Friday, August 5

Up at 6:30 a.m. on this much more pleasant, overcast day, so I could get ready to go to water aerobics. The swim and aerobics session was great, as usual. I think I could stay in the pool for half a day.

Back home, after I was ready for the day, Hubbie and I ran errands...to a pharmacy to pick up some information for Mother, and to another pharmacy store to spend a $3 store coupon. To avail ourselves of the coupon, we were required to buy $10 in store-brand goods. We needed mouthwash and a couple of other items, anyway, and thought we'd buy those.

But in looking at the coupon more closely, we saw that what we really had to do was buy $10 worth today, and then a bar-code coupon for $3 would print out to be used toward our next purchase.

I also had manufacturer's coupons for hair color...buy two and get $5 off, and buy one and get $2 off. I almost did that, but we decided to check the prices on hair color and mouthwash at the WDCS first, since we needed to go there, anyway.

At the WDCS, we found that the hair color was a dollar less per box, so my coupons were worth more there. The mouthwash was essentially the same price, so we decided to buy that at the pharmacy later to rack up the $10 we needed to get that $3 coupon.

Back home, after lunch, Mother and I were going to work on greeting cards for Caring Hands Hospice, but Mother decided she needed light gray paper to use as insert pages in a couple of sympathy cards she made at our last scrapbook meeting.

So off Hubbie and I went again...first to the graphics supply store for the paper, then to the pharmacy store again to pick up the mouthwash. The shelf price for the mouthwash showed $2.99 a bottle, so we figured that if we bought two of those, and a bottle of hand lotion that Hubbie likes, plus a $99 cent package of his favorite candy, we could get that elusive $3 coupon.

Well, it turned out the mouthwash was on sale for $1.99, which meant we had to get three bottles of it. I surely hope we like this store brand, since we now have so much of it. But at last, a bar-code $3-off coupon on our next purchase finally printed out!

The store really makes customers jump through hoops to get their bargains. Yesterday, I went there to buy a box of hair color for what I thought would be $5.99 after $1 off, according to the advertising flyer. Well, the $1 was not taken off at the register. Instead, I got a bar-code $1 coupon to spend on my next purchase. Not only did I not get the sale price immediately, but the coupon I received says I cannot use it on Proctor and Gamble products, the company that manufactures the hair color I use.

I picked up a flyer in the store to look at the ad more closely. It says "Our Price $6.99," "Register Rewards Good on Next Purchase $1," (underscore) "Like Paying $5.99." Well, no, it's not like paying $5.99. It's exactly like paying $6.99, since I didn't get a sale price, and I can't use the coupon on any products by that manufacturer.

Add to that the fact that at home, we compared the number of ounces in the bottles of mouthwash from the pharmacy with the number of ounces in bottles from the WDCS. We found that the three we bought at the pharmacy had the same total number of ounces as in two from the WDCS. So we paid the same price at the pharmacy as we would have at the WDCS: three bottles for $6 at the pharmacy, compared to $6 for two bottles at the WDCS, for the same number of ounces. We certainly wouldn't save money paying the usual shelf price of $2.99 per bottle of mouthwash at the pharmacy. It pays to comparison shop.

From the pharmacy, we went to the grocery store that charges wholesale prices plus ten percent to get a carton of cottage cheese. After that we headed home.

I intended to make greeting cards this afternoon, but it was already 3 p.m., and I was pooped after being on the go since 6:30 a.m. So I just vegged until time to prepare supper.

Tonight, we had breakfast for supper...scrambled egg substitute, with biscuits and gravy, and slices of locally grown cataloupe. This time, I made plenty of gravy to suit Hubbie, who not only likes to slather his biscuits and eggs with it, but also his cantaloupe. The meal must have really hit the spot, because Mother ate heartily.

Mother went home after supper, and Hubbie and I watched TV, including the movie, "Creation," about Charles Darwin. This British film follows Darwin's middle years, when he suffered physically and mentally, as he promoted his revolutionary theories about evolution, while trying to maintain a relationship with his religious wife, whose faith contradicted his theories.

It was a pretty nice day in our county today, compared to some other parts of the state that continued having triple digit high temps. It was eight to ten degrees cooler here. By 6 p.m., it was only 88 degrees...positively balmy (comparatively speaking). We could have used some rain, but except for a brief shower, we didn't get any. Maybe tomorrow.