Purex giveaway on Mandy's blog

Head on over to According 2 Mandy for a chance to win a coupon for a free bottle of Purex.

Gift card update

A few weeks ago, I posted about planning for Christmas now and a gift card savings plan for Christmas blog post I had found. Well, a couple of weeks ago when I shopped at Wal-Mart, I challenged myself to buy a gift card each time I shopped equal to at least the amount I saved in coupons. That day I had saved $11 and got a $25 card. Last week I won a $5 card at a meeting and last night I saved $12 on coupons at Wal-Mart and bought a $15 card. So in just a few weeks, I already have $45 put back towards Christmas shopping! Is that exciting or what?

I'm putting them in an envelope with little sticky notes on them saying how much the cards are worth. I'm also going to keep track of the total on the outside of the envelope.

This week's grocery deals

This week's grocery deals: At United:
Yakisoba noodles or Maruchan bowls, 2/$1, there are some 50 cent off coupons out for this, making them free! Who likes free? ME!

Green Giant French Style green beans 39 cents a can
Hiland butter quarters: $1.99
Best Choice canned pasta sauce 69 cents a can

Jumbo Foods in Enid:
Libby's canned vegetables: 2/$1
Hormel half or whole spiral sliced ham: $1.69 a pound
9 oz John Morrell smoked sausage: 99 cents
Kraft BBQ sauce: 89 cents
Kool-Aid drink mix packets: 10/$1

Aldi produce prices:

10# package of potatoes: $1.49
1 pound package of baby carrots: 79 cents
Broccoli crowns: 99 cents pound
strawberries: $1.29 per pkg
4# bag of oranges: $1.69
Fresh pineapple: 99 cents

Can't believe it

I have another cold and have felt lousy for the last few days.At least I think it's a cold. Either that or the worst allergies EVER!!!! Thank goodness I was off yesterday for spring break because I was worthless. Today I have two kids scheduled so I'm praying for a fairly easy day.

Another coupon binder giveaway!!

I'm having another coupon binder giveaway. Enter for a chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Another giveaway starts tonight!

Another coupon binder giveaway here on the blog starts tonight! Stay tuned and watch the blog for how to enter for a chance to win!

This week's grocery deals

This week's grocery deals in Enid:
Jumbo Foods

20 pack of Coke/Dr. Pepper products: $4.98 (limit 2)
Green cabbage 3 pounds for $1
Jumbo's is having a produce sale this week several items are on sale including 4 cucumbers for $1, green bell peppers 4/$1, eggplant 2/$3
Remember also, they are having their anniversary celebration so go in and sign up to win some awesome prizes!

United:
Assorted pork chops $1.79 a pound
Garland Jack's Secret Six BBQ sauce 99 cents, haven't tried this, but it's a good price so might be worth trying out!

Aldi
Some GREAT deals on produce this week at Aldi:
Cantaloupes 79 cents
Grapes: $1.98 for a two pound container
Clementine oranges, 3# bag for $1.89
5 pound bag of red potatoes for 99 cents
Baby carrots 49 cents a bag
Cabbage 69 cents each (not sure how this compares to the 3 pounds for $1 price at Jumbo, I guess it would depend on how big Aldi's cabbage is.

Spring forward tonight!

Don't forget to spring forward tonight, set your clocks forward one hour!

How does everyone else feel about the time change? I don't like it, I wish they would just leave the time alone, one way or another. Ugh.

United "Tax Free" sale Saturday, March 9th

This Saturday March 9th at the Enid, OK United Supermarkets, you can get a discount equal to the amount of sales tax.

Bought my first gift card for Christmas

Back in January, I posted about starting now to save for Christmas and shared a blog post I had found about buying gift cards throughout the year. Well for one reason or another, I hadn't started doing it yet so this past weekend I determined that I was going to buy a gift card at Wal-Mart for at least equal to the amount I saved using coupons (which ended up being $11). I bought a gift card for $25. I will start an envelope for the gift cards (and make sure I leave them at home so I don't get tempted to use them lol).

Grocery deals week of March 6th-12th

This week's grocery deals:
Jumbo Foods:

10 # bag of potatoes: $1.88
Boneless skinless chicken breasts $1.79 a pound
Tostitos Cantina or tortilla chips: 2/$4 (limit two). These are delicious by the way!
1# bag of carrots: 79 cents
Also, Jumbo's is celebrating their 26th anniversary so if you are the 26th customer who spends $26 or more, you get a spin on their prize wheel. They are also having drawings at the end of this month, so sign up for those while you're in the store!

