What I'm Reading

Here's an article from Vocalpoint with new ideas for using vases to help brighten up a room rather than just letting them collect dust in a cupboard.

I found a couple interesting links in the Seventh Generation e-mail newsletter this week:
First, one woman's take on shopping to get ready for baby to join the family.
Second, "Loanership vs. Ownership", which talks about borrowing certain items instead of buying them new.

Finally, Northern Cheapskate talks about saving money by making your own baby food.

Walmart Trip

One of these days I'm going to have to go shopping at a time that doesn't involve getting home right as Jonah wants to eat, so I have time to take a picture instead of quickly putting everything away so I can feed him. Here are the highlights from this week's Walmart trip:

• 2 dozen eggs: $1.48 each. Used B1G1 Free coupon from Facebook promotion (no longer available)
• Yoplait yogurt single cups (14 total): $0.50 each. Used 50 cents/6 printable from BettyCrocker.com and 50 cents/8 from a Sunday insert = got 2 free!
• 1 pkg. Double Stuf Golden Oreos: $2.98. Used Free package coupon from Facebook Superbowl promotion (no longer available) = FREE COOKIES! I was pretty happy about that one...
• 2 boxes Fiber One bars: $2.50 each. Used 2 printable $0.75/1 (no longer available) = $1.75 each.
• 3 Healthy Choice frozen meals: $1.88 each. Used one $1/1 and one $1/2 from ConAgra mailed coupon booklet
• 4 pack YoPlus yogurt (x 2): $2 each. Used 2 printable $1/1 = $1 each
• 12 pack 100-calorie Nabisco snacks (x 2): $3.98 each. Used $1/2 from Kellogg's Fuel for School Calendar = still spendy, but we like them.

Savings this post: $12.96
Savings so far: $212.97

Kellogg's All-Bran 7 Day Promise Pack

Sign up here to get a free All-Bran 7 Day Promise Pack from Kellogg's. I don't know exactly what will be in this, but I'm guessing multiple samples and potentially coupons? It does take awhile to load, as they are probably getting quite a few orders right now.

Thanks Money Saving Mom!

Deal Seeking Mom's Coupon Database

Deal Seeking Mom is by far my favorite blog about couponing and freebies. I think it is the most comprehensive and organized out there for the subject matter.

One of my favorite features of the blog is a fairly new one - the DSM Coupon Database. You can enter a brand name, a product category, or several other limits to search by, and it will come up with a list of available coupons and where they are located. This includes Internet printable coupons, inserts (with the specific insert and date listed), special deals from company websites, or wherever the coupons can be found.

You also have the option of creating your own personal coupon box, where you can keep track of what coupons you have. This is not an option I use very much, but if you'd rather organize electronically than by hand, it might help.

And, as if that weren't enough, you get an entry in a giveaway for adding a coupon that is not yet loaded into the database. Be warned, there are not many out there that haven't already been added, but if you do happen to find one, sign it up. If approved by a site admin, you'll get an entry. I think the current contest is for a $25 Amazon gift certificate.

One final benefit for this database: blogging. I generally remember amounts and types of coupons that I use, but when I do my grocery trip posts, I can't always remember where/when I got the coupons I used. So what do I do? Look them up in the database. If I can't find my exact one, generally I can find something similar.

This is a great resource that even lightweight couponers should take advantage of!

2 Free Christian Paperbacks

Coupon Saving Game posted links for 2 free Christian books.

The first is Tortured for Christ, which is described as follows:
"Tortured for Christ provides a truly eternal perspective on life. Western Christians, even the most generous of them, are attached to their things and their lifestyles. The thought of losing literally everything is terrifying, yet those in Wurmbrand's boat have accepted this lot with joy. And this is why the Church has, historically, thrived under persecution."

The second is Revolution in World Missions.
"Do you long to let go of self-centeredness and be more eternally minded?Do you desire to make a difference in the lost world but aren't sure how to go about it?The gripping message in Revolution In World Missions can radically change your life."

