I ordered this book a week or so ago because it was free Christain literature. Well, I got it Saturday in the mail and started reading it that afternoon. This is an amazing, true story that has touched my heart and has many issues weighing on my heart and in my mind. I can honestly say, I hear the Spirit talking through this man's story.
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Where do we find all of our coupons?
This is a question we both get a lot. When we started, we had no coupons except for inserts from the papers we bought on Sunday. Now? We have more coupons than you can imagine. So, where do we get them?
1. Newspapers
Well, the first and obvious answer is of course, in the Sunday newspaper. The common Sunday coupon inserts are RedPlum (RP) and Smartsource (SS). Usually on the first Sunday of the month, a Proctor and Gamble (P&G) insert will be included. Coupons are regional. For example, Pensacola often gets “better” and higher dollar coupons than we do in Mobile. Occasionally, we will buy the Pensacola paper because of the coupons in it that week.
2. Manufacturer’s Websites
I am always amazed at how few people have written their favorite manufacturer! Did you know that by writing many companies a quick comment, they will send you a coupon? Many companies LOVE to hear from their consumers. Think of what you use. Think of what you would like to use but maybe cannot afford. Write that company a short email of praise or mention you are curious about their product. If you feel comfortable, ask if they have any coupons they can send you. Honestly, most of my emails were simple praise and thank you notes. Occasionally, we will just get a
thank you. Sometimes we have to hear the dreaded words “NO, we do not just give out coupons”. Shrug it off and write someone else!
Be sure to sign up for different manufacturer emails. We use one of our side email addresses for this (just be sure to check it often!). A lot of companies and brands will send weekly or monthly email updates, recipes and random news. Occasionally in these emails, they will also send you a coupon just for being on their email list.
3. Internet Prints
Internet prints are all over the internet. As mentioned above, you can often find coupons on a manufacturer’s website to print off. Also, Smartsource and RedPlum have sites to print from, too! These coupons reset at the beginning of each month. If you have been directed to a site like RedPlum or Coupons.com and cannot find a coupon mentioned, try a different zip code. Just like Sunday coupons are regional, so can IP coupons. We check 90210. It’s silly, but works. Also, feel free to ask other online couponers what zip code they are using. We are all in this together!
Before you learn this lesson the hard way, let us warn you. Do NOT print every single coupon offered on these sites. It will become an overwhelming mess quickly. Besides, you probably will not want, need or use every single coupon on there anyway.
You will also come across bricks coupons. If you are sent to a link to use a Bricks coupon, first print the coupon. BUT WAIT! Click back three times. Woohoo! You now have that coupon TWICE!
4. Blinkies
What is a blinkie? Have you ever noticed those little red or black machines hanging on a shelf as you shop? They spit out little coupons and have a blinking light and usually go beep beep as you pull
a coupon out. Take a few, but please don’t be greedy. Taking every single one is just rude.
5. Tearpads
Tearpads are found in several places. One location is hanging off of a shelf. Check out displays. You know those big beer displays you always walk by? You can sometimes find GREAT tearpad coupons them! Next time you stop for some gas and a drink, check the gas station out! You can find tearpads on their displays, shelves and sometimes in their drink coolers! Tear you off some coupons, but again, please do not take them all.
6. Peelies
Peelies are coupons found on the items and can be peeled off. Now, there is a great debate in the coupon world regarding coupons. Should you peel and steal or leave it and miss a deal? There are two sides as always on this subject. If you take it, knowing you will use it, knowing it is on sale somewhere else or will be, you save! Of course, then if you do, you are taking that savings from whoever is actually buying the item the peelie is on. Some consider taking a peelie off of an item without buying that item, stealing. Others call is fair grounds. We don't peel and steal. Our thoughts are that is just isn't right.
7. Books
Books are pamphlets with information and coupons found in them. Publix has books that it gives out. As usual, these are regional. Sometimes our Publix gets the books, sometimes they do not. Walgreens also has their own coupon books they put out. Some are monthly books, some are specific like a Diabetes magazine. You can also find manufacturer books in other stores, too. Once again, check out those displays! We recently found some with eight coupons in each book. In less than a week, we had used three of those coupons already!
8. Magazines
Magazines are a great place to find coupons, too! Next time you are flipping through pay attention to the advertisements. You never know where you are going to see a coupon! Also, start buying ALL YOU magazine. This magazine is full of coupons and is often listed in the coupons needed for sales. We never miss an issue, and sometimes buy two. ALL YOU can only be found at WalMart or you can get a subscription. We do need to mention though that recently there was a sale at Publix and in the coupon matchups, ALL YOU came up several times. The problem? It seems the subscribers did not get some of the major coupons found in the same magazine bought in the store. We buy ours.
