Got a little too much rice, cereal and BBQ sauce?

With a couple of good months of triples, you're pantry may be starting to get a little packed.  Why not use this weekend to clean it out?  I rotate my stock on a regular basis throwing out the expired and pulling things that I'm way overstocked on to donate to someone who can use it. 

New Life 91.9 is partnering with Bruster's Real Ice Cream to help feed the hungry by having a non-perishable Neighborhood food drive. You can drop off your non-perishable food items April 30th and May 1st at any Bruster's Real Ice Cream location in Ft. Mill/Tega Cay, Mooresville, Kannapolis, Matthews, Cornelius, Monroe and Indian Trail.

Pop Tarts Codes

Kelloggs has a new promotion with Pop Tarts. You simply sign up for an account here. Collect 16 digit codes off of boxes of Pop Tarts, enter them online to get your points and redeem points for anything from free boxes of pop tarts, movie tickets, or music downloads.

Game Day Packs

With the weather turning warmer, sporting events return. Like probably many of you, my son is involved in sports. This means I will have a turn in taking a snack to the field for the players. I often scramble at the last minute to pull something together. Well this year our atheletic oranization is offering a solution as a fundraiser. This year our fundraiser are "Game Day Packs". The packs include:

• 12 Powerades
• 12 Kraft Food Snacks
• 4 Coupons - 10% Off Lowes Foods Groceries
• Additional coupons to participating companies

All packaged in a convient box with a handle. Keep in mind you can use the Lowes grocery coupons at many of the competing grocery stores in our area (Harris Teeter, Bi-Lo). It's a great deal and you support a great organization.

If you are here local in the Charlotte area and interested in purchasing one or more than one, you can order online at this link. They will email you when the packs are in for your to pick up.

Penguin has been spotted!

I've read on numerous websites that the Penguin display is back again! It usually comes around in March to promote Frozen Food Month. Be on the lookout on the frozen food or dairy aisle at your favorite grocery store for a big cardboard display full of tear pad coupons!
Here is a listing of the coupons that can be found on it
They all expire 5/31/10

$1/1 Tyson Bagged Product
$1/1 Cheemo Pierogies
$1/2 Morning Stars Farms
$1/2 Kashi Frozen dinners
$1/2 Bov Evans Frozen items
$1/2 TGI Fridays Frozen snacks
$1/2 Palermo's Pizzas
$1/4 Lean Cuisine or Stouffers entrees
$1/2 Bertolli Frozen Meals
$1/2 Picksweet Deluxe Steamables
$1/2 Marie Callenders Paste Al Dente
$2/4 Birds Eye Steamfresh
$1/2 Kahiki Products
$1/2 GG Vally Fresh Steamers

Silly Bands

These rubbery bracelet things are all the rage at my son's school. They have been very hard to find and a bit pricey for a pack. One of my favorite consignment stores Karrousel Kids in Matthews just got a shipment of these trendy bracelets in. They are selling them for .30 ea or a 24 pack is 4.99. Be sure to hurry over and get them before they disappear!

Happy Birthday Swagbucks!!

Swagbucks turns 2 tomorrow (Feb 25). They will celebrate by offering special Swagcodes and by offering triple mega Swag Bucks all day long! If you are new to Swagbucks, check my post out here. Join today it's an easy way to earn all kinds of things from gift cards to gadgets for free and it is completely legitimate. I have enjoyed many $10 Starbucks giftcards over the past year I've been a member! You can register by clicking on the banner to the right of this post or by going here.

$100 P&G Coupon Book

Start saving your receipts for all your Proctor & Gamble products. P&G just announced a new promotion that will run from 2/1-4/15/2010. Once you have purchased $50 worth of P&G products (before tax and coupons), mail in your receipts with the product prices circled, a completed form, and get a $100 P&G coupon booklet. For more details on the promotion and a list of coupons in the booklet, go here.

Online Ordering Sites

Here are list of sites I use when placing orders online to get rebates, savings codes and free shipping codes:

http://www.ebates.com/

http://www.freeshipping.org/

http://www.retailmenot.com/

http://www.currentcodes.com/

http://www.couponcabin.com/

http://www.keycode.com/

http://www.couponmountain.com/

http://www.couponcraze.com/

http://www.couponchief.com/

http://www.icetab.com/

Favorite Links

Here are some of my favorite links that I use quite often:

Forums: There are several forums that I frequent to get information. There are 2 that I love that are devoted to couponing. You can search deals listed by store, trade coupons,find coupons, information about free stuff, information about rebates, post deals you find, and just network with fellow couponers. If you are new it's a good idea to read the postings in the forums devoted to beginners or newbies. My name is Melsie on all of these:

Hot Coupon World

A Full Cup

Charlotte Mommies (particular to couponing is the Domestic Goddess Forum)

Coupon Database: There are several coupon databases out in the Internet world but I really like HCW's best!

