Sunday ad picks, 9/26-10/2

Okay, really quick, no frills, here's what I spotted.

Target

• Orowheat bread is $1.50/loaf, I usually try to pay $1 or less per loaf of whole wheat bread, but this is definitely not a bad price for this brand.
• A dozen eggs are $1, over my target price, but egg deals have been lacking lately.
• If you have little kids, the infants and toddlers Hanes fleece is $3.50/item, so pants and a sweatshirt for $7. This is my favorite way to dress little kids when it's cold, absolutely no fuss!
• If you're in the market, they have some Playtex bras on sale for $12, and mind blowingly, a handful of them have $2 coupons right on the label. I was in the market since I recently retired my nursing bras. Even this one.

Walgreens

• Here's a Register Rewards deal for you, Vaseline Sheer Infusion lotion is $5.99, and you'll get a $5 RR back, plus you can use the coupon here (must register) to save a buck. They will have a couple of good deals next week that you can use the RR on if you want to give it a try, and I really like this lotion so I think you might too!
• One other thing that just cropped up, they have a FREEEEE collage print if you use the code FBCOLL at checkout, and pick it up in store. This is good 9/30 and 10/1 only, and it's a Facebook promotion, just so you know where it came from. If you don't have a local Walgreens (that would be you Bubbles!), you can have it shipped to you for only .99, I think, so still a good deal. These are so nice, I always get recent pictures and just keep it on the fridge until the next free one comes along.

Family Thrift Center

• I'm irritated with them, they haven't had good deals on anything that isn't processed crap and I'm sick of it! Meat and produce please? This week, the American Beauty pasta is a decent price, .60/lb. There are some in-ad coupons for cheese, lunch meat, etc. but the prices are nothing great. I'm not going!

Sunday ad picks, 9/19-9/25

Safeway has a Sunday ad, it's medium at best.

• Fresh Express bagged salad is $1/bag.
• Jif Peanut Butter is $1.49 with the in-ad coupon, which is not bad since it's still an 18oz container.

Family Thrift Center

• I was really hoping for a great deal on eggs, but no luck this week. They have a few of their organic products in the ad that match up with coupons here, for example 220z of apple juice would be $1.69. For some reason, I can't open their normal page for store brand coupons, but I don't think I'm missing anything too exciting. It looks like cheese is 2.49/lb with coupon from here if it will open for you, which isn't bad if you need it, but not a stock up price.

Target didn't have anything that caught my eye. We were there on Saturday, and I know they have the LaCroix 8 packs of flavored sparkling water on a price cut right now to $2.50, so $1.25 with coupon here. I love this for entertaining, and I also love that the package lists the French name for grapefruit, "pamplemousse". Perhaps the funnest word ever.

Sunday ad picks, 9/12-9/18

Safeway has a Sunday ad that has a couple of good deals.

• 10lb of potatoes are $1.99. Cheap eats people, I am planning to share some potato recipes too.
• Cantaloupes are .99/ea with in-ad coupon. If you didn't get a paper today, and therefore don't actually have this Sunday ad, you may or may not find it in the store. Just be forewarned, but if you strike out check with customer service.
• Whole wheat sandwich bread is .99/loaf with in-ad coupon, hurray! Now I'm hoping that they will be sold out when I go in to the store, so I can rain check that baby. My freezer continues to be quite full. I keep thinking I need to cook that stupid turkey. Please don't ask how long it's been in there. This message will now self destruct.
• Store brand creamer is $1.69/32oz, again with in-ad coupon.
• Organic people; 1/2 gallons of milk are $1.99 with in-ad coupon, I love that Organic milk tends to have a really long storage time. Is it longer than regular milk? Maybe it's a carton vs. gallon thing? Feel free to weigh in, I'm even more rambly than usual tonight. You can ramble too!

Family Thrift Center gets a pass this week. I didn't see a single thing that I felt would be a good deal. Target was a snooze too, but I didn't really look very close, I'll holler if I see anything.

Pass on the Sunday ads, 9/5-9/11

I think there were a few deals to be had, but darned if I really care enough to find them!

Safeway

• There is a Sunday ad, but it's lame to the extreme. What's with the junk food Safeway? I'd like some produce deals please.
• I did want to mention if you're interested in the iTunes gift cards deal for a $5 catalina for your next purchase when you buy 2 cards, I was happy to find that they have $15 iTunes cards, so only $30 out of pocket and you get the $5 cat. Remember this ends tomorrow!

