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June 23rd, 2010
Yesterday was day 2 of the All You Grocery challenge – so here’s our Monday menu:
Breakfast: Raisin bran from the pantry
Lunch: We had egg salad wraps, which I made with 8 hardboiled eggs, relish, mustard, seasonings, and three tablespoons of whole golden flaxseed, spooned onto tortillas. The flaxseed is a product sample that I received for review on Contest Corner – I’m also giving some away if you want to head over and enter!
 For dinner, I reheated the leftover chicken and vegetables from Sunday night. I LOVE leftovers on a busy weeknight!
Also, I rediscovered a forgotten pudding stash! I have a cupboard high above the sink that I don’t look in often, and I totally forgot that I had all these boxes of pudding and jello in there. How I could forget about chocolate pudding, I’m not sure, but I made up for lost time by mixing some up after dinner!
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June 22nd, 2010
Facebook users who click here and upload a photo will receive a coupon for one free Digiorno Deep Dish Pizza. Thanks, Deal Seeking Mom!
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June 21st, 2010
You may recall that I participated in the All You Grocery Challenge around this time last year. Well, it’s back for 2010, and I am participating once again! So what is this challenge all about? It’s a contest sponsored by All You magazine, challenging entrants to spend no more than $25 per person per week on groceries for a four-week period – click here for more details. Last year, I documented what we ate during each day of the challenge – sort of like a daily Coupon Funded Menu Corner! – and I intend to do the same this time.
So let’s start off by having a quick look through what’s in my pantry. I’ve been making a concentrated effort to use up what I have and clear out the pantry before my stockpile staples go bad, so I spent most of last month eating from the stockpile and emptying the cupboards. I hope to spend some of my grocery challenge budget fleshing out my stockpile with some good deals again!
I also have my budding little container garden, which I hope will be able to contribute to some of our meals!
The challenge began yesterday, so here is Sunday’s menu:
Breakfast: I didn’t eat breakfast because I was catching up on some much-needed sleep!
Lunch: Since I woke up late, I wanted something quick and easy – so we had a simple lunch of pasta with butter and garlic salt.
Dinner:
I used the last of my .99 cent chicken thighs for dinner. I prepared the chicken by drizzling it in olive oil and wine, and then added a stock cube dissolved in 2 cups of water. I chopped two potatoes and added them along with the last of my free organic celery and carrots, then seasoned the dish with chopped garlic, Spike all-purpose seasoning, and garlic salt (yes, I love garlic!). I had one ear of corn left, so I chopped it in half and added it to the pan as well, then covered the pan with foil and slow cooked it for about two hours, until the chicken was tender and falling off the bone.
Are any of you participating in the challenge? I’d love to hear all about it!
Posted in All You Challenge | 1 Comment »
June 18th, 2010
If you’ve signed up for any coupon offers recently, take a moment to check your email’s SPAM folder. After I took the Kidelicious survey on Wednesday, I found the $25 credit buried in my Gmail’s SPAM folder, and others have reported the same thing happening. Then today I discovered an email from Libby’s Vegetables in with my SPAM, containing a coupon for a free can of vegetables from last month’s Facebook promotion. (I actually signed up for a paper coupon to be mailed out, but apparently due to demand they’ve decided to send all the coupons via email instead.) So I just thought I’d post a heads-up so that my readers don’t miss out on the good deals that might be caught in a SPAM filter! I check mine regularly, because there are always a couple of legitimate emails that get caught in there by mistake.
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June 17th, 2010
A lot of my meals this month have involved my new toy: A food processor that I reviewed for Contest Corner (You can read my review of it here if you’re interested). I’ve never owned a food processor before, so I’ve been having great fun putting it to use. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been making:
Fruit smoothies with banana, frozen strawberries, tofu, and milk – I love smoothies, especially during summer months!
 How’s this for a extra-frugal tuna casserole: I used a free box of Ronzoni macaroni from my stockpile, free organic celery, .22 cent cream of mushroom soup (that I paid for with a gift card!), frozen onion from my freezer cooking day in March, milk, and seasonings.
The main reason I’ve been wanting a food processor is to save time chopping vegetables. Another neat aspect is that because it chops so finely, it means I can add more veggies without increasing volume or overloading the taste – I was able to add a lot more celery to this casserole than I would normally.
 I used the free potato salad dressing that I got last month to make a big potato salad for a family reunion this past weekend. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the finished product, but it was a big hit! I used 3 pounds of potatoes, 7 hardboiled eggs, and plenty of celery. This was a perfect way to use up some of my potatoes – every time I buy a bag of potatoes, half of them end up going off before I have a chance to use them, so I’m making an effort to utilize potatoes more often so that they don’t go to waste.
What’s on your menu this week, readers?
