Cats and Coupons

This Wednesday night, 04/29/09, Baskin-Robbins will be holding it’s Third Annual 31 Cent Scoop Night from 5 pm to 10 pm. All 2.5 ounce scoops of ice cream will be priced at just 31 cents! A number of Baskin-Robbins locations will have local firefighters on hand to scoop the ice cream and provide fire safety tips as well. Baskin-Robbins is partnering with the National Volunteer Fire Council and donating $100,000 to support the National Junior Firefighter Program. So go get a scoop for a steal and support fire safety and education as well!

Fast Fixin’ and Walmart want to serve you and your family a Holiday Break-Feast. In the interest of saving time and money here are the 7 ways to save!

1. Sign up for Fanatics to print $5 in Savings coupons
2. Purchase the January “All You” magazine for $1.50 Savings (Magazine contains $50 in manufacturer’s coupons)
3. Purchase the Fast Fixin’ Breakfast items and send in the Try Me Free for up to $5 in savings.
4. Cut out the UPC’s from the products and collect 10 to earn a free product coupon. = $7.99 Savings
5. Use the coupon inside the box of Fast Fixin’ Breakfast items for a $1 savings.
6. Use the Coupon in the Breakfast Burrito box for a Savings of $1.50
7. Use the Coupon in the Fast Classics Country Fried Steak for $2 off any 2 Fast Fixin’ Breakfast Items= $2 Savings.

Total Savings: Up to $24.00

Thanks to the Consumer Queen for these!

With the economy being terrible and our family suffering from the incredible shrinking income we’re trying to cut back and save money wherever possible. This includes using more coupons when grocery shopping whenever possible. We get the newspaper on Sundays and I won’t be waiting a week or two to go through the coupons any more. It’s a shame how many have been expired and gone to waste because I took so long to go through them. One tip for cutting coupons, turn off any ceiling fans before beginning or the coupons will blow right off of the table. I’ll also be looking for more printable coupons online. I am going to organize my coupons somehow, I think I’ll start with a big coupon wallet and see how that goes. It’s got to be an improvement over the big envelope that I’ve been using. I’ll also be trying to hang on to coupons to make the best use of them by pairing them with sales. So. Do you have any coupon tips to share?

Here’s another good source for online coupon codes, printable coupons and grocery circulars. It’s Smart Source. The site is free to use. Online deals can be browsed by category, store or tag. Printable coupons can be sorted by category. Grocery circulars can be viewed by store,sorted by product or category or searched for by name. You can build a printable shopping list while browsing. I saw some good deals that, after combining coupons with circular prices, might even have been close to wholesale pricing. That’s smart shopping!

Do you like ice cream? Baskin Robbins makes some really good ice cream. There’s a way you can get some Baskin Robbins ice cream for free - join the Baskin Robbins birthday club. It’s free to join and every year you’ll receive an email entitling you to a free scoop of ice cream and a discount on an ice cream cake. As a member you’ll also get some coupons and special offers from time to time, as well as a heads up on new flavors. Yummy!

I have a bunch of membership tags on my key chain. Some are for stores here, one’s for a store in Florida when we go to Walt Disney World and yet another is for a store in upstate New York when we go camping every summer. It’d be great not to worry about carrying all of them all of the tine. I’d love to see all grocery stores use one common club card. They could still run their sales and people would still be able to take advantage of specials, but it would make it easier on the customer. But since that day isn’t likely to happen soon, a site like Just One Club Card is a useful one for people like me.

Just One Club Card allows people to enter card membership numbers for up to eight stores. It’s free to use. After you enter your numbers you print a new card that contains the numbers for all of the ones you entered, allowing you to carry only one card to all stores. He’s even made it possible to add in pet store cards, and other stores. The guy that thought of this had a great idea!

I noticed when I went online this morning that my grocery store is now offering the ability to shop online. After shopping you can have your order delivered (in some areas) or you can pick it up at the store and have your car loaded. I am one of those people that goes down almost every aisle when shopping, because every once in a while I see something that didn’t make it onto our grocery list or something that there’s an unadvertised special on. If I were buying online I think I might end up spending less, because I wouldn’t be buying things that I hadn’t planned on buying. But then, who can resist a good unadvertised special on things like shampoo or the best acne treatments? These are the kinds of things I stock up on. What do you think of online grocery shopping?

I found a new site that helps people try to save money. It’s the TheGroceryGame.com.  TheGroceryGame tracks product pricing at many grocery stores in a database, as well as manufacturer coupons and supermarket specials. Users can log in and get a list that matches up coupons with sales and shows that week’s good deals, great deals to stockpile, and free items available at their grocery store. TheGroceryGame offers a free first month trial. After that they charge a nominal fee of $10 for every 8 weeks, which breaks down to $1.25 per week. If you save more than that it becomes worth it to join. Let me know what you think of it if you try it.

