Tuesdays Table

Two quick stores and then I am done for the week. Here is what I did with some of my Register Rewards. I paid $1.01 out of pocket for all this at Walgreens. The Kleenex with 110 in the box is on sale for .79 with a store coupon, so of course I used a manufacturer coupon as well. And eggs are .99 a dozen if you need some this week to finish up your baking. I love being able to look up an item I need in Savings Angel and find where I should pick it up.



Then I dashed into Meijer for a couple stellar deals. The Tropicana had a manufacturer coupon as well as a Meijer Mealbox coupon to make them .50. The All was $1.49 after coupons. My total began at $22 and I spent just over $9 after my coupons. So now I can get back to my wrapping and look forward to the clearance sales after Friday. Does anyone else love those things? Where do you like to go?

50 Free prints and $15 off any order at Shutterfly

I thought this one was worth my time. I still haven't settled on an online photo service. I just keep trying deals to see what I like, especially when they are free. So if you you are new customer at Shutterfly, you get 50 free prints. They are good for a month, so don't forget to print up those Christmas snapshots after all the festivities. Then you can go here and learn how to add $15 to your account.

Walgreens Deals

Well, I'm having a little photo trouble over here. So if there is a picture, be impressed. If you have any Huggies coupons, Walgreens is the deal this week. They are 8.99 with a $2 Register Reward. So with my $2 coupon from the Parade 2 weeks ago, they were 4.99. Then I also picked up the Complete Contact Solution, because it was free after register rewards. This is the third week of Contact Solution for free. I wonder how long into 2010 I can go without having to pay for it now that I'm stocked up. I also picked up Hunts 3/$1 and 4 Little Christmas bags for $1 - mostly so I had enough items to use up a lot of Register Rewards from last week.

Okay, I'm off to figure out my camera issues. I have 3 Christmas programs in 5 days....so I don't know how much other shopping I will do. I'm trying to finish up a couple things online. I didn't know that even ebay gets pricey this time of year.

Check for Deals Here

I know that I haven't been blogging much lately. I've been too busy working the deals myself, along with baking, decking the halls, digging out the driveway and attending Christmas Programs! Here are some of the blogs I'm loving this season"

It's Hip 2 Save for store and online sale ideas. It was here that I found a half price Lego set and Croc boots for my Cents for $14 shipped.

Money Saving Mom for Walgreens, coupons and other savings ideas.

Macomb Money Saver for the scoop on this weeks Meijer sales - don't forget that she has double coupons when you look at her deals.

Have fun out there, but stay on budget.

Walgreens sale through Saturday

I had some serious fun at Walgreens today. The store was really quiet, so I was able to do 2 checkouts and think at the same time. The first thing to know is that thru Saturday they have $5 register reward back on a purchase of $25 - before coupons. The second thing to know is that they have a ton of things that are free after Register Rewards. So you can go and just pick up the items on the endcap that are free after RR and make sure your total hits $25. I got the Renu, Stayfree with coupons as well. The Oil of Olay BOGO coupon is in your most recent P&G coupon book and there is a rebate for the Quench lotion. Won't those make a really nice gift bag for a teacher??? So I used up my register rewards from last week and only spent $30.60, I got back $40 in Register Rewards and I will do the rebate on the Oil of Olay for $20. Can that mean I will make a $30 profit on the items purchased above!!! :) Yep, so long as I use the Register Rewards by December 25th. If I keep using them on items that trigger another Register Reward...I keep buying many toiletries and even food for free. You can save a lot of money by knowing how this system works and working it. To see deal ideas visit over at Money Saving Mom.

Tuesday's Table

No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth....my printer did...then the computer did. We got a new laptop at Black Friday sales, but I still need to order some color cartridges. I basically sat out the Thanksgiving sales since I couldn't print the coupons I needed to put together the best deals. Hopefully I'm up and running again. I would love to hear from you in the comments to know what kind of things you like to see here. I've been feeling like I'm blogging to myself out here!


I've been doing well at Walgreens lately and so had some Register Rewards to use. You can see what I got above. After coupons my total was $3.09, so I used a $2 RR and paid $1.09 out of pocket for my 6 items and 5 fillers. I just realized, I should have used a coupon for my filler or it would have been less. I had a total of 9 coupons to use plus my Register rewards, so I chose the bags to bring my item count up. And I got a RR for $5 on the Triaminic.

30% off at Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic

The Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic are offering a 30% off coupon HERE. It's good at there outlets too, but the coupon is only good November 12-15. Old Navy has Winter Coats at 50% off already this week.

