Coupons & samples through TiVo

With Fall TV premiering this week, I am SO ridiculously excited for today because I have SIX shows going on tonight, 4 of which are premiering. Woot! I am SO thankful for my TiVo on days like that. Tonight, while I was going through my TiVo I noticed an ad for Pretzel M&Ms. I clicked on it and it allowed me to request a $1 off coupon via email! How awesome is that? I can't say TiVo is the first place I think of when I want samples and coupons but I've also requested samples through my TiVo before too. If you have a TiVo, what have you requested and received? I'm not sure if other DVRs offer samples and coupons. If you have some other brand of DVR and service, do you get coupons and/or sample offers through it?

Quest: School supplies savings

Anyone want to join me on a quest? A quest to get school supplies necessary to help educate my kid without breaking the bank?

Surely you've read about me starting my school supplies quest months ago, stalking the sales. I think I've done pretty well so far. I probably could've done better, but not bad.

Here's what I need and the notes:

• Two large boxes of Kleenex -$3 Costco ($3.50 coupon in coupon book exp 8/8/2010)
  
• One clipboard (8 ½ x 11) - $1.44
  
• One spiral notebook - $0.15
  
• Three plastic folders - $2.25
  
• One pk markers (broad tipped) - free (left over from last yr)
  
• One box of CRAYOLA washable watercolors with brush - $2 (this chaps my hide...I paid 2x as much for Crayola than if I could've gone w/Rose Art. I had to pay full price for the Crayola ones, and you know I hate paying full price. Grrrr...I'm still hunting for a sale on them though)
  
• One box of 48-64 crayons - $2
  
• 24 No. 2 pencils - $0.40 - Walgreen's July 4-10 ad.
  
• Two large-sized (8 oz.) bottles of white Elmer's glue - $3.14 (again, this one chaps my hide...4 oz bottles are $0.25 ea! You do the math...)
  
• One bottle of rubber cement - $1.34
  
• Four glue sticks - $0.40 Target (they mislabeled them and the cashier was kind enough to give them to me for the price I saw)
  
• One pair Fiskar brand children's scissors with metal blades - $0.99 Walgreens July 11-17 ad
  
• One pump bottle of antibacterial hand soap - $0.48 SoftSoap - Walmart - $0.98 cents plus $0.50 off coupon
  
• Four pkg wipes - $5.96
  
• One package of four sponges - FREE! O-Celo sponges are 2/$3 @ Rite Aid this week w/Wellness + card. I had a $1 off UP coupon from buying BOGO1/2 Coppertone, plus the packaging of the sponges was a bit damaged so the cashier was kind enough to knock another buck off.
  
• One backpack - Free! I had a new one I got years ago
  
• One durable 11" x 10" plastic basket - $3.50 (I didn't care how much I paid for this damn thing, the specifications made it impossible to find!)
  
• One short-sleeved adult t-shirt for painting - $2 - I didn't have any usable shirts, and my DH's were way too big for our kid so I dropped $2 for some at Rite Aid.
  
• One old magazine with colorful pictures - Free! - I get free subscriptions to tons of mags!
  
• One box small (sandwich) zip-loc bags - $1 Dollar Tree
  
• One box gallon zip-loc bags - $1.67 Walmart
  
• Plastic/paper cups - Free - left over cups from MIL's bday party

Total spent: $31.72

Good crappiolicious! School supplies, even with sales, coupons, and bargains are freakin' expensive! I really hate that teachers get so brand and size specific. Glue is the one thing that bugs me the most. Little kids have little hands so they handle smaller, 4 oz size glue better anyway. Why do parents have to spend over 6x more for the 8 oz glue?

So...any one want to help me keep an eye on Crayola water colors, 8oz bottles of glue, and rubber cement sales? :D

The Coup de Gras

Our dvr service was up for renewal this month and for the past 2 months, I've been getting emails reminding me to renew, otherwise they'd start charging me the pricier monthly option. (We prepaid to get savings.) But I intentionally put it off until the very last minute because I don't believe in giving people my money in advance until I absolutely have to. My money in my pocket is better than in someone else's. My procrastination paid off. I got an email promo that saved me $300 in renewal charges! Needless to say, I took advantage of that saving. :)

Today is also a vacay fund deposit day.  If you've been following my blog this week, I've had some pretty good luck at Rite Aid lately.  That amounts to a pretty good amount of savings.  I'm due some rebates back from Rite Aid, but I haven't requested the check yet so I don't count those savings. (Kind of like not counting my chicks before they hatch type of deal.)

Here's a break down of free money & savings for the last 9 days:

$10 Amazon gift cards from Swag Bucks
$5 from misc survey
$24 savings from Rite Aid
$35 savings from various stores & coupons


Total: $74
Add the dvr renewal savings: $374!  That's a huge chunk of change!

