Welcome!

If you are brand new to couponing and just visiting this blog you can start at the Coupons 101 - Overview to get a start on the how to's of couponing.

Always, feel free to contact me at thriftymomincolorado@gmail.com

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Sign up for a BOGO dozen egg coupon

On Friday, 2/5 on Facebook fans of the Incredible Edible Egg will have a chance to receive a BOGO dozen eggs coupon. First, you need to go here to sign up to be a fan. Then this Friday you need to visit their page and click on the 'Free Eggs' tab and if you are one of the first 30,000 people to do so, you will be able to get the coupon.

Egg coupons don't come around often, so this is a pretty nice opportunity to get some free eggs.

New Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Coupon

There is a GREAT new printable out for goldfish crackers. Go here and scroll to the bottom of the page to get at $.75/1 off any goldfish cracker coupon. If you are heading to King Soopers today to take advantage of the last day of the sale this week, this coupon will make for FREE goldfish crackers, or pretty cheap anywhere else.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Discount Magazine Subscriptions

Best Deal Magazines offers discount magazine subscriptions. You can look through $4.69 subscriptions (usually for 1 year) to find the best deals or browse by category. I was excited to see both Family Fun and Family Circle included in the $4.69/year category. If you find some you like, use code PXCJ131 at check out to receive an additional 15% off. I have used them before and had no problems, they just take a little longer to start sending the subscriptions since they are a third party.

New Printable Coupons

At the start of every new month, the printable coupon websites restock the coupons they have available. It is a good idea to make it a habit to go there at the start of the month to check for coupons that you might be interested in printing. I suggested printing the ones you want right away because some of them run out of prints and aren't available very long, especially for items that go on sale frequently.

My favorite ones are:

Coupons - $.50/1 Green Giant Steamers that can be paired with King Soopers mega sale through Tuesday to get some cheap frozen veggies
$.75/1 Multigrain Cheerios - will make for some cheap cereal when it goes on sale

Redplum - $.50/1 Newman's Own product, good any any
$.65/2 C & H Sugars 2 lbs. or larger - these don't come out that often

Smartsource - has the same $.50/1 Green Giant Steamers and $.75/1 Multigrain Cheerios coupons that can be printed again from here.
$75/1 Any of the following Cheerios: Frosted, Apple Cinnamon, Banana Nut, Fruity, Chocolate, Plain, Oat Cluster Crunch, Yogurt Burst or Berry Burst

There are tons more to choose from.

Remember, you should be able to print each coupon twice by using your back button or going back through the main page a re-selecting them to print.

Walgreens Tips

A couple of quick things I like to do when shopping at Walgreens. I always like to write my plan down when I'm going to do several transactions with coupons. It prevents me from getting confused when I'm in the store and messing any of them up. I write down what I plan to buy and what coupons I will be using, sometimes I even write down approximate cost so I know what is going to happen in each transaction.

Before I get to the register, I like to get everything in order. I group together the items I intend to buy together for each transaction and get my coupons organized. This prevents me from mixing things up or getting flustered when people are behind me in line. If a line starts to form behind me and I plan on doing a few transactions, I tell the cashier to take care of the other people so that I don't hold up the line. My whole goal is to remain as low key and low maintenance as possible. If you plan to shop at the same store a lot, then you don't want to be thought of as the high maintenance couponer!

I also like to write on the RRs I receive which product they are from. It keeps me from accidentally using the wrong one on a purchase and then not receiving a new one. Also, when I have multiple RRs waiting to be spent, I put them in order from the ones expiring soonest on top to the later ones, to try and prevent me from letting one expire and wasting my money.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Walgreens Weekly Deals 1/31 - 2/06

UPDATE: It looks like the Scalpicin coupons expired on 2/1, so you won't want to print and try to use those the rest of the week.

A couple of notes since this is the first Walgreens post. Walgreens doesn't double coupons but every store I have shopped at takes internet printed coupons. I will list all of the best deals I see, but the list is not all inclusive. I will try to explain some scenarios when applicable to "roll" your Register Rewards (RRs) to get more products with as little money out of pocket as possible.

The idea of "rolling" RRs is using a RR from one purchase to get another product and still get a RR. You cannot use the same RR over and over, for example this week you cannot use the Vitamin Lip Care RR to buy another Vitamin Lip Care RR and receive another RR. As long as the products do not have the same manufacturer, you can use it to buy another product and still get a new RR.

Register Rewards are considered manufacturer coupons and at Walgreens you need to have more items than manufacturer coupons in a transaction, so we will be using "fillers" cheap items to be able to use all of our coupons. This week I'll be using the $.29 Russell Stover Valentine's candy, but feel free to use any thing cheap that you would like. Also, your purchase before taxes has to be more than the RR is for or the register won't accept the RR.

