MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! (ALMOST) Today, I would recommend getting ready for tomorrow, and spending quality fun time with your families! I am so thankful for my family, they are the very best "deal" that I have ever gotten or received! We are super blessed and though I love using coupons and getting good deals, I love being with my kids so much more! So, I am getting off my computer to play games with my kids, wrap presents, and be thankful for all that we have.

HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY!

ALBERTSON DOUBLERS

You have probably noticed by now that there are not any coupon inserts in yesterday's paper. There will not be any in next week either, as they are both holiday weeks and there are never any inserts on a holiday week. However, there were some Albertson's doublers in the Post Register, and it sounds like in a few other papers around. Not sure what to do with the doublers? Head on over to HERE at The Krazy Coupon Lady and there is a lot of great ideas for using the doublers.

Remember to make sure that the coupon does not say DO NOT DOUBLE. They are not allowed to double coupons that say DO NOT DOUBLE, so be courteous and don't even try. Also, you can only use three coupons in a transaction. Every Albertson's seems to handle doublers a little different. The one I go to will let me do three separate transactions, using three doublers each time. Some will only let you do one transaction, so you may want to double check before getting in line as to what that stores policy is.

CUTE COUPON BINDER

Some of you got the chance to see my coupon binder at the coupon class that Shannon did for us, but I had yet to really use it. Well, I just wanted to let you all know that I LOVE IT! So, I thought I would post a link to where I got it from. It is super sturdy, and I totally don't feel so self conscious about caring it into the stores like I did with my binder. CLICK HERE to go to Stylin Binders from there you can order, or go to their etsy site and see what they have in stock and order there. Or, if you don't like the choices, you could always try to make your own! I got the one pictured above, I do wish I had requested a 3" instead of the 2" as I have nearly outgrown the 2".

These would also work great for church, school or other binders that you have to carry around. I love that I can hang it from my arm and still be able to carry my baby into the store without dropping things on the way in.

I have also added their button to the side of the blog if you want to go check it out later!

LETTER FROM SANTA

Well, I just got back in town on Sunday, and now have a STACK of coupons I need to cut and organize. Needless to say, I have not had much time yet to check for any good deals going on this week. Hopefully by next week things will be more back to normal. I did however come across this cute little idea just before leaving town. If you go HERE to Identity Direct you can create a personalized letter from Santa to your child. It is free other than the cost of paper and ink. You fill in the information, the letter is then sent to your e-mail where you can open it and print it off for your kids. They do have the option of them sending you a printed copy in the mail, but they charge for that one. Anyway, my kids love to write letters to Santa every year, and will be so excited to get there very own letter back!

NEW MONTH = NEW COUPONS!

It is the start of a new month, and that usually means that there will be some new coupons up on the Internet. Head on over to www.coupons.com and print the ones you want. The really good ones can go quickly!

I love to use Internet coupons as they are often times higher in value than those in the paper, however, I try to only print the ones I am going to use. The cost of paper and ink can get expensive if you try to print them all off every month. Yea, sometimes I try to go back and print a coupon later and it is no longer there, but most of the time I get the ones I want.

I am not going to have computer access for the next week and a half, so there will be no new posts, however, check out the site and see what others have posted about on the side of the blog under "Coupon Blogs". Also keep checking Pinching Your Pennies for any good deals and to get your shopping list for the week! Have fun just looking around and seeing if there are any good deals to be had!

WALGREENS

So I thought I would do a post on Walgreen shopping. I know that some of those who may read this blog have been trying to learn how to shop at Walgreens. I am still not very confident when I go try to shop there. It seems that they vary greatly from store to store as to what the policy is and if you don't get a very friendly checker, things can not go so well.

That being said, there are some really good deals to be found there. This weekend, they have a few items that when they are bought print out a Register Rewards which can be used on almost anything in the store, thus your product is basically free. The trick is that you can't use a Register Reward to then pay for the same product, but you can use it to buy another product of a different kind and get the Register Reward from that product. This creates the need to do multiple transactions, and again some stores will let you do as many as you want and others won't let you do more than one.

