Save on Hasbro Card Games
Thanks to a tip from Brandie at Free Sample Freak, I was able to save a lot of money on games. On coupons.com, Hasbro has several coupons for $4-$5 off games, including some for Scrabble, Sorry, Pictureka, and Monopoly, all of which are board games, but also card games. The coupons were also in the Parade section of last week’s newspaper, so I had three of those, in addition to the two of each coupons.com let me print. The card games run $4.50-$5.89 at my local Meijer, so this represented a lot of savings! So far we’ve purchased 4 Monopoly card games, 3 Scrabble, and 4 Sorry Revenge. Meijer is out of Pictureka right now, so we’re waiting until they’re back in stock, and we’ll buy 4 of them. With a $5 off coupon on a $5.24 game, we’ll be able to get 4 of them for just under $1 plus tax. It looks like we’ll be giving a lot of game night packages away as gifts this coming year!
See also: How to Get Stocking Stuffers for Free for more ideas on saving money on gifts.
Looking Forward to a Week of Savings
This is a week where we have the opportunity to save a lot of money, but still enjoy going out. Today we went out to Olive Garden for a Valentine’s lunch, where we spent just $4 on our food—the rest was covered by a gift card from Christmas. Then we went to a free movie using tickets I had one in an instant win game. That was followed by a trip to the mall where we got two shirts for my sister at Aeropostale where we had to do a mystery shop. We spent $18.51, and $14 will be reimbursed, so $4.51 for two shirts from my sister’s favorite store is a great deal. This will be her birthday present later in the year.
We have a supper out planned tomorrow for another mystery shop. We should be able to keep all of our food within the amount they will reimburse us for. At most we might have to spend a dollar or two on the tip, and that’s money I’m willing to pay for an otherwise free meal I don’t have to cook or clean up after!
For the rest of the week, meals are planned that should be easy enough to make, even after a long day at work. This should help us stay on track to spending $50 or less on food for the rest of the month, though we have been pretty good about eating at home so far this month. In January that was a struggle, but as we see our debt coming down, I think we’re becoming more committed staying in to save money to pay off our debts and then start saving for a down payment on a house and maxing out our Roth IRAs.
Using Up Our Stockpile
I had an unexpected vacation this week due to snow (and looking at the forecast, might unfortunately be getting another one this week). For two days I sat around and did nothing but watch tv, write some articles for eHow, and read blogs, which was enjoyable for two days, but by day three, I was bored. That, coupled with the fact that my house needed some organization, led me to clean out my cupboards and go through my stockpile.
Organized cupboard
As I was doing that, I realized that our clutter problem is not just with stuff around the house, but also food and hygiene products. As I was cleaning, I had to throw away about $30 worth of food that had expired. I’ve known for a long time we probably weren’t going to eat it—it was stuff only one of us liked, but not stuff we’d make for just one of us—and I should have been more proactive about donating it, but I wasn’t. This motivated me to go through and remove any item I didn’t think we would use before it expired. I did the same for the hygiene stockpile. I ended up with three bags filled with items to be donated, in addition to the bag of items I had purchased specifically to donate to the food bank. It’s good to donate, but it’s bad to have that much stuff just sitting around my house.
As a result of my cupboard and shelf organization, I came up with a couple plans.
1. I will use $10 each month to get as many items as I can for the food bank. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s what we can spare. Plus, I think that between sales and coupons, I can make that $10 go a long way.
2. We need to use up some of our stockpile. Stockpiling items we use when they’re on sale is a great way to save money, but only if actually use those items. If they go to waste, we wasted food and money. So for the rest of the month, we have only $50 to spend on food. This will include the $4 we spent at Olive Garden today (the rest was covered by a giftcard) and the $3.88 cents I spend when my coworkers and I go to the gas station for lunch each Friday (we really go for the fancy establishments), but it won’t include the four mystery shop meals (three suppers for both of us and one lunch for just Josh) unless we go over the limit they’ll reimburse us for. Hopefully that doesn’t happen. I’ve planned our suppers for the month, and we have everything we need for those except ¼ of hamburger we’ll need at the end of the month. Pretty much all we’ll need should be perishable items like milk, eggs, bread, yogurt, fruits, etc. However, if roasts and lean hamburger go on sale in the next two weeks, I’ll break my $50 budget to stock up on them, but I don’t think that will happen. They shouldn’t be on sale again until March or April, at least not a huge sale. By spending only $50 for the rest of the month on food, this is a great way for us to save money, and it’s something I think we can modify a bit to carry on into March as well. This will put as at an even better pace for paying off our credit card bill by the time Josh’s semester is over!
Walgreens and CVS deals
Super Savings Sunday
Today I did a pretty good job of shopping. I went to Walgreens, CVS, and Meijer.
