Welcome CW2 Daybreak Viewers!

Shell gas stations have a promotion going on right now where you buy 10 gallons or more of gas and get voucher stamped by clerk to get buy one, get one free ski tickets at Copper Mountain, Crested Butte, Loveland, Monarch, Sunlight or Winter Park. Certain blackout dates apply. Head over here for more information about this deal.

This Saturday, January 14th, IKEA is having a BYOF (Bring Your Own Friends Day) and if you RSVP on their facebook page here you will be able to print an offer for a free blue bag, free breakfast until 11 am and buy one, get one free lunch from 12-4pm. They will also be doing gift card drawings throughout the day.

Buca di Beppo has a printable coupon good for $10 off a $20 or more purchase good through Sunday, January 15th. Get this money saving coupon here.

Go ice skating for FREE at Southwest Rink at Skyline Park through February 14th. Skate completely free if you have your own skates or rent skates for only $2. Fun events like DJs on Friday nights, learn to skate on Saturday mornings, Saturday brings in live entertainment and Sunday afternoon is family entertainment. Head over here for more information about this fun activity.

Jamba Juice has some great printable coupons good through January 19th get a Fit 'n Fruitful 16-oz. smoothie for $2, a 12-oz. Probiotic Fruit & Yogurt Blends and a 16-oz. Coldbuster Smoothie for only $2. Head over here to print out these great coupons!

Mimi’s Café has a printable coupon good through Friday for a free 4 pack of muffins with any $7.99 or more breakfast or $8.99 or more lunch or dinner purchase. These 4 packs of muffins usually retail for $5.99, so this is a significant savings with this coupon.

Finally, we talked about shopping sales and clearance and this can save you lots of money. I shop after holiday sales to stock up on items for the next year. This year I snagged some full sized Nutcrackers for only $1, down from $20, some PJs for my kiddos for next Christmas for 90% off and several ornaments and decorations. Our family has a tradition of giving the kids new PJs on Christmas eve to wear and by buying them a year ahead of time, I save a significant amount of money. This year I spent $5 on 4 pairs of PJs, if I would have waited to get them before Christmas next year and paid full price for them, I would have spent closer to $50 on them!

I also shop at the end of season clearance for clothing and items for my kids. I always keep my eyes open for winter jacket clearances as these are pretty pricey. This year I snagged a couple of dress jackets for $8 each, down from $27 each and 2 winter snow jackets from Children's Place for only $14 each, after clearance price and 20% off coupon. If you shop at certain stores regularly, it pays to sign up for their loyalty club, as this is how I got the additional 20% off of my purchase coupon. These jackets retail for $70 each - so I saved a ton of money and was still able to get my kids nice warm jackets for next winter. I also do this for clothing for my kids. Now that retailers are getting out their spring merchandise, they are marking down their winter clothing and shopping ahead for their clothes for next year can save you tons of money!

Feel free to look around this website for tons of other money saving ideas and tips. Some of my favorite ones are here, here, here and here. Please feel free to contact me directly at thriftymomincolorado@gmail.com with any questions you may have after looking around the site!

Tom's of Maine Toothpaste and Deodorant? only $1 each!

This week (through Tuesday) Albertson's has Tom's of Maine toothpaste on sale for $3. There are $2/1 coupons available at the store to get these for only $1 per tube. My store had the coupons at the register and just scanned them when I checked out. Other stores are reported to have the tearpads of coupons out for you to grab yourself.

They had both kids and adult versions on sale, these are usually $3.99 at Albertsons. This is about the lowest price I've seen on this brand of toothpaste, so if you use this - stock up!! I heard that the deodorant is also on sale for $3, but forgot to look when I was there. If it is, you can use the same coupon to get it for only $1 each too!

While you are there check out their 3 lb. bag of oranges for only $1 and their frozen Tilapia (1 lb. bag) for buy 1 get 2 free this week - making it $2.66/lb. when you buy 3 packages. If they are out of either of these items just ask for a raincheck and pick it up on your next trip there.

Welcome CW2 Daybreak Viewers!

Happy New Year!!! We thought we'd kick this year off with a segment that discussed how to save money on your grocery bill. It's a bit of a novel, so let's get started...

I think grocery budgets are an area that most people would like to see cuts in their spending. With a little bit of learning and some planning, you can drastically slash your grocery budget. This first step to starting to save money on groceries is to track what your family eats. Doing this serves a few purposes, you will know what how much of items you eat and also may point out just at a glance a few areas you could instantly save money on. Beverages are an area that many families tend to spend tons of money on without even thinking about it. In our home we offer the kids milk or water as their regular choices. Juice is a special treat for any of us. We always have tea on hand for the adults but I spend very little of our grocery budget on drinks.

I suggest tracking your meals for a couple of weeks to see what you really are eating and drinking. Once you've done this, you now have a way to create a list of food items your family regularly eats. Do you eat chicken 3 times a week? Are canned tomatoes a staple used in a bunch of your meals? Sometimes we don't even realize what we are using so regularly without looking at it. Once you have this list, you can now use the weekly store sales flyers to begin meal planning and stocking up on items that are on sale. Did you know that Wal-Mart and Target have price matching policies. This is a great way to get all the great deals each week without having to run from store to store. Just bring in the sale flyers with you and let the clerk know that you have some price matching to do. I usually put all the items that I am not price matching at the front of my order and separate the ones I need to price match so that it is easy for the cashier and for me. I have each ad ready to go to show the cashier what the price should be. Price matching saves lots of money and time and energy running from store to store.

Meal planning is exactly how it sounds - make a plan of meals. This will give you an opportunity to buy items that are on sale and use them to make meals instead of deciding what you want to eat and paying full price for the items. Using what is on sale to make your meal plan is a HUGE step to saving a bunch on money on your groceries. My family eats lots of boneless, skinless chicken and I never pay more than $1.99/lb. for them because I buy them when they are on sale. I buy them in large quanities and take them home and divide them and freeze them so that I always have some on hand. This saves me from running out and having to pay $4 or more per pound for the same product. Also, be flexible with meal planning until you figure out what works for your family. I initially started out with a plan saying that on Monday we would have X and Tuesday we would have Y. Well it would be Monday and X didn't sound good to me at all and I'd forget my whole plan. Now I plan 6 dinners per week but don't assign them to a day, I just look at my list in the morning and try to decide what would be tasty for dinner that night.

Did you know that store sales run on about a 6-8 week rotation? This is where the tracking of your meals also comes in handy. If you know your family eats chicken 3 times per week and the sales come around about every 6 weeks, you should stock up on enough chicken for about 18 meals or so when you see that price at rock bottom! Stocking up on items at rock bottom prices and starting a "stockpile" of goods is a great way to save money - as long as you are stocking up on items you will actually use! Having a stockpile means that when you meal plan, you probably won't need to purchase everything the recipes require to make your meals.

The next step to saving money on your grocery bill is to use coupons when they are available for items you already use. Don't use coupons to buy items you don't use unless they are free or very inexepensive and you plan to donate them. To save the most money, pair coupons with sales to get items for pennies on the dollar. If you are shopping at a store that offers store coupons, you can "stack" store coupons and manufacturer coupons to save even more money.

Bigger doesn't always mean less expensive. Check unit pricing on the items you are buying, especially if using coupons. You usually get more bang for your buck if your purchase smaller items when using coupons. Also, try not to be too brand loyal. In my house there are only a select few items that I am brand loyal to, like ketchup. Otherwise, if I need pasta sauce and usually buy Prego, but Barilla is cheaper that week - then Barilla it is for us.

Planning and being organized is what will you the most money on your grocery budget. Minimizing trips to the store, as these trips for one item usually ending up with more than just that item in your arms. Follow these steps and stick to your shopping list and you will see drastic decreases in your grocery bill. When I intially started shopping like this and couponing, I cut my grocery bill in the area of 60% compared to what I was spending before.

If you are interested in couponing but are not quite sure what it is all about, I suggest reading this post to get your feet wet.

If you have questions, you can always contact me at thriftymomincolorado@gmail.com - Happy New Years, now let's save some money!

Tons of printable coupons - woo hoo!

Head over here to check out a TON of great new printable coupons that were just released. These coupons are completely free to print and can save you tons of money.

I'm super excited about these ones, but there are tons of other ones too...
$.50/2 any Kraft Natural Shredded Cheeses
$1/2 Big G Cereals (Cheerios)
$.75/1 Muir Glen Product - who said there aren't great coupons for natural/organic/healthy products??
$1/1 for 2 different Kashi products
$1/2 Ziploc brand bags
Buy 2 Play-doh 4 packs and get 1 free!
$1/1 Bear Naked product
$5/1 for 2 different Enfamil products
$4/1 Chuggington Train Video - rumor has it you can score these for $4.99 at Best Buy right now and if they will accept this coupon, they would only be $.99 out of pocket!

...plus a bunch more. Head over here to get them while they last!

Happy New Year!

I took a few weeks off from blogging to just enjoy the holidays and I really did, but now it is time to get back to the great deals! If you are like lots of people and looking to be healthier in the New Year then I may just have a couple of deals for you! Both deals are for meal planing to help making eating healthy even easier.

Weekly Plus is offering 3 months of meal planning made easy by My Weekly Fig for only $12 - a $30 value. Head over here to get more information or to get this deal. You may need to look on the right hand side of the page that lists multiple deals to find this.

The Savvy Source is offering 1 year of meal planning from Food on the Table for only $35 - a $70 value. Head over here for more information or to get this great deal. Click on the 'offers' tab at the top of the page to find it.

I'm really thinking of taking advantage of one of these great offers, what about you?

Treasure Cave Cheese Printable Coupon!

I love blue cheese and feta but it so stinking expensive. Head over here to print a $.40/1 coupon good for any one package of Treasure Cave cheese 4 oz. or larger. If your store doubles coupons, you will save $.80! This should make for some fairly inexpensive cheese depending on where you get it.

Just click on the food tab on the left side to find this coupon even faster. Don't forget that you can print this coupon twice per computer. Yummy!!

Online Photography Classes Deal - only $39!

If you are like me and hoping to take better pictures of your kiddos, then this may be the deal for you! Head over to Mamasource by Mamapedia to get an online self-paced photography classes of Potraits 101 and Camera 101 for only $39, a $79 value! Once you are logged into your account, you may need to look on the right hand side deals to find this one! You have a couple days to get in on this deal, looks like it is good through Sunday.

Mamapedia is another daily deal site but they give a percentage of your purchase to a school of your choice - I LOVE THIS!!!

This package would make a great gif for yourself or that person in your life who is a budding photographer. I am going to purchase one for myself, if you do it - maybe we can get together sometime to practice our newly acquired picture taking skills!