Monday Redbox Code

Here is today's Redbox movie code for June 30th, 2008. Too bad I can't get a movie today, we are waiting for the replacement lamp to come in for our big screen =(

W1H6J4

Have fun and remember the code is only good for today!

Self Cleaning Oven - Works for Me Wednesday

Today's Works for Me Wednesday blog post is about cleaning your oven with the self clean feature. I know not everybody has an oven with a self clean feature but if you do, consider yourself lucky! I have had my new oven for almost 7 months and never even knew what a self clean oven was. Well, I got tired of looking at the yucky mess inside from my husband overfilling pans so I decided to do something about it.

Here is a before picture:

So after looking up self cleaning ovens on the internet and figuring out exactly how it works, I decided to give it a try. And I must say I was actually scared to do this, something about having your oven lock itself and heat up to 900 degrees for 3 hours was not very appealing to me. I did it though, and it was totally worth it. It nuked everything that was inside and all I had to do was wipe everything down with a wet cloth and now it looks brand new again!

Here is an after picture:


I am happy my oven is clean and I am going to keep it clean the old fashion way now, because I am sure using the self clean feature is not very frugal when it comes to the electricity bill.

So self cleaning ovens work for me, wanna see more Works for Me Wednesday tips? Visit here.

Ham & Potato Soup!

My family absolutely loves this soup! I am making twice as much this time because we didn't even have left overs last time I made it.

Ham & Potato Soup

4 cups of peeled and cut up potatoes
1 cup of diced fully cooked ham
3 1/4 cups of water
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of pepper
5 tablespoons of butter
5 tablespoon of all purpose flour
2 cups of milk
a few crumbs of chicken bouillon

Directions:

1. Combine the potatoes, ham, and water in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender, about 10-15 minutes. Stir in the bouillon, salt, & pepper.

2. In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour with a fork and continue to cook and stir constantly until thick, about a minute or so. Slowly stir in the milk being careful not to let lumps form. Continue stirring over medium heat until thick, anywhere from 4 - 20 minutes.

3. Stir the milk mixture into the large pot and cook soup until heated through.

4. You can add some potato flakes if you would like a thicker soup.

Hooray for Freebies!

I stumbled across a few freebies today and wanted to let you in on them, everybody loves freebies! I signed up for these and can't wait to get them in the mail!

Take this survey for a free box of Dip'N Sticks if you have tried them recently.

Take this survey for a free sample of Bio Spot Flea Medicine for dogs.


And most importantly, tomorrow, June 25 is Double Coke Points day!! I hope you have been saving your 12 pack codes just for this special occasion. You can only enter 10 codes per day but I have exactly 10 codes to enter. Your 12 pack codes will be worth 20 points instead of 10, tomorrow only! Don't forget about this one! MyCokeRewards.com

Hot Tip Tuesday!!

Here is the first edition of my Hot Tip Tuesday blog post! Hot Tip Tuesday will be all about nifty and frugal tips that I have found really helps out!

Today's tip is from an email I received from Cherise. I thought this was an absolutely wonderful idea and I actually did it yesterday and I love it already. She told me that she organizes her receipts by using zip lock baggies and a binder, punching holes in the baggies and filing the receipts by month. This worked out so well for me, it is much easier and more efficient than my envelope method.


I used one of my old coupon binders that I quickly outgrew for this task.


I used gallon sized zip lock baggies for my coupons since I have tons and tons of coupons.


And that's it! I think this is one of the most helpful tips I have gotten in a long time, and I love being able to keep up with the coupons I get from my weekly shopping trips because I can easily put them in the appropiate baggy instead of leaving them laying around for a month.

Do you know any helpful tips that you would like to share? Email me with your tip and it could be posted on my Hot Tip Tuesday posts!

Mailbox Monday!

I am so happy to post my first edition of Mailbox Monday! Yes, this post is a day late too, but they won't be anymore. I spent all day today organizing, cleaning, and playing catchup on everything! So without further ado, here is what I got in the mail all week!

Home Made Simple Coupon Booklet from here.

3 Playtex Baby Bottles from here.

Fandango Visa Gift Card from winning the Dr. Pepper Instant Win Game.

Walgreens Rebate Gift Card

Free Subscriptions to Woman's Day & Country Home Magazine

2 Coupons from Purina for Free Dog Food

Free Xcid Sample from Walmart.com

** Best of all, I got all of this stuff FREE! I love freebies, keep checking back here for more freebie offers! **

Super Savings Sunday!

This is getting posted a day late because I was busy shopping yesterday! Plus I had to cut out 30-something inserts my mom brought me. So here is my Super Savings Sunday shopping trips!

(I combined all of my stuff from HEB, Super S, & Walmart from my first trip to town in this picture because I was hot and didn't want to seperate everything.)

