Get paid to buy Pillsbury rolls!

Not a bad deal. This month I have tried not to go shopping unless the stores were paying me to and I have done fairly well. Looks like I'm going to have to go to King Soopers this week and get paid to buy some more Pillsbury rolls. My poor fridge is sagging from the weight of all of the ones I bought back when Albertsons was quadrupling .25 coupons. Of course having Pillsbury rolls already baked at all times isn't necessarily a bad thing. I also found a recipe for Bubble Pizza Thanks to Shop Smart in Vegas for the link.

Mmmm Yummy! So if you are anxious to know how to get this deal to work for yourself so you can find cool things to do with your rolls, check out I am a Money Magnet for a complete break down. Then look around as she shows you some great ways she made this deal work!

edit: I discovered when I went today that the 10/$10 deal is for the mini containers of cinnamon rolls. I didn't find any when I went out last time but I will look if I make it that way again.

The beauty of a blogroll.

So I was scanning through a few of my lesser read blogs in an effort to catch up and I found myself on a blogroll chain. I bounced from one blogger to a blogger in their roll to one in their roll and so on. I found myself at a very entertaining blog called Taking what is left. She had a link to the Typealyzer. This site will analyze your blog and give it a version of the Meyers-Briggs test. How cool is that?

Looks like mine is:

ESTP - The Doers



The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.









Well I guess if you take out the outdoorsy portion, that's pretty much my blog. I definitely get more steam out of starting a project than finishing it, as evidenced by the ugly gaps in posting here, but I'm working on it :)

What about you? How does your blog score?

Kmart doubles $2 coupons

For those of you who haven't received this information somewhere else, Kmart is doubling coupons up to and including $2 coupons. I went yesterday bought $60 worth and spent $20. Go here and here to see detailed breakdowns of how other people did and coupon matchups.

Make sure you print out your $5 off $50 coupon first!

Lots of BOGO or FREE food!

Ok lets start with the FREE stuff first.

Wendy's Free $1 menu item

Texas Roadhouse Free appetizer

Chilis Free chips and queso

And now the BOGO deal

Denny's B1G1 coupons

Finally

B1G3 Free Zone Perfect

all of these brought to you by
Money Saving Mom

They like me they really like me!

I got a blog award! How cool is that? Thanks so much Marianne for letting me know you like what you've been reading!



Here are the rules for the Honest Scrap Award:

Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Show the winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with “Honest Scrap.” There’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

1. I have 3 children, at least 2 of whom have special needs
2. In the 10 years I have been married I have only lived in one place longer than 2 years and no we are not in the military.
3. Most of my current friends have never seen my natural hair color.
4. My closest family member resides more than 900 miles away.
5. All of my female friends living near me are teachers.
6. I am not a techie but I surround myself with them.
7. I have only been actively saving money and using coupons for a little over 8 months
8. My favorite color is purple
9. I am not a terrible cook but not a terribly inventive one either
10. 3 out of the 5 members of my family all have birthdays in July

Not the best list but it's my first time filling one of these out.

And now it's my turn to share the love!

1. Money Saving Mom
2. Moms Need To Know
3. Chief Family Officer
4. Playgroups are no place for children
5. If only I had Super Powers
6. List Mama
7. Common Sense with Money

For those of you who have never heard of me before, I've been watching you and I really enjoy reading your blog! Hopefully I'll be able to comment more often (or at all) from now on.

Even easier than "Easy"

Contrary to my recent posts about baked goods, I am far from a consummate chef. My all time favorite book is one called Help my apartment has a kitchen!. Recipes are listed in order of very easy, easy and not so easy. Their Teriyaki Chicken is a favorite in our house, even loved by my beyond picky 5 year old! Problem is, for someone one like me it's still a bit of work, you have to use up a big bowl large enough to hold the chicken and mix all the ingredients together and then find room in your fridge for such a bowl for 2 hours or more!

I just stumbled onto this site Dinnersonme on my never ending search for ideas to cook for my family. I haven't looked through it very long, because on the first page I saw there was a link for teriyaki chicken. Unbelievable! 4 ingredients, put them all in a bag with the chicken and let it sit. NO DISHES! I can't wait to try it.

