A coupon coup

However hard you work on your various projects, it is tough to top the satisfaction you can get from a plain old trip to CVS, you know?

The other day I went to get allergy stuff I needed but detoured to the hair care aisle where I was able to land L'Oreal at, I don't know, 50 cents a bottle. I like L'Oreal so that was a nice score for me. L'Oreal's coupons are generous, plus the Magic Coupon Machine had spat out a coupon for $3 off if you spent $10 on L'Oreal.

Ain't too proud to clip coupons!

It is funny how when you bother to cut the coupons out of your Sunday paper, the more expensive brands suddenly become the cheapest.

Anyway ... satisfaction to start out the work week. And more money to spend for vintage press portraits of Leonard Pennario.

I am about those pictures the way I am about shampoo. You would think I have enough.

But I cannot pass up just a few more!

The pick of the litter

My friend Michelle got to meet our cat. Above is a picture I took of them together.

It is a most relaxing sight for a Monday! Would that we could live like this every day, playing with cats and constructing toys with yarn and feathers.

The cat and I are getting into a schedule during the times when I am home with him. There are times when he is following you everywhere and you are tripping over him. But there are other times when he naps or plays on his own for hours and that is when I can do the Pennario thing.

Still a few thing are not worked out such as how to pay less for kitty litter.

I already have a coupon envelope for cat stuff and it has some pretty good discounts on food and stuff. But this kitty litter is like toilet paper. The price is frustrating. It should not be $6 for 21 pounds which was about what I have been paying at Wegmans. I stopped at Big Lots over the weekend and I may have beaten that price. But not by much. We are talking about $7 for 28 pounds. Still nothing to gloat over.

I want to pay, oh, $1 or $2, for that 28 pounds of cat litter. Any ideas? 

Anyone know how you can get dirt dirt cheap?

The ExtraBuck stops here

CVS has my undying allegiance because today they let me use my ExtraBucks that had expired 10 days ago.

That is how busy I was with Leonard Pennario. I let my ExtraBucks expire!

The neighborhood CVS is always so nice to me for which I am grateful. This is the CVS known as the Spectrum Building because as our friend Ryan has pointed out, the building is where a bar once was that was called the Spectrum. On CVS documents they call it the Spectrum Building.

While I was in the Spectrum Building today I took the picture above of the spring line of Candle-Lite Candles. They are just so beautiful! Only I cannot see paying full price for them. $15.79 is just too much. We will have to wait to see what can be arranged.

With which, today the CVS staffers and I discussed their store's remodeling. Everything in the store is going to be rearranged. I would not have remembered any of that had not Howard asked.

He said, "What's going on in there? Are they remodeling?"

And I said, "Why, yes." Later I thought to ask him how he knew. He said, "They rolled in a couple of metal storage containers and I was wondering what they were for and since then I noticed they were unloading tons of stuff so I figured something was going on."

No secrets in Buffalo!

Today was a two-fer for expired coupons. My friend Michelle and I ate in Cafe 59 which used to be Madonna's and they let me use my Buffalo Dining Deck card for Madonna's even though the name is different now. The same people own both places but still it was nice of them. Michelle negotiated that and her success inspired me to ask CVS if I could use my expired ExtraBucks.

The moral of the story: Hang on to your coupons and ExtraBucks!

Even when they expire!

Double your pleasure

What a week for news! Osama bin Laden captured, Prince William married ... and Tops doubling coupons up to $1!

This last event is especially newsworthy in Buffalo. Last night my mother and I were discussing its ramifications. I have recently fallen beneath the wheel as far as coupons go. It is hard to be a coupon expert and write the authorized biography of Leonard Pennario, both at the same time. So I have begun clipping my coupons at my mom's house, just idly, while we talk. I dump the circulars into an Albrecht Discount bag...

... and then I cut them and sort them.

Last night after Pilates class that is what I was doing. And my mom was mentioning that my sister Katie would be coming one day this week and they were planning to go together to the spanking new Tops. I may have mentioned this Tops before. We are all preoccupied with it.

I said, "You should tell Katie they are doubling coupons this week."

Katie lives life in a vacuum. A couple of weeks ago she had no idea who Prince William is or that he was getting married.

My mom said, "I don't know if she has any coupons. She doesn't get the newspaper."

Not getting the paper does put you at a disadvantage when it comes to coupons, not to mention you do not get to read my deathless prose.

Right about then the phone rang and it was Katie. My mom excitedly told her about the coupon doubling.

"Do you have any coupons?" she asked.

Katie said, "I have one."

One coupon???

Who has only one coupon??

What is it for? That is what I would like to know. Reynolds Wrap? Colgate? Redpack tomatoes?

I mean, I am just curious!

My story ends happily. I left my mom's and impulsively swung by that Tops on the way home. I used all four of my coupon doublers! I got great Italian canned tomatoes, big 28-ounce cans, three for a buck. I got a big tub of butter spread free. My mom had already scored that bargain and said it was good.

