On Friday, February 4th, 2011 COFFEE-MATE® is saluting its entire roster of flavors, and the people who love them with FREE FLAVOR FRIDAY! A special celebration filled with free product giveaways on Coffee-mate.com and on Facebook, FREE FLAVOR FRIDAY is an opportunity to savor your favorite flavor or try a new one for FREE!

They are giving away over 100,000 coupons for free creamer so make sure you get your tush over to Coffee-mate.com or Facebook on Friday and see if you can score a free coupon!!

In addition to giving away all those coupons for FREE creamer Coffee-Mate also sent out party packs to lucky hosts all over the country.  I was lucky enough to receive the Game Night Party Pack with lots of great goodies for my friends and I to celebrate Coffee-Mate.

Here’s what my Game Night Party Pack looks like, check back next week for a review of what we got and a recap of the party.

There are only a few days left to purchase these beautiful thermal totes at the once a year sale price.

For only $8 you can purchase the Thermal Lunch Tote and for $10 you can purchase the Thermal Tote, as an added value you can get embroidery for only $1.50 per tote!!  Please check out my Thirty-One gifts site and order your thermal totes today before it’s too late.  This sale won’t be back until next year so think about teacher’s gifts, mother’s day, birthdays, and even Easter baskets.

Vistaprint is offering lots of goodies for free for Valentine’s Day but you can also personalize these for your personal blog or business. 

Choose from Valentine's Day Postcards, Notecards, Tote Bags,
Photo Mugs & Photo Flipbooks. Products are free, just pay S&P.

So I ventured up the road to head to Michaels this afternoon.  My first stop was at BJ’s

I had coupons for 3lbs of bananas for free and for the pack of cornbread for free.  I also picked up a box of Sam Adams lager for Dave.  We’ve been noticing the price increasing lately and this is one of his favorite beers, BJ’s has 24 pks for $24.99 but they also had bonus packs of 28 for the same price so I dug out one of the bigger boxes and brought it home.  Given that a 6pk is up to $9 and the 12pks are about $14-$16 I figured 28 for $25 was a good deal. 

Then I headed to Michael’s to use my 25% off coupon, I refrained from going too nuts and only spent about $12.  I got Shawn a couple of little projects and picked up some odds and ends that are almost never on sale, I also picked up some Jolee’s stones for really cheap since they were already on sale.  If you have a Michael’s nearby be on the look out for that stack of paper.  I never buy 25pks of paper because they are usually not a good deal per sheet but this pack was 90% off since it’s Christmas (see the little red berries) for .39 I was happy to take it.

I was going to stop at Aldi’s and the dollar store while I was up there but I was just ready to be done shopping so I said to heck with it and headed for home.  I wrestled with my self and decided to stop into Walgreen’s to get some more Chex even though we probably didn’t need it.

I had a plan all worked out in my head.  I was going to run in get the Nivea shave gel with my $3.50 RR and pay change and get back a $3 RR to use on my Chex Mix again to pay change and get $3.50 back.  Well that’s kind of how it went but look at that pic again, I rounded the corner at the back of the store and found a clearance endcap.  I’m a clearance junkie so I looked through and found 3 PhotoStamp boxes marker $1 each.  Now if you don’t know what they are the box includes a gift certificate to get 20 stamps with a picture of yours on them plus free shipping.  That’s over $26 in stamps for $3, I’m so glad that I stopped.

My last stop was to Publix to return the free Blockbuster Rentals we got yesterday.  While I was there I picked up some fresh zucchini for dinner and 12 pks of cough drops.  The cough drops cost me .32/pk which is a buy it stock up price for me.  Now hopefully Dave won’t go through them in one cold.  So how has your shopping gone?  I am done shopping until Thursday unless there is a great deal that I can’t just pass up.