United deals
Saturday, March 9th is "tax free" day where the Enid United stores will give you a discount on your purchase equal to the sales tax rate.
United is having some good frozen food deals this week. For example, buy 4 Totino's pizzas and get a box of pizza rolls for free, or buy 5 Michelina dinners (5/$5) and get a 6th one free. There are more, check them out in this week's ad.

Aldi's produce specials this week:
4# bag of oranges: $1.59
1 # strawberries: $1.29
Cantaloupe 89 cents each
Kiwi 99 cents per pkg
grapefruit 25 cents each
fresh pineapple 99 cents each

Dollar General coupon 3/1

Go to Dollar General's website to print off a coupon good for today, March 1st. $5 off $25.

Binder winner!

Congrats to Brenda S for winning the coupon binder! I'll be getting in touch with her to get it to her.

Remember, I also sell the binders, $20 each or 2/$30.

Survive the blizzard? (plus this week's deals)

Did everyone survive the blizzard? Our town is one of the lucky ones in this area, we have power and only lost it for a few hours. What a relief! Let me just say, I like heat, electricity, and running water. Not to mention internet! LOL!

This week's sale deals:
United is having a half price sale, check it out on their webpage. I noticed some Post and General Mills cereals and there are always GM cereal coupons available.

I couldn't get Jumbo Foods ad to come up, but I noticed yesterday that the one on Willow was closed due to no power. When I get the paper tonight, I"ll look and see if I have an ad in there.

Aldi produce prices:
3 pound bag of yellow onions, 99 cents
3 pack multi-colored bell peppers: $1.49
Avocados: 29 cents each
Lemons: 15 cents each
1 pound package tomatoes on the vine: 99 cents
Cantaloupe: 79 cents each

Been under the weather

Sorry for the sparse amount of posts the last few days. I felt horrible all last week. No fever and not bad enough to be off work, but bad enough I was barely functioning otherwise. When school was out on Thursday because of the snow I didn't have any kids and I slept all morning long. I think that was the turning point because I have gradually felt better since then and hope to be back to "normal" this week.

If you haven't entered my binder giveaway yet, it ends tomorrow at midnight, so don't wait!!!!

Binder giveaway

I am having a giveaway on the blog. I will give away a coupon binder to one lucky winner! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Money Saving Strategies

What are your favorite money saving strategies? Coupons are a great way to save money, but it's definitely not the only way. Comment here with your favorite strategies and let me know if I can interview you for an article on the blog! If you have your own blog/webpage, I'll gladly feature it in the blog. 

All this for $2.09 at Staples!

We got all of this for $2.09 at Staples. Here's the breakdown:

The Kleenex were on sale with a store coupon for 99 cents for a 2 pack. I printed off two coupons, Tom bought one box, that was $1.07.

The other order:

Four 8 roll packs of Bounty Basic paper towels (on sale for $5.99 each)
One 16 roll of Charmin Basic toilet paper (on sale for $6.99 each)
4 one pint glass jars (in clearance section for $1 each); we can use them to make the Jar Salads I talked about week before last or Tom can put his homemade salsa in them)
plus the other box of Kleenex.

I had the coupon for the Kleenex, a $5 off $25 break room/cleaning supply purchase, and a $30 Staples Reward coupon (from turning in ink cartridges last month). After all of those discounts, my total for that purchase was $1.02!!!!

Dollar General coupons!

Dollar General has $5 off $25 today and tomorrow. You can go to their website to print one off to use in the store or you can use the code PRESIDENT online.

Giveaway at According 2 Mandy

Head on over to According 2 Mandy and enter a giveaway for a free bottle of Dry Idea Advanced deodorant!

Saving money on eating out

Does your family like to eat out? You can even save money on eating out! How?

Watch for coupons in your local newspaper. In this area, we also get a booklet about 4 times a year that has coupons for local businesses in it, including restaurants.

Sign up for e-clubs. Lots of national chains have e-clubs now that you can join. They will usually give you something free when you sign up and then periodically send out coupons to your e-mail. For example, when I signed up for the IHOP club I got a free meal plus they send a free meal every year on my birthday.

Chili's gives you a coupon for free chips and queso when you join and then sends out frequent coupons to our e-mail. It's one of my favorite e-clubs. I also joined Applebee's but unsubscribed after a while because they didn't send out coupons, they just sent out mailings for "free" phones.

Cici's Pizza, Mazzio's Pizza, Sonic Drive-In, they all have e-clubs. If you have a favorite restaurant, look up their website and see if they have an e-mail club.

