Another Kentucky Valley Sunday

I'm going to try and keep this short, because the evening got away from me and it's already midnight. Gack! Robert was really good today in church, I packed him a big bottle and between that, his paci, and the before-church nap, he made it almost all the way through the sermon before we had to walk him around a little. After church, the coffee-time snack was cake, and he put his hand right in the middle of my cake and got frosting everywhere. Gotta watch those teeny hands every minute! Luckily, M happened to be right there with a napkin and saved the day.

In the afternoon, I spent about an hour doing coupon reconnaissance, getting ready for my Walgreens trip. It usually doesn't take nearly so long, but there are a ton of sales there this week, and I wanted to take full advantage while spending as little money as possible. I don't have much budget left for the month! Walgreens has a complicated set of couponing rules that you have to know in order to be really successful there. I swear, if I taught a life skills class in high school, Walgreens would totally be the final exam. It'd hone the math skills, too. I finally took off with Robert, who had been  fussy and needed a car ride and some cart time so he could get a nice nap. We ended up going to three Walgreens before we found everything we needed, but it was worth it. In my three transactions, I spent 8.23, and received 98.60 worth of stuff, a 91.65% savings rate. (Incidentally, it also pushed me back over 75% this month!)

 I got a box of Purex 3-in-1 laundry sheets, two packs of maxi pads, four toothbrushes, two boxes of dental floss, two bags of dental floss picks, two bottles of body wash, two bottles of shave gel, two boxes of Sudafed Sinus, an electric eyebrow trimmer, two candy bars a package of packing tape, three copies of the Sunday newspaper, and a bottle of weird orange pop. (I needed a filler item!) For those of you playing along at home, if I had been paying regular price, just the roll of packing tape and the three newspapers would've cost just a bit more than my out of pocket cost for the whole trip. Couponing is your friend! Some of the stuff went straight into the bag for the food pantry, but some of it, especially the laundry sheets, I am very happy to have for myself.

For supper, I dipped into the food I couponed last month and made chili tamale pie with two cans of firehouse chili and two packages of corn muffin mix. It was very easy, pour the chili in a baking dish, mix up the muffins and pour them on top, cook at 400 for 25 minutes, then melt some Mexican shredded cheese over the top. Yum! For dessert, I made some cookie bars from a mix I got for free. We've got lots of leftovers for tomorrow lunch, too. And that's good, because Monday is always such a grind. I'd better get some sleep!