Hot Coupon World coupon database

Here are a couple sites I use for previewing the upcoming coupon inserts, to see if I need to get additional papers this week:

Taylor Town

Sunday Saver

Orginization: This site is a favorite of mine for all kinds of organizational helps. There are stockpiling calculators, binder labels, all sorts of templates to make your life easier!

Grocery Geek

Online Coupon Codes: Anytime I place an online order I look for a coupon code first. There is almost always one for free shipping or a % off.

Retail Me Not for online coupon codes

Get Rewards for doing very little: Ebates is an online reward system that pays you a %age based on the total amount you order. They have lots of stores listed through them. Every company I've ever bought something online from, is listed there. Swagbucks is an online search engine that awards you points that you redeem for very cool things, like gift cards! It is AWESOME!!! I made it my homepage and I average about 5 swagbucks a day just searching!

Ebates (tell them Melsie7000@aol.com referred you and I'll get credit)

Swagbucks

Swagbucks

Let me tell you about my new favorite search engine... Swagbucks. You earn points that can be redeemed for FREE gifts by searching the web! You can learn more here. I search the web daily as I can't remember website addresses. I simply use Swagbucks to search for the site and watch my points add up, it's so easy. I have had my account 2 days and I already have 13 swagbucks, I am on my way to a $10 gift card for free and I am doing something I would have done through google anyway! Sign up here for your free account and make it your homepage so you can start adding points today!

The Coupon Mom

The coupon Mom was on the Today show:

Christmas Money Saving Tips

Since money is so tight for us this year, I've really been trying to come up with inexpensive Christmas gifts. Here is a list of some things I've thought of. Oh and don't be surprised if this is what you get from me!

Shop the clearance aisle every time you are in a store, you never know what you will find! I recently found a Speed Racer DVD in CVS for .70!

Also I've found scented fall candles marked down 75-90%. The red ones make great Christmas gifts. Tie them up with tissue paper and tie with a bow and write on the gift tag "Thank you for being a "light" in my life" or for a teacher gift add child's life.

Use your freebie collection to make gift baskets. You can get baskets on sale at AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, or Michael's. Use coupons for additional savings. You can also pick them up occasionally at the Dollar Store or Goodwill. If it's an odd color, buy a can of spray paint for .97 at Wal-Mart and paint it! Try to theme your gift baskets fill a "Girly Girl" one with lotions, creams, shampoos, make up, lipstick, nail polish. A "manly" basket could include deodorant, shaving cream, razors, a tool or extension cord. A "college student" would love a basket filled with school supplies and personal care items!

Make something. Bracelets and necklaces are so easy to make and the possibilities are endless. Shop sales at craft stores and don't forget to use their coupons, there are usually ones in their circulars.

An idea I stole from my friends Erin & Nancy was to buy a box of solid color glass ornaments. Using glass or acrylic paint, paint polka dots on them in a coordinating color. Tie with a pretty coordinating ribbon and you have a custom ornament to give to someone. My friends even put a letter sticker on it so it was even more personalized. Here are the ones they made me last year:

Create a coupon booklet. You can use your computer to create a booklet to give to a friend or loved one. Some coupon ideas are: free childcare (you specify the amount), a home cooked meal, a car wash, a house cleaning or a room cleaning, or a household chore.

Bake something. Every year our neighbors on our cul de sac exchange baked goods. You can find containers really cheap at the dollar store. I usually place mine on a plate, wrap mine in basket wrap and tie a big bow around the top. It's a great way to use up all those free brownie, cake and cookie mixes!

Take a ziploc bag and mix up Hot Cocoa Mix or Russian tea. Find an inexpensive mug at the dollar store, put your ziploc bag of mix in the mug tie up mug with tissue paper. Make a gift tag from card stock with the directions for making a cupful and write "Thinking warm thoughts of you this Christmas" on the gift tag.

Grandparents love pictures of their grand kids! You can get frames at the dollar store and use your digital camera to take shots of your child. I use Costco a lot for pictures and they have a feature where you can make your digital photos in black & white, sepia or play around with the color at no additional charge. A 5X7 or 8X10 enlargement will run you around a $1.

What are your favorite inexpensive Christmas ideas? Add a comment, I'd love to hear about them! Remember you don't have to spend a lot to enjoy Christmas and the best gifts of all can't be bought!

