A Shopping Victory...and small defeat

I have really been trying to get better at shopping sales and using coupons. I've been clipping coupons for a while and saving a few dollars here and there, which helps, but I know I could do better. I've started following this site, which is a HUGE help!!! Jenny has a family of 5 and on average they spend about $50 a week at the grocery. And that includes anything and everything you can get at the grocery...even diapers, meat, cleaning supplies, personal items...everything! We budget $400 a month for groceries and almost always go over, and there's only 3 of us in our household. So I've really been cracking down and trying to figure this all out.

Last night I made my first attempt at "CVSing" (you really need to check out what she has to say about this!!), and I consider it a success! I did end up spending about $4 more than I had planned because I thought I had 2 of one coupon but only ending up having 1 of them...but anyways... Here's what I ended up with

10 page photo book - for Nick's mom birthday

Jumbo pack of diapers

4 bottles of Purex

2 bottles of Olay body wash

1 Olay face wash

4 Cheerios bowls

1 Air Wick air freshener

And my grand total (after tax)...$27.84. The actual cost of all the items had I just gone in and bought them without coupons or using any ECBs from CVS...$81.27!! Which means I saved about 66%!! And I'm stocked up on laundry detergent for at least 3 or 4 months and I probably won't have to buy body wash again the rest of the year! (They were BIG bottles and I have an almost full one right now). The Cheerios were $1 a piece and I had a $1 coupon for each of them, so they were free. The air freshener was on sale for $4.99 and I had a $4 off coupon...this is going to be a party gift for the bridal shower I have to give in a couple of months. This is more money out of pocket than a lot of the really good shoppers manage, but for my first trip, and for getting so many big ticket items, I'm pretty proud of myself!

So, you're wondering where the defeat comes in, right? Well, while unloading my goodies last night there was a casualty. I dropped one of the bottles of laundry detergent in my living room and it exploded, leaving a huge blue spot on the carpet!! We're still working on getting it up...any advice would be great!