360 in 5

I've always heard about people calling their cable company and trying to lower their bill by telling them they want to downgrade due to cost or threatening to cancel.  Heck, even my elderly mother in law does that, so why haven't the Cheapo Ninja household done that?  Well, the short version is, procrastination.  We are experts at procrastinating around here.   Unfortunately, procrastinating costs money...lots of money.  After getting our cable bill, I had my husband call the cable company and demand a lower rate. (Confession: I made him do it because I didn't want to. :p)  He wasn't even sure how to go about it either having never done it before.  I told him to press the # prompt that would get him to the downgrade department.  He did.  I heard him say, "well Jim, I feel we're paying too much for our cable."

pause

"Uh huh...ok, $30 less a month less for the next 12 months?  Ok, thank you Jim."

And that's how we saved $360 a year in five minutes.  Well worth the time, don't you think?

If you haven't tried it yet, give it a try.  Call your cable company and phone company and tell them you're paying too much.  See what kind of deals they'll offer you.  Chances are they'll temporarily lower your bill and you'll have to call them back in 6 or 12 months to renegotiate.  Be sure to set a reminder for yourself so you remember to renegotiate!  I'm an avid user of Google Calendar so I just set a reminder there to email me 12 months from now.

Now if you have contacted your cable and phone companies in the past, holla!  How much were you able to save?

Freezing food

It's a commonly known fact that freezing food is a great way to save money. Do you freeze food? Do you want to start but don't know the skinny? Do you know how long frozen food is good for?

The Consumerist has a list of articles that can steer you in the right direction!

• Freezing food - how to get started
• 20 ways to make the most of your groceries
• How long will frozen food last?
• Keep it or toss it?

With a bang

I know I said I wouldn't make another savings post until next Friday but I couldn't help it. The deal I just scored was way awesome. I was put in charge of procuring lots of ground beef for burgers for my mother in law's birthday party coming up. It's going to be a huge party, which means $$$. For once I put our spendings on a strict budget. We're splitting the cost with my husband's siblings but I wasn't going to let them run amok with our money on the party so I set a limit of just $160 for everything...our share of the venue rental was $60 so that left $100 for food, decorations, and everything else.

Normally I would just hit up Costco and buy stuff in bulk to freeze. Having done enough shopping at Costco, I know that ground beef there is $2.59/lb. There's a great sale going on at a local grocery store for ground beef. It's $1.59/lb so I save $1/lb. I needed at least 15 lbs of beef so I'm guaranteed a savings of at least $15 if I shop the sale.

So now I went, I loaded up, (ended up getting over 21 lbs of ground beef) and I saved. I saved huge! If I would've compared it to the price at Costco, I saved $28. I bought other stuff and produce too of course. Here's what my receipt said:


I saved a smidge more than that because I brought reusable bags with me. The store's system wasn't working right so the cashier just gave me 30 cents cash for my bags. I ended up only paying $40 for $110 worth of groceries! I'm excited! I just started my July savings off with a huge bang! I'm optimistic about July. I hope it pans out well. :)

Mailbox Love & Vacay savings

*sob* no mailbox goodies for me today.  I did, however, save around $12 at the store with coupons and sales.  Truth be told, I was a bit disappointed with my savings. In the end I spent around $100 so I basically got 12% knocked off my bill. Don't get me wrong. I'll take it!

As promised, I said I'd give a tally of how much I saved last month towards our vacation fund.

Final tally: $300!

I don't know how I'll beat that in June.

Tip - recipes & print jobs

I used to eat out a lot. I admit it, I was lazy. In fact, I once justified my excessive dining out habits by saying and convincing myself that eating out costs just as much as cooking at home once you factor in water usage, electricity/gas, and the energy it takes to clean up afterward.

I'll wait while you laugh at me. :)


Now I know better though. I cook at home now. A lot. I enjoy it now. Not only is it cheaper...much cheaper, but I can better manage what's in my food...including that stray dog hair, but hey at least I know where it's from, right? ;)

One thing that comes with cooking at home are recipes. I love collecting recipes and trying new recipes because I have a luxurious tastes when it comes to food. I love to eat gourmet, and I actually don't mind cooking gourmet...as long as I have a recipe to follow.  I have hundreds of recipes saved...at last count, over 500 of them. Now if I were to print each one out, many of which are at least two pages long, that would take two reams of paper and a LOT of ink...things that costs money. Not to mention my printed recipes tends to walk off.  Here's what I've come up with to save and organize my recipes:

CutePDF

CutePDF is a program that allows you to print things to a .pdf format and save them on your computer rather than printing it out on paper. I .pdf all my recipes then organize them into folders based on their main ingredient, course, or cuisine.  And of course, I back them up periodically, off site, especially since our external hard drive containing hundreds more of my favorite recipes died. :(  That was a very very sad day for me.