They also have the policy where you have to have coupon to item ratio, so if you are using a coupon and want to use a Register Reward to pay for it, you need to make sure you have an item per coupon and a Register Reward is considered a coupon so make sure to have a "filler" item to match with it. You get the best deal if you can keep your filler item low. You also cannot pay for any tax with a Register Reward, so double check your price exactly before heading up to pay. Also, there is sometimes a small pamphlet that Walgreens put out that has store coupons in it. You can usually combine these with Manufacture coupons to get a really good deal. They are often found right at the front of the store as you walk in or else back by the pharmacy, so keep you eye out of those. I have not yet seen them, but they say the December booklet should be out in stores

I love to read the blog I Heart Wags She has some great scenarios every week and usually ends up with a profit in the end. It is quite amazing to watch. The other blog I want to share is Kingdom First Mom who puts on a Walgreens $5 Challenge
every week where she list a scenario for Walgreens that week spending under $5. She then has a spot for other bloggers to link their $5 scenario that you can click on to get some more ideas. Some of them start out with Register Rewards from the previous week, others start out with nothing. It is a great way to learn the ropes and to start out slowly in building up the some hygiene products and medicine without having to spend a lot at one time. Also, if something goes wrong (as I am sure it will once in awhile) you are not out very much.

And finally, for those that are visual learners, and learn by watching Hip 2 Save has a Follow Me Monday video on her blog you can go and follow her as she does her shopping and explains a few things.

Good luck on your shopping trip! And remember it is okay to ask questions, find out when the really helpful checker is working, it makes a huge difference. And one last tip I have been given is it is often better to check out at the cosmetic counter when using a lot of coupons or doing a lot of transactions. The line is always shorter, and the cashier is usually a lot more helpful!

Thanks Hip 2 Save , Kingdon First Mom and I Heart Wags for all the great info and help!

BLACK FRIDAY!

So for those of you planning on heading out and braving the crowds tomorrow, you may already have a plan as to what you want and where you are going to head. If not, here is a GREAT post by Couponing to Disney. It has some really good lists of deals that can be found at some stores. Make sure to double check your ads to make sure the price is the same in your area.

There is also a forum HERE at A Full Cup that has lots of discussions on Black Friday deals.

Make sure to BE SAFE, HAVE FUN, AND REMEMBER TO BE POLITE... ESPECIALLY TO THE EMPLOYEES!

Thanks A Full Cup and Couponing to Disney

SCRAPBOOKING SOFTWARE CHEAP!

Thanks to Jodi over at PYP for the information on this deal! If you love to Digital Scrapbook, Office Depot has a great deal going on with some software programs.


They are Art Explosion® Scrapbook Factory® Deluxe 4.0 Item # 580750 and PrintMaster® Platinum 2.0 Item # 679014. I do not digital scrapbook, but know several people who LOVE to! Head on over to Family Saver Deals where she has put up a great scenario of how to get both programs for under $7.00! Remember, it is done through rebates, so you have to be willing to pay up front and wait for the money to be returned, but it sounds like a really good deal to me!

Thanks Amanda at Family Saver Deals
and Jodi at PYP

ON-LINE DEALS ON PYP

If you haven't already looked, or maybe didn't know, Pinching Your Pennies has a great area were they have listed a lot of great sales and deals that are online. You can either click HERE to get to the page, or you can go to Pinching Your Pennies and select PYP Forums. Scroll down a little bit and there is a spot that says Screaming Deals Online. Click on that and you will have a huge list of great deals you can check through. Sometimes the most recent deals, or ones that were put on today are not right at the top. Scroll down and bit and you should be able to find deals put on Today.

They have quite a variety from a kids Shirt / Hat combo from Cabela's for $1.99 to a site called Think Geek were they have shirts with guitars that you can actually play! Have fun just looking around and maybe you will find that perfect gift for the holidays at a really good price!

