The Friday Haul!

2 July 2010 2,737 views 10 Comments

It has been a while since I have done a Friday Haul post. Garage sales have been out there, but the weather has been really cruddy. In times like these, I have to ask myself if it is really worth it to drag two little boys around to the garage sales. Today, I took a chance, and it paid off!

First of all, I confess that I broke my $5 Garage Sale Budget rule. See, I usually only allot myself $5 (out of Kelleigh’s Fun Money envelope) to spend at garage sales. My thought is that if it costs more than $5, then it is probably not that great of a deal. Of course, there are certainly exceptions to that rule. However, I don’t really NEED the stuff that I buy at garage sales. I think of it as another hobby.

Today, I hit the jackpot, and it was actually stuff that we NEEDED!!

My score:

Yes!! You are looking at 5 pairs of little boy size 8 jeans, in wonderful condition, for only $7. There are no stains and no holes. All have adjustable waists, and they all FIT my child! Of course, I did have to adjust the waist quite a bit, but they look awesome on him! Wahooooo! Seriously. This is a major score. And, they are THICK, too! I won’t have to patch them up for quite a while!

The frames match some frames that I picked up last summer. I spray painted the other frames, and now I have a set of 4! Perhaps it is time to do some silhouettes of the family.

Of course, the boys wanted to show off their scores, too. FREE from the “please take this stuff because I’m going insane stepping on tiny, worthless toys that my kids got out of their Happy Meal” boxes. Gee. Thanks.

And then, we took a little detour to Rite Aid.

That’s right!! I forked over 96¢ for all of this loot. How? Well, remember when I bought some diapers for my friend? (I tend to do that a lot!!) Well, that little transaction netted me a $10 gift card (and then some!). AND, on Sunday I bought some John Frieda shampoo (following this scenario at Frugal Living NW), paid $2 OOP, and earned $10 in Up+ rewards.

• The Carefree Liners (enough for the next century - since I also got some on Sunday!) were totally free (see the linked scenario).
• The Quilted Northern was $6.49 a pack. (Totally NOT a stock-up price, by the way. We were simply desperate for TP.)

I bought 4 packs of TP
4 packs of liners (BOGO sale, BOGO coupons)
Used $5/25 coupon (linked on the scenario)
Used $10 Up+ rewards
Used $10 Gift Card
Paid 96¢ Out Of Pocket.

Nice.

Then, we went next door to Safeway to get some more cheap Tillamook Cheese. The cheese is normally about $8.99 a loaf, but Safeway often has it for $5.99. Every three months or so, Safeway either marks it down to $3.99, or has a coupon that makes it $3.99. In any case, Oregonians know that when Tillamook (the cheese God serves at his banquet table) is on sale for $3.99, it is time to stock up for the next 3 months.

Pair the $3.99 Safeway coupon with the $1/1 Manufacturers Coupon that showed up in the Dairy Coupon Book (found at Safeway last month) and use the Safeway doubler (in Oregon and SW Washington) for another 50¢ off, and the cheese ends up being only $2.49 a loaf!! Good grief! That is an insane stock-up price. If ONLY my envelope contained more than $50 for the week!! (Chicken breasts and whole wheat bread were on stock-up price sale, too!)

Anyway. I shopped on Wednesday. HUGE trip with lots of chicken and bread. They were out of cheese.

I shopped on Thursday (with children. Torture.). I bought 3 loafs of cheese and some BBQ sauce and paid about $5. (Used a Catalina and coupons that made the BBQ sauce free!)

I shopped today (with the boys. Argh.). I bought this:

I’ve been stocking up on free BBQ sauce the last couple of weeks.

I’m sure I’ll go back for more, since I hope to not have to buy it until next summer.

I stocked up on free salad dressing the last couple of weeks, too. (Gave a bunch of it away since I was running out of room!)

If you are new here, you may be asking me, “Why do you have SO MUCH dressing and BBQ sauce?” Well, the idea is to stock up on the items I need when I can get them for rock-bottom prices (or free) using coupons and sales so that I won’t have to buy them for full price when I run out. (And, since I’m not paying for this stuff, I can use the money I have saved to buy produce, meat and dairy.)

Take syrup, for example. We needed pancake syrup this week. I forked over $3.99 for pancake syrup and just about died!! (Yes, I know I can make it myself, but I’m not feeling granola this week.) If I had stocked up on syrup when it was at rock-bottom prices, then I wouldn’t have had to pay full price when I needed it. Argh. Lesson learned.