Walmart:

(17) 32 oz. Powerades - 10.20$
(4) Sweet Baby Ray BBQ Sauces - 5.88$
(1) Box of Barilla Penne Pasta - 1.23$
(1) Box of Barilla Medium Shell Pasta - 1.23$
(1) Package of Shredded Mexican Cheese - 1.88$
(1) 10 lb. Sack of Potatoes - 3.47$
(4) Post It Flags - 3.88$
(1) Loaf of GV Bread - .68$
(2) Adam and Eve Juices - 1.00$
(1) GV Vegetable Cooking Oil - 2.43$
(1) Tub of GV Shortening - 2.72$

Total Before Coupons - 34.71$ Coupons Used:

(2) 3.00$ off 2 Post Its
(17) .75$ off Powerade
(4) 1.00$ off Sweet Baby Rays BBQ Sauce
(2) .50$ off Barilla Pasta

Total After Coupons: 10.96$


Super S:

(2) Packages of 20 Count Flour Tortillas - 1.57$

Total (No Coupons) - 1.57$



HEB:

(2) Boxes of Frozen Salisbury Steaks - 3.96$
(1) 3 Musketeers Bar - .50$

Total (No Coupons) - 4.50$



~* Trip to Town #2 *~


Walmart:

(1) 3 Ring Binder - 5.00$
(24) Post It Flags - 23.28$
(1) Jar of Cheese Sauce - 2.37$
(1) GV Ketchup - .74$
(8) Boxes of Blue Bunny Bomb Pops - 12.00$
(6) Bottles of Kens Salad Dressing - 6.42$
(5) Bottles of Vlasic Dill Relish - 5.00$
(4) Packages of Land o' Frost Lunchmeat - 9.48$
(12) Packages of Kool-Aid - 2.40$
(1) Box of Barilla Rotini - 1.23$
(5) Oral B Dental Floss - 4.85$
(4) Packages of Kraft Singles Cheese - 9.48$

Total Before Coupons: 84.70$

Coupons Used:

(12) 3.00$ off 2 Post Its
(8) 1.00$ off Blue Bunny
(6) 1.00$ off Kens Salad Dressing
(5) 1.00$ off any Vlasic
(4) Try it Free Land o' Frost Lunchmeat
(1) .50$ off Barilla Pasta
(5) 1.00$ off Oral B Dental Floss
(4) Free Kraft Singles WYB 3 Products

Total After Coupons: 5.24$



Super S:


(10) Boxes of Reynold's Wrap - 12.90$
(3) Packages of Chicken Breasts - 11.84$

Total Before Coupons - 25.80$

Coupons Used:

(10) .75$ off Reynold's Wrap ( Doubled to 1.29$)

Total After Coupons - 11.84$



Super S #2:


(6) Packages of 20 Count Tortillas - 4.71$
(1) Toy Gun - .99$

Total (No Coupons) - 5.78$

Lots of Fun at CVS!

I am so glad I went to CVS today. I wasn't going to because I have been exhausted but I did make myself get out this morning and I'm am so happy! They had a bunch of stuff marked to 90% off clearance so I grabbed a lot of stuff plus the couple of deals I went for. I spent more OOP then I wanted to but I only had 12$ in ECB's to work with. I just took a picture with all of the stuff together because I didn't want to seperate it by transactions in the pics, yes I'm lazy!

Transaction #1:

(2) Oral B Cross Action Power Toothbrushes - 11.98$
(1) Hersey's Kissables Candy - .87$ (clearance)
(1) Huggies Baby Wash - 3.49$
(2) Sally Hansen Color Quick Nail Pens - 15.98$

Coupons Used:

4$ off 20$ CVS Welcome Coupon
$1.00 off Huggies Baby Wash
$3.00 off any 2 Sally Hansen Products
$7.49 off Oral B Toothbrush (BOGO Coupon)
$1.99 ECB
$13.98 ECB

Total After Coupons: .93$
ECB's Earned: 6$ for Oral B / 2$ for Huggies / 10$ for Sally Hansen

Transaction #2:

(2) Oral B Cross Action Power Toothbrush - 11.98$
(1) Hersey's Kissables Candy - .87$ (clearanced)
(2) Sally Hansen Color Quick Nail Pens - 15.98$

Coupons Used:

4$ off 20$ CVS Welcome Coupon
5.99$ off Oral B (BOGO Coupon)
3$ off any 2 Sally Hansen
2$ ECB
5$ ECB
4$ ECB
3.79$ ECB

Total After Coupons: 1.14$
ECB's Earned: 6$ for Oral B / 10$ for Sally Hansen



Transaction #3:

(4) Oral B Cross Action Power Toothbrush - 23.96$
(1) Hair Scrunchie - .09$ (clearance)

Coupons Used:

11.98$ off Oral B (BOGO Coupon)
12$ in ECB's

Total After Coupons - .08$
ECB's Earned - 12$ for Oral B



Transaction #4:

(2) Sally Hansen Color Quick Nail Pens - 15.98$
(2) Boxes of 125 Count Playtex Bottle Liners - 1.18$
(4) Packages of Crayola Erasable Crayons - 1.96$
(1) Speedstick Deoderant - .19$
(1) Pack of Scrunchie Head Bands - .49$
(1) Single Scrunchie Hair Tie - .09$
(1) Edge Shave Gel - .17$
(1) Pack of Baby Pacifiers - .69$
(8) Color Books & Kids Reading Books - .80$
(3) Cover Girl Lip Sticks - .87$
(3) Cover Girl Lip Liners - .87$
(1) Cover Girl Outlast Lip Stick - .50$
(2) Cover Girl Lip Slicks - .58$

Coupons Used:

2.00$ off Covergirl Lip Products
12$ in ECB's

Total After Coupons - 11.13$
ECB's Earned: 10$ for Sally Hansen



So I am pretty happy with my shopping trips. I only had 12$ in ECB's to start with so all of the clearance stuff I basically had to pay OOP for and I couldn't find anymore 3$ off Sally Hansen products so I lost 3$ there too. I did, however, get back 10$ in ECB's so really it's like I only spent 1.21$ OOP and 2$ in ECB's for the last 2 transactions.

The way I look at it, I could have split it into 1 more transaction and had 0$ OOP and spent my last 10$ ECB, or next time I go shopping there I will have a 10$ ECB to use and I will save 10$ there. It's all the same thing anyways, right?

Frugal Friday - Cheap Grout Cleaner!

Today's Frugal Friday tip is one I just learned not too long ago. I have very expensive tile counter tops with grout between the tiles and I can't use any cleaner on the tiles. I can only use soap and water. So this leaves me with the problem of my grout getting dirty and not being able to clean it or get the stains off of it.

I was reorganizing under my bathroom sink one day and I saw a tube (ok well 45 tubes) of whitening toothpaste. The bright idea struck me to use this on my grout lines to see if it would work. So I took a tube of Colgate Whitening toothpaste and smeared it on my grout and let it sit about 20 minutes. Then I took one of my many free toothbrushes and brush my grout and then I wiped everything down with a rag and hot water and soap.

The verdict? It worked pretty good! It didn't get out some of the stains I was hoping it would, like the coffee or kool-aid stains. I'm starting to think those are going to permanent forever. Anyways, it did overall whiten my grout and made it look all pretty and clean!

This is a great way to use some of that free toothpaste and toothbrushes so many of us have!

Slow Cooker BBQ Pork Chops

This is a super easy recipe for those of you who have a day or two where you don't want to be on your feet cooking dinner for 3 hours. Today is definitely one of those days for me, my feet are swollen and I am already tired.

Slow Cooker BBQ Pork Chops

8 Pork Chops
BBQ Sauce

Directions:

Pour a little BBQ sauce on the bottom of the crockpot then put as many pork chops side by side as you can on the bottom of the crockpot. Pour more BBQ sauce over those pork chops so that they are fully covered in BBQ sauce. Keep layering pork chops and BBQ sauce untill you use all of the pork chops. Cook all day on low or 3-4 hours on high.

Notes:

How many pork chops you need depends on your family size. 8 pork chops is way too many for us, I pulled out a bag of pork chops I had frozen in April and it had 5 in it so that's how many I used. I also used 2 bottles of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce (the smaller bottles) and I almost have enough BBQ in the crockpot to completely cover the pork chops.

I Need Help From You!!

I was just sitting here reading a blog about getting 15% extra from your stimulus check if you put it on a United Supermarkets gift card. Well I can't do that because none of the stores around here offer any kind of incentive, and I have never seen a United Supermarkets in my life.

So as I was reading this a thought popped into my head. I thought, what if I bought some gift cards to the stores I normally grocery shop at, so that way when my husband gave me my weekly "grocery allowance" I could put that money in the bank instead. I was thinking I could put 50$ on a CVS gift card and maybe 100$ on a Walmart gift card, etc etc.

Then after I was so excited thinking this is such a great idea, another thought popped into my head. Wouldn't putting it on gift cards be basically the same thing as just depositing it into my bank account? I mean, realistically, if I put 300$ on gift cards and didn't spend anything OOP, I would still technically be spending OOP. Plus the money I would be able to put into savings each week from being able to spend my gift cards would be the same thing as just putting the initial money into savings and not getting gift cards....

Catch my drift? So I am asking you, what do you think of this idea? Has anybody ever did this and found it to help in anyway? I was thinking it would help me save some money but in all reality I would be saving the same as any other time. It still seems kinda neat though I guess, what do you think?