9. Store Coupons
Store Coupons are different from a manufacturer’s coupon. A store coupon is obviously distributed by the store and can actually be used with a manufacturer coupon. Target, Publix, Walgreens, RiteAid and CVS all have store coupons.
For Target’s coupons, go to their website, scroll towards the bottom and you will links for different areas of the site. You will see a link for Grocery Coupons. You are allowed to print Target coupons twice from each computer. Some of the coupons offered are store coupons, and some are manufacturer. The only way to know which you are getting is by printing. They will also mail coupons and feature coupons in their advertisements so keep an eye out for these!
For Walgreens, RiteAid, and CVS check the front of the store and back by the pharmacy. These stores also have online coupons! Check each store’s online website. RiteAid is slightly different with theirs. They have a site that gets you to watch videos to be able to print a coupon (for whatever item you were watching in the video). Sign up for emails from these different stores and you can receive special coupons! CVS is notorious for sending their email subscribers $5/$25 or $4/$20 purchases.
We get a lot of questions as to what the abbreviations mean in couponing. Here are the basic terms you will see.
SS- SmartSource insert found in your Sunday newspaper
RP- Red Plum insert found in your Sunday newspaper
PG- Procter Gamble insert found in your Sunday newspaper
GM-General Mills insert found in your Sunday newspaper
Q- means a coupon
MQ- Manufacturer coupon (often found in weekly newspapers or mail outs
IP- Internet Printable i.e. a coupon printed from the internet
Blinkies- When shopping, you will see red or black machines on shelves that blink with coupons in them.
Tearpads-Usually found on shelves and on displays, a coupon you literally tear off to take. When you are @ gas stations, check their displays and cooler doors, too!
Books-Usually found on displays or counters, these have coupons in them, too
Peelies-Found on a product and can be peeled off (please don’t steal these off a product you are not purchasing right then)
Catalina-Is actually the name of the machine that prints these. You will notice at Walgreens and Winn Dixie, that when you make a purchase, you will often receive coupons the “register” aka the Catalina machine prints out.
Rain Check-When a store runs a sale, you sometimes run into the problem of the item being sold out. A rain check can be given out by a store that will allow you to purchase that item within a certain time frame while honoring the sales price.
MIR-Mail in rebates
WYB- When You Buy
Double Coupons or Doubling-Certain stores will double the amount of a coupon. Some stores like Fred’s only do this on certain days (Saturday). Many will have a limit on the value (usually only coupons for 50 cents or lower) or how many you may use.
Stacking- Using a manufacturer coupon and a store coupon on one item
B1G1 or BOGO- Buy one item get one item free
$/$$- Make a $20 purchase and get $5 off your total purchase
PG, 10/18- Smartsource, October 18th insert
Exp- The expiration date of your coupon
RR- Register Rewards (given out at Walgreens)
ECB- Extra Care Bucks (given out at CVS)
SCR- Single Check Rebate (given out by RiteAid)
I guess the recession truly has hit everyone/thing! At least even family pets know to drive to Publix to save money. :)
Spent $8.40 Saved $243.01
Used manufacturer coupons, competitor coupons, store coupons and register rewards from Walgreens
Bought:
4 Honey Bunches of Oats
6 Lucky Charms
2 Cinnamon Toast Crunch
8 Juicy Juice
8 Pace Salsa
1 Gallon Milk
2 Cooking Oil
8 Ronzoni Pasta
4 Hormel Chili Master Chili
7 Starkist Albacore Tuna Pouches
3 Navel Oranges
2 Ragu
8 Planters Peanuts
8 Green Giant cans of Corn
8 Knorr Sides
6 I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
6 Kraft blocks of Cheese
1 Digiorno 200 Calorie Pizza
1 Oreo Cakesters
Rain Checks for: Lipton Tea, Right Guard Sport deodorant, Bayer
Happy Birthday, Mom!! We love you!
If you coupon, you know we print. A LOT. A WHOLE LOT. Which of course means we need ink and we want it cheap.
TODAY ONLY Walgreens is offering 54% off of 1 Printer Ink Refill. This is a GREAT DEAL! There is a limit of one refill per customer and you must have this printable coupon.
I think my husband may propose to me again if I keep cooking like I have been! We had leg quarters (5 for $2.80) out yesterday to thaw and that moment came. That moment of what shall we do with these?
