It's Bathing Suit Season

It's the beginning of fall, and you know what that means... It's bathing suit season! Well, it is if you're a scavenger of the clearance racks. Last month I decided to hit up the clearance racks at a few department stores to see what I could find. The first stop was Macy's. That day they were also having a 1-day sale. All of their bathing suits were marked 70% off. While browsing I came across this bathing suit. It's Hobie brand. The only problem was I could not find the correct top. I ended up purchasing the bottom portion and planned to find the top portion online. I had NO LUCK at all. Fortunately, the next weekend I went home to Stuart, FL and with the help of a wonderful friend, I was able to snag the correct top. Here's how I did:
Bottom portion: $6.41; originally priced at $34.00
Top portion: $9.99; originally priced at $34.00
Total: $16.40; originally $68.00

If you're a coupon clipper, then you were extremely excited about today's Sunday paper. There were many coupon savings to take advantage of. (On a side note, I signed up to receive the Sunday paper to start saving about $.70/week.)

Travis and I started off the morning clipping away. Then it was up to me to organize and build the shopping list. Sticking to that list is a hard thing to do BTW. Usually we divvy up our groceries when we go to pay. There's no real science to it. One good find was the halloween candy. Mars had their minis on sale at Publix BOGO. On top of that I had 2 coupons. One for $1off 3 bags and another coupon for a free Publix tote bag when I purchases $9.99 worth of Mars candy. Another nice combination was our Ragu pasta purchase. It was BOGO this week. We also had a coupon for a free box of Mueller's pasta with the purchase of 2 Ragu pasta sauces (How convenient!).

So here's how we did:
Total coupons used: 14
Me (left): Saved $30.69 = 33%
Travis (right): Saved $36.39 = 39%

I recently learned a couple of things:
1. The do not place coupons in the sunday paper if it is a holiday weekend (Thank you Brittany)
2. The wednesday paper sometimes has coupons
3. Publix accepts competitor coupons. I did not know this. They take other grocery store and Target coupons! (Thank you Katherine)