If you’re always on the go and never seem to have enough time in the day, Menus4Moms is a site you’ll want to check out. Menus4Moms is free to join and offers many time and money saving resources. Some of the features on the site include free weekly dinner menus, recipes and cookbooks, menus, meal planning, FDA recalls, calendars, organizers, planners, tips  and shopping list software. Many of the features on the site are free to use. I receive their weekly menu plan email and although I don’t follow it precisley I have gotten many great ideas from it. The well stocked lists for pantry, refrigerator and freezer are wonderful too. Anyone who cooks on a regular basis should take a look at the Secrets Of A Busy Cook section, you’ll be glad you did.

Did you ever notice that energy drinks are expensive and they’re never on sale? I don’t drink them, but my twelve year old TJ had one over a friend’s house and liked it. He’s a little upset with me because twice this week I wouldn’t buy one for him. I explained I don’t see any reason why a healthy, growing, athletic twelve year old like himself needs to drink that stuff. He likes Monster Energy Drink best. I checked their website and they don’t even list how much caffeine is in the can! He needs to drink those about as much as he needs diet pills. (That means he doesn’t need them.) Monster features sports figures on their website. Why are these companies making products with spokespeople that kids look up to when the kids shouldn’t have the product in the first place?

I never knew there was a National Cheesecake Day. That in itself is surprising since cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts, if not the most favorite. Eli’s Cheesecake is offering 25% off of any one item ordered online before 08/01/08. COUPON EXPIRED. Eli’s Cheesecake is online at http://elicheesecake.com/. Yummy!

THIS POST WAS EDITED A COUPLE OF TIMES TODAY DUE TO EMAIL I RECEIVED FROM ELI’S. IT SEEMS I MISUNDERSTOOD AND THE PTB AT ELI’S HAVE GIVEN ME THE GREEN LIGHT TO LEAVE THE COUPON CODE UP. ALTHOUGH THE MISUNDERSTANDING COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED I MUST SAY THE LEVEL OF RESPONSIVENESS FROM THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM ON THE SITUATION WAS OUTSTANDING.

EDIT 2 - 08/01/08 - The coupon has expired so I have taken it down.

There are tons of sites on the internet offering free recipes for people. No Cans is a website put together by a family that wanted to find safe foods to feed pets after all of the pet deaths and recalls of 2007. The site offers recipes for making homemade pet food and pet treats for both dogs and cats. The cat category is split into different sections including kitten forumla and milk, kitten food, meat cat food, fish cat food, meat cat treats, fish cat treats, no meat cat treats and food for sick cats. The dog category is split into sections as well, including dog food, meat dog treats, vegetarian dog treats and dog treats from broth. All recipes include a list of ingredients and contain easy to understand instructions. It’s quite an interesting site. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Do you collect points or codes from soda products? How many soda manufacturers have these programs? I know Coke has offered My Rewards for quite a while now. I have a My Rewards account, but half the time if I have a code I can’t enter it because the printing isn’t clear enough to read. Today, I went on a quest looking for contests for an xbox 360. My son’s been really wanting one for a long time. Anyway. While searching I found out that Mountain Dew also has a program to collect codes from their products. Not being a soda drinker I don’t know if they do theirs the same as Coke. Are their codes legible? Just wondering. Sometimes I think that the codes are purposely made hard to read so less people win.

I recently read an article that pointed out a large need that’s currently getting bigger. Many people are aware of the many overpopulated shelters. It costs money to run them. But some people don’t realize they can help. Obviously, one way you can help homeless pets is to adopt one. But another way is to help the shelter that is housing them. Call your local shelter and ask what they need. The shelter near us is always looking for things - old towels, old bedding, inexpensive toys, and food. Yes, your local shelter would probably be more than happy to receive a donation of food. That’s what they feed the homeless animals with, isn’t it? Of course it is. But there’s another reason. As the economy worsens, some people are having to give up their pets because they can’t afford to keep them. So in order to help, some shelters are actually giving residents in their area pet food so they may keep their pets. Imagine if the shelter populations only increased more as the prices of gas and the cost of living rises. There are too many homeless animals now. You have the power to directly impact this situation. Call your local shelter. Ask what they need. See if you have any of it in your own home. When you go grocery shopping, buy a couple of cans or a bag of pet food for the shelter. I’m pretty sure that if everyone gave what little they could the animals would be in an entirely different situation.