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Here is another recipe that my family really likes! I made this last night and it turned out pretty good, although I like stuff really spicy so next time I make it I am going to up the spices. If you like it spicy you might want to do the same.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 teaspoon of olive oil
1/4 teaspoon of ground cumin
2 cans of chicken broth
1 can of corn
1 can of black beans (rinsed well)
1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic or garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon of chili powder (I used a lot more than this and think it needed more)
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
tortilla chips
1 cup of Mexican blend shredded cheese

Directions:

In a large pot over medium heat, saute the chicken in the oil for 10-15 minutes. Add the garlic and cumin and mix well. Then add the broth, corn, chili powder, and lemon juice. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20-30 minutes.

Break up the tortilla chips and sprinkle over individual bowls of soup, also sprinkle cheese on the soup bowls as well

Notes:

I found that simmering over medium-low heat for about an hour made the flavors blend together so much better. I also used a lot of chili powder because I thought it was a bit bland. I posted the original directions though, because I know not everybody is a Texan.... LOL.... Seriously though, I know some people don't like spicy food and if you don't the original version will be perfect. Spicy lovers: You can also add 1 cup of salsa for extra spice!

Works for Me Wednesday

I am going to start trying to post a "Works for Me Wednesday" post every Wednesday with something I do around the house or elsewhere that works for me! I am excited about this because I recently found a love for trying new things, especially money saving frugal things! I used to be a person that didn't care about money spent, spent plenty of it, was very wasteful, and very disorganized! Also not to make myself look worse or anything.... lol.... I was an awful housekeeper! I never cleaned house because I was too busy with my stay at home job, I also never cooked, did laundry, or anything besides "work".

I am glad those days are over and I must say, if they had an "Extreme Life Choices Makeover" show I would definitely be the #1 star! I am proud to say that in just a short 2 months or so, I transformed into a regular little Susy Homemaker! It just makes one feel so much better to be eco-friendly, cook good meals for so cheap, and have a spotless house all the time! Yes I have given up my stay at home job for the most part, I still do a few hours a week and still bring a decent little income, but for the most part I am have become more involved with being a good mother versus being a good worker. I wish I could balance the 2 of them better but I am finding it hard right now. I am constantly tired and once I finish the housework and cooking I find it hard to get motivated to do any real work. Plus my son is out for the summer and it's hard to do anything with him around, work wise. Once he goes back to school and my new baby is born I am planning on returning to my job and putting at least 20-30 hours a week back in and bumping that income back up.

Anyways, enough rambling already! Here is my Works for Me Wednesday!

Hang drying laundry!! Today I am trying this for the first time ever. I have been fortunate enough to have a washer and dryer for the past 4 or so years and it is just so easy to throw wet clothes into the dryer and turn it on. I am not sure how much electricity this is actually going to save, or how much money off my light bill but I sure hope it's more than noticeable. I am one of those people that throw the laundry into the dryer, turn it on on the hottest setting then forget about the clothes and when I get around to hanging them I turn the dryer back on to get the wrinkles out. So I go off to do something else and forget about the laundry again for another 3 hours, then I turn the dryer on again to get the wrinkles out.... again.... and usually wind up forgetting them again.

Needless to say, I read somewhere that the electric dryer can be one of the most energy consuming appliances in a home next to the hot water heater and refrigerator. My light bill has been dropping the past couple of months since summer is in full swing here in Texas and the AC cost considerable less to run than electric heaters. Last month my bill was 135$. I haven't gotten my bill yet this month but I am hoping for at least a 10$ drop from that. I am going to note when my cycle runs and note that today I started line drying my clothes, and when I get the next months bill I am going to compare and see how much I really saved.

I know nothing about this so I am hoping to drop at least 20-30$ off my light bill but my estimate could be totally off, like I said I don't have any idea how much it will save. If my light bill only goes down like 5$ a month, I will probably wind up just drying my laundry in the dryer again because it is very time consuming to line dry, plus I have to constantly guard my clothes from my dogs who are at this very moment jumping in the air trying to grab my husbands jeans to play tug of war with. As much as I hate to say it, if this doesn't save a good chunk of money I will regretfully be going back to the old ways. Hopefully this will work for me.

How Do I Get So Many Coupons?

I am asked all the time how I get so many coupons that I get my deals with. I know people are curious because a lot of them would like to do the same thing so they can get lots of multiples of items like I do. So this is how it all started:

I started out my couponing by buying 3-4 copies of the Sunday paper. I would get 4 coupon inserts so I would have 4 multiple coupons of the same coupon. Once I started running into killer deals in the stores and I only had 4 coupons, I wanted to be able to get more than 4 items! I figured 4 Sunday papers were just not enough.

So then I started buying 8 Sunday papers at a time. This really helped with my coupon deals because being able to get 8 sale items versus 4 really helped me out... ( My family of 4 eats A LOT! LOL) So I did the 8 papers a week thing for a while.

Then I told my mom about couponing and finally got her interested, then she told me one day that she could get me lots of coupons. I figured she was talking about like a handful or something like that. So one Monday she brought me the coupons she was talking about and to my suprise, she had a stack of about 20 FULL coupon inserts from the previous Sunday's paper! I was like, YAY jackpot!


