Monday, July 16, 2012

A Coupon Trip Step by Step

It's been very fun getting back into couponning, and we are already building up our stockpile again.

Here is a great example of how to combines sales with coupons and store promotions to save money.

I found out from the CVS sales ad that if I scanned my CVS card Sunday-Monday, I would get a coupon for $4 off any purchase of $20. That's $20 BEFORE coupons, so that doesn't mean $20 will come out of my pocket.

CVS has a sale on FiberOne granola bars this week, 2 for 5. That's a decent sale, even compared to Walmart. To reach twenty bucks, I need to buy eight boxes. I went online and found several .60 off 1 or .50 off 1 coupons. I also had two $1 off one coupons I clipped from the two boxes I bought Sunday with my $5 ECBs.

I found eight coupons for each of my eight boxes, then went to CVS and scanned my card to get the $4 off coupon.

I bought eight boxes of granola bars, plus an Unreal bar, because they were .75, with .75 back in ECBS for my next purchase.

My total was just a little over 21 dollars. I used my $4 off coupon, which made it $17. Then, I handed over my coupons for the granola bars, and after those, my total was about 11.70 for eight boxes of granola bars and a very yummy Unreal bar, plus I have .75 cents off in ECBs for next week.

Add this purchase to my purchase from yesterday, and I got ten boxes of granola bars, an Unreal bar, and six Milky Way bars for $12.50. I love granola bars, so we will eat some this summer, and have some left over for school.

Any coupon you use will save money, but combining them with sales and promotions is what makes things very cheap.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Pets like Saving too!

I have the world's most spoiled pets. Kitten alone has a box crammed full of toys. She also eats very good kitty cat canned food (Iams ProPlan, Merrick, Fancy Feast), etc. I am not, however, going broke feeding and spoiling the critters.

Petsmart accepts coupons, and they also give out some great coupons. They frequently have tearpads in the cat and dog food aisle for free cans of food.

For example, a few months ago (before we got Kitten, actually) there was a 5.00 off of a five pound bag of Authority cat food, which sold for 5.99. There was also a tearpad coupon for two free cans of cat food when you bought a bag of dry food. I had enough coupons to do this three times, so I got three bags of cat food and six cans for 2.98. I bought them with the intention of donating them to the shelter, but they just sat at the top of my fridge (I know, bad lady) until we adopted Kitten, and now she eats them.

But not just that. Our Petco (which also accepts coupons) has a table next to the checkout lane. They offer food that is close to, but has not reached, the expiration date. Again, the food is not expired, it is just close to it, usually within a month. I bought Kitten Fancy Feast cans for a dime. I have also been able to get her Merrick cat food for forty cents. The main ingredients in Merrick are lobster, shrimp, tuna...!!! I just check the food when I open it for quality assurance (look, smell, texture) and we are good to go. She loves it, and she's a very healthy kitten. You can't really stockpile it, because the expiration date looms so close, but if you live close by a Petco, just swinging by once a week to snag the savings is worth it.

Walk around the store. Our Petsmart and Petco have had crazy clearence sales on toys, grooming, or bowls. I bought Kitten expensive toys for $1, $2, $3...

You also never know when you'll run into a crazy deal. Ferret food is usually $15 for a 6lb bag, but they had it on clearence for $4. I bought all of them, and now we have a three month supply for the price of one.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Losing Weight and Saving Money

It's the first of the year, and many of us have started our New Year resolution to be healthier. Plus, some of you smart people have been eating healthy all along. It is a common thought that coupons are only for junk food, and if you want to be healthy, you have to pay more and can't coupon.

Well...it is true that organic, etc costs more, but you CAN coupon. There are frequently coupons for soymilk, SmartBalance products, cereal, vitamins, medicine, LOTS for yogurt, some organic products, etc.

Plus, right now, there are lots of coupons on http://www.coupons.com/ for diet and healthy foods. Here are a few examples:

Save $1 off one box of Kashi bar
Save 40 cents on six Yoplait yougurt
Save $1 on Arrowhead Mills Breakfast Product (they have whole grain and gluten free!)
Save $3 on after 10 Weight Watchers Smart Ones Product (combine this with the Target coupon for $3 off ten, and you can save $6 off!)
Save $1.50 Atkins Day Break products
Save $1 on one Kashi Go Lean Crisp cinnamon crumble cereal
Save $1 on two Nabisco snacks (you can get Wheat Thins or other whole grain crackers)
Save 75 cents off any one bag of Crunchmaster crackers (they have whole grain)

If you are diabetic or watching your blood sugar, Coupons.com also has a coupon for $10 One Touch Mini meter and $4 coupon for the test strips.

Target has the following coupons on their website. **Denotes a Target-only coupon, which can be stacked wtih a manufacturer coupon for even better savings

**Fifty cents off two Kashi items
**$1 off Kellog's Special K item (shakes or meal bars)
**Save $3 off 10  Smart ones frozen entrees
**Save $1 off Morningstar Farms frozen food items
**Buy One, Get One Free Multipack PowerBar nutrition item
**Save $2 off with the purchase of two 4-pk Dannon Activia yogurts
Save $1.25 on any two Glucerma Mult-Pack Bars of shakes


Another way to save money is to check out some of the amazing free websites for tracking calories. I used to pay to be a part of the Weight Watchers online program. It's a good program, certainly, but Livestrong is essentially the same thing, and it's FREE. Livestrong also has a special feature for tracking your food AND your blood sugar levels. Another friend uses SparkPeople, and I believe that is free as well.

I used to buy cookbooks with ideas for healthy recipes, but then I realized I had the internet. Google healthy recipes. There are a 25.7 million results. Narrow it down for a low GI diet, low-carb, low sugar, high protein, etc. Or...low GI diet recipe with chicken. It's much more time efficient to use Google than leafing through cookbooks.

If you prefer a cookbook, try looking for used ones online at Half.com.

This spring, we are talking about having a garden. It'll be a way to get my indoors butt outside and moving around, plus, hopefully we will have lots of fresh veggies to eat! :)

Here's to a new year of healthy, frugality, and hopefully more posting on my part!