Archive for February, 2010

How to SAVE MONEY with Coupons

With budgets tightening for families everywhere, ours included, coupons are more important for household budgets. I have always been a sales junkie, but coupons (and freebies) have become an important way for me to contribute to our bottom line. I have learned a lot about couponing over the last year, and I am proud of the money I have saved my family on everyday necessities. To me, it is like found money when I save money on things we would have purchased anyway.

Since saving money is such an important way of life for The Suburban Mom, I love to include freebies and good deals on this blog. But the best way to make sure you get the most out of your hard-earned dollars at your favorite stores, it is important to match sales and deals with coupons.

Where to find coupons? The most obvious place to find coupons is the Sunday paper – Red Plum, Smart Source and Proctor and Gamble are the most common inserts. The next place to look for coupons is online. My favorite place is Coupons.com. (Note – you can usually print 2 of each coupon from Coupons.com, but they are limited in quantity, so the best time to check them out is when they reset at the beginning of each month — AKA today! So, if you see a coupon you want, print it right away.)

In order to make the most of coupons and sales, you need to know all of the best match ups. No one pairs match ups better than Jenny over at Southern Savers. With Southern Savers, I find out how to make the most of my coupons at Publix, Walgreens & CVS. (Jenny tracks lots of other stores too, but these are my favs.) Oh – did I mention, Southern Savers is a FREE service!

Check out all of the items I have gotten for FREE over the last few weeks. Note, I am donating all of these items to Harvest Time International to send to Haiti – I actually more free items, but the ones my family is keeping were put to use and put away. (While I got a lot of these from coupon match ups from Southern Savers, some of them came from other places too…)

(Yes, some of those are sample sizes, but most are full-size products! And yes, they were all free! Sometimes I had to pay sales tax on items – depending on the deal – but that is the most I paid for any of the items pictured.)

Saving real money takes effort – it doesn’t happen without work. But it can be a lot of fun – kind of like a game once you get good at it. My best Publix trip, I saved more than $90! The important thing to remember when couponing to save money is that no matter how good the deal is, if you aren’t going to put the item to good use, it isn’t saving money — it’s wasting money! I feel the same way with freebies, even though it is no money out of pocket, if I can’t use the freebie or know someone (or an organization) who can use it – leave it for someone who needs it.

Free Nabisco Cookies – Can You Say YUM!

If you haven’t jumped on the Nabisco Fan Page yet, it is time to become a fan. Starting Monday, March 1, they will be giving away coupons for free Nabisco cookies when you buy a gallon of milk and another package of cookies! Bring on the Oreos! Become a fan right now so you don’t miss it. This promotion will continue the first Monday of the month for the rest of 2010!

Free Huggies Enjoy the Ride Rewards Code

Who says you can’t win anything from Huggies Enjoy the Ride Rewards? Several months ago, I was excited to win a $25 gift card to Starbucks. Last week, I was overjoyed to win a $25 gas card! Then a couple of days ago, all of my posts finally convinced my friend to join. Her first attempt at an instant win… she won free pull-ups! Whoooo hoooo! So, if you still haven’t won anything, keep trying — it is possible!

To help you keep trying, here are 3 more 5 point codes: BGTRQWCSXXZRPGB and BCSRMTKWNZZGPGB and PQKXBRXMDTBWPGB.

If you still haven’t signed up for a Huggies Enjoy the Ride Rewards account, email me (Jen @ TheSuburbanMom dot com) and I will email you a link to sign up under me. Hey, if you are going to sign up, I might as well get 4 points for referring you!

Free Disney Movie Reward Points

I recently redeemed 750 points to get my daughter a Mickey and Pals DVD. It was actually a DVD I had looked at purchasing for her previously, so it was lots of fun to get it in the mail for free! I think I am going to save up for the Rock-Out 4  CD set next – as much as my daughter loves to listen to music, it would be nice to add some more choices in the mix! (Only 2,340 points to go.)

To get you closer to your savings goal, here is another free 50 point Disney Movie Rewards code HT6G7K3XW.

Don’t have an account yet? What are you waiting for? Shoot me an email (Jen @ TheSuburbanMom dot com) if you don’t have an account yet, and I will email you a code to sign up under me – hey, if you are going to sign up anyway I might as well get 40 points for referring you.

I Pulled off the Tag…

In so many ways, my daughter is a beautiful reflection of me. She makes me smile when I catch her doing something just like I once did or enjoying things I once enjoyed – like wanting to wipe her hands as soon as they get messy, but every once in a while I appreciate her for being her.  She is a toddler, but she is growing into her own little person.

Tonight I had to take a deep breath, hold back my own quirks and smile at her being her own person. Several months ago I gave my daughter several of my Bennie Babies. In order to understand the next part, you have to know about a quirk I have had since I was a child. I like to leave the tags on my stuffed animals. I don’t know, I realize it is strange, but I have always left my tags on (well, at least since I was old enough to stop my mom). So, when I gave her the Bennie Babies, they of course still had their tags on. I prepared myself for something to happen to the Bennie Babies in the hands of a toddler, but I didn’t really expect her to specifically bring them to me and ask to have me take them off.

First she brought me a cat – “eh eh eh” – pulling on the tag and holding it out for me. I asked her if she wanted me to take the tag off, she said yes. I asked her what she should say and she said, “Peas tag.” I took a deep breath and pulled off the tag. A few minutes later, she brought me the bear, “Peas tag.” So, I pulled the tag off the bear too. It hurt a bit, like a band-aid, but I pulled quickly and the smile on her face and the “Anx” she gave me were enough to get me past the removal of the tags from my old buddies…