I'm a Thrifty Gal . . .

I am a thrifty gal.

And, it's a good thing that I am. As a stay at home mom, whose husband is a teacher, I have to make paychecks stretch quite often.

Very, very often.

I have actually become quite good at stretching my family's dollar. I buy foods in bulk and then come home and separate them for future use. I clip coupons, and I watch for sales. My husband jokes about the mess that I make of the Sunday morning paper as I cut it up and then align the coupons with the week's sales circulars. But, he doesn't joke when he sees what my thrifty work provides.

Case in point . . .

This week, I scanned the sales flyers, and then I perused my coupons. It was a golden week. My coupons lined up with the sales at the CVS drugstore. So, I purchased:

2 Suave Shampoos

2 Suave kids shampoos

2 Suave bodywashes

2 Head and Shoulders Shampoos

1 deodorant

1 Gillette Pro Fusion razor with cartridges

1 box Multigrain Cheerios

1 box Chocolate Cheerios

1 box Kellogg's brown sugar poptarts

1 box Kellogg's smores poptarts

1 pair of kid's school scissors

1 10 pack of ball point pens

2 cans of Folger's coffee

That is 18 items. (28 if you count the pens individually, but really, why would you?) If I had used the suggested values for each of the above items, I would have spent approximately $53.95.

Yikes!

My cost . . . $21.12 for all of the above.

SCORE!

Now, do I really need 6 different shampoos in the near future? Not likely. Do I really need 2 cans of coffee tomorrow morning? No. (But there are days when it feels like a yes.) The point is, if I can catch them on sale now, and stock up, then in the long run it saves me some serious cash.

Cash that I can use to support my shoe habit.

After all, a girl has to have her priorities.