Family Thrift Center

• Canned fruit is .58 each, 18oz of peanut butter is 2 for 1.98, a jar of pasta sauce is .50, and 16oz of pasta is .50, all with coupons here. They also have a few coupons for frozen items, like strawberries and pancakes that might go well with the frozen foods sale, see below.
• The only other thing I saw that really seemed great is the frozen foods sale, one day only on 9/11; it looks like all frozen will be an additional 20% off. The Jack's pizzas are only $2 right now, so $1.60 after the sale, and I have a coupon for another $1 off 3, I'm really sorry but I don't know which circular it came from.

Walgreens and Target aren't even worth mentioning. Again, there are some Register Rewards deals at Wags if you want to try that out. Let me know if you have questions!

Sunday ad picks, lazy edition, 8/22-8/28

I'm going on vay-cay Wednesday at the crack of o-dark:30 as we call it, and I don't need anything else cluttering up my fridge, I'm trying to clean it out! But since we do have to eat until then, and probably once we come home too, there are a few things worth noting.

Walgreens milk is $1.99 a gallon, you know how happy that makes me! I picked up 2 gallons this am, and the use by date is 9/7, so it will be fine in the fridge. The Land O Lakes milk is in the opaque plastic containers, and I don't know if that affects shelf life, but I have read that it helps the milk retain its vitamins, in comparison to clear plastic. Random note for you.

Safeway has a Sunday ad, It's full of junk food. And copy paper, 10 reams for $30. I have no idea if that's a good price, I just wanted to share that I think it's an odd thing for Safeway to sell.

Family Thrift has butter at 1.59/lb with coupon here. This is good marketing on their part, I wouldn't have paid any attention to the ad if I hadn't seen this on the front. They also have 80% ground beef at 1.79/lb, and I might pick some up, I used my last batch of freezer meatballs last week, and there's an empty spot in my freezer and my heart that I need to fill. Actually that's a lie, there's no room in my freezer, but I make room for meatballs. Anyway, if I make a batch of freezer meatballs, any interest in a pictorial? Okay, enough about meatballs. 34.5oz of coffee would be $4.49 with coupon here, is that a good price?

The Target ad bored me to tears, it might have been full of fabulous deals but I didn't see any.

Sunday ad picks, 8/15-8/21, actually make that just FTC ad picks.

FTC

• I like to have the occasional cup of tea, and fall is coming (hurray!), so $1.29 for 20ct organic tea bags seems reasonable to me, use the coupon here.
• 4pk of organic applesauce would be $1 with coupon here, if you aren't an organic person, it's cheaper at Target with the coupon from the Safeway Make a Muscle booklet.
• 8oz packages of Our Family cheese are 2 for $2 with coupon here.
• The $1 coupon is available for Our Family organic milk half gallons, right here. I don't usually print this one in anticipation, but sometimes you get lucky and they mark this milk down to .99 when it's near sell by, and then you can use this coupon to get it free! I've noticed that my husband now sniffs the milk before he drinks it, apparently he's leery of me and my marked down finds! Milk freezes fine, just pour a bit out of the container so it can expand.
• Not a produce or meat deal worth mentioning in my opinion!

I'll pick up Target and Walgreens tomorrow, if there's anything good anyway!

Sunday ad picks,

Safeway's Sunday ad, thru 8/10 ONLY

• Tide Stain Release is 5.99 with the in-ad coupon. Use the MF coupon from the 8/1/10 P&G insert and load the $3 e-coupon here to get it free. I actually have gotten this item for free before and have yet to use it; you use it in addition to normal detergent.


• Tide detergent is also 5.99 with the same in-ad coupon, and there is a $2 e-coupon here, so combine that with the $1 MF coupon from the 8/1/10 P&G insert and it'll cost you 2.99, is that a good price? Someone has to tell me, I'm that hippie that makes her own laundry detergent...


• Black seedless grapes are .99/lb, these look yum. Look for the "Serve up a Sandwich" booklet in stores and you'll get a $1 off produce coupon (with a minimum $5 purchase), so you could try these for free!


• There is a MF coupon in this flyer for $3.00 off 10 ConAgra products. It's fairly unusual to see a MF coupon in the Safeway ad, and I wanted to point it out to you because you should be able to get cheap Hunt's tomato sauce with it. If you take it to FTC this week, you would pay $2 for 10 cans. I use the heck out of tomato sauce, it's perfect for pizza sauce, just add some Italian Seasoning or basil/oregano/granulated garlic. Mix it with water and some milk for tomato soup (I know that sound odd, but it's not any different than canned tomato soup). I could go on. But I won't.