Both of these look like intriguing reads, although I have to admit I'm more excited about the first one, as I am definitely one of those "attached to their things and their lifestyles".

What I'm Reading...

I got this idea from Northern Cheapskate, who has this feature on her blog, and I almost always read all of her recommendations, so I figured I would pass along some of my own.

On CNN Money, here's an article about big retailers (especially Wal-mart) dropping brands if they aren't profitable enough.

Money Saving Mom compares Olympic athletes' attitudes to being successful in other aspects of life.

Northern Cheapskate herself tells why not being a girly girl is great to save you money.

P&G $100 Coupon Booklet Rebate

P&G is offering a $100 coupon booklet as a rebate to anyone who buys $50 worth of P&G products (before tax and coupons) between February 1 and April 15, 2010. It can be on multiple receipts, which is definitely an incentive to save receipts just in case. Go here for a link to the form, as well as a link to the list of products in case you wanted to check.

Free Excedrin

Click here to take a short survey and get a coupon for a free bottle of Excedrin in the mail!

Kraft First Taste

Kraft First Taste is an online community that offers its members the opportunity to try and review new products from brands they already know. Not every member receives every offer, but generally, if you wait long enough, you will get one. And this is not written anywhere, but it seems to me like the more you participate, the more likely you will get an offer.

For example, I didn't get an offer for a few months, then recently got one to try DiGiourno's 200 Calorie portion pizzas (1 free item coupon, and $1.50/1 coupon). I completed their follow-up survey, and I already got another offer, for free Double Stuf Oreo Cakesters. If an offer is available to you, you simply register to receive it, and they mail you the coupons (snail mail).

Sign up today!

Free Subscription to Midwest Living

Get a free 1 year subscription to Midwest Living from Mercury Magazines here by filling out the form. (If you are a stay-at-home mom, you can enter Other and Homemaker for the job part). The best part about Mercury Magazines is that once you fill out the form for one, they will email you with other offers you are eligible for, but will not send you junk mail otherwise.

Thanks to Money Saving Mom for this deal (I haven't checked my email yet today, but I'm sure there's a link there for me too).

Free Full-Size Pantene Shampoo

Vocalpoint is offering a free sample of Pantene Nature Fusion Shampoo, and it's a full-size bottle! Go here to login and request yours.

I highly recommend signing up for Vocalpoint if you aren't already - they regularly send out great samples and lots of high value coupons.

Thanks to BeCentsAble for letting me know about this freebie!

B1G1 Sunbelt Granola or Fruit and Grain Bars

Become a fan of Sunbelt Snacks on Facebook and get the link to a pdf coupon to Buy 1, Get 1 Free any box of Sunbelt Granola Bars or Fruit and Grain Bars. Short turnaround on this one - it expires 2/18/10, but since it's a pdf, print as many as you think you'll use.

Target: Really Really Cheap Oatmeal!

This week, Target has a gift card deal where if you buy 5 Quaker items, you get a $5 gift card back. Rumor has it, the single serve Quaker oatmeal express cups are part of this deal also. Without coupons, you can buy five of these for $1.02 each, and get a $5 gift card, making them $0.02 each. Great deal!

But, if you can print off five $1/1 Quaker coupons, currently available here and here (create a day and you get a link for a coupon) - you'll need to use two computers because you can print each coupon twice per computer - you'll spend $0.10 total and then get a $5 gift card. And you'll have 5 oatmeals! Great deal!

Update: We did this deal today, with one minor issue. The cups were marked on the shelf as part of the gift card deal, but the computer didn't prompt for a $5 gift card like the promotions normally do. The cashier gave us one after sending someone to double check the tag, but make sure you look at your sale shelf before checking out so you know it's valid.

Savings this post: $6.00 (total coupons used at Target today)

Savings so far: $200.01

Free Full Size Aveeno Lotion

This site is loading really slowly, but you can sign up for a free bottle of Aveeno lotion here.
If you get an "internal error" message, just keep refreshing the page (don't hit back, or you'll have to re-fill in some of the information). It took me probably close to 50 times of refreshing, but I finally got the "Thank you. Your request has been submitted." screen.

