Excuse me while I step on my soap box for a minute...

Ok, so my little man is at his dad's house tonight, which made it the perfect time to run to Wal Mart and use my coupons that were about to expire.  As you can imagine, coupon shopping with a four year old can be tedious for the both of us!!  Well, I did fairly well, but I should have done better!!  *CAUTION* this is where I need to get a few things off my chest!!!  I am sick and tired of people abusing coupons and not using them properly and ruining it for the rest of us!!  I follow coupon code to the "T" and I actually rely on them to get by...it's not a fad for me!!  All of you jerks that like to abuse them, are ruining it for the rest of us!!!  So combined with all of the new rules they are passing is making it impossible to save money and the (sorry, but she really was) half-minded cashier that didn't know up from down that checked me out, I didn't get HALF of the free or next to free things I was going to!!  Next time, I'm going to Target!!!  Ok, so now my soap box moment is over, and here are the things I was able to get for free....

Using my two buy one, get one free coupons, I was able to get these two 4 pack Slim Fast Drinks for free!  They were even on sale too!!!  I LOVE the taste of these and they are perfect for helping me with one of my New Year's "goals"!!  They are usually $5.98 each, but they were on sale for $4.98.  Using my coupons, I only paid $9.96 for all four!!! Then I used my My Coke Rewards coupons to get all four Powerade drinks and all five 20oz Coca Cola drinks for free!!  The two 1.25 liter Coke Zero bottles I snagged for free using my two $0.99 off any Coke Zero product coupons I found online!!  So, I guess I am set up in the beverage department for a while...haha!!

I also managed to find a couple of real bargains as well on my little outing:

I have to admit one thing, the pumpkin with the tea light candles, I actually found about a week ago, I just hadn't posted it yet, so I included it with all of these goodies.  I found it at Wal Mart for $5.00.  It's not a bad price at all and I thought it was SUPER cute!!!  The candle lamp I picked up tonight for $2.48!!!!  I love it!!  I am trying to find a way to use it year round without it looking out of place!!  haha!!  The glittery letters I got at Wal Mart for $0.24 a piece in their Christmas 75% off sale they have going on right now.  The "T" and on of the "A" letters I may actually use for a stocking accent, as that is their actual purpose, but the other "A" I am going to use to glitz up a candle I am decorating to add to my little memorial that I have of my brother.

So all in all, it was a decent shopping experience.  I stayed under my budget, and I still got some of my freebies.  I just ask one favor, to all of you out there pulling all of your little coupon shenanigans because it's the new "fad" to coupon, PLEASE STOP!!!  Some of us really rely on these tools, and you are slowly taking it away from us!!!