Friday Finals--Fail!!

Lately, I've been trying to whip my grocery budget into shape and make $50 stretch for each week (normally, I have $75 to play with).  With that in mind, I'm pretty frustrated by my grocery shopping trip yesterday.  It didn't help that I did a veritable marathon of shopping: 3 hours of Martin's and ...Wal-Mart.  I had a deceptively successful trip at Martin's: $13.35 for $38.54 of meal-completers (e.g., taco seasoning, stuffing) that my pantry desperately needed.  I didn't get anything at Martin's that wasn't on sale and/or had a coupon because Wal-Mart's prices are lower than retail prices at the grocery store.  I went to Wal-Mart to pick up some deals with my high-value coupons, but they were all out of everything that I went for (except baby food).  So I got $38.33 of stuff we needed, including decongestant, Gatorade powder, and baby food.  Wal-Mart took more time, energy and cash than I had to give...but, at least it cost less than the grocery store?  I spent a total of $51.68 last night, which is "close enough" to $50 for me, but leaves no cash for newspapers on Sunday.  By the way, if you're thinking about buying newspapers for their coupons, this week is the time to start--there's going to be a meeellion coupons in there. 

Thankfully, last week (i.e., before Wednesday) was better. I went to CVS and got all this stuff:

Here's how I did it:

Transaction #1:

(1) Schick Quattro Trim Style $8.99
(2) Rimmel mascara $4.19 ea.
(1) Rimmel eyeliner $4.49

Used:
-$5/1 Schick Quattro razor or refill
-(3) $1/1 Rimmel cosmetic (manu. q)
-$3/2 Rimmel cosmetic (store q)
-10 ECBs (from last week)

Paid: $2.18 (mostly tax)

Got back: 3 (Rimmel), 4 (Schick) ECBs

Transaction #2:

(1) Renu contact lens solution $8.99
(1) Ajax dish detergent $0.88 (I needed something to cover the $0.01 overage--CVS must be cracking down!)

Used:
-7 ECBs
-$2/1 Renu
-$0.50/1 Ajax (from All You magazine)

Paid: $0.43

Got Back: 7 ECBs (Renu)

So, I ended up paying $2.61 for $40.72 in products, or 94% off!  Yay!!  I really didn't like the trimmer attachment to the razor, though.  I wish I had opted for the free refills, as the Quattro is my favorite razor.  Oh well, I was still excited I got to try it for free!