Every since then, every Sunday my mom scores me atleast 15 coupon inserts of SmartSource, RedPlum, and P&G... whichever inserts happen to be in the paper that weekend. So I have however many she gets me, plus the 6-8 I buy for myself. I have been cutting back on the amount I buy for myself since my mom has consistently been getting me atleast 15 inserts a week.

Next, if there is a super good coupon that I know will save me a lot of money, or if I see something in a sales ad on the first day the ad starts and I know I can get an incredible deal on it with a coupon, I will order lots of them on Ebay. For example, the 36 bags of cat food I wrote about in my last post, all of those coupons were ordered off of Ebay. The main reason for this was because those coupons came out the Sunday before I started couponing so I didn't have any. Even if my mom would have gotten me that particular insert with the cat food coupons in it, I still would have ordered more off of Ebay because it was too good of a deal to pass up.

The price you will pay for coupons on Ebay really varies, if it is a popular coupon then you can expect to pay 2$ - 10$ for a set of 20 coupons. (Note: I would never pay 10$ for the coupons but I have seen auctions this high before.) A lot of times I luck out and find the coupons I want for 1$ for the auction and 1$ for the shipping or even less than that. Example, the 40 boxes of Bagel-Fuls I got from Super S, I ordered all 40 coupons from Ebay for about 4$ shipping included, it seemed like those were not very popular coupons.

So that's it folks, that's how I get so many coupons! I know everybody doesn't have the ability to get 15 or more coupon inserts a week, but I have seen many people have lots of luck asking family and friends for theirs if they don't use them. Also, you can check your local coffee shops, a lot of people read the paper and leave it behind, coupons and all! Another thing to note, some cities have 2 for 1 Sunday papers where you can get 2 papers for the price of 1, my city doesn't do this but if yours does I would definitely snatch up 4 or so.

It seems like the rule of thumb about coupons is, you get as many newspapers as you have members of your family. If you have 4 family members, you get 4 Sunday papers. This seems to work for a lot of people. The golden rule about stockpiling food and other items is that you stockpile enough of one item to last your family 12 weeks. The reason for this is that everything goes on sale in 12 week cycles. It may not be the exact same brand or style, but you can pretty much guarantee that peanut butter will go on sale every 12 weeks, or hot dogs, or tin foil, or anything else. The whole point of the 12 week rule is to never pay full price for anything again!

So it really depends on how much food your family goes through to tell how many coupons you need to stockpile a particular item for 12 weeks. I like to go crazy and stockpile a particular item to last my family a year or more (if it doesn't expire quickly). This is just my style, I know some people don't have the space to do this. I am very lucky in the fact that I have a 3 bedroom house and my third bedroom has been turned into my huge walk-in food pantry!

I hope I explained everything you were curious about! If not, leave a comment and I will answer any other questions you may have.

Stay tuned for pictures of my stockpile coming up some time this week!

Super Savings Sunday!

Here is another Super Savings Sunday!! I stockpiled on a few things I use a lot and didn't get a whole lot in the way of groceries. Lately it seems like the grocery stores are really lacking in the deals, I hardly want to get out and actually go shopping anymore. Even CVS has been a let down lately, although I am still managing to snag a few good deals here and there. Here's to hoping that this is just a phase and the sales will start kicking butt again soon!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post about how I get so many coupons and pictures from last weekend's coupons! Here are my Super Savings Sundays shopping trips!

Super S:


(8) boxes of Trix cereal - 16.00$
(4) boxes of Cocoa Puffs cereal - 8.00$
(1) toy for my son - .99$
(1) French's mustard - .99$
(5) packages of chicken breasts - 18.30$

Total Before Coupons - 44.28$

Coupons Used:

(5) 1.00$ off 2 GM cereals - 5.00$ doubled to 10.00$
(1) .30$ off French's mustard - .30$ doubled to .60$

Total After Coupons - 25.76$

(After looking at my receipt it looks like the cashier didn't ring up 4 boxes of my cereal, I was wondering why my total seemed lower than it should be, and that would explain why the register didn't want to accept my last coupon and he had to push the one before that through)



HEB:


(25) packages of Farmland Bacon - 62.50$
(5) 1 lb. pouches of Purina Healthful Life Cat Food - 9.95$

Total Before Coupons - 72.45$

Coupons Used:

(25) 2.00$ off Farmland Bacon - 50.00$
(5) Free 1 lb pouch of Purina Healthful Life Cat Food - 9.95$

Total After Coupons - 13.27$



Walmart:


(13) 3 lb bags of Good Life Cat Food - 49.66$
(13) 2.7 lb bags of Good Life Cat Food - 49.66$

Total Before Coupons - 101.51$

Coupons Used:

(26) 3.00$ off any size Good Life Cat Food - 78.00$

Total After Coupons: 23.51$

( I ordered all of these coupons on Ebay because they came out in the newspaper before I started couponing, and once I saw I could get 3 lbs of cat food for .82$ I just had to have some! I got them right in time before they expired, they actually expired today and I managed to get all the cat food just in time, luckily my Walmart restocked after the first time I bought them out)

So after last week's 10 bags of this cat food plus today's 26 bags, I have 36 bags of cat food. I have 104 pounds total cat food. So roughly if my math is right, I paid about .31$ a pound for my cat food, yay! This is good cat food too, you can't beat it for .31$ a pound. I priced the cheapest cat food Walmart had and it was 8$ for an 18 pound bad, which means it would have costed me 48$ or .46$ a pound for that stuff.



