BeCentsAble is a constantly growing and changing blog. The Grocery Gathering in particular evolves each week as new contributors and new stores are added almost daily. For several months, Heidi from Little People Wealth and I have partnered to bring you the best HyVee and Price Chopper deals. Those deals will continue to be available to you through the Little People Wealth link in the Grocery Gathering, but I will not be posting them on the front page of this blog. Heidi writes an excellent blog, and I recommend you consider subscribing so that you don’t miss any of the great deals and giveaways she rounds up each week.
In my mind, cheap ice cream is always worth announcing! Wendy’s has added two new flavors of Frosties to their menu. Click here to get a $1.00 off coupon for either of the new flavors. There’s also a link at the bottom of the page to email a coupon to a friend. Thanks to whomever passed this deal along. I’m having a case of “pregnancy brain” and cannot remember where I first saw it posted. So sorry!
Tonight, April 29, from 5-10pm is the annual Baskin-Robins 31 Cent Scoop Night. Every customer can order up to 3 scoops of ice cream and help Baskin-Robins honor firefighters. At some locations you will be able to make a donation to your local firehouse. Thanks, Freebies for Mom.
Click HERE to visit the Grocery Gathering homepage for all the best deals at other stores around the country.
A big thanks to Heather from NWA Deals for her help in compiling the best deals at Walmart. Please keep in mind that Walmart prices vary from region to region and store to store so the prices at your local store may not match the prices in this list. Deals from previous weeks may also still be available this week so check the past Walmart posts here.
It pays to keep your eyes open for coupons that may be available in the store. In-store coupons may be found in the form of blinkies, peelies or tearpads. Even if you don’t plan to use the blinkie or tearpad coupons right away, you can always grab a couple to add to your coupon organizer and use in the future. Here’s some details about some coupons Jennifer found at Walgreens and CVS. Thanks for passing these deals along, Jennifer!
At some Walgreens there is a coupon at the Bayer display in front of cosmetics for $1.00 off quick release crystals any size. Since Bayer quick release crystals are on sale this week for $2.49 with $2.49 RR, you will pay just $1.49 with the coupon and still receive the $2.49 Register Reward. Jennifer also found that some Air Wick Illuminates had $3.00 coupons on them (peelies) which makes them $1.99 each. Or use the $4.00 coupon if you received one in Sunday’s paper to snag these for $0.99.
Also, at some CVS stores in cosmetics there are coupons for Nivea body wash. Look for the mini pamphlet with three coupons inside including $1.00 off one ($1.00/1) or $3.00 off two ($3.00/2).
Reducing the number of disposable products consumed is a great way for everyone to reduce their grocery/household bill and the impact they are having on the environment.
Switching to Cloth Napkins
Paper napkins have earned their place in the majority of homes across America (and numerous other countries, too) for their convenience. But are they necessary? Less than a generation ago, although available, paper napkins were far less ubiquitous than they are today. What did they use then? The answer is simple enough: if they used anything at all, they used cloth.
One of my New Year’s resolutions last year was to switch to green cleaning. That decision led to my family’s reduction of our paper towel usage. For 2009 one of my resolutions was to reduce the number of paper napkins we use by adding cloth napkins to our collection. I found a helpful tutorial at Passionate Homemaking on how to turn a twin sheet into a set of cloth napkins. Lindsay made 20 cloth napkins out of a sheet she purchased for $4.00. I like her idea to make a set for a Christmas or homemaking gift. Although I am useless with a sewing machine, I had every intention to follow the simple instructions to make my own set, but when my mother heard of my resolution, she offered to let me have a set of my grandmother’s cloth napkins so we use those instead and remember my grandmother when we do.