At Walgreen, I purchased $71.98 worth of items for just $15.96, plus I got $6 in Register Rewards back, so it was basically a $10 excursion. I purchased:
4 Loreal makeup items BOGO 50% (1 foundation, 2 powders, for which I had $2 coupons for each, and 1 mascara I had a $3 coupon for and the store had a $2 instant coupon for)
3 Swanson chicken broth (store coupon for $.69 each, plus I stacked it with a manufacturer’s coupon for $1 on 3)
2 Dole Peach cups and a Mott’s applesauce (on sale $5 for 3, coupon for $.75 off on 2 Dole)
1 Secret Clinical Strength Deodorent ($8.99 with $4 RR, $.25 coupon)
2 Hershey’s dark chocolate bars, 2 Hershey’s dark chocolate with almonds (2 BOGO coupons, will keep one wrapper and send it in to get a free bag of Hershey’s dark pieces.
1 Carmex chapstick (Store coupon for $.99, stacked with a catalina coupon for $.75 off)
Vitamin Water Schtick chapstick (on sale for $1.99 with $2 RR) (I’ll probably be stopping in at Walgreens later in the week to get some more of these)
I also used $25 in RR from last week.
The makeup and deoderent will go downstairs to the stock pile to be used in the next couple of months. The chapsticks I put right in my stocking stuffer box, as they don’t expire for quite some time and will still be good well beyond Christmas.
At CVS I ended up making money, which was exciting. I’d never done that before. I purchased:
2 of Dove’s new man soaps for $5.49 each, plus 2 coupons for $1.25 off, and got $10.98 in CVS Cash Back
1 Colgate Max Fresh toothepaste for $2.99, plus a $.50 coupon, and $2 CVS Cash Back
I spent a total of $11.95 including tax, and I got $12.98 in CVS Cash to spend later, so I made $1.03 this trip. We already have some man soap and toothpaste, so these will be added to my stockpile in the basement, but I know we’ll use them, and these prices were too good to pass up.
I didn’t save nearly as much at Meijer, but that’s to be expected, as it’s harder to save on groceries. I did, however save 33%, spent under $50, which was my goal for the week, and was able to stock up on tomato sauce, Rice-A-Roni, and Raisin Bran, in addition to buying the groceries we need for the week. All in all, I think I did pretty pretty well.
Staples Rewards – Read the Fine Print and then take advantage of it!
Two and a half years ago when we first moved to our current city, we made our first trip to Staples for some basic supplies for our house. When we were checking out we were asked if we wanted to join Staples Rewards. When told it was free, we joined. Two years later, I had still been going to Staples for any office needs and had spent almost a thousand dollars over this span. Two weeks ago, I received an ad telling me I could receive three-ring binders for free after a 100% Staples Rewards return. I of course was interested in receiving free things.
After I went to Staples and purchased the binders, I began to think about how I had not actually received anything from Staples in regards to Reward rebates. I did some research and it turns out in order to receive a rebate, you need to have earned enough of a rebate ($10) within a calendar quarter (three month time frame).
In order to receive rebates at all, the rebates need to be earned via purchasing certain items. The items include printer paper and cartridges as well as special sales that they offer. Now that I know how much of a rebate I need in order to receive Rewards, I have made a plan on how to shop at Staples. Instead of going to Staples and purchasing a ream of paper, or a single print cartridge, I now plan on buying in bulk. When you buy one ream or one cartridge, you build up a small rebate and run the risk of not actually making the $10 threshold.
After buying the binders, I have now started scouring the Staples ads in an attempt to build up as big of a rebate before the quarter is over. I have also started to look at the other reward clubs I belong to (Best Buy, CVS, Speedway/Super America, etc.) to see what steps I need to take in order to receive the rebate.
Pleasant shopping!
Grocery Savings
Super Savings on Savings Sunday (I really like alliterations!)
Yesterday was perhaps one of my most successful shopping days ever. I bought $109.86 worth of groceries for just $32.22! That’s a savings of 71 percent!
I usually avoid Marsh, a local, overpriced grocery chain, but when roasts are on sale, I venture in because the one advantage they have over Meijer, my usual grocery store, is they have better sales on roasts.
This week, though, they had an amazing sale on more than just roasts. On select items, they marked them down plus they were offering $5 off at the register for every 10 items of there “mega sale” products you purchased. Amazingly, the items they had on sale were actually items Josh and I use and had coupons for. I carefully went through the ad and my coupon collection and matched coupons for items listed.
Here’s what we got:
• 10 Healthy Choice frozen meals (this was my big saver because I had 2 coupons from the Healthy Choice Website for $5 off 5 meals, so I saved $10 just on these with coupons)
• 4 cans of Progresso soup
• 3 boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios
• 2 boxes of Green Giant frozen veggies
• 1 bag of Yoplait frozen smoothies (which I typically wouldn’t buy, but I had a coupon and was saving so much money, I thought it would be a nice treat for Josh and it boosted us to our 20th item, giving us another $5 off)
• 10 pounds of Russet Potatoes, not a “mega sale” item, but on sale for $1.88
• 4 boneless rump roasts for a total of 10.77 lbs at 1.98/lb. Three will go in the freezer, and one will be Monday’s supper.
I’m quite pleased with our purchases. They should last us quite a while, and it always makes me happy to save money, especially that much money!
Groceries