CVS:


Transaction #1:

(3) 12 packs of Cherry Coke - 8.25$
(2) Garnier Face Scrubs - 11.98$

Coupons Used:

3$ off 15$
2.00$ ECB
6.00$ ECB
6.98$ ECB

Total After Coupons: 2.44$

Earned 3.00$ & 10.00$ ECB's

------------------

Transaction #2

(1) Huggies Baby Wash - 3.49$
(2) Garnier Face Scrubs - 11.98$
(4) bags of Skittles - 2.00$

Coupons Used:

3$ off 15$
1.00$ off Huggies
10$ ECB
3$ ECB

Total After Coupons: .51$

Earned 10.00$ ECB and 2.00$ ECB



All in all in was a pretty good day. I went slightly over my grocery budget again but I justified it because I won't have to buy cat food again for hopefully atleast 6 months or more. I am also fully stocked on bacon and cereal, no more cereal unless it's totally free!!

So how did you do on groceries this week? Leave a comment!

Subscribe to My Blog

Just letting everybody know that you can subscribe to my blog via the link to the left of this post =) If you subscribe, you can read all of my new updates in the reader of your choice, or have them delivered email! So why not? Just click on the subscribe link over to the left....

Stay tuned for lots of great posts later tonight, I am resting up at the moment because my neck and head are killing me. I am about to post the deals I got today and yesterday plus some other fun stuff.

Walgreens 5$ off 20$ on 6/13

Walgreens has come out with another coupon good for tomorrow only. You can get a 5$ off 20$ purchase by going here. I am usually a big fan of these coupons but since my Walgreens staff are so crappy and the new exclusion on the coupon which reads "must have 20$ total AFTER all coupons and discounts", I will be sitting this one out.

This is still a good deal if you are one of the folks that likes to buy the free after rebate items and such, but I never get into all that health stuff so I am going to pass =)

Good luck for everybody who tries to use it!

Win a Free Movie Ticket!!

I forgot to post about my experience with the Dr. Pepper instant win game. I have been playing the instant win game everyday for the past few days because when you lose it let's you print 2 coupons for 1$ off 2* 12 packs or 2 liters. So I never thought I would win, I just wanted the coupons.

Well to my great suprise I was routinely adding a code to play the instant win game and the screen refreshed to say I won!! I won a free movie ticket! Although I don't have any theaters around here that participate in online movie ticket ordering, they had an option to have a 12.75$ prepaid Visa card sent to me! I haven't received it yet but that is going to be pretty cool. If I can use the whole 12.75$ at the movie theater, I will be able to buy 2 tickets because our adult tickets are only 5$ or so.

YAY! I love free stuff!

You can play the instant win game too, I heard you can also win 5$ Kroger gift cards.

Go here, http://www.drpeppermoretoexplore.com/

Once you have an account go to the instant play page, and at the bottom of the page you will see a link that says "need a code?". Enter your email address to be sent a free code that you can use to play, good luck!

Free Pepsi Codes!

I found this website today where you can win free Pepsi Stuff points!! I am not a big fan of Pepsi stuff because each 12 pack I buy is only worth 2 points, and a Coke 12 pack is worth 10 points. However, for free codes I'm all for it! You play the recycling game which is 5 questions and you get 4 points, plus if you take the recycling pledge you get 2 more points! That's the equivalent of buying 3* 12 packs, hooray!

Check it out at http://www.pepsirecycling.com

Desperately Needs Cleaning

This post is going to be about the mess I call my desk and how I *finally* organized it today! I always keep the rest of my house spotless, I find joy in keeping a spic and span house. So most of my day revolves around constantly being up cleaning and cleaning some more. When I am not cleaning I am usually found on the couch sleeping away, whoever said you gain lots of energy in your third trimester was full of it!

One part of my house that always get neglected is my desk, I'm not sure why since this is where most of my money saving strategies come into play at, but that's just one of the mysteries of life. So without further ado, here is my mess!

My desk before cleaning:


Here is my receipt drawer and the other drawers in my desk:


And here is my massive pile of receipts from April and May.... I estimate about 300 receipts or possibly more:


I cannot stand living with a mess, it frustrates me to no end! My messes only get this bad and stay this way for no longer than a week before I finally get around to it. Although like I said, this is the only part of the house (well ok, besides my sons room) that ever looks like this. My new goal of the month is to keep this area clean!! After about an hour of cleaning and organizing, this is how everything looks now!