Take my advice and if you sign up for these coupon clubs, then set up a separate e-mail just for that purpose so you can just delete the spam you may start getting. I use my gmail account for these clubs so I can just go through and click on a bunch at a time to delete them.

Last, restaurant portions are  so big most of the time that you can often split an entree' with someone and still be full. That also saves you money (and your waistline!)

Grocery deals this week: February 13-19

This week at Jumbo Food's in Enid, Hamburger, Chicken, and Tuna Helpers are 5/$5. Use the 75 cents off 3 coupon to get them for 75 cents each.

Progresso Soups are 4/$5, use the 50 cents off two coupons to get them for $1 each.

Didn't see much to get excited about at United.

Aldi has fresh pineapple for 99 cents, cantaloupe for 89 cents, 1 pound strawberries 99 cents, 4# bag of oranges for $1.59, lemons 15 cents each, and 6 oz package of blueberries; $1.29.

Reducing trash: re-using plastic containers

Recently I wrote about a website I found called Happy Simple Living and their January Money Diet. Another one of their challenges last month was to find ways to reduce your trash. That got me thinking about all the trash I throw out, not only in food waste, but other stuff. So I started trying to think of ways to reduce some of that. One thing I use a lot of is plastic zipper baggies. Recently I ran out when browning up and bagging hamburger meat and used one of these containers instead. These are little plastic containers that I get when I buy certain sandwich meat at Aldi. They are too nice to throw away and so I'd been keeping them. I found out that they are the perfect size to hold about 2 cups of browned hamburger meat. I also used them for the celery that I chopped up and the bananas that I sliced. 

What ways can you find to reduce your trash?

And we have a winner!

Congrats to the winner of the coupon binder on Facebook! My next Facebook page giveaway will be when I reach 200 likes. Meanwhile, stay tuned, I'll be announcing a giveaway on the blog soon!

Getting there: only 4 more likes!

I only need 4 more likes on my Facebook page to reach 100 likes and give away a coupon binder!

Reducing food waste: celery

A few days ago I wrote about my quest to reduce food waste. Another thing I did was to dice up the very inside of the celery stalks and the leaves, freeze them on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper, then divide them into plastic containers to freeze.

After I froze the celery stalks for about 1/2 hour, I divided them into these plastic containers to freeze. 

They'll be great in soups! 

Dollar General: $5./25 in-store coupon today only

Dollar General has another $5/$25 in-store coupon good today (Saturday, February 9th) only. Remember to know your prices so you know whether you're getting a good deal or not!

Reducing food waste: bananas

Last week I wrote about a new favorite website I found called Happy Simple Living and their January Money Diet. One of the challenges was to find ways to reduce food waste so I decided to work on that this week. Honestly, it seems like we throw away a lot of food around here. I'm not sure why, but I decided it was time to do something about it. So I started with bananas:

Did you know you can freeze an overripe banana right in it's skin? Then when you are ready to make banana bread or a smoothie or anything else using the banana, you can just thaw it out, cut off the end, and squish the banana out. It's great for banana bread because you don't have to mash it up, it mashes up as you squeeze it out.

Since I don't always want to use a whole banana when I make smoothies, I lined a cookie sheet with wax paper, sliced up the bananas and froze them. After they were frozen, I put them in a plastic container in the freezer. Now I have sliced bananas ready to toss in the blender when I make a smoothie.

Country Bob's All-Purpose Sauce Review

Recently I was given the chance to try out and review Country Bob's All-Purpose sauce. Prior to this, I'd never heard of the sauce, but we like BBQ sauces and steak sauces, so I thought it was worth a try. Now Tom and I are both hooked! This sauce is delicious on hamburgers, french fries, tater tots, chicken strips, chicken sandwiches, pork chops, you name it! Last time I made meatloaf, I even mixed a little bit in with the ketchup on top. Yum!

In Enid, I've seen the sauce at both  Wal-Mart and Jumbo Foods. I highly recommend this sauce and will definitely be buying more when we run out!

Jar Salads=Genius!!!

I don't know who first came up with the idea for jar salads. A few months ago a friend told me about seeing them on Pinterest so I went looking for them. Basically, you layer your salad ingredients in like this:

Dressing on the bottom
firmer vegetables (like shredded carrots, celery, cucumbers) on top of that
Lettuce on top (you don't want your lettuce touching your dressing before you're ready to eat or it will wilt

Then you have a jar of salad ready to go. These pint jars fit perfectly in Tom's lunchboxes and make an easy lunch for me or side dish for us for supper. The ingredients stay nice and crisp and well yummy!!! I would get annoyed in the past when I made up a big salad wanting it to last for a few days and after a day or so the lettuce would start turning icky. Don't have to worry about that with these salads. If I want cheese or croutons I just throw them on when I eat it. But they are delicious just like this!