$20 back on $100 at BestBuy

Christmas is coming and I'm busy making my list and checking it twice. Anyone else there working on the gifts yet? Paypal is offering $20 back on $100 purchases at BestBuy online. You can click HERE for the link to look at what they've got.

Tuesdays Table

I'm all stocked up on Ritz crackers for quite awhile now. They had $10 off some Mattel games with the purchase and there is a $10 rebate for the Ritz. So it was time to check it out. I also had $5 off $25 general merchandise coupon to go with that. My tab started at over $87 and came down to $39 and now I will send in my rebate for another $10.

I hit Walgreens earlier in the day to use up my Register Rewards. My out of pocket was $2. something. But I didn't pick up any new register rewards this time.

Tuesdays Table: Family Fare Doubles

Wow, I've never done a doubles coupon event. That was pretty fun. I've never seen my little FF so busy. They were out of a number of things I wanted to get, but it is the end of the sale. Before coupons or sales my total would have been $83.41 and after it was $24.54 out of pocket. The Krusteaz cookie mixes and kisses on clearance were free after coupons. The Tortilla chips were .50,t he Hot Dogs were .25. Sure hoping they do this again!

Family Fare: Double Coupons

Today is the last day!!! Sorry I'm so late on letting you know this. But today is the last of 3 days of double coupons in the Grand Rapids area for Family Fare and D & W! They are doubling manufacturing coupons up to a dollar. Going to get my list together now and see you there!

$2 Costumes at Old Navy

Wow, so glad Autumn let me know about this one. Are you in a last minute hurry for a costume? Head on over to the Old Navy near you for this sale. I don't know what is left, but might be worth a peek. If you are at Rivertown, don't forget to stop by their offices for a free tote of goodies and coupons. They could be handy with Christmas coming up!

Last Flick's Film

Celebration Cinema is hosting the last week of a Film Fest for Families. All the films are PG and free to those under 12. It is just $2.50 for adults. Visit celebrationcinema.com for theatres and showtimes. This weeks showing is Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.


October 30- Nov 5 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Wow, my friend Kelly posted about a bag of coupons and goodies that she picked up at the Rivertown Crossing Mall in Grandville MI today. Some of them even have a $10 off coupon in them. Then you can bring the bag back on their anniversary filled with canned goods for the food for the West Michigan Food Drive and recieve a $20 gift certificate for the mall. Fun find Kelly, thanks for sharing!

Complimentary Anniversary Tote Bags
10/26/2009 - 11/6/2009
Wow, my friend Kelly posted about a bag of coupons and goodies that she picked up at the Rivertown Crossing Mall in Grandville MI today. Some of them even have a $10 off coupon in them.
Visit the Mall Office Reception Center during weekday office hours from October 26 – November 5, 2009 for your complimentary Anniversary Tote!* Each stylish tote is filled with special retailer offers & anniversary giveaways and random totes are seeded with $10.00 Mall Gift Cards!

*RIVERTOWN CROSSINGS ANNIVERSARY TOTES. Receive one (1) tote per family while supplies last. Must be 18 years or older to participate. Customer need not have tote to donate to the ACCESS of West Michigan Food Drive.

LOCATION: Mall Management Office

TIME: 8:30am-5pm

CONTACT: 616-257-5000

ACCESS of West Michigan Food Drive Celebrate RiverTown Crossings 10 years in the community and receive a FREE Mall Gift Card when you donate to ACCESS of West Michigan! Fill your exclusive Anniversary Tote* with canned or packaged food items and bring it with you to the RiverTown Crossings Anniversary Celebration on November 6 to receive a free $20.00 Mall Gift Card*.

Tuesdays Table

First I went to Walgreens since I had some Register Rewards that were going to expire Tuesday if not used. I didn't have a big need or deal list, so I just picked up a couple items that would give me Register Rewards for the next time. These were free after Register Rewards. Since I used a RR to pay, my out of pocket was $1.80 and I received $5.50 to use next time..

My next stop was Meijer. Again I didn't have a huge list of deals this week. But I thought the Snuggle Fabric Softener worth the trip for .49 each after coupon. The 16 oz. Mini Wheats were on sale for $1.88. I had two coupons for .75 from the back of cereal boxes and one coupon from in a cereal box for $1 off fruit. And I knew if I bought 3 Kellogg's cereal I would get a coupon for a free milk. It was a good week to find a milk deal, since it is over $2 this week. Life was on sale for $1.79 and my husband said I could buy as much as I could afford. My cost without coupons was over $47 and my out of pocket was $29, plus I will submit a $2 rebate on the Palmolive.