Family Thrift Center

• 18 eggs are .99 cents, which hits my target of less than .6/egg. See my price book here.


• Ummm, don't waste your time? There's a promotion on General Mills stuff, get .50 off per item if you buy 10 or more. There are always lots of coupons for these items, look here, here, or here. I don't see anything that will entice me to investigate this one further. This message will now self destruct.

Target

• I was hoping to find some Crystal Light coupons to go with the gift card promotion, buy 4 at $2.98 each and get a $5 gift card back. I struck out.

Wow, nothing exciting guys. Sorry! What did I miss?

Sunday ad picks, 7/25-7/31

Safeway Sunday ad, these prices good through Tuesday the 27th only!

• I already mentioned the pineapples for .99/ea with coupon from coupons.com a few weeks ago, but the coupon is also still available on the Del Monte website here, yeah!
• Top Sirloin is 3.99/lb, and you can load an ecoupon to your Safeway card here. I would count on it probably not working, so print out a list of the coupons you have loaded and be prepared to go to customer service if you try it. If you find a package that is just slightly over 2.5lbs in size, that would bring your per lb price down to $3.20. If you can stop at Haggar's today or tomorrow, you'll pay 2.99/lb, without any hassle!

Family Thrift Center: wow, slim pickings. Another week I won't be stopping at FTC.

• 1 dozen eggs are .49 with coupon here. FTC has had some great deals on eggs lately, here's another one.
• Limes are 3 for $1.
• Taco Bell products are on sale, combine with coupon here for .75 off 2 items. The queso would be 2 jars for 4.25, that stuff is usually so expensive, so that's probably not a bad deal.

Walgreens

• Not a single Register Reward deal worth checking out in my not very humble opinion!
• But, they do have something that always makes me happy! Milk is 1.99/gallon, and just in time, we were completely out yesterday.

Target

• Pedigree dog food is 18.99 for 40lb, I can't find any coupons available to print right now. This isn't a great price, but the best I see right now.
  

I'm changing the name of this section to the Sunday and Wednesday ad picks, since I never find exactly 10! Is this helpful to you guys? I only see the deals for things that I am interested, so I know it's not always well rounded, but I hope it helps you develop your skills for recognizing deals on the items you buy.

Pineapples!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was beyond excited about the Sunday Safeway ad, and had to force myself not to post this at 11:30pm last night, cause I needed to go to bed! Pineapples are 1.99 each, so if you have the .50 cent coupon that I posted about a few weeks ago, it will double and you can get them for .99! I think this is only good through Tuesday, I didn't look too close. If I spot anything else worth getting excited about, I'll let you know.

I was up last night at 11:30 because we had our monthly date night, and holy mother is that too late to be up! We went to Jonah Hex, which is playing at the Elks right now, and I thought it was a pretty good movie, not too gory which was a pleasant surprise. Someone at work had told me that on Tuesdays, you can have a buy one get one free date, as in tickets are 2 for the price of 1, as is popcorn and soda, so I checked it out while I was there, and was happy to see that it's every Tuesday, no special rules. Tickets are $4 each, so that could make for a really cheap date! I love the Elks, especially the upstairs theatre, it's such a neat atmosphere.

Sunday Top 10, 7/18-7/24

Sorry I haven't posted for the past week, I've been more into outdoors stuff and I'm still bored with shopping. That said, there are a handful of good deals at Safeway through 7/20, and I'm going to run in tomorrow to pick up a few items, so I thought I would try my hand at a video clip to give you a better visual of what I buy. Look for it tomorrow! In the meantime, if you're going to be in Safeway today or tomorrow, make sure to pick up strawberries at .99/lb!

FTC, total bummer of a week!

• Nash Brothers frozen veg, 12oz bags, 6 for $6 with coupon here. Seems pretty good for organic.
• Peaches or Nectarines are $1/lb, that seems to be the price at most stores right now.
• There are lots of 10 items for $10 sales listed, I almost never find this to be a good deal. One example is the Crystal Farms butter, I almost had a coronary when I saw it in this sale, but it's 8oz packs, not 16oz, so not a deal at all! Of course you don't actually have to buy 10 items to get these prices, so if you do shop at FTC this week, don't let them trick you!

