On Sunday, my angel Joyce, handed me a card with a poem written inside, that she was inspired to write when she sat by our family at Dwayne's funeral. I had all four grandchildren on the row with us. Here is the poem:
Whenever I sit by Gramma
I can hardly wait to see
When she opens up her wonderful purse
What will be inside for me.
It's really hard to be still so long
But it surely could be worse
If I couldn't sit by Gramma
When she opens up her wonderful purse.
-Joyce 2011
That put a big SMILE in my day! =)
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
One Whole Year of Couponing
I have been doing this couponing thing for just over one year now, and it has really paid off. It does take some work and some time but there are a lot of wonderful bloggers out there who post the deals and where to find the coupons. Traci and I were talking about it today on our way home from an 8 hour shopping trip. That sounds awful, but it's an hour travel time just to town and back home, not to mention travel time around town and changing diapers and feeding kids and etc. Not all our trips are like that, but this week there were a LOT of great deals everywhere. We decided even though an 8 hour day is hard, and some days it is hard to get the time to prepare the lists and coupons for shopping, but it's like having a paying job, because it does PAY off!
Today we went to Walgreens, Rite Aid, Staples (because we had a $5 off any purchase coupon that came in our email - and while I was there I picked up two of their reams of paper with the easy rebate that will make them $2 each), Walmart (but not for coupon shopping today, just returns), Costco (their coupons), Albertsons (Twice the Value coupons - which don't happen all the time, but when they do it's good), and Fred Meyers-- because they were having their Founders Sale this week and they had some really good deals. Hauling 2 little children and figuring out all the coupons in store (no matter how prepared you think you are) just takes a little time. Traci also ran into Sherms for a few items and Elivia had a 45 minute class with her speech teacher Mary.
My favorite store continues to be Rite Aid. While the people at Walgreens are super friendly and always helpful in making the deals work, and we do get good deals there, it's a little trickier with their coupons and often times they are out of stock. Whereas Rite Aid...let me count the ways to save! First, you can work up with your points to first a 10% discount and then a 20% discount which always goes for the following year, too, and thereafter as long as you continue to get your 1000 points during the year, and so you get their "dollar" items for 80¢, or the 20% will kick in if it beats the sale price (you really have to watch this when working some of their UP rewards because the discount can kick you below the required amount for an UP reward purchase), Single Check Rebates (you get a check once a month for all your rebates), and there are a variety of ways to get "store coupons" that can be combined with manufacturers coupons, UP rewards and/or SCR that can give you some of the most amazing deals on things you use all the time (commodities). AND, quite often they advertise things you can get for free with either an UP or an SCR. October seems to be the best month for a lot of freebies! And if they are out of stock...you get a raincheck for the lowest price--meaning if something is on sale for $6.99 with a $6.99 UP reward they will write out the raincheck so when the item comes in you just get it for free. You don't have to mess with the UP reward. But I don't mind having UP rewards to use each week. I can always roll them over onto other products--and they are good for 2 weeks. You can also do more than one transaction if you need to use the UP rewards on a purchase that day.
Here are some of the bloggers I like:
hip2save.com (this one is my favorite because she is very thorough in her posts of deals)
spectacularsavings.net
frugallivingnw.com
iheartriteaid.com
athriftymom.com
You can subscribe to their websites from the RSS feed or whichever source. It puts them on your tool bar so you can check the drop down boxes daily for deals of interest. They explain how to shop at these stores and have a link to their coupons policies. Hip2Save (Collin) even has videos of how to shop Rite Aid.
I print coupons at coupon.com, allyou.com, redplum.com, smartsource.com and/or wherever the bloggers lead me. Sometimes even just liking something on facebook gets you a coupon, or you get some sent to your email.
Other coupon sources are the inserts in Sunday's papers, but we have to buy those from the news stands because our newspaper only gets one insert once a month. Also, the "All You Magazine" has loads of good coupons, so subscribing to that is very helpful.
So, even if you only have a small amount of time to devote to it, you will be amazed at the savings. I love using name brand products, too, whereas I used to buy the store brands.
Yipeee for couponing!
Here are some helpful links from Hip2Save for new couponers.
http://hip2save.com/couponnewbie
http://hip2save.com/store-guides/riteaid
Today we went to Walgreens, Rite Aid, Staples (because we had a $5 off any purchase coupon that came in our email - and while I was there I picked up two of their reams of paper with the easy rebate that will make them $2 each), Walmart (but not for coupon shopping today, just returns), Costco (their coupons), Albertsons (Twice the Value coupons - which don't happen all the time, but when they do it's good), and Fred Meyers-- because they were having their Founders Sale this week and they had some really good deals. Hauling 2 little children and figuring out all the coupons in store (no matter how prepared you think you are) just takes a little time. Traci also ran into Sherms for a few items and Elivia had a 45 minute class with her speech teacher Mary.
My favorite store continues to be Rite Aid. While the people at Walgreens are super friendly and always helpful in making the deals work, and we do get good deals there, it's a little trickier with their coupons and often times they are out of stock. Whereas Rite Aid...let me count the ways to save! First, you can work up with your points to first a 10% discount and then a 20% discount which always goes for the following year, too, and thereafter as long as you continue to get your 1000 points during the year, and so you get their "dollar" items for 80¢, or the 20% will kick in if it beats the sale price (you really have to watch this when working some of their UP rewards because the discount can kick you below the required amount for an UP reward purchase), Single Check Rebates (you get a check once a month for all your rebates), and there are a variety of ways to get "store coupons" that can be combined with manufacturers coupons, UP rewards and/or SCR that can give you some of the most amazing deals on things you use all the time (commodities). AND, quite often they advertise things you can get for free with either an UP or an SCR. October seems to be the best month for a lot of freebies! And if they are out of stock...you get a raincheck for the lowest price--meaning if something is on sale for $6.99 with a $6.99 UP reward they will write out the raincheck so when the item comes in you just get it for free. You don't have to mess with the UP reward. But I don't mind having UP rewards to use each week. I can always roll them over onto other products--and they are good for 2 weeks. You can also do more than one transaction if you need to use the UP rewards on a purchase that day.
Here are some of the bloggers I like:
hip2save.com (this one is my favorite because she is very thorough in her posts of deals)
spectacularsavings.net
frugallivingnw.com
iheartriteaid.com
athriftymom.com
You can subscribe to their websites from the RSS feed or whichever source. It puts them on your tool bar so you can check the drop down boxes daily for deals of interest. They explain how to shop at these stores and have a link to their coupons policies. Hip2Save (Collin) even has videos of how to shop Rite Aid.
I print coupons at coupon.com, allyou.com, redplum.com, smartsource.com and/or wherever the bloggers lead me. Sometimes even just liking something on facebook gets you a coupon, or you get some sent to your email.
Other coupon sources are the inserts in Sunday's papers, but we have to buy those from the news stands because our newspaper only gets one insert once a month. Also, the "All You Magazine" has loads of good coupons, so subscribing to that is very helpful.
So, even if you only have a small amount of time to devote to it, you will be amazed at the savings. I love using name brand products, too, whereas I used to buy the store brands.
Yipeee for couponing!
Here are some helpful links from Hip2Save for new couponers.
http://hip2save.com/couponnewbie
http://hip2save.com/store-guides/riteaid
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