How to Make the Switch Work for You
If you make or purchase cloth napkins that are similar in dimension to paper napkins then you can store them the same way you would store the paper variety. The only downside to the napkins from my grandmother is that they are much larger than a standard paper napkin so they don’t fit neatly into the basket where we keep paper napkins. We have to store them in a drawer in the dining room and remember to pull them out when we’re having a messy dinner. When they are soiled, we toss them into the small basket under the sink to be washed along with the collection of rags and washcloths that we use in place of paper towels.
Using paper napkins instead of cloth is another simple change that I wish we had made a long time ago both for its benefits to our budget and to the environment.
To learn more about saving money and time take a workshop! Click here to learn more.
We hope you caught the Early Show’s series this week “Super Market Secrets”.
Monday’s guestwas a Consumer Reports retail expert with the inside scoop on how grocery stores are designed to get you to spend and how to navigate AROUND that to be a “centsable” consumer. We can help you with that, too!
Tuesday’s guest: US!!! BeCentsAble’s founders, Chrissy and Kristin, took Susan Koeppen shopping to show her the power of the coupon and how to really make the most of those weekly sales!
Chrissy and I met up in NYC the first week of April to tape this segment with CBS. We (as you may know) are from Kansas City and Phoenix. We had no knowledge of the area, the prices or the store sales until just a few days before the shopping trip! We also did not have access to locally available coupons.
Guess what!!? We still managed to pull off a trip that saved us 66%PLUS we had a little more than $11 in store coupons (for 2 FREE gallons of milk and $2 off a future purchase).
How?? Keep reading!
First, as soon as we were notified of the store where we’d be shopping Chrissy went to her computer to check the Grocery Gathering and look up the store’s website to see the ad online!
The store was covered by a contributing blog on the Grocery Gathering and although it was in a different area, the sales were basically the same.
We could not use the coupon information because we didn’t have the locally distributed coupons.
Next, we contacted the store to ask them about their coupon and sales policies.
Did they double or triple coupons?
If so, up to what value and is there a quantity limit?
Did they allow shoppers to buy one of a product for half price if it’s on sale B1G1 FREE?
Did we need a store loyalty card/shopping discount card?
Then we started making a list of things an average family might need or use in a week.
The items we purchased represent a variety of products anyone could use from produce to toothpaste.
We read the circular for any special deals we could take advantage of that weren’t in the Grocery Gathering post.
To make things a little easier, we went online to the store’s website and requested our loyalty card so it would be in the system when we arrived to shop. This saved at least 20 minutes since the Customer Service counter was BUSY the day we were there.
Finally, we organized everything in our Couponizer for use at the store! Click here to read a review about the Coupononizer or order your own.
It was a blast to take the crew shopping and see how much we were able to get for so little.
We are grateful for this opportunity to demonstrate the potential that lies in learning how to shop and save “centsably” and how simple it is to make it happen!
Don’t recycle Sunday’s Parade magazine insert quite yet! There is a $1.50 Aveeno hair care coupon inside that you might want to clip first. Combined with a sale or promotion at CVS or Walgreens, you could snag yourself some inexpensive product. Thanks, Nicole’s Nickles, for passing along this find.
There are some great new coupons this week! Hurry to print your coupons now before the print limit is reached. I’m especially excited about the Kashi coupons, the Huggies coupon and the three California Pizza Kitchen coupons.
The list below represents coupons available in all regions; the coupons available to you will vary based on the zip code you enter and the offers you have already printed.
A big thanks to Kim at STL Mommy for helping us put this list together each week!
Tune in tomorrow to The Early Show on CBS to catch BeCentsAble during the section section of The Early Show’s “Supermarket Secrets” series. You may be surprised at what you can learn to save more money simply by knowing how supermarkets are set up to entice you to spend. When you know the “secrets,” you will be better equipped to cut your grocery bill.
There IS such a thing as a free lunch! Tomorrow, Monday, April 27, KFC is giving away a free piece of their new “Kentucky Grilled Chicken” to each customer. No coupon or purchase is necessary. You can check out their site for more details. Thanks, Your Coupon Buddy, for passing this deal along!
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