Rite-Aid Trips 5/21/10 & 5/22/10....& a Pitiful Picture

Would you like to see something pitiful?
Here is my Single Check Rebate for April.....you remember, the month I hardly set foot in Rite-Aid?

If you can't make it out(thankyouverymuch crappy camera!), it says.....$8.00.
Yep, 8 whole big ones!
For some folks, an $8 check at Rite-Aid rocks but for me?.....I hang my head in shame.lol

On to other things......

Have you noticed that I am so lazy this month and I keep holding off on my Rite-Aid runs until the week/sale is almost over?
This is NOT good since the good items go fast!  But I have been darn lucky with this, as I have been able to find what I want to buy....excuse me, get free most, if not all of the time anyway.  ;-)

Here is what I bought on Friday......

Transaction #1
3 x Benadryl w/Wellness discount $4.39=$13.17
2 x Oreo Cookies on sale $2.99=$5.98
1 x Gallon of Milk=$3.20  **Not Pictured** since it's GONE ALREADY!lol
SubTotal.....$22.35

Coupons Used
1 x $5 off $20 Purchase AdPerks VV IPQ=$5.00
1 x $5/2 Benadryl ManuQ=$5.00
1 x $1/1 Benadryl ManuQ=$1.00
1 x $1 off $10 Cough, Cold, Allergy Purchase Wellness CRT Q=$1.00
1 x BOGO Buy 1 Nabisco Cookies and Gal. Milk/Get 1 FREE Nabisco Cookie Facebook Q=$2.99
1 x FREE Nabisco Cookie/Cracker Item Home Mailer Q=$2.99
Coupon Total....$17.98

$22.35-$17.98=$4.37 OOP * Put on free Rite-Aid Gift Card so ZERO OOP

Benadryl purchase qualified BIL for $25 Gift Card level of SCR #500.
This Benadryl purchase also qualified BIL for a $20 Allergy Gift Certificate.  This is the Allergy Rewards Program....purchase $75 in qualified Allergy meds and you get a $20 Certificate good at Rite-Aid.  BIL had some Benadryl purchases on his account from March that was within the time frame for this program so this $50 purchase for SCR #500 also got him over $75 in purchase for the Allergy Program.
So....$25 Gift Card & $20 Gift Cert. qualifed for now!

Value of Items purchased....$29.25

Why I bought what I did?
*I needed $12 and change more to get BIL to $50 in Allergy purchases to qualify for SCR #500 & get him the $25 Rite-Aid Gift Card level.

*That Nabisco Facebook Q was expiring that Day so I HAD to use it or lose it.  Combined with the FREE Cookies Home Mailer Q, I got 2 free cookies and just had to pay for the milk, which we needed anyway, so might as well buy it at Rite-Aid since it's the exact same milk/company/price as at the grocery store, and the grocery stores in town won't take the Facebook IPQ.....so there you go.lol

While leafing through the May SCR Directory Friday night,  I noticed the $2 Nabisco rebate #94-- Buy $10 of Nabisco items, get a $2 SCR.  Since I already was over halfway to $10 & Oreos are always welcomed here, I put another scenario together for Saturday evening.


Transaction #2....

1 x Welch's Grape Juice w/Wellness discount=$4.15
2 x Oreos on sale @$2.99=$5.98
1 x Colgate Pro-Clinical TPaste on sale=$2.99
6 x M&Ms on sale BOGO($3.99)=$11.97
SubTotal....$25.09

Coupons Used
1 x $5 off $20 Purchase AdPerks VV IPQ=$5.00
1 x FREE ITEM Welch's Item HomeMailer Q=$4.15
1 x $1/1 Colgate Pro-Clinical TPaste ManuQ=$1.00
1 x $1/1 Colgate Pro-Clinical Rite-Aid In-AD Q=$1.00
2 x B2G1Free M&Ms ManuQ=$7.98
Coupon Total....$19.13

$25.09-$19.13=$5.96 OOP  *$6.31 put on Rite-Aid Gift Card, so $.35 OOP....I had taken all but 1 Gift Card out of my wallet and it only had $6.31 left on it so I HAD TO ACTUALLY SPENT MONEY at RITE-AID!!
The HORRORS!....lol
Value of Items purchased....$43.40

Why I bought this stuff?.....Well, the cookies were to get the $2 SCR. I figure if I apply the $5 off $20 purchase Q to the cookies since I had no more Qs for them, they 'cost' me $.98.  The Toothpaste was $.99 after Qs and I wanted to try this new kind so for .99¢ it's a go.  The juice was free after Q and I love grape juice...I just hope the eating machine aka #1 son keeps his grimy paws off it and I actually get a glass!lol
6 bags of M&Ms?  Well....getting 6 bags for a total of $3.99 is awesome and almost free anyway, right?  It breaks down to $.66 & a half cents per 12 oz bag.  And we love Peanut and the Peanute Butter M&Ms here....and it's one of the few candies I can send to camp with the kids that won't melt.lol

This transacation qualified BIL's account for a $2 SCR, so we ended up with $1.65 in overage this time. 8-)


Here are the Rite-Aid MAY SCR Period Grand Totals so far......