The last leg of my mini marathon was Family Fare. They had Oreos for $2!!! We love oreos and I have school parties to send them too. So I used my $1 off of 2 coupons from a Kraft mailing on those.



Then to finish out my busy day I also went to 3 parent teacher conference, an Orchestra Concert for Half Buck, and took the car into the shop. Whew, it is kinda nice to be grounded at home for a day without wheels.

Flick's Family Film Fest

Celebration Cinema is hosting a Film Fest for Families. All the films are PG and free to those under 12. It is just $2.50 for adults. Visit celebrationcinema.com for theatres and showtimes. This weeks showing is Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

October 23-29 Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs
October 30- Nov 5 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

100 Free Pictures

See Here from Fuji Film is offering 100 free prints for new accounts and you have to pay shipping. I think I might be taking that Christmas Card picture of the kiddos today, opening my account and placing my order over HERE. It looks like you have to use the code Prints at checkout. Thanks My Frugal Adventures.

Tuesdays Table

Yay, another good week at Meijer. I spent $21 earlier this week getting milk and some basics at Aldi's. I can't believe it, but I'm about at the end of my 30 boxes of cereal stash and needed to pick up a couple kid favorites over there until I find another stellar deal. In the meantime, I was able to get my pickles with a rain check from last month. The Ore Ida and the Jello had Meijer Mealbox coupons as well as manufacturer ones. Then as a bonus, I found one more Ore Ida coupon that had printed from an order before me from the Catalina machine! I needed the Q Tips and so I looked it up on Savings Angel for the best price and a coupon and didn't end up at full price on that item. If you buy 5 Stove Top Stuffing at $1.09, then you got $4 off Ground Beef for your next purchase. So for $5.78 I got 2 lbs Angus ground beef and 5 Stove Top Stuffing (and yes, I use this in a recipe of chicken my family loves). So my out of pocket today was $18. 84.




SavingsAngel.com ™ - Meijer list

Flick's Family Film Fest

Celebration Cinema is hosting a Film Fest for Families. All the films are PG and free to those under 12. It is just $2.50 for adults. Visit celebrationcinema.com for theatres and showtimes. This weeks showing is Monsters vs Aliens.


October 16-22 Monsters vs. Aliens
October 23-29 Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs
October 30- Nov 5 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Bread Making

Okay, what is this all over my counter? Bread mixes made by me.: Winter cometh and I am longing for stews and soups and crockpotty type dishes with homemade bread. Do you still have that bread maker on a shelf somewhere? This is what I do with mine. I make my favorite mix up ahead. Since I had scored some flour at .99 and the season is right, it was time to mix some more up. How many do I do at a time? Well that is decided by how many plastic bags or how much ingredients I have. I was hoping to use up the last of my whole wheat flour but ran out of plastic bags. If you notice that the bags all look different, I have a confession to make: I wash out my ziplocks untill they are dead (so now you know how frugal I am :). Here is my favorite recipe:

Whole Wheat Bread - large loaf

Bread Flour (I use regular) 2 1/2 Cups
Whole Wheat Four 1/2 Cup
Salt 1 1/2 teaspoons
Sugar 3 Tablespoons
Dry Milk 1 1/2 Tablespoons

All the above into the ziplock bags.

Warm tap water 1 1/8 Cups
Add the bag
Dry Yeast: 1 teaspoon for bread setting, 2 tsp for bread rapid setting
Butter 1 1/2 tablespoon

Tuesday's Table

Meijer had a lot of deals with money off on your next order (or ONYO) that I wanted to get. The Cream of Mushroom were for .65 and if you bought 5 with any Pepperidge Farm Bread, you got $5 off your next order. Be sure and look for the lowest price bread to increase your savings. The Ziplock gave me $2 and the Swansons gave $1. All of course were on sale and had coupons. So I did all this in one order at self check out for $10.22 after coupons. There is also a rebate for ziplocks.


I then did this second order, using those discounts from above. I paid just over $5 for this order, including 5 pound of pork roast (I had them cut it up in chops). The catalina machine also gave me one more $1 for the Swansons broth. Below you can see my Meijer list from Savings Angel. Sure hope some of you got over there to visit during their open house last week. Drop me a comment and tell me what you thought.