Things I get for free

I was talking to someone the other day who is new to couponing and they were curious as to the things I get for free, so I decided I'd compile a list. Also let me tell you it helps tremendously if you are not brand loyal to products. I do have my loyalties (Tide & Cheer laundry detergent, Heinz ketchup & Dukes mayo) but for the most part I try and stay neutral and purchase what gets me the most savings. This is a list of things I can regularly get for free:

Grocery Items:
Pasta
Instant Potatoes
Rice
Marinades
Teryaki sauce
Soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Brownies
Cereal
Pancake Mix
Pickles, relish
mustard
BBQ sauce
canned tomatoes
Tea
Hot Chocolate
Chocolate milk
candy
gum mints

Paper Products:
Wax Paper
Foil
plastic wrap

Cleaning Supplies:
Bathroom Cleaner
Stain removal products
glass cleaner
toilet bowl cleaner
liquid dish washing detergent
Cleaning wipes

Health & Beauty:
Pain relievers
toothpaste
toothbrushes
cold medicine
mouthwash
floss
deodorant
bar soap
bath gel
shampoo, conditioners

The secret to getting these is to stockpile your coupons. Get as many newspaper coupons as you can. You can check with libraries for the coupons from their Sunday paper, check with co -workers, friends and neighbors, also check recycle bins. You can also purchase multiple coupons for products you use a lot of from places like the couponclippers.com.

A typical grocery store runs on a 12 week sale cycle. If the item is on sale buy enough to last your family for 12 weeks and it will be on sale again.

Black Friday!

I wanted to let you know about a couple of great links I've found to check out the ads for the day after Thanksgiving a little early. Use these ads to plan what you will go ahead and buy and what you will wait to get after Thanksgiving.

Black Friday Blog
HCW (every store has a link to the black Friday ads)
Black Friday Info
Black Friday.net

Plan on getting up very early on Friday and bring an extra dose of patience with you while you shop as I'm sure this year will be more crowded than ever with people looking for deals. I usually go every year and I've always found it worth it as I save so much. Besides you can go home by lunchtime and take a good long nap!

My buy price

I often have people ask me how do you know when something is a good deal. Well I usually only put the things I think are deals on my blog and skip the other stuff. I may not purchase it all as I may not need it all. Of course I NEVER pass up FREE or MONEYMAKER stuff, but I will pass on some deals depending on my budget and whether or not my stockpile is low.

I thought it might be helpful to let you know some of my "buy" prices especially on meat and other things I buy regularly:

Milk 2.99 or less per gallon

Organic Milk 4.99 or less per gallon
(I will get it at Aldi or Costco if I need it and can't find a sale)

Loaf of whole wheat bread $1 or less a loaf
(I will get it at Flowers bakery thrift store if I need it and can't find it on sale. When I do find it on sale I buy a lot and freeze it)

ground turkey .99 or less a pound

london broil 1.99 or less a pound

ribeye 4.99 or less a pound

chuck roast 1.99 or less a pound
(I cube this up for stew meat)

Stew meat 1.99 or less a pound

Prime Rib Roasts 6.99 or less a pound

Whole beef tenderloin 7.99 or less a pound
(you can have your butcher slice them into filet mignon for free)

Sirloin Tip Roast 3.49 or less a pound

Cube Steak 1.99 or less a pound

Boneless Skinless chicken breast 1.99 or less a pound

Whole chickens .59 or less a pound

Chicken Breast (bone in and skinned) .99 or less a pound

Whole Pork Loin 1.99 or less a pound
(I don't buy pork chops, I just have the butcher cut my whole loin into chops and roasts and then re-package them and freeze them when I get home)

Shrimp 3.99 or less a pound

Sirloin Tip Roast 3.49 or less a pound

Salmon 2.99 or less a pound
(I've been buying the 2.99 salmon filets at Bi-Lo lately)

Scallops 4.99 or less a pound
(usually when they are B1G1F is the only time you can get this price)

Deli Turkey 4.99 or less a pound

Deli Ham 4.99 or less a pound

Deli Cheese 4.99 or less a pound

Shredded Cheese 1.99 or less

Cheese slices 1.50 or less

Grapes .99 or less a pound

Apples .99 or less a pound

Pears .99 or less a pound

Bag Salad 1.79 or less a bag

Oranges 4/$1

Baby Carrots .99 or less a bag

Grape Tomatoes 1.99

Cabbage .39 or less a pound

Onions .99 or less a pound

Potatoes 5 lb bag 1.99 or less

Broccoli 1.39 a head

Pineapples 3.99 or less

Cantaloupe $2 or less

Honeydew $2 or less

Cucumbers .69 or less

Hope this helps you! What are your buy prices? Leave me a comment and tell me!

World's Largest Ice Cream Social

World's Largest Ice Cream Social
Celebrate the 7th Annual World's Largest Ice Cream Social and Support the Make-A-Wish Foundation® with Cold Stone Creamery
To cap off this special month, don't miss the 7th Annual World’s Largest Ice Cream Social at participating Cold Stone Creamery locations nationwide, a special night to join together and share the simple pleasures of life with a FREE ice cream and family fun. On September 25th from 5:00 - 8:00PM, guests will be treated to a 3 oz. serving of Jack's Creation (Marshmallow ice cream with OREO® Cookies, Chocolate Chips and Fudge ) or Emily's Creation (Nutter Butter® ice cream with White Chocolate Chips, Kit Kat® and Yellow Cake). All donations will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Try some new flavors for free and support a great cause!

