Kmart Trip

I'm a bit disappointed in myself, because I spent more than I expected to at Kmart today. They're doubling coupons up to and including $2 until Sunday, so I headed out with my list of high value coupons to take advantage of some deals. I was unable to use a majority of them - even with doubled-coupons a lot of things still cost more than I was willing to pay. I did get 15 things though, but three of them are non-coupon items.

I stumbled across some "shirt-bibs" in their baby section - which is basically a bib for the entire body. I don't know why I didn't think to look for these earlier...it's not like spit-up automatically stops at the bib's edge. The patterns are really cute too! There were originally $4.99, but was on unmarked clearance for $2.00. I grabbed three of them - the princess, ballerina, and supermodel styles. They also had a cheerleader and a tennis outfit too, but I figured three would be enough. I am so very pleased with this find, even if it's an unexpected $6 expense.

Today I spent a total of $20.14 OOP, and my doubled-coupon savings was $33.25. I'll also be getting $3.99 from the SpotShot money-back guarantee. I really wish this would have worked, because little Chip had an accident this morning and I ran out of the regular cleaner that we use. I use an industrial-strength pet cleaner, but I have to dilute it and it's seriously starting to get old, so I was hoping this Spot Shot would be a good replacement. It did absolutely nothing to the stain, so I guess it's back to diluting for me. I had a $1/1 coupon though, so it will be a slight money-maker since I only paid $1.99 OOP for this.

I'm not a regular Kmart shopper, so I was very surprised by their prices. They are EXPENSIVE! They're even more expensive than Target, but IMHO Target is a nice place to shop at with good quality merchandise, so on certain occasions I am willing to pay the higher price. Kmart isn't much better than Walmart in shopping experience, so unless they're going to be doing double-coupon days every weekend, I think I'll stick with Target and Walmart.

Anyway, if you're interested, here is my transaction breakdown:

The coupons that I used are to the left, as well as the amount that they were doubled to. There is no overage for this double coupon promotion, so the items in red are ones where I didn't get my full doubled-coupon amount due to the price of the item. On the left, I noted my OOP expense for each item after the doubled coupons. Notice that the most I paid for an item was $5.99 for the fish oil (which was a need for the puppies since they were done to 2 capsules). The SpotShot is the second most expensive, but I will be getting a $3.99 rebate for that. So, taking these two things into account, the most that I paid OOP for an item was $0.99 each for the pack of razors. And even those were a need since my husband who shaves like...twice a day.

The point that I'm trying to make is that just because they're doubling coupons, you should not go crazy and start cleaning their shelves and your coupon stash. Kmart has some really high prices, so even with doubled coupons it might not be worth it. By all means, get excited and skip over to your local Kmart, but don't lose your common sense!

My total savings for my Kmart trip is $33.25, so 10% ($3.33) will be going towards my Charity Pot as part of my personal charity challenge. I'm starting a new thing where I'm putting 10% of my total savings towards charity, whether that donation is a monetary donation or a merchandise donation. I added $4.05 to my Charity Pot from my Walgreens trip earlier, so the Pot is currently at $7.38. My bag of USO donations, made up of mostly freebies and deal-items, is valued roughly around $10, so there really is no excuse to not donate!

When I have a spare moment next week, I will be adding a widget to my sidebar that will keep track of my Charity Pot and the donations that I have made. I hope that this will be a reminder and a form of encouragement to my readers to give back too!