SavingsAngel.com Meijer Shopping List

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Walgreens

I'm finally really excited about Walgreens deals this week. I went early so the shelves would be stocked. If you buy 8 items of Skippy or Ragu, you get $8 in register rewards. Each item was $1.67, so even without coupons, this was a great price...provided you don't let that register reward expire. So I took my Ragu and Skippy out to the car and came back in and bought $10 worth of Granola bars with some coupons and used the $8 register reward to pay for them. And for spending the $10, I got $5 register reward. I was going to use that toward the Huggies deal going right now: 2/$18 with a $4 register reward. There are $2 printable coupons out there, making this a 2/$10 deal. So I will be going back to do this later in the week. Since I used some register rewards from a week or so ago, everything below was around $8 out of pocket. You can check out my Savings Angel list here:
SavingsAngel.com Walgreens List

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Okay, I went back for those diapers and paid just over $10 out of pocket and got $4 register rewards for another day!

Flick's Film Festival

Celebration Cinema is hosting a Film Fest for Families. All the films are PG and free to those under 12. It is just $2.50 for adults. Visit celebrationcinema.com for theatres and showtimes. This weeks showing is Night at the Musuem.

October 9-15 Night at the Museum
October 16-22 Monsters vs. Aliens
October 23-29 Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs
October 30- Nov 5 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Financial Peace

Well, the Prof and I have been faithfully going to our class and completing our homework in the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace class. It has been challenging and helpful. We are now usin a Zero Sum Budget for October. Basically we made a budget that accounts for all the money we are spending this month. If we need to change things, we need to talk about and make adjustments together. I was wondering what could possibly come up that didn't fit a catagory of this fairly thorough budget. While a couple unexpected things have come up, the one we couldn't find a catagory for was the Tooth Fairy for Two Bits lost tooth. The really "Duh" moment for me was: we need to make a new budget every month. We have made a budget every year or so through our almost 20 years of marriage. And they have helped us with the big general plan. But there is always something coming up that surprises us, something that shouldn't: insurance bill, school photos, Christmas. Little things like that. Hopefully doing this each month will help us be more prepared. Now just waiting for one of the colleges to start paying us after 5 weeks in class!

Tuesday's Table

I didn't need any of the Meijer deals this week, so I had fun at Family Fare instead. They had $5 back on a $15 Pillsbury purchase. And in addition, if you bought 6 refridgerator items, you go $4 back as well. So I have $9 off my next purchase there and my out of pocket cost was $8.34. Yep, that is a profit of .66 for buying the items in the photo. You can also take these coupons and do the deal again! I might have to see what my printer can do. If you click below, you can see my Savings Angel list for this trip.


SavingsAngel.com ? - cut your Grocery Bill in HALF through Enlightened Shopping! ?

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Today is the first day of a free peek at Savings Angel! If you are wondering what I'm so jazzed about, come and take a look over the next 3 days. You can visit from October 6th through the 8th. Just head on over to savingsangel.com.

My latest way to make use of Savings Angel is to have a grocery list all set up with all those hard to find a sale items on it. Each week I can just peek at my list and see if it is time to stock up on my favorite laundry detergent. They show me where to find the coupons and what the percent off is.

Contract Testing

If you are in the Grand Rapids area and would like to make a little pocket money, I have an idea for you. I have been tast testing or prodcut sampling products for Contract Testing for several years now. This has become a nice little money maker for our family. We have helped to review cereal, fast food, diapers, tissue, and toliet paper as well as hand wipes and granola bars. The company is called Contract Testing. They pay $20 and up for 45 minutes of your time or more. I have been paid up to $50 for going in twice in one week! Of course, they don't say it is pay, merely a “co-operation fee” that is not intended to pay you for your time but rather is given to you to emphasize the importance of the research, but it is cash baby! You can check them out and register online HERE. We have had lots of opportunities because so many new products are directed at children. So they really seem to like the 8 to 12 year old set. I think the only one in my family who hasn't tested something is our 5 year old Cents. So give it a go and leave me a comment about how you like it.

Saving's Angel Open House Tomorrow!

Just click the picture above and check out the open house Octber 6th through the 8th. I would love to know what you think.

Flick's Family Film Fest

Celebration Cinema is hosting a Film Fest for Families. All the films are PG and free to those under 12. It is just $2.50 for adults. Visit celebrationcinema.com for theatres and showtimes. This weeks showing is Aliens in the Attic.

