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Archive for September, 2008
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
Today was all about fuel discounts. First, I received a $5 Chevron gift card in the mail, from taking part in a quiz contest a few months ago. Second, it was time for me to redeem my Power Pump Rewards!
The first quarter of Safeway’s fuel discount program, Power Pump Rewards, ends tomorrow. This means that any points accumulated during the quarter must be redeemed, or you will lose them. Discounts are earned for every $100 you spend at Safeway. Each time you accumulate $100 worth of purchases on your club card, you earn a .10 cent per gallon discount. Even better, it counts your total before manufacturer’s coupons, and the discounts stack. Since I redeem so many coupons, I waited until the very end of the month to save up as many rewards as I could. I ended up with 22 rewards, which equals a discount of $2.20 per gallon! That’s a pretty big savings, and I was mulling over how I could best utilize it.
Safeway allows you to get up to 35 gallons with your Power Pump discount. My car has a 16 gallon capacity; my boyfriend, Jai, has a 12 gallon tank in his car. “We should borrow someone’s truck, fill it up, and then siphon the gas off into both of our cars,” Jai suggested. You know gas prices are high when this seems like a perfectly reasonable idea!
As a result of this brainstorm, we decided to ask Jai’s dad if we could use his truck today. As luck would have it, this truck has a gas tank capacity of exactly 35 gallons, and the tank was almost empty when we borrowed it. So, we took it over to the nearest Safeway gas pump to fill up.
My Power Pump discount brought the price down to $1.49 a gallon – a good deal in today’s world.
We filled the tank with 32 gallons of gas, for a total of $48.25. Here’s the receipt – I blacked out my debit card number, for obvious reasons:
Jai’s dad noted how $48 would normally get just 1/4 of a tank in his truck.
As we headed home, we passed by Walgreens, and I took the opportunity to nip in and grab a few deals. I had some Pert Plus coupons that expire tomorrow, and I wanted to use them up since they’re a moneymaker right now.
Total Spent: .22 cents
Total before coupons: $27.22
View Receipt
As I mentioned over the weekend, you can combine the manufacturer’s Pert coupons with this month’s EasySaver $2.50/1 coupon, resulting in overage. Here’s what I got:
6 bottles of Pert
1 pound of butter
2 packages of TP
1 Halloween gift bag – cute filler item!
After this quick WAGs run, we returned home and began the adventure of siphoning off gas!
Jai hooked up a garden hose to the truck’s gas tank, parked his car on a slope, and let gravity do the rest. Knowing that we would use this gas discount at the end of the month, he had let his gas tank get as low as he could, and was able to put a full tank into his car.
After his car was filled, we moved my car into position. In the meantime, we had to keep the hose elevated so that it wouldn’t slosh gas around, so Jai tied it up into a tree. People driving by must have wondered what on earth we were doing!
My car had a little more gas in it than Jai’s, but I still got at least 10 gallons or so. And after both our cars were full to the brim, the truck still had half a tank left! Suffice to say, I am pretty pleased with the Power Pump Rewards program. I wonder how much of a discount I can rack up in the next quarter!
Posted in Power Pump Rewards, Safeway, Walgreens | No Comments »
Monday, September 29th, 2008
If you use as much Zantac as I do, the following coupon is for you! Walgreens is offering a printable coupon for a free box of Zantac, up to $5.50. All you have to do is click here and enter the UPC from any box of Zantac along with your contact info. Thanks to Common Sense With Money for the tip!
Posted in Free coupons, Walgreens | No Comments »
Monday, September 29th, 2008
 I won a blog award today! Faithful reader Rebekah C , of Ready Set Read Reviews, kindly nominated me for the “I Love Your Blog Award”! Rebekah reviews children’s books on her blog, and even though she just started blogging a week ago, she already has a plethora of reviews posted. If you’re looking for new books to read to your kids, you should check it out!
Update: Nancy at Raging Bear Ranch and Michelle at Saving Some Green also nominated me for this award! How nice, thank you both!!
Now, in order to keep the fun going, I’ve been instructed to nominate seven of my favorite blogs to receive this award, as well. I thought for a while about who I should nominate – and I realized that I know of way more than seven deserving blogs for this! So I decided to do something a little different. I am nominating all of the sites listed in my blogroll, because they all rock! So if your blog is listed as one of Super Coupon Girl’s Allies, feel free to grab the “I Love Your Blog” logo, and post it on your blog along with your seven (or more!) nominees.
Posted in Award | No Comments »
Sunday, September 28th, 2008
My “double dip” day at Walgreens went perfectly! It’s known as a double dip because for two days, the September EasySaver rebates overlapped with the October EasySaver rebates, meaning that you can buy items for both rebate periods, and use the coupons from both rebate books.
First transaction:
Total spent: Nothing out of pocket, put $9.00 on a gift card
Total before coupons: $15.00
And I got a $10 Register Reward back!
View receipt
Got:
3 bottles of Dimetapp – I used the $2/1 printable found here. Thanks, Money Saving Mom!