Don't freak out when you see the ingredients. Bobby is NOT a fan of mayonnaise and LOVED these. My Dad is not a fan of chicken and LOVED these. the mixture keeps the breading on as well as sealing in the juices. This was the most tender, juiciest chicken we've had in some time.
Leg Quarters (any chicken will do)
Mayonnaise
Milk
Ranch Dressing
Flour
Bread Crumbs (I mixed original with Italian)
Preheat to 400
First, wash your chicken and pat it dry. Put some flour on a plate and your breadcrumbs on a seperate plate. In a bowl, mix 1 cup mayo, splash of milk and a few squirts of Ranch dressing. I made my mix a bit thick, which is what you want. This will stick better to the chicken.
Dip your chicken in the flour mixture first. Once I had both sides coated, I used a BBQ brush to add my mayo mix to one side of the chicken. Now place the may coated side on the breadcrumbs plate. I then coated the bottom of the chicken with the mayo mix, then flipped it to cover it with breadcrumbs. Coat them well!
Put your chicken in your baking dish. (I covered a cookie sheet with foil for less cleanup!) If you see spots that need more breading, sprinkle some! Repeat this process for all of your chicken pieces. I let ours cook for about an hour. These are so pretty and tasty!
I served this with broccoli rice au gratin and we were stuffed, with leftovers to boot!
Okay, I am on a roll this week, and the family is getting spoilt! Last night for dinner we had pan seared pork bites, rice, organic green beans and croissant rolls.
Pork stew meat (on sale for under $3)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Garlic (the powder is fine in a pinch)
Onions (the powder is fine in a pinch)
Butter (it makes life better, trust me)
Wash your meat first, arrange it out on a plate and season well. We wanted to keep it simple and just used salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. There is so much you can add to oomph this up, though, so if you are feeling creative, GO FOR IT! Throw a tablespoon or two of butter in a hot pan. Let this melt well and get super hot. Once it is, toss in your pork stew meat and let it cook until it is a pretty brown. Then turn over and let this side get nice and brown, too. Remove from heat and put on a seperate plate. Because some of the meat is larger than others, it may be pink on the inside still. Just to be safe, once all the meat is browned, I put it in the oven for a minutes.
Again, these were so delicious! My family loved how tender and juicy they were. We served it with steak sauce (ketchup for the little one). Two nights in a row, everyone had seconds.
What made us buy pork stew meat? Well, if you have tried to buy beef lately, then you know why. Beef has gotten so expensive, we look for alternatives, i.e. turkey burgers, pork stew meat, pork steaks, etc. My Dad didn't even realize it was pork and thought it was just really tender steak.
Where did we find affordable, good quality meat? We mainly buy our meat from Food World, and swear by their quality. We check once a week in the meat section for sales. When we find something cheap, we stock up. Rather than buy 2 packages of chicken legs for $2.50 each, we will buy 6-8 packages. That way on the weeks when there aren't meat sales, we still have plenty.
Another free redbox code has been released! I see a date night in our future!
Use the code: V7J6D4V at any local redbox to score a free movie rental for the night. This code will expire March 14th, so get to renting. This is a one time use code (unless you have two debit cards, ahem...)
Happy savings!
All I can say about last night's dinner, is WOW. OH, WOW!! We have a large stockpile of chicken, especially chicken legs. Well, I had chicken legs out for dinner, knew everyone was tired of fried (gasp! a southerner tired of fried chicken?!) and baked chicken, so I went searching. My mission? Anything other than fried or baked chicken (duh). This is what I came up with, and yes! we had everything on hand!
12 chicken legs (use whatever cut you have)
3/4 cup soy sauce
1 cup brown sugar
sesame seeds (not necessary, but they look pretty, lol)
Preheat oven to 350-400
Wash chicken off thoroughly. Mix all ingredients except the chicken in a bowl. If you have the time, let the chicken marinate on both sides in the sauce for a few hours. I didn't have the extra time and it still came out yummy! Cook for about an hour. I sprinkled some more brown sugar and sauce on the chicken towards the end.
These are delicious. Well, we needed a side that fit the taste of teriyaki chicken, so I went on another search and came up with a simple, modified version of Fried Noodles! Again, I just used what we had in stock, so this is a base recipe and can be foofooed up. Yes, I said foofooed.
