Great deals and another booking.

I have been getting a lot of great deals around town. Last night I made money at Walgreens using the ecotrin coupons. I gave the ecotrin to a woman I know. She takes one everyday and she is going to be 97 in two weeks. I bought 16 packs of the Beggin' strips dog treats, 3 packs of Dentastix and 3 packs of breath busters and 2 packages of bic razors all for under $8. I gave some coupons to the publix employees after they were impressed with my deals.

I received a message from another Library last night. I called them today and set up a class for Sept. I cannot wait!

Blog from the Library

Last Tuesday night, Riverview Branch Library was graced with a royal visit when Carrie, the Coupon Queen, presented a lively program on how to save big at major retail, grocery and drug stores. Carrie shared money-saving secrets like combining coupons, taking advantage of sales and discount card programs, locating coupons in unlikely places and using rain checks. She also covered specific store policies. Audience members were impressed with her real-life examples of getting products at a deep discount, free or the store owing her money at the end! Other tips included organizing and planning shopping to maximize savings, using websites to scout out deals and networking with other coupon clippers. Carrie closed the program with a sharing session in which audience members asked questions and dished on their own money-saving strategies. Everyone agreed that Carrie nobly earned her royal title of Coupon Queen, but if anyone doubts it, she has a $4 case of cereal bars and twenty free toothbrushes to prove it!

Another booking.

I had another library contact me about booking two, maybe even three classes. We have the dates set for the first two classes. One is in July and the other is in August. The head librarian wants me to do the classes on a Saturday and a Sunday so more people can attend. I am thrilled! Most of the attendees from the last class have signed up for my group on big tent. A few of them are active through email. One person even emailed me to thank me for the sneak peek of the new Publix ad. I told him it always helps me plan my shopping trips.

I did a coupon class play date the other day. It ended up being really fun for all of us. It was nice to sit around and talk about coupons while the kids played. I love this age because the kids can really do their own thing with little supervision. I have another coupon class play date that I am going to schedule next week, for the people who were not able to make it the other day.

Coupon Class was a HUGE hit!

I taught a class at the Riverview library last night and it was a huge hit! There were 25 people there and they all learned something new about saving money. I even received some money saving tips that I didn't know about. I had everyone laughing and having a good time. The class lasted a little over an hour and the question and answer period was about a half hour. The program director that booked me said that she will blog about how successful the class was on an internal blog so all of the libraries can read about it. She thinks others will start booking classes too. I will keep my fingers crossed.

Another successful experience I had was on Saturday at the Westchase garage sale. I made a nice amount of money in just a few hours. My friend had to leave early to take her kids to soccer, so I stayed and sold some of her items too.

Bust

The coupon class at the JCC was a bust! I had one person show up, whom I happened to know from one of my jobs. We spent a little bit of time catching up on things and then she gave me her email address so I can email her with the information on my next class.

I have been shopping like crazy lately because the deals are great. I have a garage full of items that I am hoping to sell this weekend. I got rained out last weekend. I ended up taking some of the items to my Mom's meeting to sell. I made a little over $100. I cannot wait until this weekend! I have only been shopping one store this week because I don't have room in the van for everything. I even asked my Husband to bring some items up when he brought the kids to visit me. I have also decided to focus more on the flea market and less on the classes. The classes are too uncertain. The time I spent driving too and from the JCC the other night, could have been spent on shopping. I am putting all of the money in the twins' college fund. I know they will appreciate it when they get older!

Epcot

Yesterday we went to Epcot with my family. It was fun. The kids and I went to the flea market on Saturday to let them know that I wouldn't be there on Sunday. I made $40 including the $10 that my friend made me. She asked me to leave 5 bags of cat food with her and she sold all of them before I even got home. So nice! I have a class tomorrow night at my Mom's house. She invited a few of her friends over so I can show them how to get the best deals. I have another class on April 20th at the JCC. The director already put the flyer out to all of the preschool parents and posted it on their website. I am really looking forward to my class in May at the library. I hope that it creates a snowball effect for all of the libraries. I have a feeling that if I am able to get into one of the libraries in Tampa, a lot of my friends will attend.

I shopped Kmart last week for their double coupon event. It was nice, but they only allowed 5 double coupons per day. I think that makes it fair for everyone. I felt like a criminal at Sweetbay on Saturday. I had some $10/$50 coupons that expired yesterday, so I decided to use 2 during their 2 day sale. I bought 2 steaks on sale bogo, 10 boxes of ideal, 15 cans of mighty dog and 1 box of bayer low dose. My total was .78. The manager came over and took my receipt. He told me "I am having a hard time wrapping my head around your balance, can you please show me how you did that?" I said sure. I showed him how I had the $10 coupon, 3 $3 coupons for the Mighty dog, 10 free product coupons for the ideal and a competitor's coupon for the Bayer. He was amazed. Then I did my second checkout. I did it this way because I wanted to keep everything straight. I bought some mighty dog, 2 family size packages of boneless skinless chicken, bayer, bread and bologna. My total was a little over $10. This time another manager came over and bagged my items. She pulled everything out of the bags to make sure they matched the coupons. Then I tried to use a manufacturer's coupon with a competitor's coupon on the same item and she said that I was trying to commit coupon fraud. I politely explained to her that other stores accept store coupons and manuf. coupons together. She said "well, we don't and that is coupon fraud" I am going to email their corporate office just to find out if she was correct. If their answer is different, I will print out the email and keep it with me. I had to do that with Target before with a different coupon issue.

.75 and $2.08

We went to publix the other night on the way to dinner, I had a lot of coupons that were expiring this weekend. We walked into the store and the manager and bag boy greeted us with a huge smile. The manager said he was waiting for me to come in for the huge cereal deal going on this weekend. I introduced my dh to everyone as we walked in the store. The cashier even said she was happy to see us. I picked up a few things including, 6 bottles of fish oil, 2 lysol bathroom cleaners, 1 box of fruit loops, 4 sure deodorants, and a few other things that I can't remember. My total after coupons was .75 (.21 subtotal and .54 tax).

Today I bought 8 bottles of bertolli pasta sauce, 2 lysol bathroom cleaners, 4 sure deodorants, and vitamins. I paid $2.08 including tax.

I also stopped into Super Target this morning and got 3 bottles of kids crest toothpaste and 4 boxes of character band-aids all for free.

I have been doing great at the flea market! I look forward to selling there every weekend. I have started taking requests from my "regulars." This week I have a lot of requests for sundowns.