October 9-15 Night at the Museum
October 16-22 Monsters vs. Aliens
October 23-29 Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs
October 30- Nov 5 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Halloween Coupons

A buck at Wendy's will get you a booklet of 10 free Frosty Jr.s! Or you can take that buck over to McDonald's and get 13 free items including apple dippers, hamburger, icecream, milk, and juice.

Savings Angel Open House

Okay, if you are a little curious about Savings Angel, it sounds like a great chance to take a peek. Savings Angel is having an open house October 6 - 8th. Just head on over to savingsangel.com.

I have been amazed at how much I save through this site. You can make up a list for your store, with the coupon match up and print links right there. Items are listed by the percent off. You can search by item, coupon, sale, store. They have community pages where the diehard share the other deals they find at the grocery store and elsewhere. Come and see what it's all about.

Banana Stretching

I love this Banana Muffin recipe from Sister Mary 4. Actually I think it is originally from Sister Mary 2, but I got it from Sister Mary 4 and now tease Sister Mary 2 by crediting the wrong sister. See what fun you are missing if you are in a small family? Anyway, I try to stock up on bananas when they are on sale and found them this week at .10 a pound due to their getting to ripe. So I took a lot home, but had no time to bake and freeze. I have frozen bananas in their skins and just opened them up as mush over the mixing bowls. But I like this way better. I just dice them up and freeze on a cookie sheet, then move to bags. Basically I made sure I had 9 bananas on a tray and divided it into 3 bags so I'm all set for the recipe when I thaw.



And the recipe is:

Banana Muffins:

3 mashed bananas
1/2 C Mayo
1/2 C. Semisweet chips
1 1/2 C. Flour
1 C. Sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 C. chopped walnuts (optional)

Mix all ingrediants and then add the chips and nuts. Spray muffin pan and fill 3/4 full. Makes 12 muffins. 375 for 20-25 minutes.

Tuesday's Table

Wow, I went to the store on Tuesday actually!!! What a shock. I pretty much forced myself to because my friend Cathi told me the blog had been lame lately. Since it was a small deal week, it was a bit easier to put together. The Oatmeal was a raincheck deal from a couple weeks ago. The pasta was .29 cents and the Splenda had Meijer mealbox coupons and some from their site. I also used $5 in coupons from a a trip to the Customer Services a couple weeks ago. It really pays to check your reciept to make sure the deals worked right before you leave the store. So all this for $8.09 when I could have paid an additional $36.27.



Over at Walgreens, they had a lot of items that are free after the Register Rewards. That was okay with me because I had $11 in Register Rewards to use up by....oh today. So I checked Tout 3 times to keep my stash up. I will have to remember to post a pic of what I do with the pink hair spray this Halloween : ) Remember that you have to have a total that is equal or above the Register Reward at check out. So I threw in a Sharpie on sale for .25. Also remember that you need to have no more coupons than items you purchase.



Here is my reason to go back this week. They have a new October book of coupons out. It is right by the ads for this week. $2 off Huggies wipes, currently priced at $2.99. So if you can dig up any wipes coupons these will be an awesome deal! You can just hand this to them at check out and they will return it. So don't cut out these coupons, just show them the one you want to use. And this coupon will only count as one coupon, no matter how many you buy. So, if you buy 3 with 3 .50 off coupons and the $2 off coupon, that will equal 4 coupons. You only need to pick up on Sharpie or other filler : ) Hope that makes sense Cathi! And hoping I'm off the lame list with all of you.

SavingsAngel.com ? - cut your Grocery Bill in HALF through Enlightened Shopping! ?

Okay, I'm just having a hard time getting to the store early in the week. So I thought you would like to see some of the deals I'm planning on through Savings Angel. I just love how they do so much of the work for me!

SavingsAngel.com ? - cut your Grocery Bill in HALF through Enlightened Shopping! ?

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Free Redbox Rental at Meijer

Well, I know it is the middle of the school week and tomorrow is National Family Game Night....but here is the deal on a free movie rental. Use the code 9MEJR24 on the Redbox at Meijer and it will be a free rental. You have to enter your credit card, but the charge won't appear unless you return it late. The rentals are for 24 hours, after that it is a $1 a day. This code is good through the 24th.

Libraries have Museum Passes!

This is going out to my Illinios family and friends. Did you know that Libraries have passes to the Chicago Museums that you can check out and use? Ah, the childhood memories! The Shed, The Field...getting lost in those halls. I would check this site and see if your library is participating.

