A whole nother kinda committed

So, I know you really care about how my quest to be frugal is going. Hold on to your panties, here's your exciting update.

If you haven't caught on, I'm really quite slow. I don't "get" things right away - it often takes a few slow presentations, a written book with step-by-step directions, a coach, and a deadline with $$ motivation to get me to understand a simple concept. So, this whole business about saving moolah with coupons and sales ads... is really quite a feat for me to take on.

But, I did spend all day Monday looking over the Sunday paper (which, incidentally, they still had at my local grocery store... who knew you could get a day old paper? not me!) ... I had every single ad, and despite my distractability with the comics and bright shiny things, I managed to find a few things in the ads that I would could maybe actually use someday. So, I tried to remember them and I tried really hard to remember where each thing was on sale....

Where was I? (See, the distractability thing gets me every time)... Right, so I went to work on Monday night cutting every single stupid coupon out of the Sunday paper. I'm gonna have to get good at remembering that I don't need nor WANT nor give a rat about 80% of the items that were featured in the coupons... Instead, I ended up cutting all those silly things and throwing most of them away.

Hey, don't laugh at me. There was no book to follow. There was no coach. I did not have step-by-step directions... Oh, and I have two small kids that pester me 24/7. I got to clipping and I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Got all those stupid things clipped and piled up... then threw almost all of them away.

Which, funny how that works, still leaves me with a massive stack of junky papers that I consider to be worthy of my efforts, even though they need organizing somehow. Yes, despite all the crap coupons I threw out, I still have a hefty stack of coupons for ThingsWeMightSomedayWishWeHadACouponFor type things. Ahh... now I need some kinda thingy to organize them in.

Okay, so here's your big update:
Today, I decided what I wanted to do. I was gonna tackle this whole new world head-on and go for the drugstore deal... I was working towards a big money-saving victory at my local CVS pharmacy.

The plan of action was to get a new razor for $7. But, I had my Sunday paper coupon for $2 off! So, I was gonna pay $5 for the razor, and then I was gonna get $3 in "extra care bucks" back... which - if you're like me and don't know diddly squat - "extra care bucks" (or ecb) is really just a receipt that says you've earned this much money that is good in our store for next time you buy something... I was then gonna use my $3 in ecb and buy me some toothpaste, cuz the ad says that if you buy this toothpaste, for $3, then you get $3 back in ecb. So, my plan was to spend $10 and come home with $3 in ecb, a new razor and a new tube of toothpaste.

There's two big problems with my plan:

1. I cannot get my "extra care bucks" for the stupid toothpaste because it was a three-days-only sale item. Which isn't really indicated very well on their ad, if you ask me. But anyway, that toothpaste had to be bought before today to get the ecbs. and
2. Apparently, I'm the last one in the Kansas City Metro that isn't quite clued in yet on this whole coupon-sale shopping thing at CVS. But, really - I knew that already... it was just confirmed for me when we went to the CVS store and they were sold out of both the toothpaste and the razor I wanted.

Interestingly enough (okay, just humor me ... pretend like you care), there is another CVS on our way home - so we decided to try that store to see if the items were in stock. They had one of the razors left, but were sold out of the toothpaste... which really doesn't matter anyway since I had to be on the ball with this crap two days ago, right?

So, the big exciting conclusion to this lame story is that today at CVS, I spent $5 on a razor that I wouldn't have normally bought (cuz it's name brand and not disposable, haha!), and came home without toothpaste (something we probably would have actually used, haha!) and now have $3 in extra care bux that need to be spent within the next month.

I'm not giving up. I'm determined to find a really great deal. But, as for day one of my frugal-quest? Fail!