What about you? Do you have any really simple recipes you swear by? I'm always looking for other ideas.

Kashi Secret Contest

I don't know how many of you have already signed up for Kashi through one of their promotions, but if you go log in you get entered in a contest for a years supply of Kashi products! I went to go get this Free Kashi frozen entree that I found on MNTK. Sadly most of the time if you are already a member these promotions do not apply though. I decided to try anyway (as I always do) and this time the free entree is for everyone! On top of that if you register with them or log in as a member you are entered in the contest I mentioned. What a great deal!

When I say this is a secret contest, it's possible that they mentioned it in my email but since I get sooo much email in my folder I may have missed it.

Pampers users

I'm a Huggies girl myself, I don't have any little ones in actual diapers and I'm not a fan of Easy Ups, but for those of you who do use Pampers here's a great way to get an extra $1.50 coupon.

When good couponers go bad!

My stockpile is overflowing! I should be able to go without buying even milk, eggs or bread for some time. I still need to build up my chicken and beef stores but if I HAD to go without buying anything I could do it...I think.

Unfortunately during my newbie days I went coupon crazy! I bought everything that was 75% or less with the benefit of a coupon, and if I could buy it for free, you'd better BELIEVE I bought that too! When I looked on the bags of free things, it was easy to forget about little details like expiration dates and to worry that these oppertunities might never present themselves again. As a result I hoarded most of my items and now they are useless.

Below is just a few of the items I have had to throw away.



I have reorganized my stores and placed them in expiration date order. I am using up the items whenever and wherever I can, and I am going to have faith that the deals will be around again.

Cool stuff to find out about!

Forgive this Shameless plug for one of my favorite blogger sites *blush*

You've got to check out MNTK (otherwise known as Moms Need To Know).

Over the last few weeks I have gone stockpile CRAZY! I bought and froze a ton of grapes, blueberries, blackberries and strawberries! I found an article on MNTK talking about how she feeds her family on only $50 a week (be sure to check out all of this series). Part of this article links to a post on how to freeze just about anything and I kinda went overboard. The most important thing I froze was the blueberries. I have a child with food dye allergies and you'd be surprised how hard it can be to find blueberry muffin mix that doesn't have red dye added to make the blueberries look more purple! Nothing like that natural look to require unnatural dye. So I looked up some blueberry muffin recipes and when blueberries were .88 cents at Safeway a few weeks back I bought like 5 packages! I froze them using eHow.com.

The problem with baking any muffins, packaged mixes or homemade, in my house at least, is a case of hardware not working very well. My "nonstick" muffin tins quite frankly aren't and I have yet to produce anything in them that doesn't stick to the bottom or even worse burn! MNTK to the rescue again! Yesterday she shared with us how you can get FREE easybakeware products. I don't know if these are the infomercial style or not but they are guaranteed to work with a 60 day money back guarantee. PLUS since they are free all you really risk is shipping cost which is $7.95 standard or $1 if you sign up for a free trial of a service. You can get more than one item off the site too. Standard orders above $25 are free shipping, and they will take the most expensive item in your cart and make that one FREE.

I started off with 3 products, the muffin tins, some spoonulas (which I love) and some cool looking collapsible measuring cups. My total was 27 something aka free shipping, but I realized that I was trying not to buy things I don't need and after a quick web search, I found that spoonulas can go for as little as $14.95 considerably cheaper than easybakeware's price of $29.95 (which BTW was my most expensive item). In the end I restrained myself, bought my 1 item, my muffin tins, and signed up to get the $1 shipping. A word of caution, write down the number for the trial company (as MNTK urges) because at least for me, the email went into my spam and I almost didn't find it. Calling and cancelling is simple (I LOVE these kinds of companies). They know most of us don't really want the service so their first prompt is a cancellation option. You push the button a couple times and you are done. It takes 24 hours though so don't wait until the 6th day to cancel or you may find yourself with a bill!

The benefits of a stockpile (revisited)

In an effort to prevent the wastefulness of my earlier couponing days, I am actually using the items I buy. Imagine that, actually taking the things out of their neat little pile and putting them to good use!

