ShopRite Matchups!

Here is the link for the matchups starting tomorrow, 2/26/2012

Dollar Days are still happening!

What are you excited for!?!


Matchups!

ShopRite Haul...I Was Actually Paid To Get All This!

Okay couponers! So tonight was the first night that I let Jaylen have a sleepover with my mom…I miss him so much! I decided to use my “night off” to go couponing at ShopRite since I’ve been procrastinating ALL week. Of course I decided to wait until the last minute to catch this week’s sales.  

            So I explained the whole “Dollar Day” thing to you guys in my previous post. I wasn’t really too excited for anything EXCEPT the Kleenex disposable hand towels and the Knorr pasta and rice sides. I literally just “LOL’ed” typing that because does being excited about hand towels and pasta sides make me a grandma?!

Here’s what I got!

My total (AFTER all the sale prices were deducted was 35.63$ and after all the coupons were deducted I paid 4.63$. You may be asking yourself how does that make it all free? What I got back was 8$ in Catalina coupons. Remember that these coupons are good for ANYTHING in the whole store. I also got back 2 coupons to receive 2 FREE reusable ShopRite bags that I’m very excited for!

Did you get any good deals this week? Did you go to ShopRite!? Comment below and TELL ME ABOUT IT!

Home Decor Shopping On A Budget.

With income tax season fully in swing, I'm taking the time to really get our house the way I've always wanted it. I love decorating and I never got the chance to do so with this apartment because of, well, LIFE!

We moved into our old apartment and of course everything we had was things that others had kindly given us and then we moved into our current apartment and life got crazy with a screaming 3 month old who is now a toddling 13 month old!

I can FINALLY decorate and organize to my hearts desire and with being five months pregnant now, I want to get this all done before new little baby arrives. (And because I know that my OCD nesting phase will shortly be arriving as well.)

So I just wanted to make a quick post on something that I really LOVE doing. I love thrift store shopping! I know what some of you are thinking...ew, gross. TOTALLY NOT GROSS. Let me tell you something about a little place called Goodwill...

Goodwill is great because they ALWAYS have things from Target and sometimes even Wal-Mart. The home decor from Target is usually always brand new and in boxes. I'm talking everything from coffee tables (which is where we got ours, 200$ in the store and I got ours for 30$ at Goodwill BRAND NEW in the box), dinnerware, linens, decorative pillows, TONS of lamps and shades, and odds and ends that will complete any and every home.

I just got Jaylen a canvas toy chest from there and I paid 14$. I went snooping around Target today and saw the SAME one for 35$! When I got is from Goodwill it was brand new and in the original packaging.

If you go on Sundays they usually have about 4 colored tickets that are marked at 50% off.

If you go to the Salvation Army (which is COMPLETELY different) Wednesdays are your 50% off day. Usually everything but 1 colored ticket is half off.

I like to hit up these places about once every week when I'm re-doing the house. You have a dig a little bit but usually you can find some great stuff!

ShopRite Matchups!

My favorite time of the week is now upon us! Here is your link to the awesome matchups for this week.

ShopRite is doing something called "DollarDays" this week so make sure to take ADVANTAGE of this! I'm excited for the Kleenex hand towel deal and the Knorr pasta and rice sides. If you want more information about DollarDays than COMMENT below and I'll be happy to explain how it works!

What awesome deals will you be doing?!

Matchups!

Frugal For Valentines Day!

                So I wanted to open my blog to posts that had to do with cheaper alternatives to things. I am a BIG fan of being frugal. This doesn’t mean that I’m “cheap” like Ayyub likes to call me sometimes! I just know where and when to cut corners. We both work hard for our money and I want to see it stretched as far as possible especially since we are about to have not one BUT two very young children.

