My 20 dollar challenge!

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Last night, after we filled up the truck with gas, I realized that I was down to only a 20 dollar bill in my wallet. I knew that I had to food shop the next day, and I didn’t feel like taking out more money at the ATM, so I decided to give myself a challenge for the day. Get as much as I can at all of my stores for no more than 20 dollars.  I knew that I could do the challenge, but I was interested in seeing what kind of transactions I’d come up with. Above, you can see everything I got!  Total in the end? 18.20!! I actually had change!

I started off at Stop and Shop where I had a raincheck for butterball turkey bacon at 1.00 each.  I had 4 .55/1 coupons, which, doubled up to 1.00, and gave me 4 FREE packs of turkey bacon. Score!

Next, I went to Acme and did 2 wonderful transactions. They are having a great catalina sale right now where you buy 30 dollars of certain grocery items, and get 15.00 back.  The best part is that it’s based on shelf or “knock down” prices and not the actual sale price.  I had already done a transaction on friday, so I had 15.00 in catalinas to “roll” into these trips today. Total for the first transaction? 2.02! Total for the second transaction? 1.19!!  I ended up getting 6 rolls of paper towels, cottonelle moist wipes, 16 cans of veggies, 3 boxes of kleenex, 2 bags of chocolate turtle chex mix(yum!) and 4 boxes of cheerios.  I still had a 5.00 catalina left and then on top of that, got 15 more dollars in catalinas. I also learned from one of the cashiers that they sales the week before Thanksgiving are going to be pretty awesome, so I’ll be able to really get my “catalina’s worth” during that week.

Next, I went to walgreens where there is a great freebie of ocean spray 100% cranberry juice. You use the peelie right on the bottle, then use the 1.00 off coupon in the monthly coupon booklet, and get the 1.99 bottle for free!  Unfortunately, it didn’t come out to free for me. The store coupon only toof off 2 dollars instead of 3, so I had to pay .97 for all 3 bottles that I got. But, paying .32 each for 100% juice is more than fine by me.

Lastly, I went to Shop Rite. I have all the Shop Rite deals for this week posted here, but I didn’t cash in on all of them.  I decided to stick with the few things that I either needed or I knew would run out by the time I could get back to the store.  There is also a great catalina deal on Con agra products this week, so I took advantage of that one too. I got 2 frozen pizzas, 3 bags of frozen veggies, 1 load of bread, 1 bag of flour, 4 boxes of carolina rice, 10 cans of hunt’s tomato sauce, 1 FREE roll of marcal TP, 1 pint of haagen daz, 1 large perdue oven roaster, and 4 FREE packs of rayovac batteries. Total OOP? 14.02!  I also got back a 3.00 catalina for buying 10 of the hunt’s sauce.

I love doing little challenges like this. Sometimes, when you are so frugal and you know what items you need for the week and what you can do without, you get into a shopping rut.  This made me use my brain a bit more, and made shopping, a definite chore, something to enjoy just a bit. We all need a little excitement in our life sometime!