Happy New Year & Happy Savings!

Happy New Year from our family to yours!!!  2010 was an amazing year and we're excited to see what 2011 has in store for us. 

We had a low key evening for New Year's Eve this year.  I ran some errands until early evening and then we went to dinner with our friend Dixon and came back to our place to play games and watch a movie/tv.  We ended up playing RockBand - which was HILARIOUS!  Dixon and Ryan jammed out on the drums/guitar and I was stuck with vocals, because no one else would do it.  My do-do-do's got me through not knowing a lot of the lyrics and by the end of the game, we were doing much better than when we started. 

Earlier this week, we returned from spending 2 weeks with our family (okay, 9 days, but with travel time, we were away for 13 days!) back in Iowa and had a great time.  Hoping to have my mom and sister email me some pictures so I can do a better recap of our time home.  I hardly took any pictures.  Once we were back home in PA, I was on a cooking spree.  Anything fresh, healthy and homemade sounded good to me.  I'm not kidding when I say after 11 hours on the road our final day of driving - I came home and made a pork tenderloin dinner.  It was delicious!  (Blog posts of recent recipes coming soon).

So far for the new year, I've managed to do some organization and check off some of the things I wanted to tackle around the house.  "Some" might be an exaggeration... it's more like a smidge.  This weekend was all about relaxation and couponing!  I started the new year off with a bang as far as the savings go.  My pictures of proof are below.

Here's the rundown:
Shopping Trip #1 (Rite Aid/CVS/Target)
8 roll pack of bounty paper towels, 3 bottles of Pantene shampoo, 1 Gillette Fusion Pro Glide Razor, 1 pk. 24 ct. DayQuil tablets, 1 box of Clairol root touch up, 2 packs of pilot easy touch pens, 2 old spice deodorants, 1 old spice body wash, 1 tone body wash, 2 Gillette deodorants, and Not Pictured: Tide Laundry Detergent.

All for $15.47

I kept track of what it all would have been retail, and that grand total would have been $98.71.  That means I saved 84.4% off of the retail price!!!  Want the proof?  Target receipt not pictured, but that was 3.28 total.

Shopping Trip #2 (Rite Aid/CVS) 
6 boxes of Kashi Go Lean (awesome for WLS protein goals - just make sure to watch the sugar), 2 wet ones, 2 Revlon nail clippers, 3 packs of extra sugar free delights gum (comes in 3 flavors - highly recommended for wls people watching sugar!), 2 packs of quilted northern toilet paper and 8 boxes of Aquafresh toothpaste...

 All for 17 cents 

Don't believe me?  Yeah, I wouldn't either if I wasn't at the cash register paying with pennies!  Receipt proof is below =)  The cashier told Ryan that he should appreciate how I shop ~ he does ;)

I added up what everything would have been retail and it was $88.07 before tax.  That means I saved something insane like 99.8%. 

Overall from the 2 shopping trips: Retail $186.78 / I paid $15.64. 

So on that note, did anyone see the crazy couponing show on TLC this past Wednesday?  If you did, and you just finished reading the paragraph above... you might now be concerned about me and how far I'll take this.  Because let's face it, I usually don't do something unless I do it to the 10th degree.  However, I have promised my husband that I will only buy what we can use and need within a reasonable time and because of my WLS, I really can't stock up on food like those people did.  The only person on that show that I felt did it "right" was the lady from Philly.  For more information, visit here.  And remember, that will NEVER be me!

I'm 3 days away from my 1 year surgiversary on January 5th... yippee!  Looking forward to posting before and after pics.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE :)