Free LCD nightlight

Now, I know, not everyone needs a nightlight, but if you have nieces, nephews, grandchildren, children, or even just friends with small children, this is free, so you may as well get it for one of them!

Just go here, sign up (close the pop-up window, you don't need it), and they will ship you a FREE LCD nightlight in the next 7 to 10 business days

Free Purex 3-in-1

Okay, so I told you last night that I was going to get you some freebies today, well, here's the start of those. Taking care of my baby obviously takes first precedence, but she's asleep right now. As long as she stays that way, I have a lot of tabs in my browser with links to free stuff. Hopefully they all still work for you.

Go here to get a free sample of the Purex 3-in-1 (it has 2 sheets). You just need to fill out your information and a few questions, and then they'll send you a sample (6-8 weeks for delivery)

Sorry, and good Walgreen's deal!

I know, I know, its been a few days since I posted, which isn't as normal anymore. We've had some interesting things going on this week here at my place, (including fixing my computer) so I haven't really been able to get on here. I promise though, tomorrow will have as many freebies as I can find, as well as some good deals. To start off with... here is my favorite deal from Walgreen's this week.

Walgreen's has the John Frieda collection on sale for $5.99, but there is an in store coupon for $2 off.  If you don't have the coupon, no worries, it is in the blue March booklet that is by the ads when you first walk in. So, now, we're seeing the fancy salon-quality hair care on sale for $3.99. That's looking much more reasonable. But wait! In this week's (3-7) Smartsource coupon booklet there was another coupon... $3 off of 1! Let me tell you, I was way excited to get these for $0.99 each. I get 4 papers a week, so I got 2 shampoos and 2 conditioners for $4 (plus tax). Sorry, I know its a little late in the week, but you still have 2 days to be able to get this deal.

Best Shopping Trip EVER!!!

Oh my goodness! this week was fantastic as far as my shopping trip was concerned. I went to a few different stores, and came home with loads of goodies. However, I think I have completely run out of freezer space now, but that wasn't difficult to do, considering I'm living in an apartment, and only have the small one connected to our fridge. Most of these deals came from multiple copies of that budget buster booklet from Maceys (though I used them at Ridley's Family Market as well), but I did go to 5 different stores. I'm not above going to multiple stores, even if I'm only getting one thing there. (as long as the store isn't too far) So... are you ready for the numbers??? I paid $29.07 out of pocket (including tax). The original cost of everything (not including the sale prices) $136.29 That is a savings of 78.7%!!!!! Oh my goodness! That is definitely the best I've ever done. So, are you ready for the picture and the list? I'm so excited... It was fantastic. I love doing this.

no pictured: 5 gallon bucket and lid to hold the 25lbs of flour
Okay, so... Here is what I got...

-1 Satin Care Shave gel

-1 Edge Shave Gel

-5 Quaker Cereal 15 oz

-1 25 lb bag flour

-7 Land ‘O Frost lunchmeat 16oz

-8 Armour Lunchmakers

-1 WF med cheddar 2lb

-4 Babybels

-1 Aveeno lotion

-1 Shout wipes (travel)

-storage bucket w/lid

-Snuggle liquid softener

-16 buddig lunchmeat

-super saver pork 2.48lb

-super saver beef 1.63lb

-2 big buy bacon 16oz

I was reeling by the time I finished. And most of it was more "need" than just "I can get a good deal". So yeah, people ask if couponing is worth it,  well, when I got 9.5 lbs of lunchmeat for virtually free... I have to say a clear and resounding YES!!!!

Free After Rebate Clorox toilet wand

I love rebates! Even if I did already spend the money out of pocket, it is nice that companies will give you things for free. Especially on things that make your life easier. No one likes cleaning the toilet, but this does make it not quite so bad.

The Clorox Toilet Wand is priced at $9.63 at Target. You can use the $5.00 off coupon then send in for the $5 rebate. Total cost to you? Its a $0.37 money maker! (Okay, that's not counting tax, but still)

 The wand probably costs about the same at Walmart, so whichever you choose. ;)

Thanks Freebies2Deals !

Free bag of Sunchips to the first 100,000

Yup, another freebie here. A free 10.5oz bag of Sunchips this time! This is one of those facebook freebies, so all you have to do is become a fan here and they'll send you a coupon for a free bag. Now, it is only for the first 100,000, so hurry. Free is always good, no matter how small the item.

Free Purology Supersmooth

Pureology is a fabulous brand of hair care, but they are normally way more expensive that I like to pay. They are doing a drawing for a free here of their Supersmooth serum or cream. Go enter, and help tame those flyaways quickly, and free! (if enough of us enter, someone has to win right?)

Family Fresh Foods new coupon policy

 I told you a week ago that I had heard about a new coupon policy at Family Fresh Foods. Well, I called them yesterday so that I could make sure to get all of the details for you. So here are the details for the changes.

• You must choose to either double coupons or price match, they no longer do both.
• You need to choose on each item, so you can still do both on the same order. 
• If you choose to price match, you cannot use any coupons on that item.

Just thought I would let everyone know what's going on with this so that you don't get caught by surprise.

Double couons event!!

Guess what! Kmart is going to be having a double coupon event! I am so very excited. This promotional event will occur April 4th through April 10th!  Not all stores will be participating, so you will want to call your Kmart. I tried to call mine (the Orem Kmart) and they did not know, and the employees will not know until the week it happens (but it sounded like they had done it before, so I'm betting they will again. The promotion should be going on at EVERY store in Utah, but some managers have been known to still refuse. So I would suggest to still call.
There are some rules that apply to the event, so read carefully.

• You can only double 5 coupons per day. (I know I'll be shopping there every day that week, and possibly going to 2 different stores each day) ;)
• Offer doesn't include Kmart Coupons or Pharmacy coupons
• They will double up to a $2.00 coupon!  That means you can get up to $4.00 off an item

Thanks so much to Freebies2Deals for finding this out!

Fabulous deals!

Oh my goodness! I have never seen anything like this before. This week in the mail, Maceys sent out a "Budget Buster" packet. It has some fabulous deals in it. These coupons are good this week and next, and even if you accidentally threw it out, Maceys keeps some in the front at their store (by their ads). Here are the deals I am most excited about and I am going to try to use tomorrow.
Babybel cheese retail $3.99 (okay I'm probably not actually going to use this one, much as I want to)
          $1 budget buster cpn = $2.99
Kretschmar Pre-Sliced Deli meat (again, I won't be getting this one, but if you are someone who really likes getting the nice meats...) retail $3.99
          $2 budget buster cpn = $1.99
Land 'O Frost lunchmeats retail $3.29 (turkey, the ham I saw was more expensive)
          $3 budget buster = $0.29 ea!
Buddig lunchmeat reatil $0.55
          $0.55 budget buster =$0 (can get 4 with the same coupon)
Super Saver meat packages retail varies: I found a pork package as low as $3.74 and steak as low as $4.22
          $3 budget buster = $0.74 (pork) $1.22 (steak) (can get 2 with the same coupon)
Armour Lunchmakers retail $1.58
          $1.50 budget buster = $0.08 ea!
Farmland bacon retail $3.79
          $2.50 budget buster = $1.29 (can get 4 with the same coupon)
Cache Valley cheese 8oz retail $3
          2/$3 budget buster = $1.50 ea (can get 4 with the same coupon) (must buy 2)
Western Family sour cream retail $0.88
          b1g1 budget buster = $0.44 ea wyb 2

So those are the deals at Maceys, but I found something even cooler! While the packet says Maceys on the front, the coupons say they are good at Associated Food Stores! So, if you wanted to, you could price check at some other places, and see which is cheapest, or you could just use them somewhere else, if you don't happen to have a Maceys nearby. I must say though, I was way excited to find this. I will let you know how everything goes tomorrow. I have 4 copies of the booklet, and so I'm hoping to be able to get lots and lots of freebies.

Free Vitamin Water

Here's another freebie for all of you out there. Become a fan of Vitamin Water on facebook, and they'll mail you a coupon for a free bottle. It's only for the first 100,000 fans though, so act fast. I don't believe you have to stay a fan, but I would until you get the coupon, just in case.

Free Stuff!

 I have to say, I love getting free samples! They may not last very long, but all it takes is filling out your information. Even if you're just getting 1 load of laundry for free, its still 1 load that was FREE! So, here are some freebies I've found today.

-Bounce 4-in-1 dryer sheets. Now, this is from the Sam's Club website, and it does have a slot for you're member number, but it isn't required. I don't have a member number, and they just approved it, and are sending it to me.

-Free Custom printed T-shirts from Vista Print
Yay! for freebies. They really are my favorite.

getting paid to shop?!

Wait, is that really true? I'm here to tell you, yes it is. I just returned from Target $2.75 richer. (Okay, it will be 4-6 weeks before my wallet actually sees the money) Here's how I did it. I bought 2 Venus Embrace razors ($7 ea), and 3 Olay total effects 7-1 body wash ($5.50 ea). One of the Proctor and Gamble (P&G) inserts (sorry I don't know which one, the coupon was already clipped for me) had a $2 off Venus razors as wells as a b1g1 (buy a Venus get an Olay body wash). Unfortunately, I only had 2 of each coupon, or I would have done a little better. So, Target has a promotion, though it isn't advertised, where you can buy 3 Olay body washes and get a $5 gift card. I don't know if any of the other body washes than the one I got were included, I scanned what I could find, but this was the only one for me. So, so far, here is where I'm at. $15.50 out of pocket for 5 items, making it $3.10 a piece. Not bad right there, but I also get that $5 gift card... $10.50 for 5 items, $2.10 each. However, Olay is doing a rebate when you buy any 3 lotions or body washes. $15 back, though it is a mail in rebate, so it will take time to get here. So, after tax, I ended up paying $17.25 OOP (out of pocket), but I got $5 immediately, and will get another $15 in 4-6 weeks. I seriously think couponing is one of the best things that has ever happened to my budget. I never would have found this deal before. Olay and Venus were always "too expensive" I think getting paid isn't too expensive anymore.

V8 on sale!

Okay, for all of you who love V8, there is a super deal going on right now! Or even if you don't know if you love it, want to try it, but always found it too expensive. Big Lots has 46 oz V8 on sale for $1.50! That's great by itself, but you can also get coupons for it here or here. You can also generally print them twice. So that is 4 V8 you could get for $2 total! Now, Big Lots doesn't accept manufacturer coupons, so just swing by there and pick up an ad (if you don't already have one) and then head to Target or Walmart to price match! 

They also have Sunny D on sale for $1, and we recently had a $0.25 coupon in the Sunday paper, or you could print one from here.  Again, just take their ad into Target or Walmart to get the deal with a coupon.Thanks Vanessa for finding this one!

Unfortunate News

Well, I have some unfortunate news that I came across the other day. Family Fresh Foods is changing their policy. A manager was talking to me while I was there yesterday, and while they will still double coupons, and will still price match, you will need to pick one or the other. Now, I don't know if this is on each individual item, (which I'm hoping, because if I'm going to make the trip up there, I would rather not have to go to more stores as well) at which point it would be just like getting the deal at the store whose ad it is, but getting double coupons on anything that is cheapest at Family Fresh Foods. However, it may be on the whole order, in which case I will definitely be picking double coupons. What you choose is obviously up to you though. SO, I will be calling them in the next few days, and I will see what I can find out about this change, and I will keep you all posted.

$5.98 ink refills at Walgreens!

So, I know its a little late in the day, so sorry about that, but today Walgreen's is having a sale on their ink refills! You can get them for $5.98! As ink is one of the more expensive things I buy, and as I need it to be able to do the couponing, this is a fantastic deal. Now, you do need to print a coupon (firefox link) for it, so if you're looking from IE, go to Walgreen's website, click on photo, click on 7 days of deals, there is an orange bar across the middle of the page. On the right-hand side of it, it says 54% off ink cartridge refills. Click there and then print the coupon. Yay! for deals like these, and thank you couponing to disney for bringing this one to my attention.

WOW!!!!

That's what I have to say right now. WOW! I did my shopping at Family Fresh Foods (in Ogden) this week. It went fabulously. Now, yes it is a long drive up and back (1hr 20 min one way). So that did make it a little harder to deal with. But overall, it was great. I spent $37.07 which was $44.09  off the shelf price. That is a savings of 56.4%!!! Holy cow! It was awesome. There were again some things that HAD to be bought, because I don't have a big enough stockpile yet. So it possibly could have been better, but I was way excited. I think my favorite deal was one I just stumbled upon as I walked through the store. The packages of Gold 'N' Plump chicken were on sale 3/$6, and I had 4 $0.75 mfr cpns. With the fact that Family Fresh Foods doubles coupons... I got 5.5 pounds of chicken for $2! It was awesome.So, here is what I got.

2 dozen extra large eggs
6 Nissan Top Ramen
1 Western Family 26 oz ketchup
2 Ragu Spaghetti Sauce
1 Puffs facial tissue
1 pound Land O' Frost ham
1 pound rice
4 V8 Fusion 64 oz drinks
1 Welch's juice
2 Garnier shampoo
2 Garnier conditioner
2 Purex 72 oz laundry detergent
3 Kellogg's Fiber Plus granola bars
2 Western Family Cream of Mushroom Soup
2 Western Family Chicken Noodle Soup
3 Western Family tomato sauce
2 bags Goldfish
1 10ct pkg tortillas
4 1.25-1.5lb pkgs Gold 'N' Plump All Natural chicken

All of that for under $35!!!! I know I had said that I wanted to limit myself to $25, but I think this was acceptable.WOW!

limiting myself

So, this past week, I decided that I am going to try to limit the amount of money I spend each week to about $25. Seeing as my grocery budget is $100 every 2 weeks, that gives me an extra $50 to pay for newspapers, ink, and to help pay for things like Christmas and vacations. This is how I did this time.

2 gallons milk
2 jumbo packs, Huggies diapers
2 Gillette fusion razors
5 10pks quaker instant oatmeal
1 Complete contact solution
not shown: 1 Tony's single-serve pizza
I ended up spending $29.50. So it was about $4 more than I had hoped to spend. However, I saved about 46%! That is pretty good in my book. That, and when I was looking through the ads for this week, I found no good deals. So I really probably won't be doing any shopping this week. So really, that means that it ends up being $15 per week for these 2 weeks! I can deal with that.

Survey checks!

Yay! I told you that I would let you know when my check came from Opinion Outpost (an online survey company). Well, It's here! I did not expect it to come this soon, because it said 4 to 6 weeks, so I wasn't expecting anything until mid-March. That was a pleasant surprise. So here ya go, check for taking surveys. $6 more toward our Seattle fund. (I'm hoping that we don't have to take any extra out of our budget to pay for it)

Too Rushed!

So, I did get to Family Fresh Foods today, but it did not go quite as well as I would have liked. My friend and I went while her son was at preschool, but it took us a lot longer to get there than we had thought it would, so we had about 10-15 minutes that we should have been in the store. So we were basically rushing around trying to find things when we'd never been in there before, and they didn't have some of the brands I needed, and I got confused with some of my coupons, and if the things they were for were covered in the ad that I was price matching with (they were) but I didn't have time to check in the store. I didn't do too horribly, and I did save enough to more than cover the gas, but I will still probably only go once or twice a month because of the time it takes to get up there and back.
Here is what I got.

4 Dreyer's ice cream
1 16 oz, 1 8 oz cool whip,
1can pineapple tidbits
2 10 oz boxes Wheat Thins
3 boxes Club crackers
6 8 oz bags shredded cheese
2 Fiber One 4pks
toothpicks
bacon bits
jello
2 8 oz boxes cream cheese
ranch dip mix
5 1/2 pound ham steak

I spent $24.21, and I saved $29.40. I saved 55%! So really, not bad at all. As far as making up for the gas, I spend about $7 in gas to get there and back, but just from the doubling of the coupons, I saved $14 MORE than I would have by shopping in Utah Valley where I live. So including the gas I saved $7 more than I would have. Next time I go up there, I'm going to give myself a lot more time to price check, and to wander the store. But I didn't do too bad for only having 15 minutes, and for a first time.