(Make sure to read the comments posted on the forum before you order to ensure that people are not having problems with the company, or ordering. Plus, sometimes there are additional codes, such as "Free Shipping" added by other people in their posts!)

Thanks PYPfor the deals!

FOOD STORAGE MADE EASY

I wanted to share this great web site that I use with everyone. I have been trying to get our food storage built up, and often felt overwhelmed at first. This site has a lot of great ideas and tips on ways to get your food storage set up. I receive e-mails from them with baby steps to setting up your storage so that I only have to really concentrate on one or two things at a time. Anyway, here is the link if you want to check them out! Food Storage Made Easy.

SARA LEE PIES AND BREYERS ICE CREAM

Albertson's has a deal going through Tuesday--Buy one Sara Lee Oven Fresh pie @ $6.39 get another Pie Plus 2 Breyers Ice Creams Free (item 1.5 Qt.). There is a coupon you can print for the pies at Group C on Pinching Your Pennies (Go to the shopping list and click on Group C). The Deal has been really HOT and the Albertson's in Ammon is out of pies. Don't worry if you were going to do this deal tonight or tomorrow. They are issuing Rain Checks so make sure to stop over there still and get one. They are good for 30 days from the day they are written.

MODBE GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE!

Utah Deal Diva has reported that the clothing / swimsuit company is going out of business and is marking down all of their stuff. Go HERE where you can be directed to the right site. I know that they have some really cute and modest swimsuits so get what you want before they are gone!

Thanks Utah Deal Diva

Little People Nativity $21.00 Shipped for one or $18.48 each for two!

Pinching Your Pennies has a deal listed to get this cute Little People Nativity set for $21.00 shipped or you can get Two and pay only $18.48 each. They are way cute and so practical for those with kids who love to move the little people around. I don't have one yet, but have seen them. Go HERE for the link to the page and the codes you will need!

Thanks PYP !

20 Copies of THE CHRISTMAS BOX book for $.75 each!

Richard Paul Evans is offering up a box of 20 copies of his hit book "The Christmas Box" for free. All you have to do is pay the $15.00 shipping fee. Head on over HERE to get all the details and information. You can also buy more than one box, however, once they are gone, they are gone!

These would be great stocking stuffers, or gifts to give to neighbors or friends!

Thanks Pinching Your Pennies!

8 Free Download Books from Deseret Book

Thanks to A Thrifty Mom you can go to HERE where Deseret Book currently has 8 books available for free download. (With a 9th at the bottom of the webpage that you can get one chapter a week.)

The books available are:
1. Please Pass the Scripture (by me, John Hilton III).
2. What I Wish I Would Have Known When I Was Single (by John Bytheway).
3. Sisters at the Well (by Richard and Jeni Holzapfel).
4. Digging Deeper (by Robert Eaton).
5. 10 Secrets Wise Parents Know (by Brent Top and Bruce Chadwick).
6. Growing Up: Gospel Answers About Maturation and Sex (by Brad Wilcox).
7. Saving Kristen (by Jack Weyland). (fiction)
8. The Book of Mormon Sleuth, Vol 3 (by C.B. Anderson)

I have not read any of these yet, but have downloaded some of them to read. Hope they are good!

FLEISCHMANNS YEAST DEAL AT ALBERTSON'S

Krazy Coupon Lady has a great post HERE on getting some really cheap yeast this week at Albertson's

There is also a really great deal running on Sara Lee pies and Bryer's Ice cream. Again Krazy Coupon Lady has a great scenario on her blog GO HERE for all the details!

Thanks Krazy Coupon Lady!