So, how about you? Any Friday Hauls out there? Link us up in the comments!!

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10 Comments »

Shelly @ Coupon Teacher said:

Wow! I am impressed. I can never find anything that good at yard sales, but then again I don’t have kids!

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# 2 July 2010 at 11:31 am

Heather T. said:

Ooooh, I’m envious on the jeans score! Awesome find!

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# 2 July 2010 at 11:46 am

Crystal said:

Oh boy do I know how awesome of a score that is! I haven’t done as well about stocking up during clearance sales as I once did, and now I’m starting to keep an eye out for boys’ pants at a steal. It’s so much harder it seems once you leave the toddler department.

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# 2 July 2010 at 12:02 pm

Susan said:

I have been twice! I got 6 free BBQ sauces and 6 chesse blocks. I only paid for the cheese($2.49 ea) I might go back tonigh w/o kids.

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# 2 July 2010 at 12:09 pm

Krista S. said:

I did a dairy run to the Safeway out in Damascus last night (doesn’t have as much foot traffic as my Clackamas Safeway so I often find those 50% off stickers on dairy products that I stack with manufacture coupons and doubles). I paid $12 for - 8 yoplait yogurts, 6 daninino yogurt 6-packs, 2 lactaid free cottage cheese, 2 sour cream, 3 bricks of Tillamook cheese, and 3 Jack Daniels bbq sauce (now up to 17 bottles of free bbq sauce over the last three weeks!). I drove home with the biggest grin on my face and my kids were super excited about all the “free” yogurt I came home with. I like to put popsicle sticks in the daninino yogurts, throw them in the freezer and have instant yogurt pops! I love looking at other people’s great deals and pics - very fun : )

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Kelleigh Reply:
July 2nd, 2010 at 2:20 pm

Wow, Krista!! Amazing score!! I wish our store had more yogurt markdowns. We had some GoGurt moneymaker markdowns this weekend, and my kids are loving it! It just doesn’t happen as often as I’d like. Oh, and I love looking at other people’s scores, too!! Guilty pleasure!!

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# 2 July 2010 at 1:42 pm

Kellie said:

I’ve had a busy week so I only had time to make it to Safeway once (yesterday) and they were down to only two bricks of cheese. I scooped them up and bought 4 bottles of bbq sauce for about $5. I also picked up a Crocodile Creek backpack from the clearance shelf I’ve been eyeballing for awhile. They retail for $30 and they had it for $12.50 which is a pretty good buy. I’m thinking Gracie is getting a new school backpack for her birthday!

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# 7 July 2010 at 5:50 pm

Karen said:

That jeans score is SUCH a SCORE!! All five of those pairs are cheaper than one cheap pair at Target or Old Navy! :> I wish I could figure out how to have a MUCH (much, much, much, much, MUCH) lower food bill without having to make everything from scratch (I have a kidlet with severe food sensitivities…no gluten, caseien (protein in dairy), soy, nitrates, nitrites, msg, preservatives, dyes, etc.). But, I do love posts like these as I know that I’m able to occasionally able to apply something in a way that works for us! :> In this case, its a reminder to get back out and hit some yard sales!! We’ve made fantastic finds in the past (including a great working telescope for that magical $5! and a chair that we love for $1) in this area and need to get back out there since it is indeed, yard sale season! Wishing you another great haul and some fabulous salads for your dressing! :>

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# 7 July 2010 at 9:11 pm

Gina said:

So sad that we don’t have Safeway in Arkansas any more. And we don’t have CVS either. I need to work CVS deals when we go to my in-laws in TN. LOL What a great jeans haul!!! And I was totally LOLing at your statement about how you’re “not feeling granola” - for some reason that caught me as hilarious.

BTW, I can’t remember if I told you - I shared a link to the black-bean chicken enchilada casserole with my family and my Care Group @ church. Everyone who has made it has loved it. The wife of adult ministries pastor said it has become a staple in their house. One week, she doubled it and “rolled” the enchiladas - then did them like the “brown bag burritos” from FishMama (wrap in paper towel then in foil and freeze). She said they were *great* that way, too, and easy to pull out of the freezer for lunch for her kids.

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# 8 July 2010 at 3:30 pm

The Friday Five: My Rambling Thoughts | Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs said:

[...] consists of counting up the number of pairs of jeans our boys have and then running out to some garage sales to pick up more for them to grow into during the school year (for $1 or less). I might patch up [...]

# 19 August 2011 at 7:23 am