread again. I will also add some honey and olive oil, so that it's not too dry.

Bread recipe

I also made a chicken pot pie for dinner, 2½ dozen carrot/pineapple muffins and 1 dozen blueberry muffins (with those fresh blueberries).

That's about it for me. I still need to crunch numbers, but I currently have a cold.