Super Double Coupon Day!

Today was a very busy day. We had to get up early early and get out of the house by 7:30 for my appointment at the health department. Not being insured definitely sucks. I had to wait a month for this appointment, where I filled out a questionnaire and gave a urine sample and made another appointment, again for a month from now, though I can pray for cancellations. If that appointment in a month goes well, I will get another appointment to actually see a health care provider, woo-hoo! I can hardly wait.


There was no time to go home after the clinic, because M had to go straight to class. Robert and I dropped him off, then noodled around in Cincinnati for a couple of hours, so as not to drive all the way home and back again. I have a bag packed up for the food bank, so I went to church to drop it off, but it was closed and locked. I even tried the parsonage, but the pastor was not in. Oh well, I can always drop it off on Sunday. Filling the bag made room in my storage boxes, and it makes me feel good, too. Part of me thinks it might feel kind of odd to be in a shelter and getting this fancy shampoo and conditioner, but maybe it'll make someone happy. I have decided that in the future I will definitely buy less conditioner and more shampoo. I use conditioner all the time, but shampoo is totally more useful. After the church, we went to McDonalds and I used my last free frappe coupon while Robert allowed people to coo at him for awhile. I nursed him in the car in the parking garage, and we were ready to face the rest of our day.

When M was done going to class it was time for him to teach a class. We headed back into Kentucky to his other school, where he showed Robert off to his faculty friends and to his class. I sat in his office with Robert while he was actually teaching, and ended up turning off the top light so the baby could catch a nap. He was fussy. When that was all done, we headed home, Robert ate again, and then it was time for SUPER DOUBLE COUPON DAY!!!

I have been very excited about Super Double Coupon Day at Remke. This weekend, Remke is having an event where they double coupons up to 2.00, rather than just 1.00 as is the norm at doubling stores. So if you have a coupon worth one dollar, it's suddenly worth 2, which is huge. Remke is a small local chain, so nobody does price matching online and I was on my own, so I printed off many one dollar coupons that I thought might net free or cheap product, and Robert and I did some serious shopping legwork. And we did well for ourselves! One thing to remember is that Remke is not a cheap store, not at all. You don't see stores with competitive prices doing super doublers. The only stores I've ever seen do it at all are Remke and K-Mart, which is a store that combines the dirty hopelessness of an off-brand dollar store with the upscale prices of an affluent department store and the surly customer service of the Soviet Union. Remke is a far more pleasant place than that, but its prices are super-high for groceries in this area.

Even with effectively two dollars off coupons, quite a few things remained out of the price range I was willing to pay, but I got some great deals. I wound up spending fifteen dollars on what would've been a 45 dollar purchase after Remke's sales, before my coupons. Tack on another 20 for shopping the sales, and I paid fifteen for what would've been closer to 70 if I'd gone in there with no sales and no coupons, so I'm pretty happy. The best part, I think, about the super doubler is that it let me indulge in a few premium items I normally couldn't get even with coupons. I got a box of Peppridge Farm cookies, which I love, some Buitoni tortellini, and two packs of King's Hawaiian rolls, which I also love, but which are normally so expensive I can only buy them for parties. We used the rolls tonight on the slow cooker barbecue chicken I made of the cheap chicken quarters from Kroger, and it was amazing. Love it! Robert was a very good shopping buddy. I usually let him "hold" the coupons by setting them in the carrier while I push the cart, but today he surprised me by actually grabbing them and waving them around. I almost couldn't get them back. =) He's getting really good at this whole "having hands" thing!



Oh, and as promised, pictures of my coupon binder! As you can see, I really haven't done any wholesale clipping, I've just put the whole insert into the page protector and secured the top with a paper clip. My coupon-matching websites tell me which insert to look in for the coupons I need, and if I see a sale and want to coupon-match myself, I can always use the Taylortown Preview, a website that lists all the coupons in every insert. I would like to think of something clever to do for a cover, as right now I just have the generic "This is a binder" cover on it, and that's boring. I know a few people read this regularly now, so if anyone has any ideas, let me know!