I bought this simply because it was a small moneymaker, and worked nicely with the other deals I had planned. And if you compare the ingredients to adult cough syrup, it’s actually no different – it’s just a smaller dose.
Second transaction:
Total Spent: Nothing out of pocket, put $2.99 on a gift card
Total before coupons: $19.99
And I got a $8 Register Reward back!
View receipt
Got:
1 box of Crest Whitestrips, 56 count – I used the $10 Register Reward that I earned in the last transaction, and a $7/1 coupon that I received in the mail. Click here if you’d like to sign up for Whitestrips coupons. Also, I believe there is a $7 Whitestrip coupon coming out in Sunday’s P&G insert, although I haven’t gotten a paper yet to check.
I started using these last month and I really like them, so I was glad to find this good deal, since they’re normally expensive.
Third transaction:
Total spent: $3.38 on a gift card, and $13.28 out of pocket. But I will get back $14.27 in rebates!
Total before coupons: 33.66
And, I got back a $3 Register Reward this time.
View receipt – I omitted the second half, since it had my debit card number on it.
Got:
1 gallon of milk
1 package of Oreos
1 package of Chips Ahoy – the Register Reward was for buying the milk & cookies. Thanks to Common Sense With Money for the inspiration!
2 6-packs of TP
1 Glade candle – free after coupons & rebate. I stacked September’s EasySaver coupon for this with a recent insert coupon – 8/24 SS, I think. Props to Money Saving Mom again for pointing out this deal!
16 Halloween cups
20 Halloween pencils (I throw a huge Halloween party every year, so these will be perfect party favors!)
1 package of L’Oreal makeup remover – October “free after rebate” item
2 bottles of 6 hour energy drink things – October “free after rebate” item
I also used the $5/20 coupon that I mentioned yesterday, and the $8 Register Reward from the last transaction.
Fourth and final transaction:
Total spent: 0. They handed me .54 change back! And I’m getting back a $3.49 rebate!
Total before coupons: $16.46
View receipt
Got:
1 4-pack of TP
3 Halloween puzzles
3 bottles of Pert Plus – used a $2/1 coupon from the 8/3 inserts, stacked with this month’s $2.50/1 EasySaver coupon
1 bottle of Dawn – used .50/1 coupon
2 lint rollers
Ok, so this one was a surprise! My plan was to use up my last Register Reward by getting a few things I needed, and combine it with the Pert deal. The Pert is on sale for $3.49 each, but by stacking the insert coupon with the Easysaver coupon, you get $4.50 off, resulting in $1.01 overage. Where I went wrong was that I completely forgot to double check the price. I had printed off a copy of Money Saving Mom’s scenarios, just to make it easier to figure out the deals – my Walgreens is in the next town over, so I have to be prepared! Anyway, I just glanced at the price she had listed from the sale flyer, which was $3.79; but my store had it priced less, at $3.49. I’m usually very detail-oriented, but I just forgot to look at the price this time. So when the cashier rung me up, it showed negative .54 cents! Oops! The checker called a manager over, who looked at my coupons, looked at the receipt, and then said to the person ringing me up, “Well, it looks like you owe her .54 cents!” The manager proceeded to open the till and hand me the change!
And as if that wasn’t good enough, I get to claim a $3.49 rebate for one of the bottles of Pert!
Posted in Walgreens | 1 Comment »
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
It was my birthday yesterday, which is why I’ve been quiet for a few days. One of the birthday treats I received was a coupon for a free cookie at Quiznos – I got it in my email because I signed up for their mailing list. If you’d like to get a free cookie on your birthday, along with other coupons for Quiznos, click here to sign up for the QClub!
I did make a quick trip to Safeway yesterday, because it was also the last day of my 10% discount.
Total spent: .37 cents
Total before coupons: $47.07
And I got:
1 bottle of Coffee-Mate
A 6-pack of drinkable yoghurt
2 packages of TP
38 Pure Protein bars
Safeway has the Pure Protein bars on sale for $1 this week, and there was a coupon in the 7/20 newspaper inserts for $1.50 off two. If your store doubles, they’re free; if not, it’s .50 cents for two. These are pretty good – S’mores is my favorite flavor!
Posted in Safeway | No Comments »
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
I never got a chance to post my second Safeway trip on Tuesday:
First transaction –
Total Spent: .25 cents
Total before coupons: $25
I got:
5 boxes of Nature Valley bars
5 boxes of broth
This was the last day of the $5 off 5 promo at Safeway, and these items were both included in the sale. I used .50/1 coupons for the Nature Valley, which I got out of a recent insert; I also rolled the $3.50 catalina coupon (more on that in a moment). For the Progresso I used this printable, which I had multiples of since we have many computers. The register then automatically deducted $10 for the promo!
I should have also received another coupon for $3.50 off for buying the Nature Valley, but there was a problem with the catalina machine (I’m guessing it was out of paper), and it didn’t print. However, I’ll just contact the catalina marketing company directly and they’ll mail me the coupon. But unfortunately, this messed up my second transaction:
Total spent: $3.40
Total before coupons: $6.00
Got:
2 packages of Kotex – used 2 $1 off printables
I was going to use the coupon that should have printed out to pay for the rest of my total, but alas. Although as it turned out, I wouldn’t really have been able to use it anyway, since the “on your next order” coupon would be for $3.50 off. For some reason, when I was deciding on the items to buy, I had it in my head that the coupon was for $3.25 off; I don’t know where I got that number from. Have I mentioned that it’s been a quad-shot week?