Walgreens

• There's an in-ad coupon for printer paper, 1.99/400 sheets, limit 2. That's a pretty good price if you prefer not to buy the ginormous boxes of it!
• Colgate Total Advanced toothpaste is $3.49 with a 3.49 register reward. There are lots of coupons floating around for this product too, but even without one, this is still a good way to introduce yourself to register rewards without spending a lot out of pocket.

Target

• The Hanes bonus packs are on sale, for example 7 pairs of socks are $5, so print the Target store coupon here, and they're only $4!

Safeway's Sunday ad

• Corn on the cob is 5/$1.
• Fruit 2 Day is $1/bottle, and since it's a new product I was hoping to find some coupons for it, but the only one I have seen is for the 2 packs. Bummer!
• Whole Roasted chicken is 3.99 with coupon here, I would print it rather than load it to your card. Seems like a decent price if the heat has gotten to your brain and you are not cooking!

Haggar's (these are good THROUGH 7/20 ONLY, sorry I was lazy!)

• Lots of nice fruit offerings at Haggar's right now, peaches are $1/lb, pluots are 1.49/lb, Rainier cherries are $2.99/lb (not cheap, but they never are, and they are yummy), red and green grapes are $1/lb. Definitely worth a stop if it's on your route.

By the way, I was on smartsource.com checking out the coupon offerings, and they have one for Land O' Lakes light butter. What kind of horrible oxymoron is "light butter" supposed to be?

Sunday Top 10, 7/11-7/17

Not a bad week at FTC, and there are some Target deals to be had on apparel that I was happy about. Some of the FTC deals I've already mentioned, but here's my complete list.

FTC

• Our Family cheese, 8oz, 4 for $4 with coupon here. That hits my target price of $2/lb.
• Nash Brothers frozen waffles, .67 each with coupon here.
• Our Family frozen veg blends, 12-16oz, 4 for $4 with coupon here (I wonder if they have my beloved pepper strips!)
• Nash Brothers organic sandwich cookies, 1.49/pack with coupon here.
• Bing cherries are 1.99/lb, which isn't bad. Otherwise I didn't like any of the produce prices. They also have a daily meat special this week, again I wasn't impressed!

Walgreens

• Penway crayons or colored pencils, .49/pack. They actually have the same item at Target, Rose Art brand maybe? But Walgreens shows the 8pack of jumbo crayons at this price, and that's right up our alley!
• Legal pads are .29/each with in-ad coupon, I love these to plan my shopping trips!
• Obviously the theme here is school supplies, this is the time to start loading up so you don't have to pay full price. I also think about Christmas with these sales, markers and crayons are fun little gifts or stocking stuffers.

Target

• Target.com has some good coupons for apparel right now. These will go fast, so don't hesitate to print them. I used the $2 off Merona women's tops on a shirt that was on sale for $6, so only $4. I also used the Hanes apparel coupons for $1 off on socks, which are on sale for 6.04, so 5.04 after coupon for 7 pairs, and I'm thrilled because hubs badly needed socks. The C9 apparel coupon scored me an even better deal on socks, 1.99 for 3 pair after coupon. It could be argued that socks are not apparel, but I didn't have any trouble using the coupons.

Sunday Top 10, 7/4-7/10

I'm concerned that this might end up being less than 10 again, by Wednesday the ads might be so bad that I insist you don't buy any groceries until the sales get better! Let's see what we've got for now;

Target

• Buy 2 Jif peanut butter (18oz) or Smucker's Jam (selected varieties), and get a free loaf of Orowheat bread. Can mix and match PB and Jam. This works out to $1.33/item, which isn't bad. I usually pay .99 for the same quantity of generic PB at Safeway, and $1 per loaf of bread, so for a bit more, you get the brand names.
• Store brand frozen veggies are .99/lb. This is an example of when an advertised price is not a sale, that is the regular price for them. That said, it's still a decent price, and nice to know you can always get the item their if you can't get it cheaper elsewhere.
• If you do go to Target, make sure you pay attention to any cash register tape coupons (CRTs) that you get, I got a good one for $1 off a $3 up&up brand product (their store brand). These are great for things that don't necessarily go on good sales, maybe sunblock, paper goods, prenatal vitamins (if you need that sort of thing!).

Walgreens

• Milk is 1.99/gallon again, God bless them!

FTC

• Butter is 1.49/lb with coupon here.
• 24oz Sour Cream is .99 with coupon here. That's a good one.
• 128oz OJ is 3.49 with coupon here. I almost never buy juice but that seems like a good price?