Shopping & homework

I went and took advantage of the Stride Rite 25% off sale today at an outlet mall. I have to be honest, just a few weeks ago, I'd stocked up on a few pairs of shoes for my kids for Fall. I was annoyed that not even a month later I'm met with a 25% off coupon that's good in the outlets too, which is very rare.  Outlets are often excluded from coupons.  Out of the 3 pairs of shoes I bought then, only one was returnable. Two pairs were off their "Back Wall" clearance and the sale was final. I intended to take the one pair back to return them and either buy them back with my coupon or replace them with a different pair.  So I'm standing waiting for the cashier (who all of a sudden disappeared in the middle of my return transaction) and I got a little impatient so I started looking around. I found the exact same pair of Marvel Heroes White/Black sneakers I was returning, on the shelf and I looked at the price.   When I first bought them on May 15, they were $9.99 without any sort of coupon or discounts.  In fact, I only bought them because they were so cheap.  Now those same exact pairs of shoes are $19.99!!!  That's proof that stores do indeed inflate their prices to match and compensate for any promos they have going on.  That is one heck of an inflation...the price doubled, all because of a 25% coupon.  If I were to return those shoes that I paid $9.99 for and buy them back at $19.99, even with my 25% off coupon, I would be paying $14.99 instead of the $9.99 I originally paid. I would be over paying by $5!  That annoyed me.  The cashier was back and started processing my return when I came to this revelation and I immediately told her to stop the transaction, that I was keeping the shoes. 

Admittedly, their coupon promo did work on me. I walked out of there buying 2 more pairs of shoes for my kids...but at a steal.  I bought them each another pair of all leather upper sneakers that were $14.99 for future wear.  (My experience tells me that that is a very good price for Stride Rite shoes.)  Here's how the deal went down:

$14.99 x 2 = $29.98 (the original price of one pair of these sneaks were $29.99)
Here's where I got a lil ninja. :)
The last time I bought shoes there, my receipt had a survey for me to fill out for $5 off my next purchase. I asked the cashier if I could apply that to my order along with my 25% off coupon. She said, "yes." WOOT!
So -
$29.98 - 5 = $24.98
24.98 - 25% (6.245) = $18.73

Yes! I scored two pairs of good quality Stride Rite sneakers for my kiddos for under $20.  That's cheaper than what I would pay at Walmart or Target and these shoes are better quality.

Then, onto the Lego store.  I had to go into the Lego store to get some VIP points credited from my last visit there.  I kind of half expected a bit of a fight to deal with retro credits but it was taken care of no problem whatsoever.  Being that I was with my husband, in a Lego store, there was no way I could've walked out of there without buying something so I scoured around for something cheap.  Then I came upon this:

Yep, that's right. Star Wars Lego on mark down all because the box had a dent on it.  The pieces inside are perfectly fine, but I saved myself a little money by picking a box that's less than perfect over a perfect box.  Besides, my kids would destroy the boxes when we got home anyway so why pay more for it? 

Moral of the story here is, stores do mark up their prices to go with their promos. Do your homework.  Don't judge a book by its cover.  A little imperfection can save you money.

Happy shopping and hope you're enjoying the Memorial Day sales going on out there. Shop wisely.

3 hours + migraine later

I knew I desperately needed to reorganize the storage tubs of clothes I had stuffed in the closet. They were a mess. I knew there were clothing in there that I can use right now that I can't even access because of the mess. I also knew I didn't want to mess with the tubs now when it was 90 degrees of grumpy, sweltering heat. I knew all that. I even said I was going to reorganize everything come Fall when I had to swap out clothing again, but today, I caved. I desperately needed to find some long lost tank tops that I wasn't sure if I still had or if I'd donated to Haiti and I didn't even know where to start among the 3 massive bins of clothing. On a wild guess I just picked one and went with it. As luck would have it, the first bin contained the tank tops I was looking for, buried deep in the abyss of clothes I'd haphazardly thrown in there over the past 2-3 seasons. By that time, I'd have the entire contents of the giant tub, intended for several comforters, dumped out so I might as well go for broke and organize it. Long story short, three hours later, I'd purged and organized two large tubs of clothes, had a migraine, and saved myself over $30 by unearthing the tank tops I needed, plus some other stuff I thought I had but wasn't sure about. If you factor the uncertain articles of clothing in, I actually saved myself close to $50. $50, not factoring tax, divided by the 3 hours I put into it, I pretty much paid myself $16.67 an hour. Eh, not too shabby. :)

Now I just need to find the motivation to go through that last tub of clothes and purge some stuff.