Number of Transactions.....10
Out of Pocket.....$13.33--all but $.35 put on free Rite-Aid Gift Card=$.35 OOP
SCRebates due....$33.00 & $50 in Rite-Aid Gift Cards--making cash overage this month of $32.65!
Value of Items....$318.35

Not a bad haul so far for 35¢, huh?

I don't see anything I have to have this week at Rite-Aid but something may pop-up later this week.  I need $12+ in more Allergy meds purchases to qualify for the $20 Allergy Program Gift Certificate on my account so I may buy that this week to finish it off.

Do you have any good deals you are doing at Rite-Aid this week?  Let us know!

Sluggy

Double Dip Time!....at Redner's Markets

 If you have access to a Redner's Supermarkets, you might want to head over this week as there is a possible double dip with Kraft Products.

If you were lucky enough to send away for one of those Kraft Taste of Summer Sample and Coupon packs a couple of weeks ago, you'll see that there is a rebate form in the box.
The rebate requires a Purchase $30 of any Kraft Foods Products between 5-23-10 and 6-13-10 and you received a $10 Rebate by mail.  Check out Kraft's website for qualifying products. 

There is a Catalina Deal this week at Redner's for a whole slew of Kraft products.
Purchase $25 of qualifying products and receive a $5 OYNO Catalina.  The Cat deal runs from 5-20-10 to 6-3-10 and has to be $25 or more total of Kraft products AFTER using any manufacturer's coupons.

What I plan to do is purchase $30 or more in products and use ManuQs & some of the FREE ITEM Qs I have here for Kraft products in a combination that leaves me with a min. $25 bill at Redner's.  I'll pay my $25 bill, get a $5 OYNO Cat for $5 of free food and then take my receipt and submit it to Kraft for the $10 Cash Rebate(since I 'bought' $30 in products).

A lot of the Kraft stuff that qualifies is what I consider "junk" food but shredded Cheese is included in the Cat deal on sale for $2 a bag.  The reg. retail around here on this item is $3.29 a bag. We are always needing cheese in this house and I think I have some $1/2 blinkies laying around here to make the deal better.

So for $25 OOP,  I'll have $54.35 of products(counting the $5 in more free food from the Cat deal) and a $10 cash check.  In the end my OOP is $15 for $54.35 worth of Cheese at reg. retail of $3.29, so better than 72.40% saved.  Actually, I would NEVER pay reg. retail of $3.29 for Kraft shredded cheese so my percentage saved on sale price of $35 of food is 57.15%.

Here's the scenario....
15 x Kraft shredded Cheese on sale @$2=$30
5 x $1/2 Kraft Cheese Blinkie Qs=$5
Total OOP....$25--qualifies for $5 OYNO Cat.
Submit for & Get $10 rebate.

 Not free but not too shabby for a deal in these parts.....

Sluggy

Mommy MeltDown

What do I have in common with this place?

Besides both of us being located in PA, we both have/had experienced a meltdown.

While my current meltdown is not radioactive, I'm having a really bad week.  Not "loved ones dying kind of week" but the "nothing is working out right kind of weeks" that's left me an emotional puddle of goo.

I have like a zillion projects and things I need to attend to here.  And nothing is getting done.  Making lists won't help since there is no one to delegate jobs to, so the lists just remind me what a failure the situation is right now.  There is no cooperation from the family, just more pressure.


Plus my health is not the best and no matter what I do, it's not getting any better.  Maybe I just need to face the fact that my body is older than my mind thinks it is and it just can't do what I want it to do anymore.

Ok, so this is turning into a 'poor poor pitiful me' post and I don't want that because well, nobody wants to sit and read that, right?lol

I am at a point where I have no motivation for literally ANYTHING!  I don't want to cook or clean or tackle any projects(except the gardening and I can't do much of that myself).  "If breathing weren't automatic I'd probably die" kind of lack of motivation.

I don't even want to hunt the deals.....shocking, I know!lol

I am burnt out of eBay already(again!lol), and my decluttering has come to a standstill.  Decluttering because of the hoarding gene I possess is an emotional ordeal at best for me anyway, but add in the lack of support from my family and I ask myself, " why the hell am I  trying to accomplish this since it feels like a punch to the gut every time I try?".