My desk after extreme cleaning:


My receipts after being sorted by month:


My receipt drawer newly organized:


My battery drawer newly organized:


Ok so that's it. My desk is totally cleaned and organized, I can actually find everything I need now, and I don't have tons of receipts exploding out of my drawer! I really have to keep on top of that desk area and especially those receipts! I do love being clean and organized though, it feels so good to know that everything is perfect and in it's place.

I'm not sure why you would want to see all of that mess but I was bored and thought it would make a cute blog post so it is what it is =) Hope everybody has a good night, I'm off to bed!

Farmland Bacon at HEB!

I heard through the grapevine that Farmland Bacon is going back on sale today at HEB for 2/5.00$. If this is true, which I haven't made it to the store yet, then you can use the 2$ off coupons from last weekend's paper to get .50$ bacon!! Hooray for bacon!!

I still have about 25 packages of it from last month but I have about another 20 something coupons so I will be stocking up some more, now I just have to make the freezer room for it! I can't imagine having 50 packages of bacon in my freezer, that is so crazy!

On the plus side, this bacon is sooooo good. I buy the thick sliced and it's quite possibly the best bacon I have ever ate. My whole little family loves it and we have been eating a package every weekend. Anyways, if you have an HEB around and find out if this is on sale today, leave a comment and let me know!

Today's Menu

I am going to start posting the dinners I cook every night since lately I have been cooking a lot and using a lot of new recipes. We'll see how this goes and if anybody enjoys it, if not it will probably be discontinued. I used to hate cooking with a passion, but every since I started getting food so cheap and being hungry ALL the time from being pregnant, I am actually starting to like it! And suprisingly, almost everything I make turns out really awesome.

My favorite things to cook are deserts and pies and such, but I haven't been making too many of them lately. I haven't found any sales on many pie baking items so I am going to hold off untill I find them on sale, I am SO cheap!

So here is tonight's dinner. Simple yet tasty, and very little work because today is one of those days where I don't want to cook since I am re-organizing my cupboards and closets.

Hearty Beef Stew:

2 cans of sliced carrots
2 cans of green beans
2 cans of new sliced potatoes (or slice about 4 medium potatoes)
1 packet of Mc Cormick Slow Cookers Savory Pot Roast Seasoning
1 to 1 1/2 pounds of stew meat

Directions:

Pour vegetables and meat into a large crockpot. Mix the seasoning packet as the directions say on the back and pour into crockpot. Make sure to add enough water to just barely cover everything in the crockpot otherwise the stuff on top won't cook. Mix everything up and put the lid on! Cook on low for 8 or so hours, or you can cook on high for a faster cook time!

Notes: If you don't have the seasoning packet handy, you can use a can of beef broth or a beef bouillon cube and you will get basically the same flavors. Once the meat and everything cooks together it produces a lot of it's own flavors.

Also, I have a fairly big crock pot, not sure on how many quarts but it's big. So when I make this stew we always have enough left overs for 2-3 days and this is with my DH and I both eating numerous bowls per day so this recipe makes a lot of servings. If you don't need that many servings just use 1 can of everything and perhaps a bit less meat and it will turn out great!

Let me know if you try this recipe and like it!

PS: I am also making a loaf of home made white bread to go with this meal. I am using the bread maker so I guess it isn't truly home made, but close enough for my family =)

Estimated cost of this meal - 6$

Free Movie Rental!

Well it's Monday again and that means it's movie night!! Every Monday I treat my family to a totally free movie rental from the RedBox Movie Machine that you commonly find outside of Mc Donalds, inside Walmart, and a bunch of other locations.

Today's FREE movie code is 6TK2A3

This code expires tonight at midnight, so if you are going to get a rental be sure to do it soon!

312$ Worth of Groceries for 79$!

I went shopping today armed with a fistful of coupons and I got some great deals! I really love coupons, can't you tell? I can't believe I ever paid full price for anything. The crazy thing is, I used to go to Walmart and spend atleast 140$ every week and that would last us about 4-5 days, usually not even that long because I bought a bunch of junk that I thought I needed. So on top of that, we would resort to eating fast food atleast 4 times a week. I am a much better shopper now I must say. Anyways, here are my steals and deals for this week!