Grocery deals: week of February 6th-12th

This week at Jumbo Foods in Enid you can get
boneless skinless chicken for $1.69 a pound
a 10# bag of potatoes for $1.98
Croissant, Hot, or Lean Pockets 3/$5

United Supermarkets has some good deals this week.
Betty Crocker Chicken, Tuna, or Hamburger Helper, Progresso recipe starters or Progresso classic soups: 8 for $8. There are coupons for 75 cents off 3 of the Helpers, making them 75 cents each, 50 cents off the Recipe starters, making them 50 cents each, and 50 cents off two soups, making them 75 cents each. I am super excited about the Helpers being on sale because I was almost out! There are also regular Progresso soups on sale 2/$3, with the coupon, they'd be $1.25 each.

Also this week at United, if you buy 8 participating General Mills Box Tops for Education products, you can get a mail-in form to send off for 40 bonus Box Tops for your school! What a great way to help your school and save money! Just think, if you bought 8 boxes of the Helpers, even without the coupons, you'd only spend $8 plus tax. Then you could get $4 worth of Box Tops for the school, not to mention the Box Tops on each of the boxes you bought, that would be another 80 cents! So for $8, you could get almost $5 for your school! Now that's a great bargain!!!

You can still get a $5 off $25 coupon from Save-a-Lot! The great thing about Save-a-Lot is that you can combine other coupons with their store coupon and save even more. Also, if you haven't been to the new one in Enid on South Van Buren, it's very nice. And their Cafe 81 has wonderful onion burgers!

12 likes away from a winner!

If you haven't liked my Facebook page yet, this is a great time to do it. I'm only 12 likes away from choosing a winner for a coupon binder! As soon as I reach 100 likes, I'll be drawing a name to give away the binder. 

Don't make assumptions

Last week I wrote about how important it is to know your prices. I was reminded this weekend about how important it is not to make assumptions about where you can find the best prices. I buy generic Claritin tablets to take for my allergies. I usually get them at Wal-Mart, 60 tablets for $7.92 and had just assumed that was the best place to buy them. When I was in Dollar General on Friday to use my $5 off $25 coupon, I thought I would check and see how much they were there and if it would be worth getting them there. Well, a bottle of 60 there was $7.50!!! So not only were they less there anyway, I saved even more since I was using the store coupon.

Reminder: Dollar General $5 off $25 in-store today (Friday, February 1st)

Just a reminder that you can go to the Dollar General website and print off a coupon for $5 off a $25 purchase today (Friday, February 1st) at Dollar General stores.

Website review: Happy Simple Living

I have recently found a new website that I am really enjoying exploring: Happy Simple Living. This month they have been doing a money diet and sharing ways each day to save money, examine your expenses, and live more simply. Be sure and look back through those because they are great! There have been ideas on ways to reduce food waste, a post on another money-saving blogs, ways to reduce your waste, and much more. I highly recommend checking out their website and blog!

What are your favorite money-saving websites? Share them in the comment section!

Grocery deals week of January 30th-February 5th

Unfortunately I didn't see much to get excited about in the Jumbo Foods ad this week.

At United this week you can get a 50# bag of potatoes for $9.99. That's a lot of potatoes but if you had someone you could split them with, 20 cents a pound isn't bad. Other than that, I found the United ad kinda disappointing too. If anyone sees something I'm overlooking be sure and let me know!

Aldi has some good produce prices again this week: avocados for 29 cents each, grapefruit for 25 cents each, fresh pineapple for 99 cents, 1 pound of Roma tomatoes 59 cents, 4# bag of oranges for $1.59, and 3 pack of colored bell peppers for $1.69.

Know your prices

I know I have mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning again. When trying to save money and stretch your budget, it is essential to know your prices. I was reminded of this again last weekend when I bought some stuff at Save-a-Lot and Aldi. We were in Save-a-Lot on Friday night and were getting stuff for Tom to make salsa. I couldn't remember how much the bags of onions were at Aldi so we went ahead and got them there at Save-a-lot since we had the $5 off $25 coupon and did the same thing with animal crackers. When I finished doing the shopping at Aldi the next day, the onions were on sale for less at Save-a-Lot (by 50 cents) but the animals crackers were 50 cents more at Save-a-Lot. So it was a wash lol.