Add in a situation with one of the dogs that keeps deteriorating and I am made out to be the bad guy because I don't want him here.  My house is a mess and we can't do anything about it because of this dog....a dog that was forced upon me to begin with.

Then pile on a weeklong stay by a relative that is putting more pressure on me that I don't want/need because I have a hubby who won't stand up to his family.

I just want to get in the car and drive.  I haven't felt like this since I had extremely bad post partum depression after #2 son was born, were I sat and cried for 6 months and then did actually leave home.

So keep some good thoughts for me.....


Sluggy

Taking a Teeny Break to Go Dig

My blog brain has dried up.
I blame the sunburn I got on Sunday for frying my brain as well.
I just got nothing to say lately....imagine that.....me with nothing to say! LOLOLOLOL
Crazy ain't it?

Well, it's true.
I am still feeling overwhelmed with what needs to get done here.
And today is the first nice day since Sunday so I am turning off the machine here and heading outside to work in the yard and the garage until my back gives out.
We are suppose to have another wet weekend so I have stuff to get done NOW.

I'll probably be back here by Saturday with my usual nonsense so stay tuned!
And don't forget to enter the BORING BOX GIVEAWAY every day.  See the latest post to enter(it's a couple posts down from this one)or check out the link on the top of the Right Side Bar.  Don't let Marilyn walk away with this one folks!lol
  I've got some more goodies for the box to post this weekend and then it's filled!!

Sluggy

Flea Market Redux....It's All Good!

The weather was going to be wonderful on Sunday according to the local weather guy on tv, so we loaded up the minivan and made tracks for the local Flea Market to sell my excess stockpile items.

After we got the minivan loaded I counted 13 boxes/tubs of items.  Then I had DH and kids haul out bags of lighter weight items(diapers, cereal, other boxes foods, feminine products, etc.), as well as some excess laundry detergent I decided to take at the last minute.

We arrived at 5:20am.
Here's a bad shot of the entrance of the Drive-In at about 6:15 in the morning after we had been waiting to get in for 55 mins.  Notice the street light is still on.....

This time we arrived at the flea market earlier so we learned about the 'waiting in line' to get in vendor's line.  Last fall we had arrived a bit later and they let us right in--no lines, no waiting since there were alot fewer vendors then.  This time they didn't open the gate until almost 6am to let us in.  And the line snaked along the road for what seem like a mile!

Here we are in line to get in to set up.  We have inched slowly about 1/2 a mile from where we started.  The line of vehicles behind us went on for another 1/2 mile at least.  You can see one of the movie screens in the distance...we set up 2 rows from that screen....

 The little gate house on the right was the entrance.  But the line of vendors snaked past that off to the 2nd drive-in lot to the right and looped around that lot(this is where all the parking was for the customers later) and then back over to the entrance gatehouse to actually get into the lot to set up.

Thankfully we showed up early since they let vendors in until they run out of room and I think they did run out of spaces before vendors.  It would have been horrible to have packed all this up and gotten up at 4am only to be turned away at the gate!  I think DH would have killed me....
We watched as cars passed us to get to the back of the line.  People with cars, not trucks or vans, with so very little amounts of stuff to sell.  All I can think is these folks were trying to sell off what didn't sell at their garage sales on Saturday or they live somewhere out in the sticks where you don't get enough foot traffic to have a successful garage sale, so they set up at the flea market instead.  It just seems to me that the $15 they charge for a space is a lot considering the among of used flea market type stuff these people were arriving with in their cars.

The flea market on Sunday was mobbed with even more customers than in the fall I think.  Customers were parking up on the highway as the parking lots were full.  The State Police showed up threatening to tow cars away every 20 min. or so.

Here is what sold out or nearly sold out....
Laundry Detergent-the first to go
Cereal
Boxed Mac & Cheese
Canned Dog Food
Pop-Tarts
Fruit Roll-Ups/Gushers
Shaving Gel
Mouth Wash
Benadryl

What I couldn't give away.....
Feminine Products

Everything else sold well to moderately well.
Sold a lot of shampoo and body wash, even the men's stuff which usually doesn't sell as well.
Dove, Herbal Essence, Pantene almost sold out in Shampoos while Garnier didn't sell but a few.  I even sold some low end 'poos like VO5, Prell and Suave.
Body Washes sold better this time than in the past.  Bars of soap(Dove/Olay/Ivory),except for a couple of 6 packs didn't sell much at all.
The dental stuff--toothpaste, toothbrushes, floss--didn't fly off the table like previous sales but sold steady.  What did go fast was mouth wash.