Buy extra school supplies

Just about everywhere you look stores have things like pencils, paper, crayons unbelievably cheap for back to school. I love what Lisa is doing over at Cents to save blog. It's not to early to think about Operation Christmas Child and with our budget looking very tight this year, I think I will take Lisa's idea and start a couple of shoe boxes of my own!

See you at the sales!

Melissa

What to do with all that stuff?

Is your pantry overflowing? Come on I know you have lots of cereal! I would like to encourage you to take all of the things that you do not need or cannot possible use to a local food pantry. In the Charlotte area, I would like to suggest "With Love from Jesus" or "Loaves and Fishes."

You can read more about With love from Jesus here. They are currently in need of the following: instant potatoes, mac and cheese, peanut butter, jelly, oil, cereal, hamburger helper, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, cheese, canned meat (Vienna sausage, spam, treet, salmon, tuna), crackers, flour, sugar just to name the MOST need! Of course they will take any non perishable items.

Loaves and fishes can use nonperishable foods and personal care items. Here is current a list of priority needs. As for the cleaning supplies I am taking mine to the preschool where I work. We always need something to clean the tables with!

See you at the sales!

Melissa

Lowes Food Coupon: Another Triple Tip

Just wanted to let you know I stopped by Lowes Foods to get a circular after one of my triple run. Why? You may ask. Because I'm looking desperately for a steal of a deal on Smithfield bacon, but have been unsuccessful thus far. Anyway they have a $5 off $50 and $10 off $100 coupon in their ad, and HT honors competitors coupons.

See you at the sales!

Melissa

Organizing your coupons

My friend Nancy did a post about her coupon binder and it reminded me I wanted to do a post on organizing coupons.

There are several ways you can do it. You can get an accordion coupon organizer. You can find them at the dollar store or in the dollar bins at Target. I found this one at Promopeddler:

I used to have this type, but when you accumulate a various amount of coupons, you may want to upgrade to the binder which is what I currently have:

OK actually I admit I have two binders, but I'm a tad OCD with coupons! I have one binder for food items, which I primarily take into grocery stores, and I have one binder for non-food that I primarily take into drug stores. Both binders are zippered and this is very important!

You can find binders everywhere since it's back to school time. If you can stand waiting until September you can probably find one on clearance somewhere at a good price. I decided to splurge and picked the one pictured above at Costco for 9.99.

Inside the binder are lots of baseball card holder inserts. You can get these at Wal-Mart or Target near where the baseball cards are sold. It looks something like this once you've set it up:

I have also seen shoe boxes, photo boxes, briefcases, recipe box holders, empty wipes containers, zippered CD cases and tote bags. You can get creative and use what works best for you. You will also need some type of diving system for your container. I use 3 ring hole punched dividers for my binder.

Once you have your container and dividers picked out. You need to come up with a method. I organize by category. Some people organize alphabetically by manufacturer name. For example Kraft, Kellogg's, etc. It is too hard for me to remember who makes what, so I chose to categorically organize.

Here is a list of my categories in my Food Binder:

Baking

Beverages

Bread

Breakfast

Candy

Canned Goods

Cereal

Condiments

Cookies

Crackers

Dairy

Diet

Frozen Foods

International

Meat

Pasta

Produce

Rice

Snacks

Sauces

Spices

Here is a list in my Non-Food binder:

Baby/Child

Bags, Plates, Cups

Batteries

Cleaning Products

Dental

Deodorants

Facial

Feminine Hygiene

Foils Wraps

Hair Products

Laundry

Lotions

Makeup

Medicines

Pantyhose/Misc.

Paper Products

Shaving

Soaps

In my binder I also carry some essentials:

I can't tell you how much of a lifesaver it is to have a pen, calculator (that little pink calculator came from Staples and it is a clip and has a magnet on the back I use it to clip my coupons together while I'm at the store) and a pair of scissors with you in your binder. You never know when you may want to clip a coupon. I like to keep everything in my binder, even uncut coupons so when I have a minute waiting in carpool line or at the Dr's office I can clip or sort through my binder. I keep my binder in my car so I ALWAYS have my coupons.

I also have pockets that are divided for each store. In these I keep my list for that store, the sale ad and my rain checks for that store. I also have a pocket where I can hold any coupon inserts that I haven't cut yet.

You can also pull the coupons you plan to use for that store and put them in the stores folder then when you get to the store all you need is to pull your list and the coupons and you are ready to go.

I would love to hear what you use. Please comment on what works best for you!

See you at the sales!

Melissa