Posted in Safeway | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
Total spent: .02 cents
Total before coupons: $12.83
And I got a coupon back for $3.50 off my next purchase!
View receipt
You may notice that at the bottom of my receipt, it says I only have 11 power pump rewards. I was at 20 yesterday and haven’t redeemed any since then, so I called the customer service hotline to find out what was up. The rep told me that while it showed my correct balance of 20, it had not updated to reflect the credit from this latest purchase, so she added that manually. I told her that sometimes the receipts will show my club card info and savings, but not register the fuel rewards or take off my 10% discount. She said that this is because the 10% and power pump are hosted on one database, and the club card savings and information are hosted on another. She said that the database will go down occasionally because the power pump rewards are a new promotion and they’re still working out some of the kinks; this is why it will sometimes register my club card savings without applying the 10% discount or crediting me for the fuel rewards. The rep was extremely helpful, and went through my purchases in August and September to see which ones I did not get the gas credit for, since this has happened quite a few times. There were only 3 total that hadn’t come off, because the other instances where it didn’t show up on my receipt were apparently credited later. This would explain the recent order I did where I got more rewards than I was expecting – I should have asked her about that! At any rate, she credited me for the purchases that weren’t logged, so now I will have 21 power pump rewards, with $42 towards my next one! Yay!
Posted in Safeway | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
Just a quick one today:
Total spent: $1.00
Total before coupons: $5.17
View Receipt
I got:
1 gallon of milk
1 head of organic lettuce
1 can of tuna
I had aimed to get my total as low as possible after using my ONYOs, but I miscalculated the price of the items because I was in a hurry and didn’t check the signs closely enough. My total ended up being .73 cents higher than I anticipated, but I think I can live with it!
And just in case you’re curious to see what a hardcore coupon shopper eats, here are some pictures of tonight’s dinner:
Steak marinated in white wine & herb seasoning, salad with sundried tomatoes and a crispy onion topping, plus a pineapple garnish. There was homemade bread, too, but this picture didn’t turn out quite as well:
I don’t know how foodie bloggers always get such wonderful photos of what they make. When I take pictures of food, it usually looks pretty disgusting!
This doesn’t look like a budget dinner, but everything pictured was bought with coupons. I froze a bunch of steak after I bought it during a great sale in May – I don’t recall the exact details, but I know the total was really low. I got some awesome meat deals over the spring and summer, and I plan to use most of it up before we head into winter. My area gets really bad storms and power outages around Christmas time; last December, we lost power for 5 days. I don’t want to have a freezer full of rotten meat, so from now until next spring, I’m going to keep the steak stockpile to a minimum.
Posted in Produce Deals, Safeway | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
This week’s giveaway is especially for parents. And for a fun twist, there will be two prizes this time!
First Prize:
A gift package for moms, consisting of the following items:
An 8 oz sample jar of Similac infant formula, for birth to 12 months
Informational guide from Similac, all about feeding your baby
Flier with information on how expecting mothers can receive a free diaper bag with Similar samples and offers at their hospital
And a selection of coupons for children’s products – there are coupons for kid’s multivitamins, children’s Zyrtec, Mott’s juice, Huggies Wipes, GoodNites,Johnson’s baby products, children’s Tylenol, Listerine Smart Rinse, PediaSure, and Nutripals – a $38 value altogether!
I received this Similac sample in the mail recently, and I’m not sure why, because I don’t have any children! I probably signed up for some promotion so that I could get good coupons to trade – and I’ve certainly gotten some interesting things in the post for being on all these mailing lists! At any rate, I know that one of my readers will definitely be able to use this.
Second prize:
A coupon good for $1 off any Luvs diapers. It doesn’t expire until March of 2009, so you’ll have lots of time to use it!
Here’s how to enter: Just leave a comment on this post, and you’ll be entered to win! Two winners will be picked – one for each prize.
To earn an extra entry: If you’d like to gain a second entry into the contest, just put up a link to my blog and leave a separate comment letting me know that you did. You can either link to this contest, or any other post that you liked. If you already have me in your blogroll – thank you, and be sure to leave a second comment mentioning it to improve your odds!
Fine print, rules, etc: This giveaway is only open to US residents, because I unfortunately can’t afford to ship this package overseas. (APO/FPO addresses are OK, because the rates are the same as domestic.) But fear not, international readers! I will be having another giveaway that you can enter soon!
Entries will be accepted until 11:59 PM, September 29th. A winner will be chosen via Random.org on September 30th and notified. Be sure to leave your email address, either in your post or in your blogger profile, so that I can get in touch if you win! Email address will be used only to notify winner. If, for some bizarre reason, the winner does not respond after 4 days, a new winner will be chosen.
Good luck!!
Posted in Giveaways | 2 Comments »
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