Weekend review and week ahead

The 3 day weekend is over. I have 3 more Fridays off and I think it will be hard to go back to full work weeks, but at least every other Friday will only be a half day.  Friday DD and I went to a casino with my mom. Played slot machines and had lunch. I lost $20.......DD won $100! She was a happy camper :)

We got home around 2pm and I still actually had some energy left (thanks to cutting way down on the sugar, is my guess), so then I went and got the weekly grocery shopping done. I had to go to pick up DH's Crestor prescription at Target. The price went up $10......like paying $162 wasn't enough.....I decided to try and see if I could get most of my grocery list at Target, instead of Walmart. Their prices are pretty much similar to Walmart - with the addition of saving 5% with my Red Card. If I'm spending $7000 a year on groceries, personal care, cleaning, pets, etc, why not save an extra 5%?


My Target does have a pretty good sized grocery section, with comparable prices with Walmart on most of the things they do carry. I could get quite a bit of my weekly grocery list there. I can get milk, eggs and all other dairy there. They carry the bread products we eat, soda and chips (of course), condiments and baking supplies. Their meat and produce is limited, but there is some there.

Even if I can only get 3/4 of what I spend annually, at Target, that is a $262 a year savings. Plus several times a year I earn an extra 5% off coupon for getting our prescriptions there. Applying 4 of those a year to a weekly shopping trip would boost my annual savings up to about $285 year - not to mention the cashiers at Target are so much friendlier, and you rarely see all the strange people (some really give me the creeps!) at Target.

Target also offers much more in the way of sales and coupons then Walmart does. There are Target store coupons that can be stacked with manufacturer coupons. There is also Target Cartwheel offers that give an addition % off, on top of coupons. I compared my list to the Cartwheel offers and matched quite a few things, including socks and a couple of polo shirts for DH. All in all I saved an additional $11+ with the Cartwheel offers. I was able to get most of my list, but I decided to get the soda at Walmart, because I knew they will price match (using the Savings Catcher app) at $3 for a 12 pack and also Walmart's bottled water is cheaper.  I will just have to watch Target's sales more closely and stock up.


Saturday morning I made a quick run to Walmart for a small list of things and I was out of there quickly. Yesterday DD and I went to RiteAid, where I used a buy one get one free coupon for deodorant, along with earning 200 Plenti points. I paid with my 350 Plenti points earned from previous purchase and only had to pay .65 cents for tax. Then we walked next door to the Goodwill and found a soccer ball for our playful dog for $2. He had pretty much demolished his old ball and there was no sense in paying full price for a ball, when he just ends up popping it and tearing it up.

Coming up for the week? Well, tomorrow afternoon the county councilman would like DH to speak (he gets 3 minutes) at their council meeting about our neighborhood drug problem. I'm glad he's got the opportunity, but I hate the thought of having to drive downtown in the afternoon. It's seriously one of my least favorite things to do.  The councilman said he is going to propose a $100,000 to the sheriff's budget so they can do a "sting operation". We have tried to get our good neighbor to also come to the meeting, but of course he's has excuses. I've about had it with him. He just wants DH to do all the work in fixing this problem.

DH had another talk with our neighbor who rents to these druggies. He says that the oldest one isn't supposed to be there anymore (DH assured him that he is there) and that the younger son is supposed to be leaving to live somewhere else on the 23rd. I guess we'll see if that happens and see if it makes any difference in what goes on. The cops were in probably at least 3 times last week, so much more presence then the past couple of months. But you know what? It makes absolutely no difference to these people! As soon as the cops leave, they just start right back up. It's unbelievable.