How is it working so far for our household?

I've only been at this about a month now. MAYBE 5 weeks tops. So I sat down and looked at receipts just from Rite Aid this month to see how this is working out for us. Here's what I was telling Ali (seriously, the worlds coolest best friend EVER) the other night on AIM.

While I was going over the rebates this evening, I did some figuring over what I've purchased so far at Rite Aid, how much I've spent, and how much I'll be getting back in rebates.

The only other thing I plan to buy yet at Rite Aid is a bottle of Pert Plus - Geof's shampoo. That rebate is for next week only, so I have to wait. But when they have those "this week only" rebates, they usually WAY discount the cost of the product for the sale week. It sells for about $4 now, the rebate is for $2 (and the new sale flier says it will be $2.99). I have a $2 off coupon - so I may actually MAKE $1.01 on it!

But not counting the bottle of Pert next week.... I've purchased about $56 in merchandise this month - and after rebates, depending on what I get for those Rice Krispies rebates, I'll have spent about a total of $8-12 out of pocket for a trunk full of stuff! And that's not even counting the huge mix up they made last week with my Mr. Clean magic erasers where they ended up crediting me over $2 more than they should have (and couldn't take it back when I pointed it out to them). So, really, probably about $6 total.

And that's just the ONE store! I have about $50 coming back to me at Walgreens, too! And $10 from Kelloggs and $5 from Pert and 2 pedicures!

Ali asked a great question:
Do you think you are going out shopping more frequently for all of these deals or is it about the same number of trips? Just wondering how gas costs figure in and stamps too. I know it's a minute part but it does all add up.

I definitely go out more frequently. Before the rebate madness, I never shopped at Walgreens or RiteAid. However, I do both of those on Tuesday, which is the same day that I do Bi-Mart (magic number Tuesday - check your member number on their sign to see if you won prizes), which I did anyway. So gas wise, it's two extra stops... but they're all within 2 blocks of each other

Stamps - Rite Aid and Walgreens I can submit online every month - so no stamps there. The others (this month is was 2 RK, Pert, Kel, 2 peds) - the two offers that I had two of - I put both in one envelope. So this months mailings were 4 stamps. We did have to buy this last book of stamps because I didn't know where mine were, but before my mom had her stroke, she ordered (I'm not kidding) 25 books of forever stamps. I used some at Christmas/funeral thank yous, and we still probably have about half of those. So we're set on stamps for awhile. And envelopes were purchased about 3 years ago now at Sam's Club - and we still have a couple good handfuls left.