Meijer Deals

It's not too late, the sales are still on at Meijer tomorrow too. I know, there is no fun in going to Meijer on a Saturday. I was pretty jazzed to see my total come down at Meijer. I saved $74.16 and paid $7.22 :) How fun is that. I got the Koolaid and the A-1 marinades for free with rainchecks and coupons from last week. The soups were .29 and the Pancake mix were .49. I think I paid about 3 for 5 packages of cheese slices and the snack bags were close to free if not free. Yep a good week at Meijer. In fact, I went back and did the Snacks one more time : )



I was so excited I decided to run over to Family Fare to do one more deal. With $20 of select General Mills Purchase, get $5 off your next order. So I used $5 in coupons on the items below and got 13 items for $10 total. The only hitch was the $5 coupon didn't print out. So off to Customer Service I went and will get my $5 in the mail (I hope).

SavingsAngel.com - cut your Grocery Bill in HALF through Enlightened Shopping!

I still haven't done my shopping at Meijer this week. But I figured it doesn't help others so much if I wait til Saturdays. But with a crazy week and now Half Buck is sick, it may be that long. So you can check out the deals I'm planning thanks to Savings Angel. If they are out of these at the end of the week, I just get a rain check. I paperclip the coupons and rain check together for the next week.

SavingsAngel.com ™ - cut your Grocery Bill in HALF through Enlightened Shopping! ™

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Consignment Sale

Most of my clothing for our 5 children comes via the family hand me down boxes. I simply supplement with some garage sale finds, my favorite Consignment Sale and a new pair of tennis shoes. I love the half price sale on Saturday. After all, you never miss the deals you didn't see the day before. So head on over to Ressurection Life Church on Ivanrest this Friday or Saturday to check out the deals. I also consign some stuff here as well. Cents and Mite are the last of the line on both sides, so there is no family to pass on to just now.

Friday, September 18, 9 a.m - 3 p.m.
Saturday, September 19, HALF-PRICE sale, 8:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.

A Give Away: How Fun is That?

I was checking out some bloggers I follow for what new deals are out there and look what I found. Dave Ramsey is giving away a $999 emergency fund gift every day until 9/18! So thanks to Money Saving Madness for finding this. Click here to enter every day for your chance.

Dave Ramsey will be giving away a $999 Emergency Fund every day until 9/18! What a great way to start your emergency fund or get it moving toward your goal. Go HERE to enter everyday! Thanks to Dave Ramsey too. Now how fun is that?

Financial Peace

I was chatting with my neighbor Kate. We carpool together. Well she isn't exactly my neighbor, she lives 2 blocks down. All my neighbors chose to go to another school in town so they could get free busing. That makes me a little mad in a 1.3 million cut year. I could show them how to trim some fat! But I have to carpool with a small family since we fill up our minivan pretty well on our own. And she has one boy. Okay, that had nothing to do with Financial Peace.

When I talked to Kate about coupons, she echoed my feelings before I could express them: energized, empowered, excited, making a difference. And she echoed the feeling that others thought she was a little crazy. The only thing is, Kate doesn't coupon - she is living debt free, or toward that end. She expressed the same feelings as I have only relating to Dave Ramsey's teaching into action. Wow. I have hemmed and hawed about taking the class for about 4 years now. But no longer, we are enrolled and went to our first class last night. The homework this week is a bare bones budget and reading some chapters. His speaking was good and motivational and it seems we are in a diverse group, including a 17 year old (wouldn't you like to go back to 17 and remake a few financial decisions!). Oh, and save $1,000 emergency fund Quickly (so we can stop charging those emergency car repairs, Christmas shopping, etc.)

Tuesday's Table

Would I have ever have clipped a coupon for True North nuts before? Would I ever have been able to find it? The coupons I used were from February! But I didn't have to use them to get them free. I got a $3 register reward at check out. So I did the deal twice. The Triaminic was 2 for $10 with $5 Register Reward. My little Cents has a cough, so it was time to stock up again. Reportedly it was giving 2 RR yesterday, making it free, but they must have fixed that glitch.



I do love lan Aldi's deal. They had millk for $1.25 today when I dashed in for it. I didn't grab a cart and regretted it: Seedless Watermelon was $1.99. So all this for $5.74 makes me a happy camper.

