Albertsons Trip 4/3 --Oh, Hail!

I haven't been doing a whole lot of coupon shopping lately, and I know I need to because I'm running out of a lot of things....like I was down to the very last bottle of laundry detergent!  How did that happen??

I woke up this morning very early, and thought I might get my trip planned out before my little one woke up, but she woke up very early, too.  Then, I got sidetracked organizing my coupons (more on that in a bit).  I was trying to hurry that up so I could squeeze in a morning trip, but then I looked up and noticed this:

She had been down on the floor playing with some scissors and an old magazine and then she just went and crawled up on the couch and passed out.  I decided to let her nap and go out shopping after lunch.  I knew that some rain was on the way, but the hourly forecast didn't predict it until 4ish so I thought I would have plenty of time.  I leisurely finished going through the rest of my coupons, flipping through all of my inserts and seeing which could be discarded to make room in my file box for last weekend's coupons.  I got completely finished with that, and then fixed us some lunch.  We ate and left the house just before 1pm.

When I pulled up at the store, I could see dark clouds rolling in in the distance behind the store, and a lady rolled her window down and hollered something at me.  I'm still battling this ruptured ear drum, so I'm hard or hearing and the wad of cotton I have to keep in there doesn't help matters.  I don't know exactly what she said, but it was something about a tornado.  "But it's not even raining yet", I shrugged to myself and casually went in to do my shopping.

I had a couple FREE coupons for Purex detergent, and I happened to luck out because it was BOGO FREE, so I got 4 FREE bottles of detergent!

Albertsons was having a Mega Sale, and I love it when they have them because they have great deals (and they still double, unlike Kroger!), but they have very poor in store signage for their Mega Sales (again, unlike Kroger who has awesome signs!)   I can never tell if i'm getting the right items because they say Mega Sale NOWHERE!

Ok, to be fair, there were a couple vague signs on freezer doors...for example, I was looking for the Bird's Eye vegetables.  The sign on the door near then said that the ones on the sale were the one's priced at $1.29 (mage sale would make them $0.79), but NONE of them were priced $1.29!  I intended to get 10 bags because I had a few coupons to use, but I ended up only getting 2 bags and I had to ask the cashier about those.  I'm still not certain I got all my $5 offs because their receipts are pretty confusing also.  (I did!  I found it!  All is well!)

Here is everything I got at Albertsons:

Total Shelf Price:   $108.53
Total Sale Price:    $67.87   (Already 37% Savings)
Price Paid After Coupons:   $35.31 + .44 tax = $35.75     67% Savings


When we walked out of the store (not yet 2pm, mind you), it was raining..not much, but raining.  As we drove home, the rain became heavier, and as I was unloading the groceries from the back of the van, it began to hail on me!  Not my idea of fun!

Safely inside the house, my 2 year old watched the hail bounce off the patio in amazement as I put the groceries away.  My freezer is full.  My husband is drooling over cheap pizza, and I'm praying my kids will like toaster strudels!

After I got my groceries put away, I still had to deal with the aftermath of an Albertson's shopping excursion these days...

I'm loving this Monopoly game, actually.  Last time, I had one that won $2 cash (which is still in the pocket of my soaking wet jeans I had to remove upon my return).  This trip, I received 11 game pieces.  I won a FREE pack of Capri Sun and two bonus game tickets, as well as various other coupons, and I still have all the online codes left to enter.

I would have gotten this post up much sooner, but it was now 3pm..time for school to release and my daughter to get on the bus.  Only, there were tornado warnings and none of the buses were released to run yet.  My only choice was to leave my 5 year old at school until they decided to let the buses run (in which case she would not have gotten home until around 5:30) or venture out into the storm and retrieve her.

The rain was picking up as we prepared to go...digging back out the jackets that I'd just packed away in the back of the closet.  I drove over to the school very carefully amid blasts of lightning and roars of thunder, waiting for the next tornado to pop out of the sky (there had been several touch down by this point...and apparently one not far away while I was out and about).  We parked and ran in through the rain.  I couldn't go through the carpool line because she is a bus rider, so I had to go inside and properly sign her out.   Once we were back in the van and all strapped in, the second I turned the wheel to pull back into traffic, the hail began once more.

This time I had to drive back to my house with it pummeling my van, slowly rolling through flooded streets.  The rain was just letting up as I pulled into the driveway safely and breathed a sigh of relief.  My husband still could not leave.  Being a teacher, he was stuck at school until they decided to let the buses run, also, so his last period class was 3 hours long today.

Thankfully, we all made it back home safely and the storms passed us by without causing any major damage.  This is a bad line of storms, and it is still moving through East Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma as I type this, so please remember these people and say a prayer for their safety!