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June 16th, 2010
 Being a coupon blogger, I often get emails about promotions and special discounts; and when a particularly good deal lands in my inbox that I think is worth sharing, I’ll publish it here. This afternoon, Lisa of Kidelicious.com dropped me a line about a free food promotion that they are offering. Here’s what Lisa had to say:
“We are in the process of launching Kidelicious – the largest online kids’ food store where you can shop for all the major brands plus a wide range of hard to find items and healthier options. We are offering your readers $25 worth of free food on their first order at Kidelicious.com, slated to open January, 2011, just for filling out our survey at www.kidelicious.com/survey“
There is no minimum purchase requirement, so you could potentially use this to get $25 in free food. If you purchase less than $25 worth of merchandise, the items will be free and the remaining credit will be forfeit. This is limited to one per household. I’m guessing it probably does not apply to shipping, but I don’t know for sure. Obviously, 2011 is a ways off, but I thought it was worth a few minutes of my time to fill in the survey so that future me can potentially get a good deal on food! (I may not have children, but I certainly have childish taste in food!)
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June 14th, 2010
My rebate check for the Renpure conditioner “Try Me Free” offer has arrived – meaning that all of my outstanding rebates for the year so far have now been received!
Have you received any rebate checks lately, readers?
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June 9th, 2010
 If you live near a Farm Fresh store, click here to sign up for their email list using promo code FREESALAD and you will receive a coupon good for one free Fresh Express Salad Mix. Click here for their store locator. Thanks, Money Saving Mom!
Posted in Free coupons | 1 Comment »
June 8th, 2010
Back in April, my fiance went on his very first coupon shopping trip, with impressive results: he snagged 20 free Lunchables plus $18 in catalinas. But it gets even better!
You see, I thought it was unusual that it printed out an odd number of catalinas. There’s different types of catalinas, and in my experience, this type usually generates one catalina per item purchased. Since he purchased 20 Lunchables and received 18 catalinas, I had a hunch that perhaps two more should have printed; so I emailed Catalina Marketing to inquire, and sure enough, I was right! I just received this envelope in the mail, containing $2 in catalinas.
Also, I wanted to update you on the Charmin/Bounty deal from way back in March. I had been told that a representative from Catalina Marketing would call me back the next day, but I never heard back and did not receive anything in the mail; so I sent them a follow-up email to find out what was up. The representative who wrote me back did confirm that the deal ended on March 2nd. I let them know that the item was still tagged in the store on March 3rd, when I made my purchase, and they told me to take it up with Safeway. So at least I finally know what happened!
If you experience issues with a catalina coupon not printing, be sure to check out my post about who to contact.
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June 4th, 2010
One thing I’ve learned about online promotions is that they can be hit or miss. I’ve gotten some fab deals – like 8 hamburgers for $1.98, cheap stuff at Victoria’s Secret, $3 coffee and .38 cent Snuggle, an inexpensive coat, and so on. But not every deal is a winner – my recent Barrie Pace order was cancelled and they have not returned my email asking why; my photo stamps order was also cancelled, because the image I uploaded – my Super Coupon Girl button – was deemed “inappropriate”! (But as far as I know, everyone else got their stamp orders – Snapfish just didn’t like my logo.)
The reason for online deals being patchy is because the ad teams of many companies don’t understand how to create campaigns for an online audience. There have been too many instances where I’ve seen a legitimate company advertise a coupon code on their website (“$10 off ANY purchase! No minimum!”) – and naturally, since it’s a good deal, news spreads quickly and the company is deluged with offers. The company then panics and cancels all the orders. It’s an unfortunate scenario, because it should be entirely obvious that news of your good discount will spread like wildfire – that’s the point! Your ad campaign has succeeded! – and if you don’t establish a minimum purchase requirement for your $10 coupon, you can’t be shocked when a consumer uses it on a $10 item. Ultimately, the companies suffer because of the negative press – and resulting unhappy customers – when orders get cancelled like this. PR teams will eventually catch up to the new medium and learn how to craft appropriate offers for an online audience, but for now, we’re in the Wild Wild West of online deals.
That being said, I have never been scammed or lost any money because of online deals. I’ve had orders get cancelled, but all I’ve lost is a little bit of time placing the order. For me, it’s worth the speculation to take advantage of legitimate online coupon codes – if the corporation decides to cancel a valid offer because of their ill-thought-out marketing, that’s their prerogative, but other companies are savvier and anticipate the response their coupon codes will receive. And this has resulted in many good deals for me!
Bearing all that in mind, I wanted to let you know about this deal for $10 off at MedCo. Many readers over at Money Saving Mom have reported that their orders have already shipped, so I am cautiously enthusiastic. New customers can use coupon code MHS10 at MedCo to receive $10 off any purchase, and the company also offers .99 cent shipping. I ordered 3 boxes of Tampax (Something we always need to buy – right, ladies?!) and paid $2.96. Just FYI, I could not get the second coupon code that she posted, TENOFF, to work. I’ll keep you posted on what happens with my order!
Readers: What was the best deal you ever got online? Which was the most disappointing?
Posted in Online deals | 2 Comments »
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