Culver's Deals in Jenison

Culver's in Jenison Michigan is 5 years old! Now my Cents is about to be 5 as well and we all know that age is kinda a big deal. So here is what is going on at Culvers this week:

Sunday, Sept 13th - HAPPY 5TH ANNIVERSARY -$1 single scoop turtle sundaes

Monday, Sept 14th - $1 single BUTTERBURGERS(limit 5 per order)

Tuesday, Sept 15th - $1 single scoop hot fudge sundaes

Wednesday, Sept 16th - $1 hotdogs (Limit 5 per order)

Thursday, Sept 17th - $1 short coolers and/or $1 Oreo cookie sandwiches

Friday, Sept 18th - $1 short rootbeer floats

Saturday, Sept 19th - $1 short shakes (nuts nut included

$1.25 for Milk

Hey, Aldi's has milk for $1.25 a gallon this week. Did you know you can freeze milk??? Yep, you can. Pour a little out first to make room for expansion in the freezer. I know, now you all think I'm really cheap.

SavingsAngel.com ™ - cut your Grocery Bill in HALF through Enlightened Shopping! ™

SavingsAngel.com ™ - cut your Grocery Bill in HALF through Enlightened Shopping! ™

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Tuesday's Table

Sorry I'm so late in posting this week, and sorry the photo is so dark. I guess daylight really makes a difference for my little camera. I don't know why I thought Meijer would be quiet at 8 at night, cause it was hopping tonight. I got free Kool Aid singles packets (Meijer Mealbox coupon), and the Country Time was .33 each after the $2 off catalina at checkout. The lunch meat was $1.50 a pack and the Cream Cheese was .75 each. I ran into a friend at check out and we were talking about my order, Savings Angel, and if we were only eating Pringles this week. They are one of The Profs favorites. She was wondering if I save the $20 month expense of Savings Angel. Well, it is the beginning of Sept and I spent $35.99 and saved $43.07. So I would say that paid my SA expense tonight.



I'm already planning another trip this weekend though. I saw posted somewhere that their Danimals were $2 each again with $1 coupons in last weekends papers and $1 Meijer Mealbox coupons, they will be free. They were out of the $1 A-1 Marinades that were free with coupon, but had plenty of the A-1 steak sauce that were free with Meijer Mealbox coupon. And on the middle aisle where they stock the sales, there was a coupon for $1 off beef if you bought either kind of A-1. So I picked up 3 coupons, since I know I will buy that many with my other coupons when they are restocked. Should make for a good deal with whatever beef is on sale.

Free Panties at Victoria Secrets

To celebrate having 2 Million Fans Victoria Secrets has a coupon for 2 free pair of VS Undies Panties good only tomorrow September 1st. Become a fan on Facebook over HERE. Then go and look under the Secrets Tab to print out your coupon. And to find out how to get 2 other coupons to use there click on over HERE. I will be heading over with my $10 off because it is the month of my birthday too : ) Thanks Hip 2 Save.

How Cool is This?

Thanks to Tiffany I saw this video on how to open those plastic clam shell casing on almost anything you get at the store these days. Click on over here to view it on You Tube. We will all need this come Christmas. Who knew?

Well, here are some things I'm buying at Meijer this week. Actually that's not entirely true, I'm still stocked up on A-1 from the last time it was free. Maybe I'll see what their Marinades taste like. If you find a great deal at Meijer, leave me a comment and let me know.

$2.50 A1 Steak Sauce, 10 oz or Marinades
-$2.00/1 A1 Sauce or Marinade coupon (from 8-16 SS), use 2
$1.00/2 Meijer Mealbox printable coupon

$1.67 Keebler Special K Crackers, 8 oz
-$1.00/2 Meijer Mealbox printable coupon
-$1.00/1 Keebler Special K Crackers printable coupon (may disappear after 8-31!), use 2

$0.99 Aunt Millie's Butter Top Bread (white or wheat) or Honey Hot Dog or Burger Buns
-$0.35/1 coupon (from 5-10 or 8-16 RP)

$1.00 Kool-Aid or Country Time Drink Mix, sweetened, in canisters
*Buy 3 or more in one transaction, get a $2.00 checkout coupon good on your next order.*

$1.25 Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese, 8 oz brick
-$1.00/2 coupon (from 8-9 RP)

There are many more match ups over at Macomb Money Saver

How It all Went

The reason I even started this whole thing is because I wanted to use up the rest of the zucchini from the neighbors. We really love our neighbors, the Snowbirds. They area young retired couple whose nest is empty, so they spend the winters somewhere warm. Yes we are jealous. Over the years I've really gotten to enjoy them, they make me laugh. They assure us we are right on schedule. They loan us stuff. And he gives me his coupons. Anyway, this year they shared zucchini, cucumbers and green beans. and I finally decided it was time for the last batch of bread. But the pantry smelled.