One good way to keep track of prices is to make a price book. This can be as simple as using a little notebook or you can be more elaborate and make a print-out for the items you buy the most. Here is a picture of a sheet I have made (but obviously do not use very faithfully lol).

 On it there is space to list the store, the cost, and the unit price. This allows you to be able to easily see if something is a good bargain, a great bargain, or not a bargain at all. 

Dollar General online and in-store coupon

This week at Dollar General you can save $5 off $25 online all week long, just use the code: SAVENOW when you check out.

This week's in-store coupon is good for Friday, February 1st, it's also $5 off $25. Go to their website to print one off and check out this week's sale ad.

Dollar General 1-26

Dollar General has another $5 off $25 coupon available today for in-store purchases. Go to their website to print it out. 

Have you heard?

Have you heard about Gift Hulk? It's a site where you can earn "Hulk Coins" and redeem them for gift cards. It's a great way to save for Christmas, birthdays, etc. There are plenty of ways to earn coins. You can earn coins through doing searches on Gift Hulk (similar to using Google), by taking the daily poll, by entering codes in the Fountain of Youth, doing surveys, by watching videos, and by using the Treasure Box.If you decide to sign up, use my referral link, please!

Use your calculator and take cash!

The calculator is an essential tool in a frugal lifestyle, especially when shopping. Using your calculator as you go through the store helps to keep you focused on how much you are spending and keep you on budget. Furthermore, if you take only cash to the store, you can only spend what you actually have and not be tempted to go over budget. I tend to go through phases of doing these, but I always do better at the store when I use both.

Also, I'd suggest when using coupons, add up your dollar amount before you check out so that you can quickly tell whether the cashier properly entered all the coupons.

Grocery deals this week January 23rd-29th

United has Planter's peanut butter for $1.99 a jar. With the $1 off coupon that was in the paper recently, you can get peanut butter for 99 cents! Check out the entire ad on their website.

Jumbo Foods in Enid has Hormel assorted pork chops for $1.69 a pound. They also have Birds Eye frozen vegetables for 99 cents a bag. Check out the entire ad at their website.

Aldi has these produce prices this week:
Celery 59 cents
1 pound pkg baby carrots 49 cents
Avocados 29 cents each
4 pound bag of oranges for $1.59
Whole pineapple 99 cents each

Save-a-lot still has their $5 off $25 coupon IF you haven't got one yet.

Staples Rewards Members!

In-store ONLY deals: If you are a Staples Rewards member, you can get 25% back store-wide in Staples Rewards this week. This is huge, you usually only get 10% back on certain items. If you didn't get the e-mail with the coupon and information, let me know and I'll forward mine to you. In the same e-mail, there is a coupon to get 100% back after Easy Rebate on copy paper too. I love the Easy Rebates, especially now since you can get the money back in your PayPal account! And if you got this week's Staples ad in your Sunday paper, there was an in-store coupon for Bounty paper towels, you can get an 8 pack for $4.

Online, Staples is running a special with free shipping on orders over $20. You can also get a self-inking return address stamp for 99 cents (normally $18.99) plus shipping.

Remember the Box Tops for Education factor!

When considering the many benefits of couponing, don't forget the Box Tops for Education factor. Back when I had stopped couponing and was buying mainly store brand products, I rarely had any Box Tops to save for our school. Since I started couponing again, I keep a baggie hanging on a clip inside the cabinet and drop the Box Tops in there. When I get a bunch, I send them to the school with the school-age boy that I keep.

Think your few Box Tops won't make much difference? Consider this, I was told from someone in our local PTA here that the last Box Tops check was about $700! That is HUGE for our little school! So send those Box Tops to your local school!

My current stash of Box Tops, I counted 54!

Toothpaste for 19 cents each!

There was recently a coupon for 75 cents off Colgate toothpaste 4 oz or larger. Right now Wal-Mart has some Colgate toothpaste for 94 cents each, so I got toothpaste for 19 cents a tube. The coupon limited how many could be used in a transaction to 4 so since Tom was with me, I gave him two of my six coupons and he got those. If you have any of those coupons, they expire Friday the 25th so be sure and stock up on some toothpaste!

Meatloaf in the Crockpot

A few years ago, I got a wild hair one day and decided to try cooking meatloaf in the crockpot. Well now I'm hooked on doing it that way! It turns out so tender and just melts in your mouth. Not to mention that you don't have to heat up your oven on a hot day! (Not that that's a problem right now lol). 