Like I said in my last post Sunday mornings I get up read through the paper and then go online.  I saw that people were getting a great deal on Maalox and Chex Mix at Walgreens so we headed out to get my papers and get in on the Chex Mix deal since it’s good today only.  So here’s how it worked out to be profitable:

First off I got my newspapers at the gas station.  I found a free coffee coupon for this gas station when I was cleaning out my wallet and decided I’d go redeem it today since it’s very chilly out.  While I was there I picked up 3 newspapers and a doughnut (did I mention I prefer shopping without Shawn) and I 24 oz coffee for $5.25 then we headed to Walgreen’s:

• 6 bags of Chex Mix –I personally don’t care for this but Shawn and Dave like it and it worked out to be really cheap so I picked them up for lunchbox stuffers.  From what I’ve read this is a one day great deal, it’s on sale this week 3 bags for $3.99 and there’s a .99/3 Wag’s coupon.  When you buy 5 or 6 bags you get a $3.50 RR and I have .75/2 coupons from hosting a Chex Mix Get Together a few months ago (they sent me over 50 coupons and I still have some left after giving bunchs away).  So these bags worked out to be .42 each after RR I will be getting some more later today since I have some more coupons and this will get used.
• 2 Pantene this was on sale 2/$7 with a $2 RR and there was a coupon for $3/2 in the recent P&G.  I usually don’t pay a $1 per bottle for shampoo but Dave has been having a few issues lately with his shampoo so I picked these up since he really likes this type and we are all out of Pantene
• 6 Maalox yup this one is excessive since we don’t use it very often.  This size bottle is on sale at my store for $5.09 and there is a monthly deal (I think) when you spend $30 you get $10 RR back.  I found 5  $5mq in my stash which made this a $4 money maker.  I’ll be calling family and seeing if anyone uses this after that I’ll check the expiration dates and donate any that expire within the next year if there is any left they will get priced and added to the yardsale totes.
• 2 Noodle things $1 I wanted to make sure my coupon to item ratio was good (I hate buying crappy candy at the register) Dave can take these to work for lunch when it’s chilly out for a hot meal.  They may not be the healthiest but they don’t require refrigeration and are quick/easy to make.

In total today I spent $4.78 at Walgreen’s and used a $10 RR from last week.  I got back a $10 RR for the maalox, $3.50 RR for the Chex, and a $2 RR for the Pantene.  For me this was a successful trip I came out about .75 ahead and have some shampoo for Dave, snacks that will last me at least a month, and some donations or additions to my yardsale stock.

So where are you shopping this week?  I’d love to hear how you are doing.  This afternoon I’ll be heading to Michaels to use there 25% off your purchase coupon, while I’m up there I’ll stop at the dollar store, BJ’s (free coupons to use), I’ll get gas since it’s cheapest out that way and if Aldi’s is open I’ll stop there too.

The cashiers at Publix, Walgreens, Target, CVS and even Walmart know me most of them by name.  These people have watched my son grow up is that strange?  When they first got to know me I was the crazy coupon lady, then I was the lady who knew all the sales, then all of sudden they started to see a pattern and wanted to be my friend and know how to do what I do.  Some of you reading this are probably my cashiers since I’ve handed out more cards then I can count.  I love my cashiers at least the ones that treat me right and give me no hassles with my coupons, I get in your lanes on purpose even if you have the longest line.  Does that make me crazy?

I’ve lightened up on my shopping over the past year due to having a fabulous stockpile built up and I got thinking am I still the crazy coupon lady??  I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder really a few weeks ago the new bagger at Publix probably thought I was nuts when I bought 12 jars of peanut butter but the cashier didn’t even flinch.  I know some of you reading must think couponing is hard or takes lots of time but let me tell you it doesn’t!!  There are great sites out there that have fantastic people who do all the work for you.  Sure I like to help and I’ll post the best deals when I see them and I really appreciate it when you click through my links or print your coupons from my sidebar that all helps me and keeps me here posting deals for you, but I can’t post all the grocery store deals and I don’t post all the drugstore deals.  If you are new to the game you might wonder where else do you get deals well I’ll tell you head on over to Afullcup.com and/or HotCouponWorld.com and check for your grocery store.  This is where I get my deals from and it’s so easy since they tell you where the coupons are and when they came out.