To make sure that my Pillsbury crescent and grands rolls don't go bad I am baking them and using them as an addition to snacks and part of dinner. To appease my generous husband who gave me a kitchen aid mixer for Christmas, I am having cookies or brownies in the house most, if not all of the time. And to make sure that the countless boxes and pouches of Betty Crocker Potato mix doesn't go to waste I am having a side more often than not in my nightly dinners.

Perhaps this is nothing unusual to most of you, but for me it has produced enormous benefits! As a result of always having treats ready and that I am willing to give out, my 5 year old, who would rather starve than eat anything new, has been trying more of my dinners! You would be amazed just how much of a motivator a home made (or even store bought specialty) cookie can inspire a finicky eater. On top of that, my ability to make dinners that are eaten by my entire family has removed a level of stress that has been in our house since I can't remember when.

I can't wait to see what other benefits I can discover!

It never hurts to ask.

So I have been missing out on most of the good deals Safeway has had lately. Due to the fact that I am more than 12 miles away from any Safeway, my post office has neglected to include their flyer in my collection. I am in the area once a week so if I know the deals to get, I can take advantage of them. I can get a basic idea from MNTK but with a different name in a different state, the produce items don't always line up. On top of that, if you are in possession of a print flyer for any Walmart competitor (and let's face it, with all they sell who isn't) they will match your deal in their store! I can't say enough about this deal and even with all the issues I've had with Walmart, this particular benefit gets me in their store a whole lot more!

But I digress. At any rate, I called Safeway's customer service line and asked them if they could send me a weekly insert. They took my address and that was it, in 2-3 weeks I will once again be able to partake in the deals from the store that used to be my favorite, before I moved to the land of SUPERS. After all with, now FIVE stores to choose from, all of which hosting their own bakery...you still can't beat Safeway's French Bread (and now I find out they even slice it to your desired thickness)!

Who knows, maybe once I get my inserts I will be inspired to do my own grocery deals again, like I did in my last town.

Super Savings Saturday...(a bit late)

First I went to King Soopers


Total spent : 86.63
Total saved $121.77 or 59%


Then I went to Walmart to take advantage of cheap deli meat prices and some free items.

4 Oscar Mayer deli meat packages 2 each Roast Beef and Honey Ham $2.50 each down from $3
1 package sliced swiss cheese $2.42
1 package hot dog buns $1
1 bag of oranges (8 lbs) $3.98 (down from $6.98)
1 bunch of bananas .48
2 Cucumbers .68 each
1 bag Russel Stover Sugar Free turtles $1.50 (used $1.50/1 coupon to make it FREE)
2 J&J buddies soaps $.97 each (used $2/2 coupon to make both FREE)

Total spent: $21.02
Walmart doesn't break down your savings like the rest, but with the WAY cheap bananas, oranges, deli meat and the free items I'm pleased.


Finally I went to Target for almost free Kashi bars and WAY cheap milk.




2 Gallons of 1% milk $2.49 each
4 Kellogg's Fiber Plus bars $1.88 each (used 4 $.75/1 coupons)
1 Kashi Soft Fruit bars $2.67 (used a $2/1 coupon)

At this point I discovered that my cashier had a VERY strict interpretation of the word "purchase". This has been my first time that I had actually experienced this objection and I almost forgot the proper response. Which is btw..."an item is a purchase...the collection of items all at once is a transaction, so as long as you only use one coupon per item it's still fine." Unfortunately I got myself a cashier that told me that "we" (I assume target) consider them the same thing. Ok so 3 more individual transactions of .85 later (1 Kashi bar $2.75 less $2/1 coupon) .

Total over all transactions: $18.38
Total saved (according to Target): $15.60


Saturday I made another stop at Albertsons to take advantage of the deals I didn't already get here.



2 French bread $1 each
8 Honey Bunches of Oats cereal $2 each (used $1/2 coupon, less .50 each for Big 10 Deal)
4 Boxes of Wheat Thins $2 each(used $2/2 coupon, less .50 each for Big 10 Deal)
3 Boxes of Ritz
AND
1 Box of Triscuits $2 each (used $2/2 coupon, less .50 each for Big 10 Deal)
4 SoBe Life Water $1 each (less .50 each for Big 10 Deal)
2 Dark Chocolate Chex mix $1 (used 2 $.50/1 coupon doubled)

Total Spent: $25.39
Total Saved: $57.38!


