Sunday, April 3, 2011

I thought this was a really good (and cute) deal from HouseWares deals today, unfortunately not one I can convince myself we need.  But, I thought I'd share it, you get a set of 4 salad plates and 4 coffee mugs with inspirational sayings/ words on them for just $24 + shipping (usually around $4).

GiveAway Pile Getting Bigger

I keep adding to the pile of free samples that are going in the Random Free Samples giveaway, closing April 6.  I'm going to have to find a bigger package to ship it all in.  I just added a packet of Starbucks Vanilla Infusion coffee!

All you have to do to enter is be a Google Friend Connect Follower and then comment to this original Giveaway post.  Once you do that initial entry, there are 3 other ways you can enter (listed on that post). Be sure to do all 4 entries for the best chance at winning!

Comments on this post will not count towards entry, so please go to the original giveaway post linked above to comment.

Michael's Coupons

There are several Michael's coupons available for printing here:
  • 40% Off any 1 Regular Price Wedding Item
  • 30% Off Entire Candle Purchase (sale and regular items)
  • 25% Off Entire Purchase Wall & Tabletop Framed Art, Frames & Display Cases (regular & sale price items)
  • 40% Off Entire Regular Price Purchase Artist Canvas & Paper (not including scrapbook paper)
  • 40% Off Entire Regular Price Purchase - Artist Paints, Pencils, Pastels & Markers
  • 15% Off Entire Purchase Celebrate-It Basic Narrows, Basic-Basic, Sheer Creations, Home & More & Mega Roll Ribbon
  • 15% Off Entire Purchase Kids Books

New Pet Food Coupons on Coupons.com

Got Pets? Be sure to check out all the new pet food coupons available on Coupons.com:

Buy 1 Get 1 Purina Friskies Tasty Treasures, any variety
Buy 1 Get 1 Free Greenies
Buy 2 Get 1 Cesar Canine Cuisine entree with purchase of two
$3.00 OFF 1 bag of PEDIGREE Food for Dogs (8.8 lb bag or larger)
$3.00 OFF 1 bag ProPlan Select Dog Food
$2.50 OFF 1 Kibbles N Bits Dry Dog Food 14lbs
$2.00 OFF 1 Wardley Advanced Nutrition Product
$1.00 OFF 1 bag of 9Lives Dry Cat Food 3.15lbs

New Grocery Coupons on Coupons.com

There are lots of new grocery coupons available on Coupons.com this week, here are just a few of them:

$1.00 OFF 1 Newman's Own Thin & Crispy Pizza
$1.00 OFF 1 package of Hillshire Farm® Lunchmeat (8 oz. or larger)
$1.00 OFF any 1 lb. of LAND O LAKES® Deli Cheese
$1.00 OFF 1 Progresso Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs
$1.00 OFF 1 Kahiki product 13 oz. or smaller
$1.00 OFF 1 Pemmican Beef Jerky or Beef Brisket, 3.25 oz
$1.00 OFF 1 McCann's Irish Oatmeal product
$1.00 OFF 1 Hidden Valley Salad Kit
$1.00 OFF Power of Fruit Frozen All-Fruit Bars
$1.00 OFF 1 Truvia Sweetener
$1.00 OFF 1 Weight Watchers Frozen Novelty Carton
$1.00 OFF 5 Totino’s Crisp Crust Party Pizza Products
$0.75 OFF 1 Farm Rich Snack
$0.75 OFF 1 Kix, Berry Berry Kix, or Honey Kix
$0.75 OFF 1 Chex Cereal
$0.75 OFF 1 any flavor/variety Cascadian Farm product
$0.75 OFF 1 Cinnamon Burst Cheerios cereal
$0.75 OFF 1 KRAFT 2% Milk Singles Cheese product
$0.75 OFF 1 Roman Meal Bread
$0.75 OFF 2 Frozen Pillsbury Grands! Biscuits
$0.60 OFF 2 Pillsbury Toaster Strudel Pastries
$0.50 OFF 1 Original Cheerios cereal
$0.50 OFF 2 Pillsbury Rolled Refrigerated Pie Crusts
$0.50 OFF 1 any flavor 8 OZ. OR LARGER Gardetto's Snack Mix
$0.50 OFF 1 any flavor Yoplait Kids Cup Yogurt
$0.50 OFF 1 package of STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix
$0.50 OFF 1 HORMEL NATURAL CHOICE Deli Sandwich Meat. Any variety
$0.50 OFF 1 package of KRAFT HOMESTYLE Macaroni & Cheese Dinner
$0.50 OFF 2 flavor 4.5 OZ. OR LARGER Chex Mix OR Chex 100 Calorie Snack
$0.50 OFF 1 can of Diamond Crystal Sea Salt
$0.50 OFF 1 package of any Tetley Tea
$0.40 OFF Totinos Rolls Snacks
$0.35 OFF 1 Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Grahams
$0.30 OFF 1 can of Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
$0.30 OFF 1 FRENCH'S Classic Yellow Mustard
1 Free bottle of Ujuice when you buy TWO (2) Bottles of Ujuice

Get all of these and more at Coupons.com

New Month - New Betty Crocker Coupons

It's the beginning of a new month, so don't forget to sign in and get all the great new Betty Crocker coupons they are offering on their website, including:

$.50/1 Gardetto's snacks (8oz or larger)
$1/5 Totino's party pizzas
$.40/2 Totino's pizza rolls
$.50/1 Potato Bud's (13.75oz or larger)
$1/1 Garnier Fructis product


Many of these are the same ones that are offered on the Pillsbury.com website, but there are some additional ones on each site that aren't on the other, so be sure to check out both.