So I’m going to give you a run down of a typical shopping week for this Crazy Coupon Lady (maybe I should be the former CCL  LOL).  Sunday I get my papers due to a great Groupon I get one delivered so I see what coupons it has to offer than I go out and purchase usually 3 more papers.  I like to have even numbers of papers because we have lots of BOGO sales here.  Before I head out to buy more I have my coffee and flip through the ads (my grocery ads don’t come out till Wed so it’s only the other stores) if I see anything that interests me I jot it down on a notepad with the store name item and price.  Then I get on the computer and check the forums to see what others have found and I start making my shopping lists.  If the deals are really great I clip the coupons, get dressed and shop (and get my other papers).  Usually I’ll go to Walgreen’s and start with their RR deals and pick up my papers and then come home, I like to relax on my Sundays and I honestly prefer shopping without Shawn in tow.  Sunday evening or Monday morning I go back online and make notes of sales that people have found (why not let them go find the deals and report back) and I decide what I need to buy this week I clip my coupons plan a trip (making sure to best utilize my gas).  Then Monday or Tuesday I go out and do all of my shopping depending on the week and my motivation this may mean 1 trip to Target and 1 trip to Walgreens or I may stop at a few Wag’s  but it usually only takes me 1-2 hours (this also depends on how much wandering I do).  Wednesday or Thursday we get the grocery ads and I quickly scan it and go online to find the match-ups and clip my coupons.  Again depending on the sale I’ll go Thursday (the first day of my ad)  or like this week wait until Sat (special weekend only sale) or if there isn’t anything to great I may wait until Sun/Mon after we have another set of coupon inserts to possibly match with the sales. 

I would say in total for my personal shopping I spend maybe 30 minutes over the course of a week online, 15 minutes clipping coupons and a couple hours shopping.  I have done the math before but I can’t remember the exact numbers anymore but I would say that for less than 3 hours (at least 1 of those hours you’d have to be shopping anyways) of work a week I save around $100 at least which works out to $33/hour.  It might take you a bit longer at first but before long you’ll have the clipping, shopping, and deal finding down pat and for $33 an hour I’d say it’s worth the time.  But remember that 3 hours is me shopping at a SuperTarget, Walgreens, Publix and Walmart.  If you are new to this start small and pick 1 store once you’ve got that down pat add another store.  Now I spend alot more time online than 30 minutes but I do try and keep up this blog, read a few of my favorites, I read paid emails, sell items on Ebay/Etsy, plus a few other addictions LOL

Feel free to post any comments or questions I’d be happy to hear your take on couponing!!

I went to Publix today and spent too much.  The total made me take pause but it was worth it I suppose.  I spent $47.04 and saved $54.44 of that $22 was in coupons.  So what did I get that cost so much well here goes along with the reasons:

