Quaker Promotion

O.k. ladies and gents the reports I am getting from people who have done the quaker promotion is that you can only buy 5 per day, so you cannot roll the transaction! The sale is probably linked to your card so if you do another transaction it will charge you full price.

Just a few shopping tips this week

We have had a major run of the allergies this past week and have felt very unmotivated to do much, but today I am feeling good so as soon as I get ready for the day I am off to the store to do some shopping! As I was printing out my list this morning I was thinking about some things I could post about and I had these two thoughts running through my head . . .

1. DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE COUPON DOUBLERS!!! You can get chips, lunchables, crystal light, canned fruit etc for free this week by using the Albertson's coupon doublers! They are good for two weeks so it is up to you if you want to use them all this week or hold on to them until the next weeks sale. I am going to use all of mine today so I have extra money to shop for the easter bunny :).

2. The only rule with the coupon doublers is that you can only use 3 per transaction and they can't match higher than a dollar.

3. At Smith's Tresemme is on sale and if you are at Smith's you will see that the Tresemme Naturals are also on sale. There is a $1.00/1 coupon in the 3/21 SS so you can use that and make the Tresemme products 1.88 - not bad!

Hope this helps everyone this week - I will make to sure to remember to post my shopping trip when I get home!

My picks for the week

One thing I always think about while I am planning my shopping trip is first how much money am I wanting to spend on groceries. A lot of my budget is based on what I need to spend money on other than groceries, for example this weekend I am taking my kids to Chuck - E- Cheese for a nephews birthday so I am going to spend money on that, we are going to order the UFC fight and have a party where we are providing the burgers so I am going to have to spend money on the fight and on the fresh condiments to go on the burgers so I need to make sure I have money for that before I make sure I have money to go crazy on killer deals.

Once I have a budget in mind I look at my fridge and pantry to see what I need to buy. Every week I have to buy bread, eggs, fresh produce, and 6 gallons of milk (yes we drink that much milk in our house). Then if there are any ingredients I might be low on I will plan for those as well. As nice as it is that pizza is a killer deal if I spend a majority of my budget on that and am therefore unable to buy the necessities then I blew it. You have to plan for the necessities first always and then what is left in your budget you can use to stock up on the killer deals.

With all of that in mind, that is why I love Smith's. They are notorious for running a promo for two weeks running, so the first week they have a sale I buy the most important items, like the killer deal on kid's toothpaste, and then the next week I will buy more of my wish list items. Albertson's never has the same deal two weeks in a row so when they have a killer promotion I will do the majority of my stocking up at Albertsons.

This week I am going to be picking up toilet paper, paper towels, and crystal light at Albertsons and then I am going to head on over to Smith's and pick up some apple juice, poptarts, digiorno pizza and some Tresemme.

What are you going to pick up this week?

CVS 101 part 2

This is a continuation of last weeks CVS 101 article and is more for novice CVS users. You have your card now and have attempted at least on trip to CVS. Now for a few more tips

There are a lot of blogs out there that do weekly CVS deals, the most popular is the $5 CVS challenge found on many blogs, but you have to be careful when planning out these trips because every region (Utah, California, Texas, etc) has VERY different coupons delivered to them so it may get frustrating when you are trying to plan out your shopping trips because the scenarios just won't work for Las Vegas. I am thinking about starting a $5 CVS challenge specifically for Las Vegas so if you would be interested in participating in these leave me a comment, if there is enough interest then I will do it.

The single best place to find the best deals for CVS for our region is GrocerySmarts because they have a list of all of the coupons we have available to us!

There is a coupon printer at the store, they look like the price scanners at Target, and if you swipe your card under it then coupons will print out of the machine! You can use these at the store the same day you get them!

There are two ways to shop at CVS the first one and most complicated is to roll your transactions. I try to never do more than three transactions in one shopping trip in order to save my sanity. The idea behind rolling is to recycle all earned ECB's back into subsequent transactions, leaving the store with no ECB's. It is best to have your highest earning ECB's in your first transaction, but try to spend the least amount of money as possible.

The second way to shop is where you complete your purchase with only one transaction and then use the ECB's on next week's trip.

At the bottom of your receipt it will summarize which deals have reached their limits (some are more than advertised)

Just a little FYI

If you are headed out to Smith's this week to take advantage of their madness promotion then be aware that you can only do up to 3 $4.00 off instantly at checkout per transaction. So if you are planning on purchasing more then split them up!!