So off on the potato adventure I went. Thanks to Katie and Tiffany for their ideas I made Make Ahead Mash Potatoes. 3 batches of them. Of course, this was unplanned cooking which means unplanned shopping. So here is what I do: I go to Savings Angel and do a search on Sour Cream, Cream Cheese, and Onion. Then I can see where the best prices are. This week it was Family Fare. Really who knew? And they are just down the street. I might not score the deal of the century, but at least I can see where I will be gouged the least. So now that I am typing, I realize that I spent more than the silly potatoes! Well I just can't stand to waste food. It accounts for some of the extra pounds that came with our babies and decided to stay around. Yep, we don't make the kids clean the plates, we do. I had planned to make my Russian Meat Salad or as others call it: potato salad, so at least I had those ingredients on hand. That is why I bought the potatoes in the first place. I need to hire serious cleaning help to recover my kitchen, which was looking a little wind tossed when I began. It now looks like a full hurricane blew just over and dumped all the stuff it collected on my counters. Sorry, I didn't photo that for you, my self esteem is not ready to let you into my kitchen on it's worst day. So I decided it was time to grill out. This way I can clean up a bit while The Prof cooks.



You can see my potatoes ready for the freezer. I reuse the plastic bags. See this is a post of confessions. It really started in our year in Russia. They don't have Zip Lock there or even an Aldi generic. So washing worked. They all had these draining dish racks that hung just about your sink. Really a ingenious design for it. So we would clip them on the bottom of it with clothes drying pins. Yep we line dried the laundry there too. There are few money saving ideas I haven't tried at some point. But I don't love all of them. And I don't do all of them. But now that I know that you don't have to waste your plastic bags, I recycle them. Moving on....I will also confess that Cents and Mite didn't finish their potato salad....so I had to.

Potatoes Again

This is not how I planned to spend my Saturday. We have been cleaning out our basement this summer and planning to switch some rooms around. Today was to be cleaning and moving day. It is our last weekend before The Prof begins teaching again and we have just one more week with the boys (scratch that, Cents is off to school this fall too)at home. So time to get those rooms cleaned out and rearrange some bedrooms around here.

Instead, I'm currently boiling 9 1/2 pounds of potatoes. The Prof picked me up the 10# bag at the store last week (be specific for those hubbies ladies!). And now my pantry smells bad. Real Bad. So I pitched about half a pound and the rest are boiling away on the stove top. You really ought to see my info about how to do this without peeling here. It is going to save me a military amount of peeling today.

So I will be busy finding things to do with all those potatoes today. Soup and salad come to mind. Any other ideas, please share, and fast!

Tuesday's Table

As usual I went to Walgreens first this week. I forgot to photo the Smooth Away that I bought. They have the occasional $1 off coupon for those "As Seen On TV" products. Then I chose the pool for next season. It was on clearance for half off making it $14.99. I picked up two free photo products. The Poppycock was on sale for $1.99 and there was a $1 off coupon in their back to school booklet (there are still plenty at the store to pick up) and I used a .75 off coupon to make it .24 each. There is a $5 off $25 coupon that I didn't use because my total (after last weeks register reward coupons of $11) was $14.70. To make this deal better I could have picked up 4 Keebler cookies or crackers for $10, then something little (maybe another back to school item) to bring my total up $25. Then I would get $5 off coupon and gotten $5 back in register rewards. See, I don't catch them all. But maybe you can : )



Here is another deal I almost missed. If you spent $50 on a MasterCard this week, you got $5 off jeans $9.99 or over. My total before any sales was over $126 and before coupons it was $82 and after coupons it was $49 and change. So I asked if I could go back and pick up the jeans. He suspended the order and I went back to get jeans. The Nesquick was with a rain check and coupons as they were out 2 weeks ago when it was on sale. I forgot to put my Watermelon in the picture today. My total was $55 and change : )



Here are my Box Top for Education purchases. If you buy 8 you got a register reward for 50 extra Box tops, if you buy 12 you got on for 100 Box Tops. Yay, I have 100, or $10 for our school. Our grade school often does contests to encourage Box Top donations. So I clip away all year long. Looks like my kids might be fighting for this one :) It has been fun for me this year to send off my kids well supplied for school and with a couple of the extras from the teachers wish lists. So some of the Zip lock will go to the school. And I use them a lot for my cooking club and freezer cooking.