• 2 Stupid Star Wars Pez dispensers .79 each  We shall call this one of the costs of taking the Star Wars nuts with me, the little nut sees the Star Wars characters and the big nut sees the clearance tag and into the cart they went.
• 2 boxes Glad ForceFlex trashbags $3.85 each We were finally out of the trashbags I got almost a year ago at Sweetbay for free thankfully Glad released a high value coupon.  I did some quick math and decided to buy the bigger boxes even though they cost me more I was getting a better value per bag, now if I can just limit the amount of bags we use I’ll be a happy woman.
• 6 boxes of Quaker Oatmeal at $1 a box   I know how much cheaper it is to buy the cans of oats and make my own oatmeal but I also know that then I’m the only one who’ll eat it.  Shawn proclaims that he doesn’t like oatmeal but he loves “Magic” Oatmeal (oatmeal with dinosaur eggs)  So I’ll gladly pay $1 a box for oatmeal that he’ll eat with no fights (6:30 is too early to fight with him about breakfast)
• 3 boxes of Poptarts for $1.27 a box This was a moment of mommy weakness, Shawn has been seeing kids at school or on the bus with Poptarts.  So every day for a week now I’ve heard I want Pop-Tarts they were 50% off today and tomorrow only so I caved and bought 3 12pk boxes.  These should last me a couple of months unless Dave starts eating them.
• 2 Yoplait Yo-Plus FREE This is a no brainer it’s healthy, Shawn likes yogurt (I don’t) and it was free too bad I only had 2 coupons.
• 2 Whole Fruit Sorbet .95 each   DH and I are both looking to lose a little weight and we both seem to have evening munchy cravings.  I’m hoping a few bites of fat free sweets will help stave off the desire to snack.
• Sirloin Filet $6.64  We’ve eaten too much chicken lately and it was either splurge on some nice steaks or go out to eat since I really wanted some red meat.  This is much much cheaper than even eating fast food even though it was a splurge for us.
• 2 Country Crock .65 each  We were starting to run low on spreadable butter so I picked up a couple hoping a better coupon comes out soon.
• Boston Butt Roast $4.84  This was a much better price for meat but it’s pork and not what I wanted.  The size of this roast will feed us for at least 2 nights and probably 1-2 lunches for me.
• 2 Kraft Homesytle Mac & Cheese  .30 each  I’m not sure if this stuff is any good but for the price I picked up a couple to have on hand
• 2 Halls Cough Drops  .32 each  Dave has a cold with a cough and goes through these fast at work so I’ll be going back with more coupons to try and keep my stock ahead of him.
• 12pk of Red Stripe 9.99  can you believe that this actually had a coupon??  We can add this to the cost of having the hubby with me.

Everything purchased was on sale and most of it had a coupon as well, my total may have been high but I refuse to pay full price even for meat.  Some weeks will be better than others this was an OK week to stock up on some stuff but still a pricey week.  I bet in a month when I still have oatmeal I’ll be happy with this shopping trip since 1 box of oatmeal runs $3.99 at Publix.

Today we decided to head up to Aldi’s, I’ve never been in ours and was curious.  I made sure I brought the Michaels ad since it’s in the same plaza and we planned on getting gas at BJ’s since we were up there.  On the way there I saw that gas was $3.00 at Walmart or $2.97 with their giftcard when we passed the BJ’s sign it was $2.99 so we decided to stop at Walmart on the way home.

We stopped in Michaels and I picked up a few items on sale.  I got a skein of yarn to make some fingerless gloves as a gift and a scrapbooking item on clearance from $12.xx to $2.49, I was happy with that price and hope to make it into something I can sell for $10+

Then we stopped in BJ’s.  I don’t shop there much but my mother in law has a card and added us onto hers so that we could pick up things and get gas.  We shopped the ends of all the aisles looking for any good clearance and wandered around the fresh produce and meats but nothing was screaming buy me.  Dave and Shawn tasted all the goodies which get them happy to wait until we got home for lunch.

Next was Aldi’s and I can honestly say that I am pleasantly surprised!!  Here’s what we got

• Banana’s .39/lb At Walmart they are currently costing me .55/lb so this was a great price.  The bag I got are all green but we still have a few left so they’ll be ripe just in time.
• Cranberry Juice $1.79  this isn’t a great price but is the cost of taking Dave with me.  He didn’t tell me he wanted Cranberry Juice but when he saw it wanted it.   Men, LOL
• Eiswein  $9.99 It’s still chilling so I can’t tell you yet if it was a good price.  I really like Ice Wine but it is generally very pricey so I splurged
• Meatballs $1.99 this was my best buy I think.  We love meatballs there is about 30 in the bag so 2 meals (they are small) but for $1 a meal this is great.  I’m horrible at making meatballs so I don’t bother and these did taste good so I’ll buy more next time I go up
• Milk was only $2.09 that is .90 cheaper than the sale price at Walgreen’s this week and 1.10 cheaper than Walmarts price.

I’ll be going back to Aldi’s for some of the staples the next time I am out that way.