WalMart #1:


(1) GV Mayo - 2.12$
(1) 5th Seasons Ground Black Pepper - 1.00$
(1) 5th Seasons Ground Cinnamon - .50$
(1) Good Life Cat Food - 3.82$
(2) Honey Bunches of Oats Cereal - 3.96$
(3) Farmland Diced Ham Cubes - 7.50$
(4) 2 Liter Bottles of Dr. Pepper - 4.00$
(2) KY Jelly - 5.14$
(1) Kotex Panty Liner - 1.00$
(2) Kashi Cereals - 4.48$
(1) Box of Bar S Corndogs - 3.97$

Total Before Coupons - 37.72$

Coupons Used:

(2) 3.00$ off Ky Jelly
(1) 1.00$ off Kotex
(3) 2.00$ off Farmland Ham
(1) 3.00$ off Good Life Cat Food
(2) 2.00$ off Honey Bunches of Oats
(2) 2.00$ off Kashi Cereal
(2) 1.00$ off Dr Pepper

Total After Coupons - 11.72$

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WalMart #2


(1) 50 lb Sack of Ol' Roy Dog Food - 18.28$
(16) Post Its - 15.52$
(7) Farmland Diced Ham Cubes - 17.50$
(8) 32 oz. Powerades - 7.04$
(1) GV Cooking Spray - 1.50$
(2) Johnson's Buddies Soaps - 1.88$
(1) Oatmeal Dog Shampoo - 3.86$
(1) Senseo Medium Roast Coffee Pods - 4.12$
(1) Kraft Tarter Sauce - 1.28$
(4) Pioneer Brown Gravy Mix - 2.00$
(1) GV Bread - .68$
(10) 3lb Sacks of Good Life Cat Food - 38.20$

Total Before Coupons - 115.72$

Coupons Used:

(8) 3.00$ off 2 Post Its - 24.00$
(8) .75$ off Powerade - 6.00$
(7) 2.00$ off Farmland Ham - 14.00$
(2) 1.00$ off Johnson's Buddies - 2.00$
(10) 3.00$ off Good Life Cat Food - 30.00$

Total After Coupons - 39.72$

-----------------------

I wasn't too impressed with WalMart #2's totals but then again I did get a lot of stuff that I did not have coupons for. I had to get Dh's coffee pods and dog shampoo and ofcourse the dog food which is so expensive. So all in all I didn't do too bad.

Super S #1:

(12) Deli Creations Flat Bread Sandwiches - 30.00$
(2) Nestle Pure Life 12 Pack Waters - 5.98$

Total Before Coupons - 35.98$

Coupons Used:

(12) 1.00$ off Deli Creations (doubled to 2.00$ each)
(2) 1.00$ off Nestle Pure Life (doubled to 2.00$ each)

Total After Coupons - 7.81$

------------------

Super S #2:


(14) 2 Liter Bottles of Dr. Pepper - 17.50$
(20) Boxes of Kraft Bagel-Fuls - 40.00$
(1) Toy Gun for my Son - .99$

Total Before Coupons - 58.86$

Coupons Used:

(20) 1.00$ off Kraft Bagel-Fuls (doubled to 2.00$ each)
(7) 1.00$ off Dr. Pepper (doubled to 2.00$ each)

Total After Coupons - 4.86$

-------------------

YAY! I love my Super S!!



HEB:


(8) Tubes of Farmland Sausage - 9.44$

Total Before Coupons - 9.44$

Coupons Used:

(8) 1.00$ off Farmland Sausage - 8.00$

Total After Coupons - 1.44$



Albertsons:


(2) Libby's Jumbo Can of Green Beans - 2.00$
(2) Dozen of Albertsons Eggs - 2.00$
(1) Package of Stew Meat - 7.80$

Total (No Coupons Used) - 11.80$

I really don't like shopping at Albertsons because I always feel like I am getting ripped off, I think I am going to stop my Albertsons shopping from now on, unless they are just having a killer deal which is highly unlikely.



CVS:


Transaction #1:

(3) Packs of Duracell Batteries - 8.97$
(2) Huggies Shea Butter Lotion - 3.50$
(1) Huggies Baby Wash - 3.49$

Coupons Used:

3$ off 15$
(3) .75$ off Duracell
(3) 1.00$ off Huggies
(1) 6.98$ ECB

Total After Coupons - .79$

Earned 2.00$ ECB's

---------

Transaction #2

(4) Chex Mix Chocolate Turtle Flavor - 4.00$
(4) Packs of Duracell Batteries - 11.96$
(1) CVS Bandages - 1.99$
(1) Halls Cough Drops - .60$

Coupons Used:

3$ off 15$
(4) .75$ off Duracell
(4) 1.00$ off Chex
(1) 2.00$ ECB
(1) 4.00$ ECB

Total After Coupons - .25$

Earned 1.99$ & 10.00$ ECB's



Dollar General:


(7) Boxes of Band Aids - 7.00$
(1) Tub of Cotton Candy - 1.00$

Total Before Coupons - 8.00$

Coupons Used:

(7) 1.00$ off Band Aids

Total After Coupons - 1.00$

----------------------------------

Ok that's all of my trips! Whew I am tired from writing all of that down, now I have to go log my receipts in my notebook and get ready to hit Walgreens and CVS tonight.... not even sure if I will have the energy for it or not!