Maybe I won't have to go to Target ever again

So as of late i've taken measures to try to avoid going to Target. Don't get me wrong I love Target but everytime I go in there i come away having spent way too much money. Not anymore! I can purchase my diapers and my wipes and my toiletries and everything else somewhere else. This is my plan.

Amazon.com had this deal going on where if you join their subscribe and save program you get a certain percentage off and you don't get charged shipping fees. Well i signed up to get my paper towels, toilet paper, dishsoap, dishwasher soap, diapers and wipes sent to my home. I know that's a lot of boxes and stuff. But the thing is is that the toilet paper and paper towels come every 3 months, the dishwasher soap every 6 months and the diapers and wipes every month. I ended up canceling the dishsoap b/c there's 12 bottles in a box! I think i go through maybe 3 bottles of dish soap a year, so i guess i'm set for a while with the one box.

The Amazon.com subscribe and save program is in my opinion a good deal. With the percentage I got off of my dry goods and then the free shipping I got a deal! The only thing with choosing to buy this way is that you need to have a place to store your items b/c everything is in bulk. So if you don't have somewhere or a shelf for the stuff you may need to invest up front in something to contain all the goods. I fortunately have three shelves in my basement that we don't use that were intended for a garage sell but not any more! So recycling items i already have cut down on my initial costs of buying items this way.

But anyways you may be thinking well how much did you spend up front to get all that?! Well i believe it was an initial investment of $200. I then divided the cost over the next 6 months and it will come out of my grocery budget for each month.

So for me the convenience factor of not having to think about purchasing these items and/or running out of them is great and worth it.

Another frugal idea to keep me out of Target, after searching online the last few weeks and reading others blog written by moms trying to save money and pay off debt, i realized that a lot of them shop at CVS. Jason and i just recently had a conversation about drugstores like CVS. We couldn't figure out how they stay in business when there are places like Target around. Well ironically I found out how within a few weeks from wondering.

CVS has something they call ECB's or Extra Care Bucks. These are essentially dollars that you collect on your keychain swiper card as you buy certain items and prescriptions from CVS. I've had the card for a few years but it never ever occurred to me that there were benefits to using it other than you get the advertised sale price for an item. I read blogs as of late where moms will have ECB's that they use on sale items and then they use coupons too and they literally come out spending pennies on toiletries and makeup. It's phenomenal and it's got me really excited to peruse the ads when the sunday paper comes. I'm now committed to purchasing our toiletries and prescriptions at the local drugstore, which btw is very close to my house and open late.

I hope these ideas help you with making more frugal decisions or just with making life a little bit easier.