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Archive for December, 2008
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
Welcome to the special Christmas edition of the coupon funded menu corner! Christmas usually involves large amounts of food, and this year was no exception. Here’s a look at some of the festive goodies that I made:
We were invited to a fun party on Christmas Eve, and I was asked to bring my seven layer dip, which was a hit at the Halloween party. This is so simple and really tasty. I put in two cans of refried beans, my loose interpretation of homemade guacamole (I smashed an avocado with lemon juice, salt and pepper, salsa and some fresh tomato), black olives, chopped tomato, salsa, cream cheese, and shredded cheese.
As I mentioned yesterday, I had decided to give everyone homemade gifts this year. I started by making some hot drink mixes:
I had planned to make gift bags full of homemade goodies for a while, and was mulling over the various things I might include. Well, frugal minds think alike, because Money Saving Mom posted that she was doing the same thing, and shared some great ideas on her blog. I liked her idea of giving homemade drink mixes, so I followed her lead and made Fireside Coffee Mix to put in my gift bags. I also made Swiss Mocha Mix from this recipe collection, and Spiced Hot Chocolate from the Gifts In a Jar e-book – which was also recommended by Money Saving Mom!
I also used this recipe for Pancake Mix, and made 15 bags to give out. Judging by what I heard from one of the recipients, this makes yummy pancakes!
To make the mixes festive, I packaged them in fun party favor bags, and tied them with ribbon. Then I made decorative tags that gave the name of the mix and directions for preparing it.
And it wouldn’t be Christmas without Mince Pies! I’m from England, and Mince Pies are a tradition there. All you really need to do to make them is buy a jar of mincemeat, which is basically a rich fruit filling. Then you make a pie crust – I always use my favorite oil crust recipe – and cut small circles with a biscuit cutter. Place one round into a cupcake pan, fill it with a dollop of mincemeat, and cover with another pastry round. Poke a few holes in the top with a fork, and bake until lightly browned. Let cool, and then cover with sifted confectioner’s sugar.
Mincemeat usually isn’t cheap in America, since it’s an imported item; It typically runs about $6.00 a jar. However, I lucked out a while ago, when I found a bunch of jars on clearance at Safeway for only .99 cents each! Suffice to say, I bought them out. And that was before I started using coupons – I’ve always been a stockpiler!
I packaged the Mince Pies in the party favor sacks, and included them in each gift bag. I made a big batch – 48 altogether.
Here’s the sum of each gift bag’s contents:
I still have a ton of Lindt chocolate bars from the great sale at Walgreens, so I put them to good use here.
And there you have it: all my Christmas list, taken care of! As you can see, I had quite a conveyor belt of goodies going on. The only exception to this was that I had gifts for 3 people that I had already picked up at the beginning of the year, which was good, because two of those people live far from me; so their gifts were easier to ship than this would have been. I also won a present for Jai in a giveaway – some of you may already know that I like entering giveaways and sweepstakes.
My cupboards are still full of baking supplies after making these goodies, so I should be well stocked for a while. I never even used any of the margarine or eggs that I bought – I ended up having more ambition than time, but my gifts still turned out pretty well, even though I didn’t bake as many things as I thought I would.
Side note: My Internet connection has been very unreliable today. The internet went down this afternoon and was out for most of the day. I’m hoping that the problems have been fixed, but we’re getting some stormy weather coming through so it may go down again in the next day or so.
Posted in Coupon Menu Corner, Holidays | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
Now this is an unusual promotion! Money Saving Mom shares how you can sign up to receive a coupon for a free can of Campbell’s Select Harvest soup by texting “Select” to 467467 – click here for the full details.
I had never sent a text message in my life, but Jai just got a phone with free text messaging, so I tried it on his. They send you a couple of messages – the first one was, “Text your home phone number and we’ll look up your address to mail you the coupon.” I don’t like giving out my phone number, but I read here that you can just send them your zip code instead, which worked fine. They look up your city and state, and then ask for the rest of your mailing address. It was pretty simple, other than the 10 minutes I spent trying to figure out how to text message in the first place!
Posted in Free coupons | No Comments »
Monday, December 29th, 2008
Last Monday, I hobbled through the snow and ice to do my Christmas shopping. This year, I decided to put together gift bags full of homemade goodies for everyone on my list. These are the items I bought to make presents with – keep in mind, while this was expensive for a grocery run, these supplies provided Christmas gifts for all our friends and family in addition to filling the pantry.
