Archive for November, 2008

Free Dog Food

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

Have you adopted a dog from a shelter this year? If so, check out this great post on Sisterly Savings. Pedigree is offering a free coupon for a month’s supply of dog food to anyone who mails in this form with copies of adoption records dated between January and December 2008.

Western Family Contest

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

I read an interesting post on The Obsessive Shopper about Western Family’s website. Many of you have probably seen the Western Family brand of products in your local stores. If so, you should check this website out, because I guess they often give away free product coupons on their website if you watch their videos. And although they don’t have any coupons available right at the moment, I thought it was worth still worth sharing, because of a video contest that they are holding. The rules say that every person who submits a video will receive a $50 Western Family gift card, just for entering!

Now, these gift cards appear to only be redeemable at select stores, but they have an extensive list of participating stores on their website, with retailers listed in Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. I know I have a lot of readers in these states, so it’s definitely worth checking out. The videos can be anywhere from a few seconds long to three minutes, so it’s very easy to make a submission – certainly worthwhile for a $50 gift card, and who knows, maybe you’ll even win the grand prize of $1,000! Click here for more information on how to enter. Hurry, because the contest ends this Wednesday, the 19th!

If anyone’s curious, here’s what I submitted. I just uploaded it to my Youtube account and sent them a message with the link to it. Good luck, and I’ll post back when they send me more info on how to claim my gift card.

Shopping Trip – November 14th

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

Total spent: $6.80 out of pocket, and put $9.61 on a gift card. And I will get back $7.68 in rebates!
Total before coupons: $33.51
View receipt

Got:

4 bottles of Coffee-Mate – Used one .50/1 coupon from the 11/2 Red Plum newspaper inserts, one $1.00/2 Coffee-Mate catalina that I got at Walgreens recently, and the “Buy One, Get One Free” coupon that was in last week’s Walgreens sales flier.
1 Almay Mascara – Free after rebate. I used a $1/1 Almay coupon from the 8/3 Smart Source newspaper inserts to gain me a dollar profit.
1 box of Olay makeup removers
2 cans of Carnation Evaporated Milk – used a coupon from the Walgreens sales flier to make them .99 cents each, and then used a $1/2 printable to make them .49 cents each.
2 cans of Libby’s Pumpkin – used another coupon from the Walgreens sales flier to make them .99 cents each, and used another $1/2 printable to make the final price .49 cents each.
1 box of trash bags
1 8×10 photo print – Got it developed for free using the (now expired) deal I mentioned a little while back.

I also used the $5 off a $20 purchase coupon that was valid last Friday and Saturday.

Sadly, my store didn’t have any baking powder in stock, so no cheap baking powder for me.
There were no coupons for the trash bags or makeup removers, but they were things I needed. I’m brand loyal to the Olay because it’s the only makeup remover I’ve found that doesn’t give me a horrible rash.

After Walgreens, I stopped by Ross:

This cute little black dress was on clearance for $2.99!

Then it was on to Fred Meyer:

Total spent: $9.94
Total before coupons: $12.09
View receipt

Got:

1 gallon of milk
2 strips of Fleischmann’s yeast – on sale for $1.50 each, used one .65/1 coupon from the 11/2 Smart Source newspaper inserts, and one “Buy One, Get One Free” coupon from the 10/5 Smart Source newspaper inserts. And I got two .50 catalinas back for purchasing them!
.86 pounds of broccoli
.86 pounds of fair trade coffee

I splurged on the coffee! For the last few months, I’ve been using catalinas or overage at Safeway to pay for it. This month is pretty blah at Safeway, so I figured I’d just pick it up at Fred Meyer, since it’s only $6.99 per pound, as opposed to $9.99 at Safeway.
Last month’s $20 budget challenge was a lot of fun, but I think for November I’ll be spending closer to $25 or $30, since the sales aren’t as fantastic this month. It’s still amazing to me that I consider $30 for all our monthly food & supplies to be “expensive”.

Then I went through the line to roll my $1 in catalinas:

Total spent: Zero
Total before coupons: $3.15

View receipt

Got:

2 strips of yeast – used the .65/1 and “Buy One, Get One Free” coupons mentioned above
1 package of Ramen

After coupons, my total cost for the yeast was .85 cents. In order to use my $1 in catalinas, I knew I would need a small filler item. Lucky for me, the ramen was only .15 cents, which brought my total to exactly one dollar! I used my catalinas to make the purchase free, and got another $1 in catalinas back!
I always need yeast for my breadmaker, so this is a great catalina deal for me! I read about this originally on Hot Coupon World. I believe other stores may be running this deal as well. I had heard that it was supposed to be going on at Safeway, but apparently my Safeway has stopped carrying Fleischmann’s. I’m not sure how long this deal is going on for, but when I get more yeast coupons, I’ll try it again.

