What was in my cart at Walgreen's this week? (And what was my minor blunder?)

In an attempt to reduce my spending on all household goods and health and beauty items, I am reading sales ads very closely and trying to match with coupons found online.

Last week, I made a bottle of spray glass and window cleaner, using ammonia, isopropyl alcohol, dish soap and water. My daughter does the windows, here. And she told me it worked very well. So that's a keeper. (recipe here) At 12 cents a pint, it cost less than half of what the large refill jug of window cleaner costs per pint at Dollar Tree.

This week, I thoroughly went through Walgreen's online Sunday ad, to find their deals.

So, the daughter who does windows (yay for that!), prefers spray cleaner, a squeegee, and paper towels. Who am I to argue with her supply list, if the result is I don't have to wash windows? So, the other week, I bought paper towels for the first time in years. My best deal, on the spur of the moment, was Cash & Carry at 69 cents per 65 sheet roll. That's .0106153 per sheet. Walgreen's has their house brand of paper towels, on sale for 50 cents per 56 sheet roll, or .0089285. I bought 4 rolls and saved just under 38 cents.

Cerave is my moisturizing cream and face wash (I "wash" with the cream). I've been paying about $12.49 per container, when on sale, at Bartell's. Walgreen's has it on sale this week, as a BOGO1/2 off. The shelf price is $15.49. BOGO1/2 off gives me a price of $11.615 each. I went online to find a coupon, and printed out 1 coupon for $2 off any purchase of two Cerave items, bringing my cost down to $10.615 each. I bought 2 containers and saved $3.75. On top of the savings, these were bonus packs. each canister of moisturizing cream came with a trial bar of their moisturizing soap. Yay for useful free stuff!

When I'm paying, I use drug store cosmetics. When someone else is paying (the birthday freebies that I get from Sephora, or birthday/Christmas gifts from family members), I am happy to use department store cosmetics. (Both my son and my husband gave me Sephora gift cards for Christmas this year.) Anyways, drug store cosmetics can be quite good, even for someone like myself who is allergic to many ingredients in cosmetics. I like Neutrogena's loose mineral powder as a very light foundation. I've been buying it at Target, when on sale, for about $12.99. Walgreen's has all of their Neutrogena cosmetics on sale this week at BOGO1/2 off. Their shelf price for this powder is $14.79. They only had one compact of my shade. I inquired, and the cashier said she would sell me 1 compact at 25% off (which is what the BOGO1/2 off works out to). Good deal, as again, I had gone online and found a coupon for $1 off any 1 Neutrogena cosmetic item. My powder came to $10.09, after coupon, saving me $2.90 on that item.

In December, Walgreen's had cream cheese on sale with in-ad coupon for 99 cents each 8-oz brick, limit 4. I tried a couple of stores and found very little stock, so I requested a rain check. I used one of my rain checks and bought my 4 packages.

So far, so good. With these next 2 items I made minor blunders. 1000 sheet bathroom tissue was on sale for 50 cents/roll. When I bought bath tissue through Staples last spring, I paid (pre-tax) just under 48 cents per roll. But the other day, I mistakenly compared the after-tax price, of 51 cents per roll. I bought 6 rolls of Walgreen's 1000 sheet bath tissue at 50 cents per roll, pre-tax, costing me an extra 2 cents per roll, or 12 cents total.

And with facial tissue -- Walgreen's has boxes of their house brand facial tissue on sale for 99 cents. I usually buy facial tissue at Dollar Tree for $1. I thought I'd be saving 3 cents total, on 3 boxes of tissues. However, the Dollar Tree brand boxes contain 175 tissues per box (or .0057142 per tissue), whereas the Walgreen's boxes contain 160 tissues (at .0061875 per tissue). This minor blunder cost me just over 22 cents, total.

Despite my two minor blunders, overall I had a healthy savings of $6.69 (not counting the savings from the cream cheese rain check, as I wouldn't buy cream cheese if it were priced over $1, anyway).

The benefit of making small blunders, like these, is they create a mind-set of vigilance in me, preventing me from making similar blunders in the future. I'm not likely to make the same mistake on facial tissues again. And now I know, Dollar Tree does have a good price on tissues.

January is a good month to . . .

Save gas and stay home, for a change. All of the activities and shopping surrounding the holidays meant I went through more gas than usual in December.

Get back to a fitness routine. All of that activity and shopping meant that I had little time to workout. I started back up with indoor jogging last week, just 15 minutes worth, 3 days a week. that doesn't sound like it could benefit me very much, but it's a start, and is getting me back into the "habit" of fitness.

Take stock of my grocery inventory, use what I have, and buy less food for the month. I now have loads of baking and cooking goodies in my pantry, fridge and freezer. This is a good month to begin using some of it up.

Put on a sweater or long undie bottoms, or start up some housework that really gets me moving (with good music to add fuel to my fire), when I feel chilled in the house. Saving on the heat bill, now, will give me some fun money, later.

Make candied orange peels. January and February are the months that I buy the most fresh oranges. Making candied orange peel, for baking with in chopped form, or dipping in chocolate for candy, uses all of the orange (or almost all). And I do love free candy! Candied orange peel freezes well. So along about Mother's Day, I can add some to a batch of scratch scones to have with brunch.

Find those projects that I bought the supplies to, eons ago. I have fabric for making chair and sofa cushions, that I bought in 2013, if you can believe that! I'm now getting around to making a cushion or two for the family room.

Hole up with a good book, or an entire season of a favorite television series on dvd -- both from the library of course. I'm reading An Everlasting Meal, by Tamar Adler. I read Amazon's sneak peak, online and was intrigued, so I put it on hold at our library. I also completely missed Downton Abbey season 4. I checked out that dvd from the library, as well. Working my way through the episodes. And contrary to what I feared, seeing this season out of sequence hasn't spoiled the watching at all. Still just as fascinated, as I wonder why on Earth does someone need a lady's maid, to hand her some gloves and earrings? I understand how nice it would be to have someone do my washing and ironing, but aside from buttons or zippers down the back of a dress, I think I could get myself dressed and undressed without the extravagance of a maid. But I love the storylines, despite the extravagance.

Make vacation plans for later this year. At least half of the fun is in the planning, so I plan to plan as much as I can! And if I put on my sweater, often enough, instead of cranking up the heat, maybe I will have saved some extra cash to go towards a fun vacation.

Make those appointments that should have been made a couple of months ago. Those items now glare back at me from my to-do list, as I try to ignore their need. But I will make myself call for my appointments.

Get organized for tax time. Ugh! Another item from my to-do list which I am having a hard time, to-doing. One step at a time. I have a little list of items, to get me organized with taxes, on my computer notepad. Today, I set out a box, for paperwork as it comes in, and memos to myself to remember certain items which never have a paper attached to them.

Make a spending, saving and giving plan for the year. If I plan it, it will happen practically effortlessly. With charitable giving this year, we plan on setting up a direct transfer of stock, to donate mutual funds shares to our church for our tithing. This mutual fund has appreciated since purchase. If we sold the mutual fund shares to give cash, we would have the tax burden of capital gains on our investment. By donating the mutual find shares directly, we avoid capital gains on any of the profits. Making our gift this way will allow us to be more generous, in the end.

Sit down with a cup of blueberry tea with honey, and savor the quiet that follows the excitement of the holidays. Today, there is time for a quiet moment. I'll savor it before the madness of spring gardening begins. I think I'll use one of the good cups.