Spray the crockpot with cooking spray first! Then just make your favorite meatloaf recipe and pat it down in there. An hour or two before you want to serve it, put ketchup on top and let it finish cooking. 

I don't follow a certain recipe, meatloaf is one of those things that I tend to just throw together. But since we are trying to eat healthier and I was trying to figure calories, I actually figured up what I put in this time:

1 pound ground beef

1 package onion soup mix 

1 egg

1/4 cup bread crumbs

3-4 tablespoons ketchup (this ketchup ix mixed into the meatloaf)

dab of milk

Ketchup for the top

Mix together until it will hold a shape, then pat it down into the crockpot. I started mine around 11:00 a.m. on high for about 30 minutes, then turned to low and it was done well in time for supper. 

Great deals at Save-a-Lot

I went to Save-a-Lot tonight and used my $5 off $25 coupon along with a couple of cereal coupons. Check out all I got for only $20.40 after coupons!

5 boxes of General Mills cereal (I had coupons for $1 off two boxes and $1 off three boxes. The two boxes were on sale for $1.69 each and the other three for $1.99).
1 box of animal crackers
3 pound bag of onions
tomatoes
pickles
jalapenos
sugar free pancake syrup
5 cans of spaghetti sauce

 Front View

Side View

Have you got your January $5 off $25 coupon for Save-a-Lot yet? And if you haven't visited the new Save-a-Lot on South Van Buren in Enid, it's super nice. 

Dollar General coupon: Saturday 1/19/13 only

Dollar General has another $5 off $25 coupon for in store purchases this Saturday, January 19th. You can go to their website to print one out.

You can also save $5 off $25 online purchases through tomorrow by using the code: SAVENOW.

Gift Hulk: Earn Hulk Coins to redeem for prizes!

I know, I know! You guys might be getting sick of me promoting Gift Hulk. But I love the chance to earn free stuff and figure everyone else does lol.

Last week, I wrote about starting to plan now for next Christmas:

Plan now for next Christmas

After I posted the first one, I wrote about a great post I found on buying gift cards throughout the year to save for Christmas:

More on planning for next Christmas now

Sites like Gift Hulk are a great way to earn points and save gift cards throughout the year. You can then use them for Christmas (or other gifts) and not have to spend a dime!

If you haven't joined yet, use my referral link and my code: "cruisingwithcoupons" (no quotes) to get started!

Score free music from Google play!

Do you have an Android device? Did you know that you can score free music daily at Google Play? Just go to their music page and click on "Free song of the day" to get your free song each day. So far it seems they only change it Monday-Friday, but still 5 songs a week times 52 weeks a year, that's a lot of free music! As a general rule, I just go ahead and download it and if it's something I don't like, then I just delete it.  There have been some songs that I knew from looking at that I wouldn't like, so I just didn't get them.

Grocery deals this week

There are some good grocery deals to be found this week.

At United Supermarkets, you can find:

They are having a buy 5 Red Gold items, get $5 off sale. That means you can get tomato sauce, crushed, stewed, or diced tomatoes, and diced tomatoes with green chilies for 25 cents a can and ketchup, sloppy joe mix, and salsa for 50 cents each with the deal!

There is also a buy 10 select Kraft items, save $10 sale.

Check out the whole ad on the United website.

At Jumbo Foods in Enid this week, you can get

10# package of hamburger meat for $1.99 a pound. (My advice, if you get this, divide it up before you freeze it lol)

They also have Ortega foods on sale and there was a 50 cents off two Ortega items coupon in last Sunday's paper.

Check out the entire ad at the Jumbo Foods website.

As usual, Aldi  has some great produce prices this week. You can get a 5 pound bag of potatoes for 99 cents, one pound of fresh broccoli for 79 cents, 1 pound bag of baby carrots for 49 cents, a 1 pound bag of Roma tomatoes for 49 cents,  3 pack of colored bell peppers for $1.49, and a 1 pound bag of spinach leaves for 99 cents.

And don't forget to go get your $5 off $25 purchase coupon for Save-a-Lot!

Staples this week

This week (through Saturday, January 19th), Staples has more 100% back in Staples Reward deals:

Cardboard storage boxes (limit 2)

Plastic file totes (limit 2)

Avery Binders (limit 4)

They are also running the HP ink promo again. If you buy $50 in HP ink, you get $6 in Staples Rewards for every empty ink cartridge you turn in, compared to the normal $2 per cartridge, up to a max of 5. I didn't get to turn mine in last week because I didn't have $50 to spend on ink. Hopefully I'll be able to do it this week because I will have 5 cartridges to turn in.