Then I went through one last time to use up my catalinas:

Total spent: .10 cents
Total before coupons: $1.10

View receipt

Got:

.83 pounds of carrots
.89 pounds of onion

Coupon Funded Menu Corner – Chicken Edition

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

I’ve been in the mood for chicken, so it featured heavily in two of our dinners this week.

Wednesday:

Sweet and sour chicken wings with vegetable fried rice.

I had a packet of sweet and sour sauce sitting in the cupboard, so I decided to make use of it. You basically just fry up some pineapple and then add the mixture from the packet to make the sauce. I defrosted some chicken wings that I had in the freezer, boiled them, and then added them to the sweet and sour sauce. Then I made some rice and fried that up with the rest of the broccoli that I had in the fridge, half a can of water chestnuts, half a can of mushrooms, and an egg. I forgot to put in any onion, but added it to the leftovers and fried it up for lunch the next day.

But I was still craving chicken, so here’s what I made on Thursday:

Lemon chicken, potatoes, and pumpkin stuffing.

I used this recipe for the chicken and potatoes, except I omitted the spices and added way more lemon juice. (I follow recipes pretty loosely, as you may have noticed!) I also used regular potatoes, not canned. This was a big hit! The chicken and potatoes were very juicy. Yum!

And the pumpkin stuffing turned out awesome. I had a lot of homemade pumpkin puree in the fridge and a loaf of bread that needed to be used, so this was an obvious choice. I used this recipe as a guide, but changed a lot of things. Basically, I fried some onion in Thyme, ground Oregano, and Fines Herbes, and then added it to the stuffing, which was composed of roughly half a loaf of bread, about half a cup of pumpkin puree, an egg, half a cup of chicken stock, two chopped cloves of garlic, and some salt and pepper. Then I added more of the spices to taste. This was the first stuffing I’ve made, and I was a little leery about how it was going to turn out – but it was really good. I like the pumpkin puree in the stuffing, because it adds a nice flavoring without being overpowering, and it also acts as a binding agent.

Free Del Monte Tomatoes

Saturday, November 15th, 2008

Do you subscribe to the Del Monte Dish newsletter? If not, this would be a great time to start! The first 50,000 users to log in to their account will receive a coupon for a free can of Del Monte diced Tomatoes. Can’t beat that! Click here to access the coupon offer – you will need to log in or create an account to access the offer.

This Week’s Sales at Safeway and Walgreens

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Gina at Mommy Making Money has a rundown of some sale prices and coupon matchups at Safeway this week; she also has a “Home For The Holidays” scenario that may be of interest. There are still no freebies or dirt cheap items with this promo, but there are good prices if you were going to buy these items anyway.

I’m going to head over to Walgreens tomorrow to check out some of this week’s sales, and possibly take advantage of the new $5/20 coupon that just came out. Check out Hot Coupon World and Southern Savers for a list of prices and matchups. I’m excited for all the sales on baking supplies! Sadly, my region did not get the Clabber Girl coupons that came out recently, so I won’t be able to score any free baking powder – still, 2 for $1 is the lowest price I have ever seen for baking powder so I’m still going to pick some up.

Can you believe that I’ve only been shopping twice so far this month? There haven’t been any hot deals around here, and my immediate needs have been few because I have so much food in the house as it is. Stockpiling really helps you save money when the sales aren’t great.

100th Post!

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

Wow, this is my 100th post on Super Coupon Girl! To commemorate this little milestone, here’s a link to a fun article on The Simple Dollar blog, with 100 different tips for saving money.

Free Genesis Juice Coupon (Oregon & Washington Only)

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

If you live in Oregon or Washington, click here to request a coupon for a free bottle of Genesis Juice. From what I understand, this product can be found at Whole Foods.

"Home For The Holidays" Promo List

Monday, November 10th, 2008

Hot Coupon World user Merczilla obtained a copy of the “Home For The Holidays” promotional list from Safeway, and was kind enough to take the time to upload it and share with other couponers. You can check out the post on Hot Coupon World here. The list shows all of the participating products in the deal, and as far as I know, it ought to be the same nationwide. However, if you have any questions about the listed items, just check with your local customer service desk.

So far, I’m not seeing any freebies or even close to freebies. This is a decent deal if you need to stock up on the promo items anyway, especially if you’re running low on baking supplies. But I personally don’t see any deals that I’ll be rushing out for yet; I’m waiting to see what the sale prices look like for next week.

Use a coupon, donate a meal

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Check out Paula’s post at Saving Money 101 to learn how Proctor & Gamble are donating meals with each coupon redeemed from their P&G Brandsaver insert this month. Very cool!