Ladies razors did better than men's razors and everyone wanted razor refills/cartridges....at $15 a pop retail and hardly EVER any deals to get those for almost free, of COURSE they wanted those!lol

I'm surprised that the Benadryl sold out(I should have brought more!)and that other OTC meds went well--like NyQuil, Theraflu, Tylenol, Rolaids, even some Vitamins.  I even sold the box of Prevacid($25 retail)for $10....the box that I paid $1 for after sales/Qs at Rite-aid and got a full rebate on from the company.  I also sold most of the high-end Olay stuff--cleansers($2.50), $30 creme stuff(for $10) & an Eye Roller($8)--all of it free or gave me overage after sales/Qs and various Olay rebates.

Last time in the fall at the flea market, my Deodorants sold like crazy....not as much went this time. I did raise the price from $1 to $1.50 with a special of $5 for 4 deos which made them $1.25 each.  Actually as I think about it, the MEN'S Deodorants sold very well, more than the Ladies.  Maybe all those ladies who bought arms of them from me last Oct. are still is working on what they have already.lol

A few folks recognized us from last fall....I guess they are regulars at the flea market.  One guy showed up who had been to our garage sale last July at our home, and remembered coming to our garage sale there.lol
I recognized a few people from last Oct. when we had set up.....especially the Russian gentlemen who kept coming over trying to talk me down on EVERYTHING. SINGLE. THING. he wanted to buy.  And in broken English.....and he wouldn't give up even when I said that's my final price.....and when I say final price, I MEAN final price.
Ugh
That got old real fast....

God love the Latin American immigrants though.   I did land office business with the ones who came to my table.  They were very good customers last fall too.  My Hispanic women customers love the beauty products and they know a deal when they see one!   And I get to pick up some conversational spanish in the equation so it's all good. ;-)

The bottom line.....
We did well.
But not as well as in the fall.
But it was the "worth going kind of well".

I didn't see any other people with toiletries set up, though there was at least 1 person selling food/grocery items there, so we didn't have competition.
But there were just so many more vendors I think it was more difficult for customers to cover the whole market or find you again if they left and were going to come back later to buy more.
And more vendors meant more ways to spend the money so less money to spend with me. ;-)

Judging from the amount of vendors, the amount of shoppers and what we took in the 1st hour, I told DH that we'd probably make $500 for the day.  We kept hopping with customers but it was never the craziness of last fall's market.
We stayed longer this time too.  Last fall the place was pretty much a ghost town by 11-11:30am.  The customers cleared out by 1pm this time and we packed up and left by 1:30pm.
The weather was gorgeous & I ended up with sunburn on my forehead, nose and chest despite keeping out of the sun as much as I could.  I hadn't counted on the sun being in a different place in the sky in the spring as opposed to fall....I had no problem with sunburning last fall due to the mountain ridges in relation to sun position.  Not so lucky this year.
Note to self....bring a hat even if you don't think you'll need one.

When we got home and I counted it all out and subtracted the bank we began with, we made $759.75.
After deducting the $15 space fee we came home with....$744.75

Last fall we made $947.25 and came home with $932.25, so we made $187.50 less but we did $244.75 better than I had expected.

Add in the Garage Sale total of $634.25 from last July and we have made $2,311.25 on stockpile excess.

Like I said we took 13 full boxes of stuff.  Here's what the back of the van looked like before we unloaded it.....

 And here is a shot of the back through the side door of all the bags of stuff thrown on top...

DH gauged the day a success.  To him, a successful sale was a sale where we did NOT run out of plastic bags to put purchases in.  If you remember last fall's flea market we experienced a severe bag shortage HERE.  DH has been saving used plastic bags since last Oct. for this day.  I was chastised on multiple occasions Sunday for doubling bags for fear we would run out before selling the last items of the day.  But as I told DH I do believe we brought MORE plastic bags than items to sell this time.lolol
We went with 13 full boxes and scads of bags(20?) of more stuff.
We left with 6 empty boxes and only 2 bags of stuff left.

If anyone is interested in my price list, just let me know and I can post what I charged specifically.
I made up a price list for DH but I figured him having to refer to it every few seconds would not be efficient.  So I marked prices on about 3/4 of the items with a permanent black marker. No fooling with price stickers just write the price right on the item.lol   I also tried to keep track of how many of what I brought with an inventory sheet but by box #7 or #8 I gave up on that.

I still have 7 boxes of items and I am not going to be doing the flea market again anytime soon.  Maybe in the fall again, depending on how I feel then.
If the community holds another garage sale this summer, I'll consider setting up for that if I get the garage in shape by then.lol

Sluggy