My Friday pick-me-up

I had $6 in catalinas from the Jello deal that were expiring so I had to make an impromptu run to Meijer today. I also had that 2.00/3 Meijer Organics cat that I planned to use on some broth and ketchup. Well, they were out of broth (grrr) so I had to improvise. Here's what I ended up with for less than $3 out of pocket:

Enfamil formula (used 5.00 formula check)- 1.09
Canned tomatoes- clearanced to .78
Organic ketchup
Cornbread mix
2 organic yogurt
2 Green Giant frozen spinach (on sale for $1; used .50/2 to get each for .50)
Package of 2 ready-to-bake cinnamon raisin bread- clearanced to 2.15

After coupons and catalinas I spent about 2.50. Savings was about $13.

(PS: I just realized the cornbread mix is called Miracle Maize. Let's just hope our Maize and Blue can pull out a miracle tomorrow. Sheesh.)

Then I hit up CVS to make some money for the Black Friday deals.

(2) Crest ProHealth Whitening toothpaste @ 3.49 each
-used (2) 1.00/1 coupons
(1) Always Infinity @ 4.99
-used 2.00/1 mfr. coupon and 2.00/1 CVS coupon from card-scanner-machine-thing
(1) Dermarest Eczema cream, 2 oz. @ 3.75
-used 1.00/1 peelie on package
(1) Hershey bar (not pictured because I ate it.)

Here's where I got brave. The Dermarest is a monthly ECB deal. Buy one, get 2 ECBs. I noticed that the 2 oz. package wasn't pictured in the November ECB booklet but since it was on clearance for 3.75 and had a 1.00 coupon on the product I figured I'd risk it since I needed a filler to get me to $15. Used a $3/$15, all my coupons and paid with 6 ECBs and some change. I got back 9.98 in ECBs... so the 2 oz. Dermarest is in fact giving ECBs! Woo hoo! Almost a $4 profit overall.

Tonight I did a post-bedtime Target run and found the perfect deal since we were running very low on coffee. Target has a special on Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Buy 3 bags @ 5.99 each and get back a $5 Target gift card. You can also use (3) 1.00/1 coupons from the paper (was it last week?) to basically pay 3.33 a bag when you figure in the gift card. I know it's not exactly gourmet but my only requirement for coffee these days is that it has caffeine, and lots of it.

After loading up with coffee I found a soccer ball on clearance for $6, had my awesome cashier do two transactions and used my gift card to buy my little guy a super-sweet soccer ball for Christmas for a dollar out of pocket.