                 Now I know that Valentine’s Day has already passed but I wanted to share with you guys what I did as far as gifts and what Ayyub and I are planning to do when we finally get the time to go away just the two of us

                So I wanted to do something special for Jaylen’s grandmas since they are such a big part of his life. I was thinking that flowers or chocolates are so expensive for being so temporary. Once you gobble up the chocolate and the flowers wilt, then those gifts are over. I wanted to get creative and I wanted to involve Jaylen. I bought those really cute Valentine’s Day heart candies. You know the ones with the sayings on them? I purchased these at The Dollar Tree and I got SIX boxes for 1$! I also purchased 2 picture frames from The Dollar Tree for 1$ apiece, finger paint and superglue. (I do not recommend buying the glue from here because it SUCKED but we ended up having some good glue at home so I just used that.) I then got crafty! I separated the candies by color and I glued them with the saying side NOT showing (because a lot of the sayings were crooked or really faint and just looked tacky). I color coordinated the frames and just super glued all the little candies on their. It was time consuming but they turned out GREAT! I took the finger paint and some old scrapbooking colored paper that matched each frame and painted J’s hand and had him stamp his handprint on the paper. Lying in my scrapbooking box I had those little paper letters and numbers so I just glued Jaylen on top and the letter 1 on the bottom. Now his grandmas have a cute keepsake of his handprint at 1 year old!

                I never was able to take pictures of how they turned out but I will show you a picture of where I got the idea from. I obviously tweaked it to suit my needs but these are so inexpensive and fun that you can do virtually anything with these. I also think that these little heart candies on the perimeter of a hand held mirror would be adorable as well for a little girl or even a teenager!

                I kept Ayyub’s gifts simple. I made him some homemade chocolates using a 6 pack of Hershey Chocolate that I got for about 3 dollars and little heart molds that we had from my mom’s wedding. These are REALLY inexpensive. They run around 2-3$ apiece and you usually get 2 molds that can make about 20 chocolates.  You can get them at Wal-Mart or Michaels. I just melted the chocolate and refrigerated overnight. They were so YUMMY!

                I also made him one of those “coupon books” that I plan to give him when we go away. These are personal coupons you make (I used construction paper and markers) and they say stuff like, “This coupon entitles you to one 15min massage”…stuff like that. These are so great to make because they come from the heart and you can personalize them to whatever your man likes! Since its Valentine’s Day you can get a little sexy with these as well.

                When we do go out, we plan on using a gift card to dinner that we had received for Christmas. I always try to save these for special occasions like this so we can feel like we are having a little but more luxury than we are really paying for. I also love sites like Groupon.com and Livingsocial.com because they offer great services and nights out for over 50% off discounts!

                I hope you all liked this post and I hope you all had a GREAT Valentine’s Day! Let me know if you want me to do more frugal posts like this.

SWEET ShopRite Sobe And Lipton Deal!!!!

So there is a SUPER GREAT deal this week at ShopRite where if you buy 10 participating products you get a 10$ CATALINA coupon good off your next order. WELL, Sobe water and Lipton iced teas are 10 for 10$. LIGHTBULB! If you buy 10 of these drinks you pay 10$ BUT you get back a 10$ CAT coupon.

The sweet part about this deal is this...the CAT will roll into the next deal! So you can buy 10 more for 10$, pay with your 10$ CAT and get ANOTHER 10$ CAT!!

You can only do 1 per transaction, however. If you did 2 transactions everyday for a week you would have 100 FREE Sobes and Liptons! I'm not saying to do THIS crazy but these are so great for the kids lunches, for me to bring to work, for Ayyub to bring to work! Yay for free drinks!

Hope you go out and score this pretty SWEET deal! The best part about it is you don't even need any coupons...Happy Couponing!

My Favorite Time Of The Week! ShopRite Matchups For The Week Of 2-12-12

Okay couponers! Here it is....our magical list of matchups starting tomorrow 2-12-12.

I'm excited about the Kellogg's cereal deal. There is a 10$ gas card rebate when you buy 10 participating Kellogg's products.

I'm also excited about all the yogurt deals! Yummm!

What deals will you be doing this week?!

2-12-12 Matchups!

We All Know How Much I HATE Walmart...But Here's What I got!

Okay couponers! So it's no surprise that I hate Wal-Mart. I did, however, score some pretty great stuff recently for ZERO dollars!

So there was a pretty clever coupon in the 1-29-12 RedPlum insert. This coupon is for 1.00$ off ANY Vaseline product 3 oz. or larger. So when I flipped through the insert I saw this coupon and just kept on going. Then something MAGICAL happened. A few pages later, there was a whole page dedicated to Vaseline and how you can buy it at Wal-Mart…blah, blah. So I was just about to turn the page and then I saw something small written on the bottom. It talked about how the 3 oz. size of Vaseline was only 1.00$ at Wal-Mart. BINGO! The RedPlum insert is telling you to use the 1.00$ off coupon, buy the 3 oz. size at Wal-Mart and score some FREE Vaseline.