More on planning for next Christmas now

Right after I posted on Saturday about my plan to start planning for next Christmas now, I ran across this great post on a blog that I follow called Colie's Kitchen:

Christmas Gift Card Savings Plan

Basically, you purchase gift cards at every payday throughout the year, then use those cards either as Christmas gifts or to buy your Christmas gifts and meals. I love this idea! And after I shared the link on Facebook, a friend of mine posted how a co-worker of his does this with restaurant gift cards and saves them for vacation. I thought to myself that this was another great idea. When Tom and I are on "staycation", I like to take a break from cooking and this would be a great way to "save" up for that week.

Still looking for a winner!

I am still looking for a winner on my Facebook page contest. As soon as I reach 100 likes, I'll be holding a drawing to give away a coupon binder similar to this.

My Favorite Grocery Store

I know that I may have mentioned this before, but Aldi is my favorite grocery store for just basic grocery shopping. Since I started couponing, I buy less there than I used to (since they don't take manufacturer coupons), but I still go there every two weeks. Why? For example, their prices on bread can't be beat. A loaf of whole wheat bread is a little over $1. Almost everything I've bought there has been good quality. As I've posted before, I've found excellent deals on meat there and the meat has always been good quality. Just earlier this week, I posted about getting spiral sliced hams for 1/2 price. Their produce prices are really good too and they run wonderful sales on their produce.

Aldi is different than a regular grocery store. You will need to take a quarter to get a cart, then you get the quarter back when you put the cart back. This keeps carts from cluttering up their lot and having to pay someone to go round them all up. Take your own bags or plan to buy some at the store, last I looked the paper bags were about 6 cents each and their plastic bags were around 10 cents. You will be bagging and carrying out your own groceries, but the savings are well worth it! Another way they are different is that they mostly carry their own store brand of things, although sometimes they'll have special buys on name brands. They have a good line of low calorie healthy foods and they seem to be adding more all the time. If you haven't tried it out yet, check it out. The one in Enid is on W. Garriott  by Lowe's and not far from Wal-Mart.

Save $5 off $25 at Dollar General Saturday, January 12th

You can save $5 off a $25 purchase at Dollar General today, January 12th. You can go to their website to print the coupon to use in store OR you can use this code to save when ordering online: SAVENOW.

Start planning now for next Christmas

A good way to save money is to start planning ahead for next Christmas now. How can you do that? Well, there are many ways and I'm not very good at them, but the times that I've done some of them, I've been much more relaxed about the holidays. This year I'm going to have a grandbaby to shop for and I plan to spoil that little one! LOL. So my goal this year is to start now. Here's my plan:

1. Make a list of who I need to buy for and put it in my purse. Also put on there the gift exchanges I need to buy for.

2. Start watching sales for items to fit the people/exchanges on my list. As I purchase gifts, write down the gifts on the list (and write down where I put them, lol).

3. When possible, use coupons/gift cards to help pay for the costs of the gifts. There are many programs out there that can help you do that. Gift Hulk and Swagbucks are both rewards programs where you earn points and can redeem them for gift cards. These can be saved throughout the year and used to buy gifts for Christmas. Another thing I used this year was Staples Rewards. As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I earn Staples Rewards coupons when I turn in ink cartridges. You can also earn them on items you purchase in the store. I had bought some batteries (that I needed anyway) that were 100% back in Staples Rewards and when I got that coupon, I took it in there and used it to help buy some Christmas gifts. I also used a Sears automotive card I got. It was a $25 off $25 or more purchase, but could only be used in the automotive department at Sears. I could have used it for the repair shop, an oil change, etc. I chose to use it to buy some things in the automotive department.

How do you plan for the holidays? Please share your thoughts in the comment section!

Oh and keep in mind, this can be a great time of year to stock up on gift items, many of those items are marked down after Christmas!

Have you joined Gift Hulk yet?

Have you joined Gift Hulk yet? No? Well, what are you waiting for? Use my referral link and enter this code: "cruisingwithcoupons" (no quotes) at the Fountain of Youth to get you started!

If you don't know what Gift Hulk is, it is a site where you earn "Hulk Coins" and can redeem them to get free stuff, such as Amazon gift cards. There are several ways to earn coins. There is the Fountain of Youth, daily hulk polls, and the Treasure Box. You get a certain number of daily keys when you start (and earn more as you go) and you can go in daily and "open the box" to get Hulk Coins, extra keys, and more. You can also do surveys and other things for coins, but mostly I stick with the Fountain of Youth, the Treasure Box, and the polls.