BuyWithMe - another new daily deal site

If you love getting local daily deals in your inbox, you may want to sign up for BuyWithMe - they are the latest in the daily deal craze and are coming to your city soon.

CVS Trip 3/31 - and why you shouldn't shop when you don't feel well

Despite not feeling well all week, I knew I had to get out at some point and get things done.  I posted my Walgreens trip earlier and there were several more things on my list but I finally just gave up and bought only the items I showed because I just didn't have it in me to focus on the deals.  At CVS I got just about everything I went for (although, again they didn't seem to carry the Clean & Clear body wash yet), I just paid more than I should have.  Luckily, I realized it and went back and corrected the mistake. Evidently, the cashier missed scanning one of my Axe BOGO coupons.




(4) Axe shower gels @ $4.50 each
(3) 3 Musketeer mint bars (only 2 shown, yes I ate one) @ $.99 B2G1 FREE
(2) Snickers Eggs @ 2/$1

- (2) BOGO Axe Shower Gels coupon (cashier initially missed one)
- (1) B2G1 Free 3 Musketeers bars coupons
- (1) $1/2 Mars Easter Candy coupon
- (1) $.25/2 Snickers CVS kiosk coupon

- $4/20 email coupon (had to turn around and go home to print this as I saw on my email literally 1 minute after I left the house, luckily I wasn't even out of the neighborhood yet).
- $2.50 ECB

$7.74+tax = $9.10 - I thought this seemed really high, but it wasn't until I was at the chiropractors office around the corner running the numbers through my head that I really figured it out.  When I left there I looked at my receipt and saw where one of the Axe BOGO coupons had been missed, so I went back and she refunded me $4.50, bringing the final total down to:

$3.24 +tax = $4.60 (got back $5 ECB from Axe purchase)

Rite Aid Trip 3/31

I had two things I wanted on this trip, the Axe body wash (which they were low on) and the Clean & Clear bodywash (which it appears that no one locally carries yet).




I found these Reese's bars on clearance for $.99 each and figured they would be a good match with the Rite Aid Video Values coupon for $.50/2.

(3) Axe Body Wash @ $4.50 each
(1) Axe Detailer @ $4.50 each
(2) Planter's NUTrition bars @ 2/$5
(2) Hydrogen Peroxide @ $.99 BOGO
(2) Reese's bars clearance @ $.99

- (2) BOGO Axe shower gel or detailer coupons
- (1) $1/1 NUTrition bars
- (1) $.75/1 NUTrition bars
- (1) $.50/2 Reese's bars VV coupon

- (1) $3/15 RA Survey coupon
- (2) $2/10 Beauty product VV coupon

- $7 +UP rewards

= $2.72 + tax = $4.15 (plus got back $5 +UP from Axe purchase)

Walgreens 3/31

Despite having plenty of shaving cream on hand (I over-stocked a little before I really learned the ropes), I didn't want to pass up this deal at Walgreens.  It just so happened that Thursday Walgreens was offering their "friends and family" 15% discount, as well, which made this an even sweeter deal.





2 Edge Shave Gel 2/$4 = $1.70/e after F&F discount
2 Bic 3 razor 8pks  $5.94 after F&F discount (on sale B1G1 50%)
- (2) $.55/1 Edge Shave gel coupons (which for some reason they had issues scanning)
- (2) $2/1 Bic disposable razors coupons


-$4 RR (from previous visit)

= $3.21 +tax = $4.19 (got back $2RR from Edge purchase)

Despite Concerns from Couponers, Coupon Value & Distribuation is Increasing

I ran across this interesting article this morning, that details exactly how distributors had increased their coupon offerings in 2010 by over 13% since the previous year, up to $485 billion in savings!  Wow. That's a lot of coupons floating around out there.  The increases they show are both in number of coupons available and in the overall average face value of coupons (which was up 6.6% from the previous year).

I read a lot of concern towards the end of last year and through this year so far about how coupon amounts were shrinking and deals were becoming less and less.  Heck, I was even starting to wonder as I looked through the coupons for the first quarter this year.  Then the second quarter began and WOW! The coupons were looking good.  When the year started we saw Colgate coupon amounts drop from $1/1 to $.75/1 and I was thinking I was really glad I had a great stockpile.  Then last week we saw $1.50/1 and many other really good coupons.

I think it's important that when we see some of our favorite coupons seem to drop in value, we keep our hopes up because the good ones will be back.  This month we may only see $2/1 Bic shavers, in the fall we'll probably see the BOGO coupons again.  Couponing takes a lot of strategy, it can be hard to hold onto those seemingly great coupons, but doing so means a bigger pay-off when you are able to match that BOGO coupon to a BOGO sale and end up with double free product.  Sometimes just matching that $2/1 coupon to a BOGO sale is a great deal too.  The point is, it all works out in the end.  Not every deal is a stock-up deal, sometimes it's just a deal where you grab one or two (because you happen to need them) and then move on and wait.

Coupon: $1/2 Cheez-It's

Click here to print a coupon for $1/2 Cheez-It crackers.