A Long Day With Lots of Shopping and BIG Savings

The boys and I started early this morning, as we were out of the door before 8 a.m. After dropping of Roshane at school, my husband dropped Sky, baby Emmett and I off at the doctor's office. Emmett Shai had his 8 week appointment, and he needed some shots.

At the doctor's office I was told that the insurance had assigned the baby a doctor at another doctor's office, so I spent much of the time on the phone until I got it sorted out. Fortunately the baby was half a sleep, and Sky was being a great helper.

The baby had grown in the past two weeks, and he now weighs 13+ lbs and grew an inch. He is in the 90th percentile with both weight and height. Last time he was in the 90th percentile with weight and 75th percentile with height, so I am glad that it has evened out.

The baby was not happy about the shots, but as soon as I got to hold him, he was alright although he seemed quite offended that I would let them poke him like that.

After the doctor's office Sky, the baby and I headed to the BK playground, where Sky got to play and get an early lunch. Last week we got stuck at Publix without any lunch, and I was not going to let that happen again.

We then headed to Kohls, which was in the same plaza. I did not really plan on getting anything there, but I wanted to see if they had cut the prize further on a pair of sandals I had my eye on for Sky. Until now he has more or less been wearing Roshane's old shoes, but there are no more hand-me-downs left for him, as Roshane started wearing his shoes out at this point.

We found some awesome deals at Kohls, but I'll have to write a different post about that later.

After Kohls, we were high on the savings, and our winning streak continued. We went next door to Publix for our weekly grocery shopping. Equipped with my carefully planned grocery list, my coupon organizers and two wonderful boys I entered Publix with big goals in mind.

I paid 65 cents per pack...regular price $2.19 each.

Amazingly both boys dozed off. Sky in the shopping cart, and Baby Emmett in the Babybjorn. I was stopped by many admiring shoppers, and quite a few parents with noisy kids in tow. My boys are usually well-behaved, but Sky sure can be noisy at times, because he never stops talking. It was amazing how the quietness made shopping a whole lot easier, and I even got to share a few tips and coupons to make sure some of my fellow shoppers got the best deal possible.

At the checkout line, I realized that my stack of coupons was much bigger than in previous weeks, and when I saw the total reach above $100 I held my breath, and kept my fingers crossed.

I am finally back in the game, and my savings are up where I like them to be. Shopping with three kids over the summer did no do much for my savings, so I am glad to be back at it.

After paying, I thanked the cashier, thanked the bag packer, and I thanked the customer behind me for his patience. His response was that no thank you was necessary, as he just learned something and he was quite impressed with how organized I was and of course with the huge amount of savings.

His kind words made my day, and it just verified my previous observations that my fellow shoppers are more into finding the best deal these days.

I absolutely love Publix for their great customer service, and for their great coupon policies. We do not have double coupons in South Florida, but Publix gets my business every week because they have such courteus employees, and because they very rarely give me any hassle with the coupons and rain checks. I used to run all over town to get the best deals, but the hassle and rudeness I met at Winn Dixie because of shopping with coupons changed my way of shopping.

Now, if you want to see how much I actually saved, and see some of my best deals check out Frugality is Free. (Yes I know this is a bit of a blog teaser:)).

Do you ever encounter rudeness, because you shop with coupons? Do your grocery store encourage your coupon shopping?