Then on the way home we saw our favorite radio station had a truck out by the pawn shop that we frequent so we stopped in quickly to see what was going on.  Turns out the Aamco was having a grand opening thing so we checked everything out and entered the raffle.  We got some coupons for oil changes and free lunch, just as we were getting ready to leave they announced they would be doing the drawing for the raffle so we stuck around and waited.  The radio personality drew a bunch of names for an alignment and of course we didn’t win.  But the second name we called for a free oil change was MINE!!!!!  and then 3 names later he called Dave’s so we each won a free oil change which came at a great time since we both need one.

Talk about a profitable shopping day!!  Tonight we are playing Scrabble (christmas gift) so the dang TV will be off for the evening and so will the computer as soon as I’m done typing.  Have a fabulous weekend and let me know how you’ve been saving this week.

I know several of my readers have asked about deals on this mag so I just had to post it.  If you already get a subscription make sure you enter your mailing address the same and you will extend your subscription out a year.  Disney family fun for only $2.99 click here and make sure you enter the code DISNEY at checkout to receive it for only $2.99!

Go here to get a great deal on 1 year of Women’s Day magazine.  This mag usually has coupons in it and great recipes.  At checkout enter the code PXCJ116 to get it for only $3.73

Breakfast this morning was quick, convenient and cheap.  I picked up Jimmy D D-lite croisssant sandwiches yesterday at Publix with the sale and my coupons each sandwich worked out to about 5 cents each.  The hashbrowns are never on sale but aren’t too expensive and the pack lasts forever.  Toss on a few grapes and some OJ and you have a yummy cheap breakfast.  It took me all of 3 minutes to make I didn’t have to drive to McDonalds and I certainly didn’t have to shell out $5 for it.

So how are you saving??

Looks like the deal is dead now  :(

10 Packs of Paper for only $6.07!! This is such a great deal you might want to order 2 of these and be well stocked on paper for a long time.

What do you do with extra change?  Do you plan your money out and spend that pocket change or do you drop it into a jar at the end of the night/week?

This is something I’ve been wrestling with for a while, while I would like to use all my change and have tried I always find loose coins somewhere or I have soo much change in my purse that it weighs a ton.  So we’ve decided to feed the pigs our change.  LOL and here’s how:

See that huge blue pig?  Well that “little” piggy wants to help buy a car for Shawn or something like that.  That is his piggy bank (it’s nearly bigger than the dog) when he gets money (milks the grandparents for their change) or finds money  (i.e. grabs it out of the coin return before I get it) he puts it in the pig and when the pig gets heavy mommy puts the money into his ING account.  Someday that money will help him purchase a car, an engagement ring or a house who knows.

The big beer bottle is our giftcard fund.  At the end of the day/week when we have pocket change that’s where it gets dumped.  When that gets full we head to the coinstar machine and exchange for a giftcard without any fees.  They have giftcards for Amazon and Lowes so depending on where we are in our lives we get a card to buy something we need/want that we would normally go without.

That is what we’ve been working with for months but another little piggy showed up last week.  See the little piggy all dressed up for winter, isn’t he cute?  I got him for .99 at Target on clearance.  Well that little piggy wants to go on vacation!!!  We currently can’t afford to save money for a vacation there are just too many other things that need to be done first but we can put a few coins a day in this pig and not really affect our bottom line.  Someday that little piggy will get to go on vacation it won’t be anytime soon but it gives us a goal and when I was at the store the other day we decided to drink water instead of soda and added that $1 to the pig.  This little guy won’t get fed to often but found money will be added to him so the 61 cents I found while cleaning yesterday went in and for quarter I found coming home from the bus stop this morning went in there too.  As I said that poor pig isn’t going anywhere soon to someday.  Hey a girl can dream right.

So do you have a piggy with high hopes??  What do you do with your change spend it all, save it all, feed the pigs??  I’d love to hear your take on change savings.

I headed out to Publix today to try and get some motivation to clean.  Well I made it to the store but I found no motivation there, they really should have that at the store (I might even pay full price some days).  So here’s what I got, I spent $4.07 on all that’s pictured.