First stop, Walgreens:
Total spent: Put $27.96 on two gift cards, spent $4.94 out of pocket. And I’m getting $2.20 back in rebates!
Total before coupons: $36.70
View receipt
Got:
1 package of red & green tissue paper
1 jar of instant coffee – used a coupon from the sales flier to bring the price down from $7.79 to $3.99
1 bottle of vegetable oil
1 8 oz bag of cheese
2 lbs. of margarine
2 boxes of ziploc bags – 50 altogether
2 packages of tape – 6 rolls altogether, 2 for $5. And I will get $2.20 back in Easysaver rebates for purchasing two packages.
2 bags of tortilla chips
1 big roll of cling film
1 roll of foil
I was able to use my $25 prescription gift card and my 10% bonus gift card to pay for almost all of this, which was nice. When I handed the cashier my one coupon, he said, “Is that it? You usually have a lot more than that!” I told him that I had gift cards, and that I use those to pay for things that I don’t have coupons for. He said, “That makes sense. I though you were getting lazy!” My reputation precedes me!
Next stop, Fred Meyer:
Total spent: $37.46
Total before coupons: $41.59
View receipt
Got:
1 2 pound bag of confectioner’s sugar – used an in-store coupon to save .24 cents
1 25 pound bag of sugar
4 bags of flour – 20 pounds altogether
1 bottle of Odwalla Juice – used a free coupon that I received in the mail
1 Odwalla bar – used a “Buy one Odwalla juice, get one Odwalla bar free” coupon that I got in a trade ages ago
2 cans of refried beans
1 can of black olives
1 8 oz bottle of powdered coffee mate
1 jar of salsa
1 Avocado
2 dozen cage-free eggs
1 Pledge duster – The only reason I bought this was because my feather duster wore out, and I could not find a regular feather duster anywhere! When did this become such a hard to find item? I limped up and down the store looking for one, and all I could find was this for $2.79. Well, I take that back; I did finally locate a regular feather duster by Mr. Clean that they wanted $8.00 for! I was bummed, because I knew I had Pledge coupons at home that would have made this cheaper, but I wasn’t about to drive half and hour to go home and get them. But I’m glad that I bought it, because it actually works much better than my old duster.
While $37 is unusually high for me, I bought these supplies specifically to make Christmas presents with. And since this left me with very full cupboards as well as taking care of all my gifts, I think I did OK. I definitely overbought, but the store was such a nightmare to navigate with the holiday rush and I didn’t want to go back!
Next stop, Costco:
Total spent: $15.99 – no coupons
View receipt
Got:
1 box of makeup removers – 120 altogether
We got a Costco membership as a gift last year, and while the prices are very competitive, I don’t shop there that often because they don’t accept manufacturer’s coupons. However, there were no good sales on this makeup remover anywhere else, so it was cheaper for me to get it here – usually, a box of 30 runs about $5.99 at other stores. I’m not a “brand loyal” person, but I always get this kind because it is the only makeup remover I’ve tried that can effectively remove my makeup without giving my sensitive skin a huge rash.
And finally, I needed gift bags to put all my presents in, so I stopped by the Paper Factory party store:
Total spent: $10.96 – no coupons
View receipt
Got:
2 bags of bows – 50 altogether. These were only .39 cents each, so I had to buy some!
1 Christmas card
2 packages of party favor bags – 40 altogether
1 package of 10 gift bags
9 individual gift bags
I usually stock up on gift wrap during after-holiday clearance (I still have rolls and rolls of wrapping paper that was .77 cents last year), but I was almost out of gift bags. And these worked out so well that I went back the next day and bought another 20-pack of favor bags and a spool of holiday ribbon for $2.98.
So are you wondering what kind of things I made to stuff these gift bags with? Check back tomorrow for a special holiday edition of the Coupon Funded Menu Corner!
Posted in Costco, Fred Meyer, Holidays, Walgreens | No Comments »
Monday, December 29th, 2008
It’s been a while since I’ve shared my coupon menu! I haven’t been cooking that much this month because of my foot – we’ve mostly been eating takeaway or quickie meals. Boy, am I glad that things are getting back to normal again! Here’s what we had tonight:
BBQ Chicken, baked potatoes, and salad, served with homemade bread and tea. This meal wasn’t 100% coupon-funded, since Jai has done a lot of the shopping this month while I recovered. But I still made good use of many stockpile items!
Posted in Coupon Menu Corner | 1 Comment »
Sunday, December 28th, 2008
I was finally able to limp out of the house for the first time last Thursday and do a little shopping!