Thanks to Money Saving Mom for this awesome freebie!

Target and Walgreens Deals

Walgreens:



My Walgreens trip was an interesting one today, to say the least. I had some of the worst customer service I'd ever received. However, I did score some good deals:

• 1st transaction: 1 Huggies Jumbo pack: $8.99, get $3RR back (used $2/1 printable) = paid $6.99, got $3RR


• 1st transaction: 2 John Freida Root Awakening Conditioners and 1 Shampoo: 3/$15, get $5RR (used $5/2 and $2/1 printables from smartsource.com) = paid $8, got $5RR


• 1st transaction: Paid $16.10, got $8RR. Savings (with sale prices): $17.37.


• 2nd transaction (as are all remaining): 1 Huggies Jumbo pack: $8.99, get $3RR back (used $2/1 printable) = paid $6.99, got $3RR


• 6 Nabisco crackers: on sale for $0.99 each (used three $2/2 printables) = FREE


• Blue Diamond Almonds (19.2 oz.): $4.99 with Walgreens ad coupon


• 1 Milky Way: on sale for $0.69


• 2nd transaction: Used $8RR from 1st transaction, paid $4.66 and got $3RR. Savings (with sale prices): $25.26

For everything, then, I paid $20.76. Normally just the diapers would cost almost that much. For some reason, the Huggies RR were rolling (you could buy one, use the RR to buy the next one, and still get another $3RR printed out - normally you can't use them to pay for the same offer and still get new ones). I still have more Huggies coupons, so if I get the chance, I may go back for more this week still.

Target:




This one isn't as impressive, but I still saved on most things:

• 27 Dresses dvd: on sale for $7.50 (used $2/1 printable from coupons.com) - this is one of my favorite movies, and I've been waiting for it to go on sale so I could get it for cheap!


• 1 Band-aids travel pack: $0.97 (used $1/1 from RP 1/3/10 insert) = FREE


• 1 Johnson & Johnson 1st Aid to Go Kit: $0.97 (used $1/1 from RP 1/3/10 insert) = FREE


• Speed Stick Pro deoderant: on clearance for $1.48 (used 50c/1 from Sunday inserts) = $0.98)


• 2 pack sports bras: $8.00


• Blue basket for Jonah's many toys taking over the living room: $6.99


• Spent $22.66, and saved $6.00 with coupons and dvd sale price.

Savings this post: $48.63
Savings so far: $194.01

Bad Customer Service

Using coupons has many benefits. The most obvious one is saving money, and getting more while paying less. However, there are also some downfalls to using coupons effectively to get things for free or very inexpensive. One of those downfalls is bad customer service.

Today I went to Walgreens to take advantage of their Register Reward deals on Huggies diapers and John Freida products. Since I planned on doing two transactions to use my Register Rewards right away, I made sure no one else was in line before going to check out, especially since there was only one cashier there at the time. I politely asked her if I could do 2 transactions, and she agreed, though not very willingly.

She rang up the diapers and John Freida products for my first transaction. By this time I had unloaded everything else from my cart, and had my coupons separated per transaction and sitting on the counter. She basically yelled at me that she needed all of my coupons and Register Rewards right then if I was going to do 2 transactions. I pointed to the first pile and explained that those were for the first transaction.

Once the Register Rewards printed out for my two offers, she looked at my second package of diapers and condescendingly told me that if I used the ones I had gotten, I wouldn't get any more (which I knew from Internet rumors to be false for this particular deal, but I wasn't going to argue with her). I told her I knew that, and that was fine. She proceeded to tell me that she didn't want me getting mad at her because no more printed out. I again repeated that was fine. She told me again, and a fourth time, just in case I was slow on the uptake.