Here’s my analysis: 

• 4 Yoplait Smoothie Frozen bags well these were about $.50 a bag and Dave and I are both trying to eat a bit better and I think these will make good snack/breakfast items.  We’ll try them out at that price.
• 1 Mott’s Plus $1.69 I had no coupon with me for this.  We are just about out of juice, with Shawn being off school for 2 1/2 weeks my juice stock has taken a hit.  He’s also had a phlegm issue so he hasn’t been drinking much milk so my juice took a double hit.  $1.69 isn’t a bad price (not a stock up price) but we needed juice for him to take to school
• 4 boxes of Special K cereal $0!!!  Who can resist free cereal?  Special K is BOGO at Publix this week and there was a BOGO coupon on Kellogg’s website I printed 2 coupons and gladly took my 4 free boxes.  (If you have these coupons make sure you follow the wording buy any 1 get 1 oats & honey or plain for free)  I would have preferred 4 of the chocolate flavor but we’ll try the Oats & Honey
• The tangerines were .10 a piece so I picked up a couple for Dave to take to work with his lunch

So how has your shopping been going?  I’d love to hear your stories.

These are a few things we’ve been doing to save some money:

• Last night I cut Shawn’s hair.  About a year ago I spent $18 on a very good Wahl clipper set and it has more than paid for itself.  So I saved myself $12-$15 on a haircut.
• I had lunch at home and used up some leftovers and dinner will also be at home and using up leftovers so that no food is going to waste.
• All the lights have been off today since it’s a beautiful sunny day, the windows are also open.  This morning instead of turning the heat on to warm it up (windows were open and it got chilly in the house) we just used blankets until it warmed up.
• I spent part of the morning checking out the Publix ad for tomorrow and clipping coupons so I will be ready to go shop tomorrow morning.  Next on my list is to find deals for Target so I can do all the shopping while I’m out to save gas.
• I also clipped coupons for a trip to Walgreen’s while I’m out tomorrow.
• Tonight we’ll stay in and relax.  Dave got a couple new Wii games for Christmas to play and I have about 10 different craft projects started so I’ll be working on one of those.

What are you doing to save some money??  Do you know how much money you can save just by staying home?  Between gas and impulse purchases it really adds up.

I wanted to keep track of my spending but with company being here it’s been considerably harder.  My mother in law goes home on Wednesday so I will be starting fresh on Thursday with tracking my pennies.

But just because we have one extra around and have been running around like crazy doesn’t mean that I haven’t been trying to save some money.  Today I headed to Walgreens and picked up the children’s medicine that is free after RR with a $2 coupon, a Electrasol dishwasher detergent, 4 pks of Nyquil/Dayquil, 1 Vicks Sniffer thing and some Tilex.  I was able to roll my RR’s to minimize my out of pocket. 

• Analysis- We have very little children’s medicine after doing some inventory so I need to stock up on a few things in case Shawn catches a cold especially when it works out to be free, the detergent was also free and stores well so I stock when I can, Nyquil/Dayquil is my hubby’s drug of choice when he is under the weather it’s also very expensive when not on sale at less than $1 each I will keep them on hand, the Tilex is the only cleaning product I would ever pay full price for and it was on sale after coupon for $1 each so it was time to pick up 2 this is one of the few things that makes my mildew prone shower easy to clean.

We went out originally with the purpose of my mother in law picking up a few things at Disney for gifts so I stopped at Property Control on the way home (Property Control is a special shopping area for Cast Members) they recently added a very small grocery section and they have sandwich loaves of bread for .95 since we are low I picked up 1 loaf and while we were there I picked up a package of sliced provolone.  I will be checking around to see how good of a deal I got but it was good enough (2.5lbs for $6) for right now.  I broke up the package into smaller groups and froze them for future use.

I’ve also been watching the electricity used around the house.  It’s been warm lately so the windows have been open with the fans on in the evenings to cool down the upstairs.  We’ve been trying to only use the lights with the saver bulbs in them eventually I will change all the lights out but only as I can get them cheaply.

So how has your year started out?  Are you prepared to make 2011 your best financial year yet??  Together we can save on our bills and increase our savings/net worth.