Anyone spot any other deals? Hope you all had a fabulous 4th of July, I have to go figure out how to use up a TON of leftovers!

Sunday Top 10, 6/27-7/3

I think I'll try and run through the Sunday ads like I've been doing the Wednesday ones, and just hit the highlights.

Family Thrift Center

• Store brand eggs are 1.39/18, if you have the fab coupon from last week's insert, only .79/18 when you buy 5.
• If that's too many eggs for you, the ice cream novelties at 30% off might be a good filler to get you up to 5 items.
• Chicken leg quarters are 10lbs at .49/lb, so 4.90. This is what I use to make stock.
• Corn on the cob is 5 ears for $1, whoo-hoo!

Target

• Pedigree dog food is 20lbs for 10.99, get a $5 Target card when you buy 2 bags. Use 2 of the $2 coupons here, and your total out of pocket cost is 17.98 for both bags, plus the $5 gift card. Sooo, that's 32.4 cents per pound, factoring in the gift card, and I try to pay less than 40 cents.
• A little more on the whole Target gift card thing; in order to defray the cost of these gift card promotions in the future, I always keep at least one of them to use only for a future gift card generating purchase. Does that make sense? So for the Pedigree, I will use the gift card I got from a previous similar deal (I think it was an Olay promotion), and replace it with a new one. It's kind of annoying, but it helps me figure the cost out to actually reflect a lower out of pocket, rather than a "net" cost.
• Market Pantry pasta is .75/lb, which isn't bad for cuts other than spaghetti, which I try not to pay more than .50/lb for.

Walgreens

• Milk at 1.99/gallon, again! Definitely what I prefer to pay for milk!
• 3 Pack Act 2 mini bags popcorn are $1 each, so .60 for one, or $1 for 2 with coupon here. I usually don't buy microwave popcorn, the old fashioned stuff on the stove is so much cheaper, but these are nice for little kids who need a snack.
• Okay, I have not felt mentally prepared to explain this yet, but I'm going to try. There are some good Register Rewards this week at Wags, so let me list them, and then I'll tell you how they work.
• Pepsi/Mt. Dew 12 packs are 4/$13, get a $5 Register Reward (RR) back.
• Blistex Fruit Smoothies Lip Care are $2.99, get a $3 RR back.
• Airplus socks are $3, get a $3 RR back.

So, about the Register Reward. Here in our zip code, where we don't have CVS or RiteAid, we are forced to figure out the RR program in order to get free/cheap toiletries. It really is something you can master, but I'm not going to lie, they make it tricky. Here are the rules to understand before you start;

1. Register rewards are like gift cards to Walgreens, with lots of little rules, that you get by purchasing certain items, which are listed in the weekly ad, or may be available for the whole month. They are a simple cash register tape type of coupon that prints after you pay for your transaction.
2. The coupon can be used for anything in the store, of course with exceptions that are printed on them (not to be used for lottery tickets, prescriptions, stuff like that). The name of the game is to use them for items which will produce more RRs, so that you only make an initial investement in the items, and then you pay very little out of pocket for more items, continually replacing old RRs with new ones.
3. An RR CAN be used to be for the same item that generated it in the first place, but it WILL NOT result in a new RR printing. If you use the Blistex RR to buy more Blistex, you won't get another RR. This can be tricky, because you might not realize that item A and item B are made by the same company. Most RRs say "courtesy of Blistex" or whatever, so check brands!
4. An RR expires only 2 weeks from the date it prints.
5. When you become a Jedi Knight couponer, and you are using coupons to pay for items that generate RRs, you need to understand that Walgreens has some weird policies. You cannot use more manufacturers coupons in a transaction than the number of items that you have. RRs are manufacturers coupons. So if you have 3 items, you can't use 4 manufacturers coupons. HOWEVER, Walgreens store coupons are not MF coupons, so you can use 100 of them per transaction and no one cares.
6. I will be totally honest with you; if you understood all, most, or some tiny little part of the above, you probably know more about Walgreens coupon policies than the typical employee.

So, if you start with the Blistex and the socks, you will pay 6 bucks plus tax, and then have the same amount in RR. You can then buy the Pepsi, use the RR to bring your out of pocket cost down to 7 bucks, and get 5 RRs back. There are better weeks at Wags, and I will try to highlight when there are more practical items, but I wanted to just give you some insight into how it works.