I had grand plans to use my $25 prescription gift card from Walgreens to stock up on some grocery items that I needed – I was up there to see the podiatrist anyway, so it would have worked out perfectly. But we had to scrap that because it was starting to snow and get icy, and we wanted to get back before it got too bad. The coast doesn’t usually get a lot of snow, so this is a little unusual for us.
I figured I could just do some deals at Safeway instead, since that’s close to home. But we were in a hurry to get there, since the weather was getting progressively worse and we wanted to finish shopping before it got really bad. As a result, I didn’t have time to work out any great coupon deals, and I ended up spending more in one trip that I have in a long time. Here’s the breakdown:
Rite Aid:
Total spent: $9.99 – no coupons, sadly. But this does apply towards my “Gift of Savings” rebate.
View receipt
Got:
1 box of hair bleach – time to touch up my roots!
Safeway:
Total spent: $33.42
Total before coupons: $41.16
View receipt
Got:
1 package of tortillas
1 bag of cheese
1 carton of egg nog – I was feeling festive!
A six-pack of yoghurt – used a free yoghurt coupon that I won in a giveaway from Laura Williams’ Musings
A four-pack of yoghurt smoothies – on sale for $2.50, had a .75 cent manager markdown because of its 12/22 sell-by date. I needed lots of yoghurt because I was starting antibiotics, and this helps settle your stomach when you’re taking them.
1 tub of petroleum jelly – this is a must have when you’re bleaching your hair; It protects your hairline from irritation.
1 package of cotton swabs
1 package of Always pads – Regular price $6.29, stacked a $3 off Always catalina that I had received previously with a $1/1 e-coupon. This was my first attempt using e-coupons, and on my receipt it showed up as “Club Card” savings, without any special notation that it was an e-coupon.
1 package of first aid tape
1.43 pounds of broccoli
1 bunch of green onions
.59 pounds of yellow onion
1 Avocado
1 head of garlic
1.09 pounds of tomatoes
A 10 pound bag of potatoes
This one trip cost as much as my entire budget for the months of September and October combined!! Ugh. But I think it’s important to realize that it’s OK to pay more during those times when it’s just not feasible to bargain shop. I may be Super Coupon Girl, but when I’m limping through ice and snow in a soggy slipper – since I still can’t get my foot into a shoe – even I throw up my hands. I also wanted to make sure that we were well-stocked on produce and so forth, since I wasn’t sure how bad the weather was going to get. But because I save so much on the majority of my trips and have a stockpile to help me, it doesn’t break the bank to have an expensive month because of uncontrollable circumstances.
So what’s the weather like where you guys live? Have you been hit by a snowstorm yet? We normally don’t get much in the way of snow here, so this past week has been a bit unusual. I’ve never seen a snowman on the beach before:
Posted in Rite Aid, Safeway | No Comments »
Saturday, December 27th, 2008
Things are settling down again after my little break for the holidays. I had a great time celebrating with family and friends, and I’m feeling much better too. I’ve got a lot to talk about – including my frugal Christmas presents – so check back later today as I get back up to speed!
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, December 22nd, 2008
I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season! Things are pretty busy around here with all the festive preparations, and I’m a little off-kilter since I have a mild flu and still can’t walk normally. So bear with me this week if it takes me a little longer to respond to emails or comments, and have a great holiday!
Posted in Holidays | No Comments »
Sunday, December 21st, 2008
Click here to find out how you can print three coupons from the 2009 Entertainment Book free of charge. These are coupons for local businesses, such as restaurants, golf courses, movie theaters, and so on – could come in handy if you plan on doing these things anyway. Thanks to Money Saving Mom for the info!
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Saturday, December 20th, 2008
Click here to get a free 8×10 photo print at Walgreens. Just upload your photo online, use coupon code FREEGIFT and select in-store pickup to get your print totally free of charge! Offer runs through tomorrow, December 20th. This could be handy for those holiday snaps! Thanks to “Deal”ectible Mommies for the heads-up on this deal.
Posted in Free coupons, Walgreens | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
I got a nice rebate check in the mail from Rite Aid today, for $159.39! This was for the October rebate period, when I got loads of cold medicine, a razor, toothpaste, and adult undergarments to donate. I paid $149.89 for these items, so not only did I get them all for free after rebate, but I made a profit of $9.50. As I’ve mentioned before, I consider these kind of rebates to be a good investment – I couldn’t make $9.50 in interest if I kept that money in the bank for two months, nor would I have a nice stockpile of medicine to show for it.
Posted in Rite Aid | No Comments »
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