CVS 101 part 1

This is going to be a three part post with one new post each week. This post is dedicated to those of us who are newbies and don't typically shop at CVS. CVS is a great place to stock up on every day household and hygiene items for a small amount of money and rewards!!!

The first thing you need to do is to get a CVS card and make sure it's registered online to your name, address and email.

After you have received your card go here to read about all the benefits of having a card and also a list of FAQ's.

Next understand the lingo. Just like Albertson's and Smith's CVS runs promotions where you can earn money off your next purchase. These are called ECB's or Extra Care Bucks. These are like store coupons and can be combined with manufacturer coupons. They do expire so watch the expiration dates!!!

You can earn ECBs by purchasing certain products, quarterly rewards (2% of spending) and filling prescriptions.

You can find the ECB deals in weekly ads and in the monthly ad and also on the grocery smarts website!

Albertsons is AMAZING this week!

If you haven't had a chance to check out the lists this week then you better hurry over and check out the Albertson's list! There are three amazing promos this week and a sweet 8 hour promo sale on Thursday as well! If you don't get the P&G inserts be sure to head over to Coupons by Dede and order them right now they are only .35 an insert!

Also if you check out here you can find even more great promo's and hints for shopping the sales this week!

Happy Shopping!

p.s. be on the lookout tomorrow for a $50.00 or less shopping example . . .

Black Friday

Are you a black Friday shopper? This year I am considering whether or not I want to brave the early morning crowds in order to score big. I haven't ever gone shopping on Black Friday so I don't really have any techniques so I was hoping that maybe some of you have gone shopping on Black Friday and could share with the rest of some of your shopping tips and tricks.

Also if you don't get the paper daily and want to get the ads to decide where the best deals are then I highly recommend getting to the news stands super early like before breakfast to pick up your paper or they will be gone!

Couponing at the Children's Place

One of the beauties of being stocked up on groceries is that some weeks I can totally forego going to the grocery store and go clothes shopping instead!! My two favorite clothes stores are Kohl's and the Children's Place! I love going to the Children's Place Outlet at the Premium Outlets because they have a huge selection of all the clothes on sale and it is usually super easy to find clothes in your kid's size! I have 3 kids and 2 of them are boys who grow like weeds so I need to buy clothes fairly often.

At the Children's Place you can use up to 3 coupons to get your clothes for even cheaper! When you sign up for their mailers you can receive a 15% off coupon in the mail or check out retailmenot.com and they will have links to 15% off coupons as well. Then you can sign up for their Place card and you will receive an instant 10% off and then the first time you use your Place card at the Children's Place you will receive another 10% off, then you will accrue points and receive more coupons in the mail for 10% or $20 off etc.

Right now their fall line is on sale for 50% so by adding the 10% off for using the Place card and the 15% off coupon you can get their clothes for 75% off!! That is amazing, the other day I went and bought all the clothes above for 113.00! Not bad!

76% Saved at Albertsons

So I made it to Albertsons yesterday morning with three kids in tow and I scored!!!

My first transaction I purchased:
2 Simply Pillsbury refrigerated cookies
2 Refrigerated chocolate chip cookies
4 Fiber One yogurt multipacks
2 Gogurts
Total after coupons came to - 17.20
I then received a $10 and a $2.50 coupon off my next purchase

My second transaction I purchased:
2 Pillsbury Pie Crustd
5 Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls
4 Boxes Cinnamon Toast Crunch
3 boxes Golden Grahams
1 5 lb. Bag Gold Medal Flour
I used both the $10 and the $2.50 coupons plus manufacturer coupons
Total after coupons came to $11.75
I then received another $10 and a $3.00 coupon off my next purchase

My third Transaction I purchased:
4 Warm Delights
4 Betty Crocker Cookie Mixes
7 bags Chex Mix
I used both the $10 and the $3 coupons plus manufacturer coupons
Total after coupons came to $7.43
I then received another $10 coupon off my next purchase

My fourth and final transaction:
3 2 liters Diet Dr. Pepper
15 Jars Beechnut Baby food
1 Albertsons salt
Total came to 9.49 and after using my $10 off coupon it was all FREE! Can't beat that!