Save-a-Lot January coupon

Save-a-Lot grocery stores have a $5 off $25 coupon available this month. If you're not already a member of their Smart Shopper club, you should join soon! They send out periodic coupon promotions like this. Save-a-Lot is a smaller scale grocery store with mostly their own store brand items, all of which I've found to be of good quality. However, they also have some name brand items and unlike Aldi, they do accept manufacturer coupons (which you can combine with the $5 off $25 for even greater savings!).

Go to their webpage for information on getting your coupon and joining the Smart shopper club. To get your coupon, you will be sent to Facebook, so if you're not comfortable giving the app access on Facebook, you might want to do like I did and sent up a separate Facebook account specifically for those types of items.

United Deals this week

There are some good deals at United this week

Angel Soft bath tissue: $4.99, there was a coupon in Sunday's paper for Angel Soft. I don't really care for Angel Soft, but this still seems to be a good deal.

Best Choice 5# bag of flour: 99 cents

Nabisco Ritz crackers: 2/$5 and there was a $1 off two coupon in Sunday's paper

Green giant boxed  vegetables: 4/$5,  coupon for 60 cents off 3 in Sunday's paper

Check out all the deals at the United ad online.

Some good deals at Jumbo's this week

Jumbo Foods in Enid has some good deals this week:

Hunt's pasta sauce: $1
Best Choice canned biscuits (7.5 oz): 3/$1
10# bag of potatoes: $1.98

Didn't see much to match up with coupons, though.

Staples this week

Staples has more 100% back in Staples rewards deals this week, including storage boxes, file folder boxes, and Avery binders.

Also, if you happen to use HP ink, they have a special running that if you buy $50 worth of ink, you get $6 in Staples Rewards per recycled cartridge (as compared to the normal $2), with a max of 5 cartridges allowed.  They run this promotion periodically, so I save up my ink cartridges so that I get more $'s back on them. Right now, I have 4 cartridges to turn in. Turning in those cartridges is a great way to save money!

Clearance sales on meats

Be sure and keep an eye out for clearance deals. I get a lot of my meat this way. It's still perfectly good, the store just bought too much or packaged too much and needs to move it. If it looks AT ALL questionable, I do not buy it. I have never had any trouble buying meat like this.

Just this past Friday, I bought two spiral sliced half hams at Aldi for half price. One of them was about $5.50,  the other about $6.50. This was an excellent deal and will make several meals for Tom and I and for the child care.

This is a great way to save money on something that rarely has coupons!

Free e-book through today (Saturday, January 5th)

You can get a free homemade bread e-book through Living on a Dime today. It's a Kindle book, but you can download it to your PC and use the free Kindle reader app. To get your free e-book, go here: How to make homemade bread. 

Review: Grandison Inn at Maney Park

Last month for our 20th wedding anniversary, Tom and I stayed at a Bed & Breakfast in Oklahoma City called The Grandison Inn. It's on N. Shartel, just minutes away from Bricktown. It was our first time in a Bed and Breakfast and we had a great time!

The pros:
The room was super comfortable and decorated very nicely. We really enjoyed the hot tub and the shower head was fabulous in the shower too. There was a nice TV with a DVD player that we used to watch movies from the DVD library downstairs. We got a key to the front door, a key to the back door (that came upstairs and into the hallway leading to our room), and of course our room key. That made it nice, we could come and go as we pleased. The downstairs area was really pretty and decorated up for Christmas.

The cons:
The electric fireplace in our room didn't work, that was kind of a bummer. Since we went during the week, there was only continental breakfast available. It wasn't bad, but since I'm diabetic there wasn't a lot I could eat so that was rather disappointing. We hope to go again and stay on a weekend when the full breakfast is available.

I got this room through Google Offers last spring for $149 for two nights. I felt like that was a really good deal, especially since you can't really get a motel/hotel room for $75 a night, and especially not one with a hot tub in the room. We definitely hope to go back again and actually hope to make this an annual thing for our anniversary.

Gift Hulk

It's Friday so that must mean it's time to remind you about Gift Hulk! Sign up using my referral link and start earning coins to redeem for prizes. I use mine to get Amazon gift cards, but there are tons of prizes to choose from. If you sign up under me, you can use the code "cruisingwithcoupons" (no quotes) in the Fountain of Youth to earn extra coins.