So, where have I been?

At work, which has been crazy busy and has included many long days….

At home reading academic journal articles and writing the last chapter of my Master’s thesis…verrrrry slowly. After two years of graduate school I have gotten burned out and am losing my writing mojo. Gotta get my mojo back…

Walking in and out of Ann Taylor very quickly, despite the fact that they are having a 70% off sale. It’s just not in the budget but I can’t help window shopping….

At CVS couponing my butt off. So far I have popped in almost every day on my way home from work (since I walk by CVS anyway) and have had my total come up negative or under $1.00 each time. So I’m pretty much only paying tax and walking out with tons of makeup, skin care products, shampoo and conditioner…and Diet Dr. Pepper (cause it’s awesome). The magic red coupon machine is doing amazing things right now and printing out all these $2.00/1 hair care product coupons (daily), $3/10 cosmetic purchase coupons(daily), and they still have some clearance makeup. Awesomeness.

I enthusiastically texted my husband about how well I did couponing and how my total was -$.48 before taxes. He said he hopes that makeup is filling. I didn’t even tell him what I bought but, yep, it was more makeup.

His point is that I tend to get the best deals on non-food items and he’s complained that stocking up on toothpaste and shampoo won’t keep our bellies full. True. CVS just tends to have the best deals on toiletries and cosmetics and I LOVE that stuff so I get loads of it when it’s pretty much free. Then I give it away to my family and friends who need it anyway. Plus, I got the free $10 gas card this week and I plan on couponing my way to it next week too, which is great cause we really need to add all we can to our gas budget right now.

On the budget front, I’ve managed to ring in just about on budget for June’s spending. I went a bit over in spending on paying doctor’s bills, having to buy expensive prescription toothpaste (uh, oh yeah, my tooth broke cause I don’t have well disbursed flouride since I had scarlet fever when I was 10, yep, that happened), and getting more contact lenses. I had to eat into July’s money to pay for all that stuff but I got reimbursed from our Health Care Flexible Spending Account (oh what a lifesaver! If you don’t have a HCFSA sign up!) though unfortunately we have already used up almost all of the money in it for the year. I keep a running tally of our health care costs so we can adjust it for next year and get a more approximate amount to our annual spending.

Oh, and P.S… in case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been doing coupon matchups for local drugstores and grocery stores for a while. I haven’t had much time and I wasn’t sure if the demand was there. If you are silently fuming that I haven’t posted those damn matchups, please let me know and I’ll start doing them again. I’m all for helping people save money but there are so many other sites that cover many of the same deals I wasn’t sure if I needed to do my own matchups. Holler if you need ’em!

How are you saving today?

My study buddy, Julius, helping me write my thesis