You still have time to take advantage of the killer sale at Albertson's go here to look at the Albertsons list and have fun SAVING!!!

FREE MEN'S DEODORANT!!

This week at Walgreen's Sure for Men is on sale 2 for $3.00 which makes it $1.50. Well in this Sunday's Smart Source there is a coupon for $1.50 off one Sure Men;s deodorant - so that makes it FREE!! My girl Jen called me last night and had just picked up her 4 Men's deodorants and wanted to pass the word along - thanks Jen!!

A great article about couponing!

So this morning as I do my usual website routine I was on Yahoo! and saw a great article about shopping at cutting your grocery bill in half and I thought I would share the link with you so you can read it and get some more ideas on how to slash your grocery bill in half (or more!)

Tips for slashing your grocery bill at the store

I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think!

Expiration Dates!!

I just glanced at the Albertson's and Smith's lists and wanted to encourage you to watch the expiration dates! There are quite a few coupons that expire this weekend so make sure you don't procrastinate too long and then you are unable to use the coupon!

A word on stars

If you have ever looked at a Grocery Smarts list you have noticed that next to each item there are stars. The stars are a rating system and help you to know if an item is an amazing deal, a great deal, an average deal or a not so great deal. I have several people lately ask me how I decide my shopping list and if I ever buy 3 star items, so I decided to do a post on this.

When I first started using the Grocery Smarts website I would buy 3, 4, and 5 star items because my cupboards were bare at the time. When it came to buying 4 or 5 star items I would always buy enough to last me 12 weeks and sometimes even more. However when it came to buying a 3 star item I would buy the items I needed but I wouldn't stock up on them at the price they were listed at. The reason I didn't stock up was because I didn't want to use all of my coupons for that item at a 3 star price and then have it go on sale at a 4 or 5 star rating two weeks later and then I wouldn't have any coupons to buy it with. Plus how much of a bummer would it be if I bought 4 packs of yogurt at an o.k. price and then the following week they were a killer price? I would have been very upset.

After about three months of consistently shopping at Smith's and Albertson's and getting my cupboards to the point where I felt like we were stocked up on all of the items we use on a daily basis I then started shopping only 4 or 5 star items - however - I still occassionally will buy 3 star items if I need them, I just rarely need to do that at this point.

One last thought on star ratings. Star ratings are based on the bottom line price so if you don't have the coupon it drops a star rating and if you aren't buying enough items to qualify for a promotion then the star rating drops as well. This is why I go to coupons by dede and stock up on inserts that I don't receive in the mail (P&G and Red Plum) so I have the coupons I need when they go on sale.

I hope this helps clarify any questions you might have had about shopping based on star ratings. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to email me or call me.

Email: tkmiller81002@yahoo.com
Phone: 702-362-8959

Add more to your savings

Have you ever been out to the store and found a killer deal that you wanted to spread the word on but didn't know how to spread the word? Or was there an error on a list and you wanted to let the listmaker know but wasn't sure how to get ahold of them? Are you ever unsure about where a coupon is or how to maximize your savings? Well if you have ever been in this situation then just head on over to the pinching your pennies website and feel free to post and share any tips or questions you might have about couponing and deals in Vegas. This is a great way to share with others your great finds and clarify any questions about the lists you might have. I encourage all of my readers to add this website to their arsenal. So don't be shy and head on over to pyp to see what's happening!

More Campbell's soups

If you checked the inserts in todays paper you would have seen that there are more Campbell's soup coupons. Because the lists are only made once a week these new coupons won't be on the Albertsons lists but you can still clip them and use them to get a ton of great soups for cheap - plus it even had some chunky campbell's soup coupons in there! Check them out and give me a call if you need help figuring out the best way to save the most. I am definitely going to be making another trip to Albertsons by Tuesday so I can pick up some more soups and some V8 Splashes that were sold out the other day!

Just an idea

Do you have tons of cake mixes and canned frosting in your pantry like I do? Buying cake mixes and frostings are seriously one of my biggest weaknesses! Well, I have always wanted to learn how to decorate cupcakes and cakes super cute - but if any of you have tried to pipe canned frosting onto anything you know that it is pretty difficult, because it doesn't set right and it isn't firm enough to do much with except to spread it across the top then add some sprinkles and there you go.