My second transaction is where things fell apart. I was attempting to buy 8 Nabisco crackers, on sale for 99 cents apiece, another package of diapers, and some almonds that were on sale. She put through 3 of my 4 $2/2 Nabisco coupons and then told me that since the coupons were over (by a penny a box), she couldn't do the 4th one. I asked her if she could manually adjust the coupon down, since I've had coupon overages go through in the past without problem, but thought maybe a policy had changed. She said she couldn't do it, and called a manager up there to verify. At this point, Jonah was waking up from a nap, so I wasn't exactly paying attention, but I'm almost positive he said to push it through. She didn't.

I asked her to please take two of the boxes of crackers off of my transaction then, since I couldn't use my coupon. She looked at me, and with disdain in her voice, said, "You want me to take them off because you're not getting them for free?" Yes. I do not need a 7th or 8th box of crackers - I was simply getting them to stock up because they were free. She rolled her eyes and took them off of my transaction.

Because she got rid of two items, when she went to put through my Register Rewards as the last coupons, I was an item short (you have to have at least one item per coupon). She basically threw it back at me and said, "You can't use this." By this time I was getting agitated, though still trying to maintain my cool, so I grabbed the nearest item (a Milky Way bar on sale for 69 cents) and asked her to add it so that I could use my Register Reward.

She paused to call for extra help, as there were now a few people in line behind me, most of whom were smiling at my baby boy, who was being his charming self, and none of whom seemed like they were in that big of a rush. She finally gave me my total and I paid. I moved out of the way to bundle Jonah and myself up to go back outside, and listened as she said to the woman behind me, "I'm sorry you had to wait so long for that."

By this time, Jonah was starting to be not so charming, and I'm not one to make a scene, so I just left with my things. I did, however, take the time during Jonah's nap to write a complaint via the Walgreens website. I got a very apologetic phone call from one of the managers later on in the afternoon, who said that they had gotten previous complaints about this cashier of a similar manner, and that additional disciplinary action would be taken in the morning.

I told the manager that all of my previous experiences at that store have been positive, and I have never run into any issues with my coupons before. I asked her if Walgreens had a formal coupon policy, and she said that she didn't think so, so I asked for verification from her. She told me that as long as the grand total is not an overage, the cashier can ring in all of your coupons without adjusting the price down, and they should go through just fine, with other items using the overage. This means that my cashier this morning simply decided on her own that I shouldn't get that many free crackers, and didn't scan my coupon.

The manager was very polite, and extremely sorry for my experience. I told her that it was fine, and that I was already over it - I just wanted her to be aware of what had happened, because most of my experiences with Walgreens are positive ones. I also wanted clarification on couponing there, because I usually only shop for the best deals, which almost always involve several coupons and multiple transactions.

The lesson to be learned here is this: Be prepared and organized - know which items you want on which transaction, which coupons you're using, and anything you can to help the cashier out with complicated transactions, and then, if you believe something is not correct, ask for clarification so that it can be fixed. Couponing to get items for free or cheap is not a crime. It is the reward for careful research and planning. Stand up for yourself - you deserve to be treated as a valued customer whether you are paying full price or not.

In Case You Couldn't Tell...

In case you couldn't tell, (from here and here and here and maybe even here) our household is making an effort to live a greener and healthier life by reducing our carbon footprint, using natural products, and eating fresher foods. This is obviously a process that takes time - we are still using up old cleaners, eating stockpiled food (or donating to the food bank), and researching ways to continue to do so - but it is something that we are definitely trying to work on.

$3 off of Greenworks Detergent

Click here to get $3 off of one Greenworks detergent. Thanks to BeCentsable for this link!

Mine doesn't expire until 7/31/2010, so this is a great one to print now and use later.

Free Music!

I got a ton of free music downloads over Christmas, and just because the holiday season is over, doesn't mean the freebies are! Freebies 4 Mom shares links to new free music quite often. Here are two recent ones I'm going to take advantage of:

Amazon "The Groove" Sampler - 30 dance tracks, which I think will be great for upbeat workout music.

iTunes People Country Sampler - 11 country songs

Seventh Generation Coupons

Sign up for Seventh Generation e-mails, and have access to the following coupons:

• $1/1 Disinfecting Spray or Wipe
• $1/1 Any Seventh Generation Product
• $1/1 Baby Care Product
• $1/1 Laundry Product
• $2/2 Any Seventh Generation Product

You can print each coupon twice, and they will expire 30 days from printing. Also, they update the coupons every 30 days, so there are almost always more than enough.

