9 cents OOP at Albie's!

Gosh, I haven't spent this much time at Albie's since they stopped accepting Walgreen's Register Rewards as payment! I think I am safely stocked up on Kraft Mac & Cheese for awhile. The only bummer is they don't have a very long shelf life - they all expire by September. Seems kind of short to me, oh well.

I found a couple more of these .75/1 Mission IPQs and I also read about free Hershey's Bliss chocolate bars here on Eve's My Southwest Savings blog! Free chocolate??? I am in. Always. I just realized why all my chocolate coupons beeped - I bought Dove instead of Hersheys! Darn it! Neither me nor the cashier noticed; we just figured the coupons were beeping because they were over the price. That explains why the chocolate bars were .50. I really need to pay better attention. I also grabbed some bananas and a dozen eggs to eat up the Kraft overage. I found a rockin' cashier and I did 3 transactions that looked like this:

#1
.50 Kraft Mac & Cheese (6)
-.55/2 Kraft tearpad MQ - doubled (3)
- .11 each for in-ad Q (scanned 6 times)
.66 overage total (.11 overage per box)

.50 Dove chocolate bars (3) wrong item!
-.55/1 Hershey's Bliss single chocolate bar MQ 4/25 SS - adj. to .50 (3)
FREE

.99 Mission tortilla chips
-.75/1 any Mission product IPQ - print here
.01 overage

.40 bananas (.49/lb.)
1.39 dozen eggs
.50 Green Giant canned peas - filler

No Tax = .03 paid OOP

I couldn't figure out why the total was negative. I threw a 1.39 dozen eggs and the .50 canned peas onto my order to bring it positive. Looking at my receipt, I see what happened... the cashier pushed the Hershey's MQs through at face value, but then also manually took off the .50 for each chocolate bar. I'll go back to Albie's tomorrow and find out what they want to do about the chocolate.

#2
.50 Kraft Mac & Cheese (6)
-.55/2 Kraft tearpad MQ - doubled (3)
-.11 each for in-ad Q (scanned 6 times)
.66 overage total (.11 overage per box)

.50 Dove chocolate bars (3) wrong item!
-.55/1 Hershey's Bliss single chocolate bar MQ 4/25 SS - adj. to .50 (3)
FREE

.99 Mission tortilla chips
-.75/1 any Mission product IPQ - print here
.01 overage

.70 bananas (.49/lb.)

No Tax = .03 paid OOP

#3
.50 Kraft Mac & Cheese (6)

-.55/2 Kraft tearpad MQ - doubled (3)
- .11 each for in-ad Q (scanned 6 times)
.66 overage total (.11 overage per box)


.50 Dove chocolate bars (4) wrong item!
-.55/1 Hershey's Bliss single chocolate bar MQ 4/25 SS - adj. to .50 (3)
FREE

.69 bananas (.49/lb.)


No Tax = .03 paid OOP

9 cents out of pocket ... Not too bad!

Mail Call Monday 5/3/10

I think we have a pattern here! I am LOVING getting my grocery ads a day early - what a treat! From the looks of things, I'll be spending a lot of time at Safeway this week!

In addition to the ads, I got 2 Kraft First Taste coupons for Oscar Meyer turkey bacon - one is free (up to $4.00) and the other is for 1.00/1. Kraft First Taste (click here for details) is a program designed to have consumers try Kraft's new products and tell other consumers about them. After you've tried the product, Kraft also asks you to fill out a survey about your experience. I've been sampling for a while now and I love it! Usually the new product coupons coincide with grocery sales and OYNO deals, resulting in major deals for me!

I also received 3 free magazines today - Car & Driver, Bloomberg, & OK Magazine. I love the celebrity gossip magazines so I was thrilled to get a free subscription to one of the celeb magazines. This is my first issue and I'm already excited for the next one... and they're all completely free!

What treasures did you get in your mailbox?

Are you Swaggin' yet?

You have no doubt seen Swagbucks discussed in the blogosphere - but what is it? Swagbucks is an online search engine (like Google or Yahoo) that rewards you with Swagbucks when you search on their site. Swagbucks can be redeemed for all kinds of awesome things like books, magazines, & gift cards! If you're like me, you are probably skeptical and think it's a scam. It's not! KC over at Desert Deals Diva regularly redeems her Swagbucks for Amazon gift cards which funds her Christmas shopping! What a great way to pay for Christmas just by using the internet as you normally would! And it only takes 450 Swagbucks to earn a $5 Amazon gift card. Sounds like a lot, but you will be amazed how quickly those Swagbucks rack up.

Ready to sign up yet?