Some of you may think, “Whoa, she’s a little too hype about some Vaseline.” Okay, you people may be right. BUT I do use this product on a daily basis. It’s great when you have a baby and they have any sort of cut or scrape. It is a great alternative to Chap Stick. This is what I mainly use it for. It’s great when you have a boyfriend who is CONSTANTLY suffering from dry and itchy skin. Okay, the list for me is endless. If you have the coupon, you can only use 4 in one transaction, then go out and get this Vaseline!

On to my next deal! There was a 3.00$ off coupon on ANY size K.Y. product in the 1-8-12 Smart Source. Now this may be a no brainer for me, but who doesn’t need extra lube lying around? Haha! With that piece of personal information being said, there is a K.Y. bottle of lube that is priced at 2.00 and some change. I forget the exact price. If you put two and two together…this means FREE lube. Again, you can only use 4 coupons in one transaction. Go out and get this product so you can have FUN especially with Valentine’s Day coming up!

Sorry to disappoint you, but my final deal is not as exciting as my K.Y. deal. In the 1-29-12 Smart Source, there was a coupon for 1.00$ off ANY carpet fresh carpet freshener. You know what these are, right? These are the canisters of powder that you sprinkle on your rugs before vacuuming. I do not normally buy stuff like this unless I can get them for REALLY cheap. FREE is better than cheap! My Wal-Mart here in Hudson had them on clearance for .75 cents. So I got 4 of them for FREE.

Remember this when couponing at Wal-Mart…they give you overage if the coupon is over the amount that you are paying for on the product. So those carpet fresheners were only .75 cents. This means that for every one I bought, I got .25 cents credited towards my entire purchase. I made 1.00$ because I bought 4 of them. You need to have other things in your basket, however, for that money to go to. Wal-Mart will not just give you 1.00$ back. You can load it onto a gift card if you wanted to.

Go out and have fun getting these deals!

What Is Saving Star??

So when we go on our ShopRite matchup link that I provide for you all here, sometimes we see something that says "Saving Star ecoupon".
For example:
Yogurt is 10/20$
Use a 2$/10 coupon from the 1-29 SmartSource (SS)
AND use a 2$/10 Saving Star ecoupon

What the heck is this Saving Star stuff!?!
Let me explain...

Saving Star is like an online version of mail-in-rebates (aka MIR). When you set up an account with them (free), you input your loyalty store card numbers for the stores you frequent. Make sure to enter all of them (that are in the Saving Star system) because you never know where you will buy something from, but, the system will keep track of it for you.

You can then choose the products/offers you think you will use and you click on those offers to ‘activate’ them. Don’t wait to activate something until ‘later’ because some of the items have limits (just like printable coupons) and the offers might not be available for long. Once you activate it, though, you have until the expiration date to buy it/them even if the offer was withdrawn for others.
When you buy one of your activated offers it takes 2-3 days (on average) for that info to flow from the store to the SS system. They usually send you an email saying you have earned your rebate for that item. Next time you go into your online account, you will see the total amount earned in the upper right corner. Once you earn $5 worth of rebates, you then, online, tell them how you want to be paid. You can choose a check that is mailed to you, or, can have it transferred into your PayPal account, if you have one.You would have to check Saving Star to find out what those options are because that, I’m not familiar with.

All in all, I think it’s a great service because the Saving Star offers ‘stack’ (can be used on top of) with paper coupons and ecoupons, providing you with even more savings! Plus, of course, you don’t have to use a stamp!! Just remember that these savings do not get deducted off your receipt, the same way a coupon does. The amount just builds up in your account until you have at least the minimum ($5) for them to pay it out to you.


Okay so I'm going to admit something to you new couponers. When I first started out with using coupons, I had no idea what this Saving Star was. I thought it was something COMPLETELY different where the money was deducted off your balance at the store. I didn't have anyone telling me how to "coupon" so I was in the dark on a lot of things. I finally understood what was happening with this Saving Star stuff and now I am able to take full advantage of it. This post is designed to clear up any miscommunication so YOU can take full advantage of it as well!

Here is a link to the actual SavingStar website...check it out and start using your savings right away!

https://savingstar.com/

ShopRite Matchups For 2-5-2012

Here's your link to ShopRite's matchups for this week. Hope you can find some great deals! I'm really excited about the butter and the eggs. Happy couponing!

Matchups!