Stonyfield Product Coupons

Click here for coupons for Stonyfield Organic products, including yogurt, YoBaby, and more!

Thanks to Deal Seeking Mom for these.

Vegetarian Grocery Shopping

I wish I would have been able to snap a picture of all of our yummy healthy food that we bought, but we got home and it was already past Jonah's feeding time and he was not happy. So...imagine, if you will, a table piled high with lots of fresh veggies, canned beans and tomatoes, brown rice, wheat pasta, eggs, a bit of cheese, and a few other things.

We are going to try a vegetarian menu for the next two weeks, as an experiment for our health, our tastes, our budget, and our waistlines. I found a bunch of new recipes, and I'm really excited to try things out. (We did make one oops already, since Jesse normally has turkey sandwiches for lunch and I forgot to plan out lunches and we bought turkey like normal, so we have to either figure out new lunches, or cheat on that).

The unfortunate part of buying so much fresh produce is that there aren't a lot of coupons out there, at least that I've found. Here's what we did use:

• 3 Contadina Tomato Pastes: $0.54 each. Used one 75 cents/3 printable = $0.87/3
• 4-pack YoPlus yogurt: $2. Used $1/1 from Sunday inserts.
• 6 Dannon single cups: $0.50 each. Used one $1/6 printable = $2/6
• 10 YoPlait single cups: I'm drawing a blank on the price right now, but we used one $1/8 printable from coupons.com
• B1G1 free ($1.50 or less) eggs from Incredible Edible Egg Facebook promotion (no longer availabe) - we actually only had one package of a dozen eggs that was under $1.50...when did eggs get so expensive? I remember them being 99 cents not too long ago. Anyways, we saved $1.28 on these.
• Total savings: $5.03. Not too impressive. However, we got all of our groceries for the next two weeks (give or take a little, probably), for $43.32 (plus $16.04 in WIC vouchers, making the total $59.36, still great for 2 weeks).

Savings this post: $5.03
Savings so far: $145.38

I am a Slacker...

First off, I have been terrible about updating this blog as of late - I don't really have an excuse other than that other things took precedence (including watching Jonah, weaning Jonah, trying to get Jonah on some semblance of a schedule, working, and life).

So...this is my catch-up post, mostly so I can keep my "Total Savings" up-to-date, and probably not of any real interest to anyone else. I will try to post actual meaningful content again soon.

Target:

• Huge box of Huggies (228 ct.): $33.99 (used one $3/1 from a sample pack and one $3/1 Target coupon from the 1/3/10 Red Plum insert) = $27.99
• Planters Almonds: don't remember the price, but used $1/1 coupon from the Kellogg's Fuel for School Rebate Calendar from back at the beginning of the school year
• Total savings: $7.00

Walmart: We did a big grocery shopping trip on 1/26/10, and because the coupons only show up on the receipt as "Coupon" with several numbers behind it, I don't really remember what we saved on what. But...I brought the total down from $80.61 to $62.67, a savings of $17.94.

Target (at least these receipts break things down for me), 1/27/10:

• 2 Emerald Nuts: $2.99/1 (used two printable $1/1) = $1.99 each
• 3 Huggies Jumbo Packs: $8.99/1, buy 3 get a $5 gift card (used three different $3/1 coupons from mailings (I think I get these because I'm signed up for the Enjoy the Ride Rewards program) = paid $17.97/3 and got a $5 gift card
• Total savings: $16.00

Walmart:

• 3 red peppers: $1.76/1 (price matched HyVee ad price of 68 cents/1) = $2.04/3
• 2 Nabisco 100 calorie packs: $2.78 each (used $1/2 from Kelloggs Fuel for School Rebate Calendar from back at the beginning of the school year) = $4.56/2
• Total savings: $4.24

Savings this post: $45.18
Savings so far: $140.35