If you're on the fence, this week is a great time to sign up. Through this Friday, May 7th, new members earn 50 Swagbucks just for signing up! Hey, I only got 30 Swagbucks when I signed up! All you have to do is click here and use the Swag Code: SWAGNATION5 (case sensitive).

Are you already a member? You still have a great chance of earning lots of Swagbucks this week! This week ONLY they are doubling the amount of Swagbucks you are awarded throughout the day via search– which means you have a greater chance of earning more Swagbucks this week then you normally would, so get searching! Also, starting Tuesday, Swagbucks is introducing a new daily poll feature that allows you to earn Swagbucks every day just by answering a daily poll!

What are you waiting for? Start swaggin' it up!

GIVE AWAY! $50 CSN Stores giftcard!

Have you ever heard of CSN? It's okay, I hadn't before today either. CSN Stores is a virtual mall with over 200 retailers! They have awesome prices and lots of free shipping deals.

The Diary of Dave's Wife blog is hosting a give away for a $50 gift card to any of CSN Stores' retailers! This is a high value give away and if I am lucky enough to win, I've already got my eye on this Storkcraft Glider and Ottoman. Beautiful dark wood, neutral cushions, free shipping, & only $160 - I want it!

If you want to enter this awesome giveaway, click here. You can enter up to 4 times, but hurry! The giveaway ends Monday, May 10th!

Free Earthbound Farms Reusable Bag!

Visit Earthbound Farms' website today and click on "Come into the Kitchen" to take the Earthbound Kitchen Quiz for a free resuable bag! There are 10 "green" living questions and you have to get them all correct. Don't worry, they tell you which questions are wrong and you can go back and fix your answers. Hurry over today, there are limited quantities and the quiz has been open since 6AM AZ time!

I am loving all of these free resuable bags! Remember, you get a 5 cent discount for each reusable bag you use when you shop at Fry's! If you haven't already loaded your free reusable bag onto your Fry's card, click here for details!

Last week's CVS & Wags Deals

I feel bad even posting this because we're already one day into the new sales, but I may as well... I went to one more CVS late Saturday night to try to find one more 2 oz. tube of sunblock to finish up the "Buy 2, Get $5 EB" deal. They had more than 10 sitting on the shelf! I just needed one, so I grabbed that and paid 2.19 on a CVS giftcard. I got a $5 EB for completing the sunblock deal (.62 profit) and I got a $1 EB for 4 scans on my green bag tag.

I had been avoiding Wags all week because I have a love/hate relationship with the Register Rewards carousel. Once you're on, you're on and you have to keep rolling those darn RRs every two weeks. And in Arizona, we are taxed on pre-coupon price, so even if I have a zero subtotal, I'm paying $2-3 in sales tax. Either way, I was almost out of shave gel and it was free after RR, so back on the carousel I went. And the free packing tape wasn't too bad either. :)

I did 2 transactions with 6 rolls of tape each and a Skintimate shave gel. I ended up paying over $2 in tax on each transaction, so it was definitely not profitable. Oh well. I paid in RRs and Wags gift cards. And I'll have smooth legs this summer.

Check back tomorrow for Mail Call Monday... can't wait to see what treasures are waiting for me!

Coupon Source - La Voz newspapers!

"How do you get so many coupons?"

I am asked this question all the time, so here is the answer - from all kinds of places! :) It's true. The Sunday paper coupon inserts, internet printables, blinkie machines, peelie coupons, tearpads, gas stations, in-store flyers, catalina machines, friends, neighbors, family, .... I could literally go on and on!

I get the majority of my coupons from the Sunday paper coupon inserts, so let's talk about those. When I first started this crazy coupon addiction, I thought I needed to subscribe to get the Sunday paper delivered to my house. When I called to get a subscription, I was shocked by the amount they wanted! So, being the cheapo that I am, I started searching around for other alternatives. I funded my coupon habit through free inserts from the East Valley Tribune for a while in 2009, but when they changed their format, the free coupon inserts disappeared.

Then, I found out about La Voz newspapers on Pinching Your Pennies. It's a free hispanic newspaper that comes out once a week on Fridays and has a condensed version of the SS insert from the previous Sunday. They are distributed in front of Food City, Circle K, and lots of other businesses. DO NOT RANSACK THE LA VOZ NEWSPAPERS! These newspapers are for everyone, not one person. If you abuse this system, it will go away and you will ruin it for everyone. I have one spot near my work where I get my coupon inserts. I don't take the paper, I just take the inserts out. My supply spot has at least 50 papers and I always take 10 sets of inserts. As I mentioned earlier, they are condensed, so a lot of the hot coupons are not in there. That's why I also buy 5 sets off Ebay, but we'll save that for another day and another post.

Obviously, the more coupons you can add to your coupons stash, the better savings you'll see at the register! Stay tuned for more posts on coupon sources!