Shopping Spree!!! The Frugal Way - um. kind of

Mr. R wanted to do something to get out of the house last night.  I had a 15% off my entire purchase coupon for Ollie's.  I love Ollie's but tend to only go when they send me one of these coupons in the mail.  They always have great deals on children's books and yummy snacks that I normally wouldn't purchase because they are too expensive, just need to watch the expiration dates.

Since it's Mr. R's weekend off and we hadn't really done anything so far this weekend, I suggested a trip to Ollie's.  It's one of those stores you need to take your time to look because they always have different stuff.  Mr. R always stops at the books first to let the girls each pick out a book to read while we shop which keeps them happy. 

I bought the girls some large pads of drawing paper and books for their Valentine's Day gifts.  Some of the fun food finds after coupon:

• Knorr Pasta and Rice sides in lots of different flavors (Mr. R loves these) - $ .76 each
• 3 3-packs of veggie/fruit juice boxes for Big R's lunches  $ .67 each 
• a box of Capri Sun for $1.52.
• sugar free caramel coffee syrup and sugar free vanilla coffee syrup - $.84 each
• a giant 32 oz jar of minced garlic $2.54
• 2 - 8 oz bottles of Vanilla Extract $2.54 each
• And tons of yummy snacks: Dora Cereal, Angry Birds shaped graham crackers, fruit by the foot, grahamfuls, Nutrigrain Fruit Crunch bars and Nature Valley Trail Mix bars, Chips Ahoy Fudge Filled Cookies, Vanilla Oreos - all anywhere from $.84 - $1.69 each.  We have plenty of snacks for dessert and lunches now.

I kind of went over board with dessert type items but they'll last a while.  And for the past week, the only desserts the girls had to choose from were fruit snacks or popsicles and they were getting a bit bored with the selection.  I'm still recovering from vacation and then had a really busy work week with Big R having 3 snow days so I was running her around each morning and then spending my lunch hours shuffling her to the next sitter that I haven't felt like baking in the evenings.  So now we are stocked up on junk!  Woohoo!

Oh and we also bought some new silverware for the house since we are really low on forks and spoons ($5.94 after coupon).  Our garbage disposal always seems to try to eat them. And we got a rug for in front of the sink ($4.24). 

Total Spent at Ollies: $61.84

Then we ran into Acme as it was in the same plaza and bought 4 more bottle of hand soap and a turkey breast that was marked down to $1.49 per pound and a bottle of tea for me. Total Spent $19.60



Who Get's to Clean the Windows?


Then Mr. R ran into the Dollar Tree and bought 2 bottles of lotion, a pack of cd's and a toy mouse for the cat.  Princess ripped apart her other mouse while we were on vacation.

So we spent a lot.  Most of the stuff needed or will be eaten.  It got us out of the house for a couple hours and Mr. R was happy.  Plus at Ollie's we bought the girls a pack of window markers for $3.39 and it kept the girls busy decorating our sliding door for a while. 

Updated Grocery Budget: Out of all the shopping above only $40 was out of the grocery budget, so there is $326 left in the grocery budget for February.

The rest will come out of our Extra Spending Money.  Since January was a 3 pay check month I put a little extra money in this budget because our $250 budget for February won't start until our first pay check in February.  $46 was spent on "Extra Budget" items, leaving $136 left for Extra Spending items.