So the other morning I didn't have anything planned so I decided to bake! And since I was baking I decided to experiment with the canned frosting and cupcakes. I googled how to firm up canned frosting and I learned a new trick from the Wilton's cake decorating website. Apparently if you mix 1 can of frosting and 1/2 cup of powdered sugar then chill for about 10 minutes or longer (I chilled it while the cupcakes were baking) you can achieve the same result as if you had made the homemade frosting that cake decorators use. So I tried it and the result turned out amazing!!! I had so much fun frosting all the cupcakes and then even more fun eating them! The picture above is an actual cupcake I made and was super delicious. Oh and when you a buy a can of frosting for about .50 yo can afford to experiment and mess around with it to see how it all turns out.

So give it a try and send me your pics. I will then do a posting of everyone's cupcakes! Have fun
baking!!!

How do I buy cake frosting for only .50/can I use the grocerysmarts website and have multiple papers delivered to me every Sunday. Give me a call and I will teach you how!

Wow . . . 3 of them!!!

I hope you didn't throw your ads away before you noticed that there were THREE inserts in the papers today!! There were 2 smart sources and 1 General Mills. I love the way I organize my coupons because I don't have to clip any of the coupons and sort them at all! I just flip through the ads, pull out the inserts and another ads that catch my eye, write today's date on it, then file the whole insert, uncut, into my coupon binder! I love that it takes me less than ten minutes to put my coupons away!!!

I'm thinking Smith's is my spot for this week

I just took a quick look at the lists and after browsing the four and five star items for the week I am thinking I am going to be shopping at Smith's for a few of the needs - like sunny D for 1.00, apple juice for 1.00, soda 4 for 10.00. If you know me and my family we love to drink a wide variety of beverages (minus alcohol) so whenever I can get juices and sodas for cheap I am there! I will probably stop by Albertsons for their great capri sun deal but it looks like this week is going to be a great week for me to spend very little on groceries and a whole lot on new clothes! I love being to the point where I can look at a sale and say, "Do I really need that or am I stocked up enough that I only have to spend maybe 50.00 this week on groceries and put the rest to fun?" If you follow what you learn and my classes and get the right amount of papers then after a few months you will be able to do the same!

Do you need papers? I can give a KILLER deal on SUNDAY ONLY papers so give me a call and I can get you set up - you don't have to come to a class to order papers I can fill the order over the phone with a credit card! So if you want to start saving like I do call me!! 362-8959

Do you stock up on meat?

I don't know about you but before I discovered couponing and grocery smarts meat was my biggest expense. On days where my grocery bill was way high it was typically because I had to buy meat. Now I love getting a great deal on pretty much everything I buy, so it is hard for me to pay full price for anything so whenever I see meat and cheese go on sale I stock up!! I love buying fresh chicken breasts, hamburger, steaks, roasts whatever. I don't like paying a fortune for it though, so what I do is as soon as I see these items go on sale, (Smith's has ground beef on sale for 1.69/lb and fresh & easy has boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for 1.67/lb) I stock up!! Typically when the meats go on sale they are in a "max pack" which means you can't just walk in and buy 1 lb of hamburger and be good. Typically you are going to be buying about 4 lbs give or take. Obviously you don't want to freeze it all as is when you get home so here are some options.

1. Separate the meat into 1 lb quantities (unless you have a food scale this is a guestimate) and then place in freezer bags and freeze.

2. Separate the meat into 1 lb quantities or for chicken I typically put either one or two chicken breasts in a bag. After you separate the meat you can premarinade them . . . I do this by preparing my marinades and then placing the marinade in the freezer bag with the meat. This way when you want to cook dinner your meat is already marinated and flavorful and becomes even more so as you are defrosting it!

3. Prepare the meat and cook immediately, then freeze. I personally have never done this but I know a few women who do it all the time. The idea is basically the same as premarinating and it makes cooking dinner a whole lot quicker. Imagine if you are making tacos for dinner one night and the meat is already cooked, all you have to do is reheat it and there you go.

For those of you who don't have room in your freezer to stock up on meat don't worry you can still find ways to save money on meat. One thing you could do is to check out what meats are 4 or 5 star items and then plan your menu for the week based on those meats. This week Albertsons had tons of beef cuts on sale so you could buy some steaks and roasts and make a wide variety of meals . . . fajitas, french dips, kebabs, pot roast, etc.