1 box Angel Hair Pasta (Ramen is what it calls for)
1 bottle soy sauce
Vegetable Oil
3 Eggs
Sesame seeds
Pinapple Juice
Salt, Pepper to taste
Chili Seasoning
I cooked the noodles to al dente (2-3 minutes). As the noodles were cooking, I beat 3eggs and scrambled them in a pan. Put those in a small bowl for now. Once your noodles are done, drain. I put a 3-4 tablespoons of oil in my pain, got it hot then added in my noodles , the soy til it is a pretty brown, eggs, splashes of pineapple juice, sprinkle in some chili powder, some sesame and stir. I had frying tongs I used to toss the noodles around. There was no science to this recipe. There was a lot of praying and "God, please let this at least be edible..."
Taaaaaddaaaaa! YUMMY! I was shocked. I tried two new recipes in one night, and both came out splendidly. Everyone wanted seconds and yes, there were thirds for some. Lucky Bobby has it for lunch. The pinapples were cut up and served as a side and will be part of my Dad's snack today. Try this, add to it, but most of all, enjoy it!
Sorry for the brief break! As most of you know, it was Mardi Gras Tuesday and our family went downtown for the day. Thanks to a fantstic stockpile, we had plenty of ribs, drumsticks, wings, hot dogs and hamburgers (from my cousin's stockpile!). We were also able to pack plenty of drinks and snacks from what we have on hand. We spent very litte which is always our sensible goal!
Tonight for dinner, we are having Pork Steaks grilled by Bobby! We bought the pack for under $5 and it normally has about 9-12 steaks in it. Plenty for two nights and maybe a lunch or two, too! Sides will include a salad ($2), Uncle Ben's rice (under 75 cents generally). You can feed your family for LESS!!
We've already begun our list for Publix this week, as well as our lists for CVS, Walgreens and the Farmer's Market. For fruits and vegetables, we often go to Saraland Produce or Jimmy Lowe's. Saraland is closer to us therefore we visit it more often.
For Lent, our family has decided to offer a portion of our duplicate grocery items each week to a family or person in need. This will last the entire time of Lent. I would like to ask EVERYONE on here to think of someone you know that is truly in need of help. Please email us their story and info to fmdjgirl@aol.com with the subject line "Centsable Lent" so that we may pick a family. Please understand that this has to be a local family or person so that we can deliver the items as necessary. Note that we live in Chickasaw, AL and would like to keep it within a 40 mile radius. Although we are asking for one family or person, we may try to allot a certain amount to others as well. Please make sure the family or person is aware of your nomination. Feel free to email us any questions.
The family or person will be chosen Sunday, February 21, 2010 and will get their first delivery that day as well. Again, please make sure the family or person is aware that you are nominating them as we will need to contact them to set up delivery.
I was talking to someone recently who asked, what do you fix for dinner? She pointed out she didn't see a lot of main course or side course foods in my pictures or lists always.
See, that's the thing about being stocked up so much. I have lots to choose from already! A lot of what we buy is to restock in certain areas of our little Anderson store, erm pantry or snacks for around the house, parties or lunches. You also have to remember that we spread the groceries between our house, Jeanna's parent's house and Jeanna's grandmother's house.
We will try to keep you updated with dinners in our house just to show you that yes, we eat real food, no, it isn't a diet of chips and coke, and that we eat well, too! Our house feeds a minimum of five people every night (Jeanna, Bobby, Aidan, Nanna and PawPaw). On weekends, it is nothing to randomly invite people over for dinner at the last minute simply because we can and we enjoy the company.
So, what did we have for dinner last night? We had ribs (under $5 for the pack), baked beans and texas toast. The ribs were enough for each adult to have two and still have leftovers for tonight! Aidan doesn't like BBQ (we have to change this if he plans on staying in the South!) and asked for something simple. He wasn't feeling up to par and just wanted one Toaster Strudel.
Tonight we plan on eating the leftover ribs, leftover beans and adding another side to the mix. I'll make Aidan something else, of course (see anti-BBQ above).
Unless you are under a rock you know that Valentine's Day is tomorrow. Are you ready? Well, if not, fear not!
Check the freezer, grab your sweetie's favorite meat out to thaw. Plan a simple dinner. Honestly, most guys will tell you their favorite meal is something cheap, i.e. fried chicken, meatloaf or if your my husband, GRUEL aka Hamburger Helper. Guys are NOT that hard to please, so why not try to do so every now and then?!
NExt, head to your local Redbox and use the code 2DGTAL22 to score a FREE movie rental for the night. Head home, and let's get dinner cooked! Can't afford a babysitter? No problem. Kids love special dinners, too! Get them involved decorating the table with hearts they have cut out, set up some candles and boom! Make it fun and have everyone wear red! A valentine gift fit for a king!
Dinner and a movie with the ones he loves and the ones who love him the most!
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