Here are the best deals:

Blink Tears, .34 or .5 oz. $7.99
Use $2/1 coupon found in 1/31 RP or Printable coupon here (must sign in first) or keep an eye out for peelies as I saw a few on products at the store today.
Spend $5.99 - $7.99, get $8 RR = Free after RR or up to $2 money maker!

Scalpicin Medicated Wipes, 12 pack $5.99
$1/1 printable coupon here (this coupon only prints when using Internet Explorer)
Spend $4.99 - $5.99, get $6 RR = Free after RR or $1 money maker!

Joint Juice 30 count, .25 oz. each drink mix $10
No coupons to use for this one but receive a $10 RR good on your next purchase.
Spend $10, get $10 RR = Free after RR!

Zicam Cold Sore Swabs, 10 count $10
Use $3/1 coupon found on package
Spend $7, get $7 RR = Free after RR!

Vitamin Schtick Lip Care, .14 oz. $1.99
No coupons to use for this one but receive a $2 RR good on your next purchase.
Spend $1.99, get $2 RR = Free after RR!

Russell Stover Valentine Candy, .87 to 1.25 oz. $.29 each
Limit 6 per transaction.
No coupon needed, just a great filler item when putting together scenarios this week.

This is an awesome week to start shopping Walgreens RR deals.

This is how I would start, I usually do at most 3 transactions per trip to the store to try to not be too big of a pain. That usually means that on a week like this week, I make several trips to the store throughout the week.

Transaction #1:
Vitamin Schtick Lip Care, $1.99
No coupons to use.
Spend $1.99 plus tax get, $2 RR

Transaction #2:
Scalipicin Medicated Wipes, $5.99
Russell Stover Candy, $.29 (we need a filler since will be using a RR and a coupon, so we need 2 items)
Use $1/1 Printable Coupon linked to above and $2 RR from Vitamin Lip Care
Spend $3.28 plus tax, get $6 RR
Transaction #3:
Zicam Cold Sore Swabs $10
Russell Stover Candy, $.29 (again, we need a filler)
Use $3/1 peelie found on product and $6 RR from Scalpicin Wipes
Spend $1.29 plus tax, get $7 RR

Transaction #4:
Blink Tears, $7.99
Vitamin Schtick Lip Care, $1.99
Use $2/1 coupon from 1/31 RP and $7 RR Zicam RR
Spend $.98 plus tax, get $8 RR for Blink Tears and $2 RR for Vitamin Lip Care

Transaction #5:
Joint Juice, $10
Russell Stover Candy, $.29 (again, we need a filler)
Use $8 RR for Blink Tears and $2 RR for Vitamin Lip Care
Spend $.29 plus tax. get $10 RR

You now have a $10 RR from Joint Juice that you can use to buy other RR deals or anything you would like as long as your total is $10 or more!

Repeat as many times as you wish.

If you did the above transactions I listed out, you will end up with:
2 Vitamin Lip Cares
1 Scalpicin Wipes
1 Zicam Cold Sore Treatment
1 Blink Tears
1 Joint Juice Drink Mix
3 Russell Stover Candy
$10 RR to use on whatever you'd like
all for only $7.83 out of pocket plus tax (they charge tax on before coupon prices)!

There are plenty of other good deals to be had this week, but I wanted to start smaller and not overwhelm you too much.

Also, while you're doing all of your Walgreens shopping this week, keep your eyes open for this book...
It is the Walgreens coupon book for the month of February with tons of Walgreens store coupons in it that you can stack with manufacturer coupons. They are free to pick up and can be found throughout the store, sometimes up by the registers, sometimes on endcaps, it really varies by location where they are found, so keep a lookout for them.

Let me know how your Walgreens deals go - Happy Shopping!

Brown Cow Yogurt - as low as $.33/each

This week (through Tuesday) Whole Foods has single cup Brown Cow yogurt on sale for $2/1, which is a great price by itself since it is usually $.99 each. There is a printable coupon here for $.50/3 that you can print one time to get three of these yogurts for $1 or $.33 each - that is the lowest price I've ever seen on these!

Also, while at Whole Foods look for this booklet...
These are usually on a display right inside the front door near the carts before you actually get into the store itself. It is filled with over $40 of store coupons good only at Whole Foods. It is a booklet that comes out every 2 months, so this one is good through February and is a great money saving resource. I called Whole Foods in Westminster and asked about being able to "stack" these store coupons with manufacturer coupons and was told it is allowed, but I haven't tried it yet.