SHOPPING LIST FOR WEEK 11/11- 11/17

Pinching Your Pennies has put on the shopping lists for the week of November 11th through November 17th. Smith's and Albertson's both run on a Wednesday to Tuesday schedule so these sales are good through next Tuesday. Go HERE to get the shopping lists for the State of Idaho. You will go into the forum for either Albertson's or Smith's and in the first thread there should be a link for Grocery Smarts Printable Shopping list. Click on that and the shopping list should appear. If you want to only see the Four and Five star deals, click the start button at the top, then click on the red star. This should highlight the four and five star deals. Now go back up and click Shrink. This will take off everything that is not four or five star. Print the page and you are ready to plan your trip!
Again thanks PYP for the lists!

USEFUL PAGES

Okay, so I thought I would post a few helpful links for anyone either just getting started with coupons, or anyone who wants to know if they got a good deal or not on something. First is thePrice points list. This list tells you what is a three star, four star and five star deal. If trying to develop a storage of food, you want to make sure and stock up when prices are at a five star deal so that you don't have to pay full price later on when you run out. I have this printed and in the front of my binder so that if I come across an unadvertised deal at the store and am not sure if it is a good deal or not, I can look and see what PYP has it listed as.

The second post is Sale cycles. This makes it so that you can see when the deals seem to come around for certain products. It makes it nice to know how much you should stock up on something, and when to look for certain items in the store. I also have this printed in the front of my binder, mostly just for my own reference.

I love these two posts and use them all the time! Hope they help! Thanks to PYP for both lists!

TARGET WIPES; WALGREEN DIAPERS

Target has put out a store coupon for !$1.00 off of Up and Up diapers and wipes. The wipes range in price but there are some as low as $1.57. Use the coupon and the wipes are only $.57. I went and did this today in IF and they were out of the $1.57 wipes, but had the 80 count wipes for $1.87 so I paid $.87 for the wipes. Not as good as $.57 but since I was in need of wipes, the deal was pretty good. You can use as many Target coupons as you want, there is no limit on these so if you get the $.57and use wipes STOCK UP!

Now diapers...I like to use Huggies for Dreyken as they are the only ones she doesn't leak out of, however, they can be pricey! At Walgreens right now they are $8.99 a pack. Combine that with the $2.00 off Huggies coupon at Coupons.com, and the $1.00 off huggies diapers found in the Walgreen's coloring book (you only need one coupon of these as it takes $1.00 off for each product)Then use the coupon in the Sunday's paper for $5.00 off of $25.00 and you get a pretty good deal for diapers. Just make sure that you are at $25.00 after your coupons in order to use the $5 off $25.00 NWA Deals has a great scenario to use to maximize the deal

CHEAP LIGHTBULBS!

Missy just sent me this information, so I am passing it along!
"Just wanted to comment about this great deal on light bulbs, and good ones too! I just picked up 4 packs of GE light bulbs for $2.56 + tax. Use 1 Target coupon and one manufacturer coupon. Pretty sweet deal. I got them here"

Remember, Target has their own coupons you can print and since they are store coupons, you can stack them with manufacture coupons.

If you are new to shopping with coupons at Target, go here to print off their coupon policy. Several people suggest printing a copy and keeping it in your binder. Also Hip2Save has made a video called "follow me monday" that you may find useful. And it also has links for Target coupons.

Thanks Missy and Hip2Save

TOYS R US DEAL!

So Hasbro is running a great deal through Toys R Us. Along with a good deal by Toys R Us.

I went today and tried this out and got four games for $10.00 after gift card and mail-in-rebate. This is about $2.50 per game. So I didn't do the best scenario, but got the games I know my kids will play, plus we already had some of the games included.

The deal is -Spend $25.00 or more on select Hasbro games and get a $10.00 Toys R Us gift card. Than, Hasbro has a Mail in Rebate for several of the games. On top of that many of the games are marked down to $3.99 a game. Hip2Save has some great scenarios to use that get you the games for as low as $.99 a piece!

