Frugal Friday: good savings, bad savings

Happy frugal Friday! I’m leaving on yet another road trip today. But not going to the beach or anywhere near the ocean–going the opposite way to Indianapolis and then Chicago. This time it’s only a nine hour trip so hopefully i t won’t feel as long as the Florida drive and once again I will have my trusted co-pilot by my side.

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The wonderful Tonya was over the other day and did a mini photo shoot for Lincoln. I just love her work so much and Lincoln was quite well behaved. He usually barks at strangers but fell instantly for Tonya due to the belly rubs and baby talk. But back to my point, Lincoln and I will be going on yet another roadtrip to see my sister then detouring in Chicago for a few days. I can’t wait to get to Chicago!!

The week has been chock full of savings, some I am happy about and some not so much. Yeah, you read right, I am unhappy with some of my savings. But we will get into that later.

The Good Savings

First was when I got back to Charlotte last week. I came home to a ton of mail and while going though the boring stuff saw this beauty of a return address!

Skinny Cow actually sent me coupons—hooray! But they are tricky cows. I wrote them a few weeks back telling them how much I love their products. Their stuff is expensive and I can’t afford it every single week when I need a fix so I just straight up asked for coupons. It can’t hurt to ask right? They emailed me back thanking me for the comments but said they don’t send out coupons so seeing this was a BIG surprise.

If you read yesterday’s post, you saw I am not a brunette. It’s been awhile since I’ve had dark hair and upkeep for highlights are so expensive. And I don’t like looking like white trash with my three inch roots so going back to my natural color seemed to be the best decision for me-financially and appearance-wise. In an effort to save even more money, I skipped going to my regular hairdresser instead and decided to go to the Aveda Institute for a cut and do my own color

But then I asked myself: “What is my natural hair color?” I’ve been coloring it for so long I can’t remember the last time when my hair was au natural. I went to Target to check out their selection of colors and saw this tool in the hair dye section.

Perfect! Just what I was looking for. I entered in my information and it gave me a few different colors and type of dye to choose from. With the recommendation of the find your color machine, I went with Pure Darkest Brown by L’Oreal Sublime Mousse.

I went through my coupons and saw that I had $3 off –yes!

It was on sale for $8.99 so I got a box for $5.99—pretty good deal if you ask me!  I got my hair cut on Wednesday for only $15. It took about an hour and a half since the student had to get things checked off by the instructor. For $15, I am happy with the cut……except the bangs. I told her I wanted longer side swept bangs but they ended up too short and have been pulling them back instead.

So I now have brown hair and bangs, quite a big change for my hair in one day. But I will rock it! The best part was that it usually costs me $100 every three months to get my hair done but by going to the Aveda Institute and doing my own color, it only cost $26. Yeah, I can roll with that.

I found this coupon for a free strawberry-lemonade from McDonalds in the paper a few weeks ago.

So when I looked at the temperature and it was 80 something degrees out by 10am yesterday, it was definitely time to redeem.

So how was it? Very tasty! It was refreshing and sweet but I think I would’ve liked it better if it was over ice instead of slushie form.

I found this purse at Salvation Army for $3.99 on Wednesday. I know, I know, I am moving and do not need to buy any more crap but it was too cute to pass up.

The Bad Savings

I was happy to go food shopping since this week was triple coupons at Harris Teeter. Triple coupons only happen a few times a year and it’s just a magical time for me since I try to save even more than I normally do! I went to Our Coupon Home to check out what items were on sale, what coupons are out there for those products to see what items I could get for cheap or free. After going through their site and my coupons, I put a list together of items that were either going to be cheap or under $2

I went to Harris Teeter on Sunday morning with my list, my coupons and my hunger for savings. And a majority of items I was hoping to get, were all gone. I would look for one item and nothing. Go to the next and nothing. People already cleaned everything out! I did find some items on my list that were under $2 though

The total?

$10.14. Meh. I know it could have been a lot more but when I got a crapload of stuff for $15.12 earlier this month, it annoys me that I didn’t get that much when the coupons were being tripled this time around. So I did some more research and went back to Harris Teeter early on Monday morning to see if I would have any luck at a different location.

Not so much. I only found four items on my list of 10+ items and got a six inch turkey sub from their deli.

They have a program where for every 15 six inch subs you buy, you get a foot long free. This was my 15th sub so I now have a foot long coming at me soon (that’s what she said??) But on the flip side, Harris Teeter has raised their prices for the six inch subs yet again and now they are $3.49. Boo.

The total of $7.52 this time around made me feel a little better so really I got the four items for only $4.03 so about a buck apiece. Not too shabby.

Do you cut or color your own hair?

Do you ever get bummed out about not saving as much as you wanted to as the grocery store? I thought I would get more items both times around but was sorely mistaken.