I also got Xtra laundry detergent for $1.50 each, two of them. And something else. I will think of it.

Couponing is a pain. Even my mom says so. But when you can score big with minimal effort, it is one of those little things that brighten your day.

An otherwise dull trip to the store sparkles!

On a roll

I have been dabbling in Extreme Couponing. It makes no sense in my life, seeing that I routinely let bills slide and have to pay late charges, neglect to open mail and let checks expire, etc. I am Miss Penny Wise, Pound Foolish.

It is just that playing the coupon game makes running errands more fun.

It gives you plenty to puzzle over, that is for sure.

Here is one thing that puzzles me. After a few weeks of clipping my coupons from Sunday's paper and watching for specials here and there, I am sort of getting the hang of it. And I notice that with minimal effort there are things you can stock up on for free or for next to nothing. Toothpaste, dental floss, body wash, deodorant ... those are things you pretty much never have to pay for again.

But, ahem, bathroom tissue!

That is a different matter!

You can find coupons for T.P. and there are frequent specials. But to my frustration I have not been able to top what my buying plan has long been, to pick up the 1,000-sheet Shur-Fine rolls. That is the best you can do, watch for the generic 1,000-sheet rolls to go on special. You are not going to to better with the brand names.

Here is a cartoon to enjoy while we ponder this situation.

It is especially puzzling because these Extreme Couponing folks brag that they have enough toilet paper to last them 20 years.Well, they can ship some of it over here!

Because this cheap toilet paper, I do not think it exists. You can get all this other stuff free but oh, they get their money for that toilet paper. There is that Leonard Pennario-ism again. "But oh." I picked that up from him. And it still crops up when I least expect it.

OK, by now everyone is thinking, "She has too much time on her hands." It is not true.

Time to get to work.

Time to flush this toilet.

Candle in the wind

This is the time of year when we thank God for small pleasures as well as big blessings in our lives. And I thank God for this wonderful scented candle I have found.

It is Cinnamon Pecan Swirl!

Our love affair began on Thanksgiving morning. I was coming home from church and I detoured to CVS. I am getting a kick out of CVS. They have all these specials and whenever you buy anything they give you a receipt a mile long -- that is to say, as long as this sentence -- and on the back of the receipt is an array of coupons, and the coupons are good only for three days so you have to go back soon and buy something else.

Anyway. I was supposed to have been home starting to roast that turkey but instead I was wandering the aisles of CVS. And they had these candles marked down from $10 to three for $10.

You could not beat that!

They were 18 ounce candles, squat and wide and in glass jars so Howard would not get mad at me if I lit one. The brand was Candle-Lite which, now that I read about it, I see goes back to 1840. How about that? Robert Schumann could have bought a Candle-Lite candle.

There were a bunch of fragrances and I did not have time to stand there sniffing all of them which, to be honest, I could do that for hours. I am not proud of my ability to waste time. But on Thanksgiving I was in a hurry so I bought six, all different. Pine, Cinnamon Apple, Black Cherry, Pumpkin Nutmeg Pie and Cinnamon Pecan Swirl.

We did light three of the candles on the Thanksgiving table and they survived the dinner and so did the house, although we had a couple of close calls. That is not our family in the picture up above, I will say that right now. I got that picture from the Candle-Lite Web site.

What about the Candlelite tavern in Chicago?


Would that I were going there today instead of to work!

Back to my Cinnamon Pecan Swirl candle. Since Thanksgiving I began realizing that whenever I passed it, I had to pick it up and take a whiff.

Ahhhhhh!

I even made my brother George sniff it. George like most guys is not much for scents or candles but even he loved it and acknowledged its supremacy.

"Don't burn it," he said. "You might ruin it."

Would that we could do Scratch 'n Sniff on this Web log!

Would that we had Smell-o-Vision!

But alas, we do not. So you just have to use your imagination when I tell you that the other day, when our storm was kicking in, I took time out of the storm to detour to three different CVS's hoping to find more Cinnamon Pecan Swirl candles! They had since risen in price to $5. But I had a coupon for $5 off a $15 purchase.

Zut alors, I could find no Cinnamon Pecan Swirl! The CVS by Goldman Motors had Pumpkin Nutmeg Pie which was close, but, and George had agreed with me on this, not quite as good.

The palatial CVS at Harlem and Kensington near my mom had the Vanilla Spice which was also not quite as good. This Cinnamon Pecan Swirl, it is the Leonard Pennario of candles. Other candles can be good but they are missing that certain something.

I held out!

Late that night, on the way home from my mom's, I thought, one more CVS would not hurt. So I stopped at the CVS on Hertel. The night was becoming surreal with howling winds and blowing snow. The clerk looked oddly glassy-eyed. It crossed my mind that maybe I was dead. Maybe it was like this movie "Carnival of Souls" and I was dead and I did not realize it. Nevertheless I was going to go look for this candle! I found my way to the display.

And there it was. Cinnamon-Pecan Swirl!

There were three of them, too! The exact number I wanted!

The little things that can make your day.

Know what I mean?