My Scenario:

One Cootie game $3.99
One Candyland $3.99
One Chutes and Ladders Super hero $3.99
(not available for MIR)
One Hungry Hippo $14.99

TOTAL $28.58

Get back $10.00 Toys R Us gift card
send MIR in for
Hungry Hippos $3.00
Candyland $2.00
Cootie $2.00

TOTAL AFTER GIFT CARD AND MIR $11.58

Not to bad for Four games. These would make great Christmas gifts, or gifts to donate. Also great to put into a birthday present stock pile.

Make sure to grab a rebate form that is right by the games!

**you can only do one MIR per household and only one per game, up to $69.00 so make sure to get different games**

HERE WE GO!

All right, first things first. So I have to give a shout out to my mom and Jana for going out the other day with coupons and giving it a try. WAY TO GO!

So moving on, to start with I would highly recommend reading this post Couponing 101 by Krazy Coupon Lady. She does a great job at explaining how to get set up. She helps you become a KCL in 10 days, so hopefully that will give you some good information.

When she talks about coupon organization there are a lot of different ways people organize their coupons. I have chosen the "BINDER" method and LOVE IT! (If you decide to organize with the binder method, I have only been able to find the baseball card holders at Target here in IF. They are located right by the end of the cash registers along with the baseball card.) It does take a bit of time in advance, but once I get to the store I am ready to go. I usually spend about 1 hour clipping and filing my coupons a week. There is no right or wrong way, just use what works for you. Go Here for a video of how to set up a binder, and also for a list of possible catagories you might want to use. I use the more basic one.

I would also recommend getting multiple copies of the paper. The Post register has a deal for weekly papers along with five on Sunday. The Internet is also a great way to get coupons, but can get pricey with ink. Print in only black (the black ink is cheaper), use scrap paper, and make sure your printer settings are set to print with the least amount of ink. Remember you can usually print the coupons twice. (select your coupons, hit print, then after they finish printing, hit back, and then F5 to refresh the page and they should begin to print again.

Finally, I would recommend getting on Pinching Your Pennies and just browse. There is so much to the site, and the only way to learn is with reading! I started by just reading a little bit a day, usually in the time it took for me to feed Dreyken a bottle, and I am still learning new things.

Just don't burn yourself out! and Have Fun!

GETTING STARTED!

I have been thinking about starting a blog like this for a little while, and after having a coupon class with some family members I decided to go for it. It was said that we needed to come up with some way to share deals between each other and help each other out. So, here I go! I hope to get lots of comments and support from family and friends as you find good deals around Idaho Falls and other areas. Most of my knowledge has been figured out by trial and error, and is really limited to the Idaho Falls area. Mostly Albertson's and Smith's with a little bit of Walgreen's. If you have other information from around the country please feel free to share. I will do my best to update regularly, but most of the postings are going to be ones I have found from other bloggers and web sites and may not have been tried out by me. (Thus the "filter" in the title) I figure since I am looking for good deals for myself and family, I may as well share what I find. I hope this helps a few of you out, feel free to ask questions if you have any and I will do my best to answer!

So, to start with I am going to start at the very beginning. I found out about couponing from a friend who was just starting out. I was floored when she said that she got FIVE Sunday newspapers! After some explaining, I quickly go very interested, and decided to just jump right in. I got home, called the Post Register (local newspaper) and asked for the coupon deal. I get a newspaper every day of the week (minus Monday since they don't put out a Monday paper) and five Sunday papers for only $17.00 a month when on auto pay (I believe it is $20.00 if not on auto pay). I then headed to Walmart and bought a binder, followed by Target for some baseball card holders. It was kind of crazy, but I started that next Sunday and have been couponing ever since.

I am going to try and put the entire process of getting set up to coupon in a few posts over the next few days so that you don't get overwhelmed or confused. Most of the first posts will be a repeat from what Shannon taught at the class the other night. To view her blog go here . She did such a good job, but it was done quickly and so hopefully the review will help.

Again, I hope you will post deals and comments you have and that we will be able to help each other find deals and learn the ropes