The $50 School Supplies Challenge!

The bargain shopper is back! This summer I wanted to challenge myself to get as many school supplies as I could for $50. I will be giving these to Children of the Nations to support the education of orphaned and destitute children in Africa and the Dominican Republic. While I was volunteering there I heard about some teachers who brought pencils to the children in Malawi. Upon receiving them, the children immediately broke them in half! The reason? Now they had two pencils instead of just one. I hope to encourage that same spirit of resourcefulness and love for education.

I have to say, I love finding a great deal and stretching dollars as far as possible. It's fun! I think I could have gotten even more for $50, but having Chad makes shopping a little more time consuming so I limited myself to shopping at 3 stores (Staples, Walgreens and Walmart.)

Some of the highlights of what I got:
20 one subject notebooks for $0.15 each at Walmart
25 composition books for $0.50 each at Walmart
60 pens for $1.14 at Walgreens

60 pencils for $1.74 at Walgreens

Almost every item I bought was $1 or less!

Aimee's Bargain Shopping Adventures, part 2

Ooh, my second post about bargain shopping. I know you are so excited to read this, so I'll keep it brief.

Proud Moment #1- My trip to Walgreens to redeem my $20 in Register Rewards (which are spent like cash in the store). I calculated so I would spend very little out of pocket on this trip. The total came to $20.75. So I owed 75 cents and paid with a dollar coin. The manager looked at me and said, "I've never had anyone pay for their purchase with just one coin before."

Proud Moment #2- My recent trip to the commissary (military grocery store). When ringing up my purchases the cashier complimented me on what good coupons I had. (I had 4 coupons totaling $4.50 in savings.)

I'm looking forward to more proud frugal moments in the future.

Aimee's Bargain Shopping Adventures, part 1

I recently became interested in bargain shopping... and I wanted to share some of my excitement over a recent trip. Through finding the Money Saving Mom blog, I learned about how you can get great deals and items for free after rebate at Walgreens.

This week I found out about a deal where you purchase 9 Proctor & Gamble items and receive $20 in Register Rewards (which you can use like cash on your next purchase.) So, I purchased 9 items totaling about $24 after coupons- and got the $20 Register Rewards.

This is basically the equivalent of purchasing $44 worth of stuff for $24! I have to say, it made my day! The other picture is of 3 of the items I got for free after rebate this month. :)

Plus, Joe and I won a $20 gas gift card today just for filling out a survey about the Navy housing we live in. So Monday was a good day for saving money!