Lots of Basics for OCC Shoebox Stockpile Saturday ~ 7/22/2017

I had a pretty good week shopping for items to pack in my OCC shoeboxes with sales, special deals, and coupons.

 First, last week Dollar General had a number of sales, plus $5 off instantly when you bought $15 of stationary.  They also had great sales...items normally $1-$1.50 for $0.50.  I managed to get exactly $15.  We decided to send iMagine colored pencils this year after testing 3 different brands.

Then we went to WalMart, not really so much of a special deal, although some were the bonus 26 counts...8% more for the same price.  But, instead of buying Crayola crayons (as we always had in the past) for $0.50, we felt comfortable buying these at $0.25 due to our crayon brand tests, so saved 50%!

There's a really great story about the CraZArt crayons...those look like a lot in the photo above, but I wanted one or two to split up in pencil packs for The Pencil Granny & Friends, plus I needed 100 for the church packing party, I already had enough for our family packing party.  My dad & I looked all around our local Walmart-like 4 different places, but could only find 21...still needed 80 more.  There were reports of the price going back up, and I'll be out of town over the turn of the month, so I was kind of discouraged and worried about finding enough.  Then my aunt reminded me she could look for things, so I shared the need...she said she had a few WalMarts and would look...within 24 hours I got a call saying she had all 80-a mix of 24 & 26 count boxes!

Then Sunday, Dollar Tree had one of their rare 10% off $10 or more coupons.  I picked up a  variety of things: pencil sharpeners I really needed for my boxes, the checkers and flyers to check out, some fun hair bonuses to split up between boxes, etc.  And the bunny pencil case I just couldn't pass up!

 

Later in the week I went back to Dollar Tree to take advantage of the Dial bar for a dime deal.  They were confused about the internet coupon,but took it...reminder to self-ALWAYS take a copy of the corporate policy with you in case there are questions.   I'm always willing to pass up a deal if the clerk is uncomfortable with it, but having info to share can't hurt! 

I stopped by Walgreens to take advantage of the eraser 2-packs 6/$1.  I had a gift card we had won online to pay for it...so $0 out of pocket!

Then there was Another Dial Deal!  $1 for 2 packs, plus a couple Saving Star rebates for a total of $3 back, so 9 dozen bars for $6 + tax so about 5 and a half cents a bar before tax!  And so many fun colors and scents!

Finally, I went to Kmart and their fishing supplies were 20% off, so I decided to pick up a couple things to split between a number of fishing kits, plus had a $5 off $25 and needed to buy some items for myself, so was able to apply $1.50 worth of the discount I got on the whole purchase toward this, also had $3.30 left on a giftcard we'd earned on Swagbucks, for even less spent out of pocket!

Spent from shoebox packing budget: $45.28

Spent from gift cards earned or won online: $11.22 


Added to stockpile:

• 30 blue pens
• 20 black pens
• 143 pencils
• 17 dozen colored pencil packs
• 21 crayon packs
• 120 pencil sharpeners
• 1 pencil case
• 1 calculator
• 4 screwdrivers
• 6 mini gliders
• 1 checkers game
• 1 train whistle
• 4 packs various hair holders
• 120 bars of soap
• 20 erasers 
• 210 fishing hooks
• 30 fishing weights

Taking advantages of coupon deals and earning money online are just two of the ways we  Find Extra Money for Packing Our Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes.