Great deals at Albertsons!

I got some really great deals at Albertsons this week! They were running a promotion where if you purchased $10 in selected various products, they would take $3 off your total right away. The deal was made sweeter when Sunday's paper arrived on my doorstep and had 3 coupon doublers in it. Naturally I obtained as many of these as I could without seeming obnoxious. I ended up with 3 copies of the ad which allowed me 9 coupon doublers up to $1 each. The trick was I had to separate my transactions into 3 because you were only allowed 3 doublers per order. So here's what I ended up with.

8 Easy Mac Individual Serving Cups
1 Capri Sun Sunrise Drink
2 Bagelful Frozen Bagels
4 Kraft BBQ Sauces
1 Kraft Ranch Bacon Salad Dressing
4 Kraft Mayo Squeezable
3 Kraft Miracle Whip Squeezeable
2 Bar-S Bun Length Hot Dogs

Between all 3 of my transactions, I used all 9 of my doublers which took off $9 and received $9 off because of the promotion. I also had $19 in coupons. The sale prices for all of my items was $37.

Here's the math $37 - $9 promotion = $28 - $19 coupons = $9 - $9 doublers = $0

There was tax on the Capri Sun drink so I paid a total OOP of $.04 for all of the above listed items. WHOO HOO!!

We are officially stocked up now of BBQ sauce and Mayo/Miracle Whip for awile.

"It was cheap"....YEAH RIGHT!

Yesterday I was snack mom at preschool and I forgot! I walked in the door and it dawned on me, whoops! It was also my work day in the classroom so I was unable to go to the store and pick something up. One of the other moms who didn't have to stay, offered to run and pick snack up for me. Very sweet! She came back with 4 pounds of bananas, 8 string cheese sticks, and a bag of gold fish crackers. When I asked her what I owed her she replied "the reciept is in the bag, it was cheap...like $10."

Now, to the normal person that might seem cheap. But to me, that was a fortune! I have been couponing so long now that I forget that I'm in the minority and most people spend much more than I do. My DH laughed at me when I told him this story because he thought I was going to pass out at the thought of spending regular price on anything. Love you honey!!

Just to give you an idea as to what I could buy with $10 take my trip to Walgreens last night.

Here's what I bought:

6 bottles of Arm & Hammer Laundry Soap (regular price $41.94)
4 boxes of Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil (regular price $6.76)
2 boxes of Sugar Free Jello brand Gelatin (regular price 2.38)
1 Loreal Face Wash (regular price $6.99)
1 Loreal Eye Cream (regular price $16.49)
1 Maybelline Lip Gloss (regular price $5.79)
1 Maybelline Lip Liner (regular price $6.49)
2 Sure Deoderents (regular price $5.98)
1 bag of bows (regular price $.99)
2 4 packs of Scotch brand gift tape (regular price $7.98)
1 Pedi Paws dog nail trimmer (regular price $19.99)

Here's what I spent: $28.65, and I have another $5 off my next purchase!

Overall I received $121.78 in products for just under $30. As you can see, $10 for snack is not cheap for me!

The moral of the story is...DON'T FORGET WHEN YOU ARE SNACK MOM!

Cheap Eats!

I just learned about a great website this morning!

Check it out...Restaurant.com sells reduced price gift certificates for local restaurants in your area. You print them right from your computer.

The best part is, if you use the code FALL you will get to take an additional 60% off their already great price. I just bought my BIL and his girlfriend some gift certificates for Christmas and only paid $4.80 for $40 in gift certificates!

Great gift ideas and inexpensive too!

Oh, and if you are a Upromise member you can link to them from Upromise to earn a bit in your child's college savings plan too!

Double the bennies! Whoo Hoo!

Gotta love free organic berries!

We live really close to a HUGE blackberry bush that not a whole lot of people take advantage of. It's on public land and is free for the taking when the berries are ripe. Surprisingly to me, most of them go bad while still on the vine. This year is the first year we have taken advantage of them ourselves and we've lived nearby for 7 1/2 years. I've already picked enough for a berry crisp which was DELICIOUS! And I've frozen a full gallon sized zipper bag for later use.

Yesterday, I was in need of a bit of "me" time so I decided to gather my containers and bag and head over to the blackberry bush. I was shocked at how many were ready to be picked as well as how many were still in various stages of ripen-ness. I picked 4 more containers which worked out to be just enough for a batch of jam and some left over. YUUUMMMMY!

I came home with my haul and transformed these:

Into THIS!

I love me some home made freezer jam!! And it only took about 45 minutes. So easy, so yummy and so affordable.

Can it be??? FREE GAS! Try and see.

The nice people Chevron are giving gift cards away for $5 - $2500 just for participating in a quick survey (3 questions...and they are EASY!). I just did mine. Hopefully it's not too good to be true.

Here's the link.

Good Luck!

So what? I like to make things!

My hubby often time teases me about being "Amish". Now mind you, I would have thrived had I actually been born Amish and I would LOVE every minute of it. But he teases me none the less.

I'm a very crafty person. I enjoy working with my hands and creating something from a pile of stuff that isn't really anything on its own. I love cooking, crochetting, scrapbooking and just plain old crafting. I'll try just about anything once.

Recently a friend told me about a friend of hers that has started making her own laundry soap. I thought the idea sounded great and decided to try it. Let me be the first to tell you that if you haven't tried it, you should! The stuff is fabulous! You can find the recipes here. I personally used recipe #4. I think at some point I may try one of the liquid types, but for now the powdered one is sooooooo easy, I think I'll stick to it. I'm on my second batch and I still have supplies left from my original purchase. I've been completely happy with the results of this detergent and have passed on the recipe and a sample to my mom, MIL, and several good friends. I also tried the white vinegar in the rinse cycle to remove any leftover soap residue (it actually acts as a fabric softener surprisingly) but it does leave a slight vinegar smell in my clothes so I put one dryer sheet in with the load in the dryer. Another GREAT side effect of the vinegar in the rinse cycle is that it will brighten your clothes like no body's business! I was shocked! The whites were whiter and the colored clothes were brighter. I love the whole idea homemade laundry soap and vinegar rinse.

In addition to making my own laundry soap, yesterday I was perusing the grocery store and came across plastic freezer jam containers by Ball. These were located right next to the SureJell. I thought they were cute and decided to buy some. So I did and I bought the SureJell too. I already had strawberries in my cart so I was well on my way to homemade jam! My mom has preserved jam and jelly for our family for years and it always tastes better than store bought varieties. This combined with the fact that my 4yo will not eat jam with "chunks" made it really easy for me to decide that I wanted to try and make my own jam. I'm calling it jam even though it doesn't have "chunks" because I did use the whole fruit (not juice) but I did puree the crap out of it so as to remove any trace of "chunk". This process was soooooo easy again and it made me 6 cups of jam. I put one in the refrigerator and the other 5 plastic Ball containers in the freezer for later use. My son was so excited to see that I was making him special jam that he asked me for a PBJ for dinner last night. I of course declined because the jam had not finished setting. :) The whole process to make this jam took about an hour. Not too bad for homemade jam! I will do it again. The recipes come inside the SureJell and they give you lots of ideas for different varieties. I think I might make some up for gifts at Christmas too.

I know that being Amish is a lot harder than just making homemade soap and homemade jam, but I think they have the right idea and I might adapt more of their simple living lifestyle. Not only do I get to be "crafty" but I end up with something useful out of the deal too...and I save a bit of money in the process. Not too bad for a days craft.