Topped it all off with a quick stop at Walgreens:

2 Reynolds Wrap Foil .89 each (used 1 $1/1 coupon...the other was returned to me)
6 Special Dark Hershey's Bars BOGO (used 3 BOGO coupons to get em all FREE)

Total Spent: $.85
It could have been less apparently, because they took the whole $1 value off the .89 foil. I wasn't able to use the last coupon because it would have had them giving me cash!

What I have learned...Awareness

Well it just goes to show no matter how much you think you know there is always more to learn. And so we begin another rousing installment of What have I learned.

1. Read the fine print. And by fine print, what I really mean is, read the small print, on the top, bottom or side of every single product. Otherwise known as the expiration date. Don't count on the store to be responsible for this. It's a big store, and I don't know who's job it is to check each and every item, but I have yet to find a store that has never slipped up.

Today I went to take advantage of the Albertsons coupon deals. I checked all the Pillsbury crescent rolls, grands and sweet rolls because in my zeal to keep my stockpile as full as possible, I have discovered a tendency to hoard as well, which I will get into later. I conducted an exhausting search to confirm all my items had the farthest expiration date I can find. I made a point to check the date on all of the Pillsbury products, but for some reason I neglected to check the rest of the items. So I get home and take my picture of my groceries and then begin the process of figuring out where everything is going to go and I discover that not one but all eight of my cans of frozen apple juice expired over 2 weeks ago!

When I run a deal in a store it takes a ton of planning, probably more than most sane people and probably more than my fellow couponers do. I run the sales, collect the coupons, make my list and then walk into the store (usually with my 2 year old). It takes forever to get through one store and I usually hit 2 or three in a day. Still, for all the time it takes me, apparently, I am still not taking the time I need to in the store. So now I need to make a point to check every single product for the expiration date, I'm sure I will miss some eventually, but with any luck the ones I forget to check won't be expired! Of course, this leads me to the next thing I have learned...

2. Stockpiling is not hoarding. As of right now I believe I have multiple packages of cookies,
more Pillsbury bread products, yogurt, cereal bars and who knows what else, ALL EXPIRED! As a result of all the deals I came across when I first started saving, I have a large number of various snack foods. Since I would normally not have bought them due to price, I opted to save them rather than add them to the normal rotation of foods and eat them along with everything else. As a result, I find myself with a pantry full of food and none of it eatable. Looks like I need to find a way to trust that I will be able to replace the food I use, otherwise free or not it's not worth getting it if it goes to waste.

3. Being a coupon snob isn't always beneficial. In my zeal to take advantage of free or better than free products from the beginning of my savings journey, I have developed a bit of an arrogance when it comes to paying more than the best price I have found. For instance, every month or so Albertsons seems to have milk for the equivalent of $2 a gallon. I buy the maximum I can each time and freeze the excess, hoping to have it get me over to the next sale period. Of course, freezing milk has it's own complications as I learned here. However, I find that my unwillingness to pay for milk until absolutely necessary if it's above my predetermined price is costing me more money and hassle over all. Turns out you have to be flexible and willing to pay a bit more than you'd like sometimes, because let me tell you, running out of milk in a house with three kids sucks!

4. Count your chickens...or in this case your items. Anyone who brings a 2 year old to the store knows you run the risk of having extra purchases tacked onto your bill. Last week I discovered to my dismay that my single box of Yogos fruit snacks had multiplied into 2 extra boxes, courtesy of my "helpful" daughter. Add that to the fact that my last King Soopers run had me buying an extra can of soup, an extra box of cereal bars and an extra cream cheese ALL without coupons. Some of these were items I'd forgotten to put back when my coupon went missing and some of them were due to a miscount in my cart scanning that I do before I check out. This is where being aware is really critical. I'm not entirely sure, yet how I plan to prevent this from happening in the future, as I tend to over fill my cart and can't always see every item, but once I figure out a way I'll be sure to share that with you all!

And that's it for this installment of What I have learned. What have you all learned in your efforts to be more frugal? Any cautionary tales for the rest of us? I'd love to hear them.