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Sunday, February 20, 2011

Philadelphia Cooking Creme

Kraft has a new product, it's called Philadelphia Cooking Creme. If you like to cook with cream cheese, I highly recommend it!

It's a little thinner than the bricks of cream cheese so there's no bothering with softening it. It just spoons right out of the container into your food. Right now that are four flavors, Original, Santa Fe, Savory Garlic, and Italian Cheese and Herb.

If you want to give it a try you can visit Kraft First Taste and sign up. You'll either get the option to request a coupon via snail mail for a free container or the option to print a $1.50/1 off coupon. (if you have a Harris Teeter nearby that's having super doubles, and you use the $1.50 off coupon, it would be free.)

Coupons.com also has a $1.50/1 coupon available right now that you are allowed to print twice per computer.

If you like to cook with cream cheese or even if you're just looking for something interesting to smear on your bagel I hope you check it out!

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Harris Teeter Super Doubles

I took John to Harris Teeter with me last night for super doubles (coupons up to $1.98 double). He's been shopping with me when I used coupons before but never to an event like HT, he doesn't like crowds.

I went on Friday night because my store tends to restock then for Saturday shoppers and I hoped something that were out of stock Thursday would be back on the shelves. Philadelphia's new cooking creme, for example (it was, I bought four :P).

When we got to the register with my cart load of stuff he said "How much do you think you're going to spend?" I told him it would probably be about $4.00 with tax, but then I remembered I had a couple of extra cooking cremes and that would bump it up a little. I told him it would be around $6.00. He scoffed.

My turn at the register came and he watched the total go up and up. When everything was scanned it was $76.00 and John gave me a little 'told ya so smirk' then I handed over my VIC card and coupons and we watched as the total went down down down.

I ended up paying a little over seven dollars. A bit more than I planned but still awesome for a cart load of things we needed.

As we walked to the car John was shaking his head, he couldn't believe we'd saved that much. I reminded him that he'd seen previous HT grocery hauls and I'd told him the small amounts I spent on them and wondered why he was so shocked now. I guess you just have to see somethings in person to believe them :)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Well, I never. . .

When I first joined Hot Coupon World almost 4 years ago I was a couponing newbie and in reading all those posts there where somethings I said I'd never do. Some, I thought were just plain crazy, some I thought I wouldn't ever be capable of but I find myself doing several of these things now. I thought I'd share.

1. I'll never use a coupon binder.

I thought I'd never have access to enough coupons to need such a thing, never thought I'd be so organized or that I'd be brave enough to take it into the store with me! But now? I couldn't function without the blasted thing! It not only goes to the store with me, but pretty much everywhere else too! I never know when I'm going to stumbled onto an unexpected deal or want to share a coupon with a friend.
The binder is stuffed to the point of not closing properly and honestly I need to expand. As soon as I find a deal on pages I'll divide my current binder into two. One food and one non food. Actually I need to get a better handle on my tradeable coupons too, so I'd really like to have three binders!

2. I'll never have target prices.

In those early days of forum lurking I saw people post that they only bought X item if it was less that $X.xx. "That's crazy!" I thought. I'll never be at a place where I'm saying something is too expensive to buy right now!
*raises hand*
I'm guilty. I know it's on sale and there is a coupon for it, but it will be frozen foods month in a couple of weeks, the sale will be better and the coupon will still be good and who pays more than $X.xx for frozen veg anyway?!

3. I'll never be brave enough to stand up to the cashier if he/she challenges one of my coupons!

When I expect my bill to be $7.00 and it totals $25.00 you better believe I'm going to be finding out why. There is no reason to be rude but I will be firm. For example, recently I piggybacked two coupons:

coupon one - $2.00 off produce when you buy product X
coupon two - $0.75 off Product X

Even though there is a picture of product X on coupon one, coupon one is actually for $$ off produce, not product X so there is no reason both shouldn't be valid. But coupon two beeped, the cashier glanced at it, saw the picture and refused to accept it. I politely explained how the coupon was worded, she took a closer look and ending up accepting it. Coupons beep for no good reason sometimes and you have to know what your coupons are for and be prepared to stand up for yourself and explain the deal.

4. I'll never take more than one blinkie, booklet, or tearpad.

Taking more than one (or taking one at all if I wasn't going to use it that trip) felt like stealing at first. I got over that pretty fast. I don't take them all and I don't take more than I think I'll use or trade but I do take more than one these days.
PS I'm also taking those catalinas people walk off and leave at the self checkout line.

5. I'll never trade coupons, it's too complicated!

And I'll never have enough coupons to trade anyway. Yeah, not even gonna write a paragraph about that one. It's not as complicated as it looks.

6. I'll never have the guts to contact a company and ask for coupons. What if they turn me down?

This one got blown outta the water pretty fast too. In the last month and a half I've contacted over 300 companies/brands. The majority have sent coupons and some of those have been for free products. So what if they say no? I'm not going to be embarrassed. I'll never meet these people in person. It doesn't hurt to ask.

7. I'll never go to more than one grocery store in one day (or make more than one trip during the sale) to do my shopping.

Yeah, that ones gone too. I don't mind going to several places or going to a store several times as long as the deal outweighs the price of gas or I happen to be driving by anyway.

8. It doesn't matter how many coupons the store takes per trip. I'll never reach that number anyway.

Um, yeah, sure I won't. That would be why I have to go back several times during the sale :P


I guess I've learned to never say never. But I'm never going to be able to keep all those drug store rolling deals straight!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Piggybacking and Stacking coupons

If you really want to get the most bang for your buck you'll want to learn about these two techniques.

Stacking is using a manufacturer's coupon and a store coupon at the same time. The majority of stores will allow you to do this but double check your stores coupon policy to make sure.

Of course you're going to need to know the difference between manufacturer's coupons and store coupons.

The insert coupons in the Sunday paper are almost all manufacturer's coupons. When you contact a company and they mail coupons they'll be manufacturer's coupons. Often the booklets, blinkies and tear pads in stores are manufacturer's coupons but sometime they're store coupons so be sure to double check. Most coupons are manufacturer's coupons. Manufacturer's coupons will always say "Manufacturer's Coupon" or "mfr coupon" usually it's near the top by the expiration date but it an be anywhere on the coupon.

Store coupons can come in the mail from the store, be printed from their website, or picked up in the store. They sometimes show up in the Sunday paper inserts too. A store coupon will say "Store Coupon" or it may name the store "Target Coupon" for example. A lot of the time these will also have the store's logo printed on the coupon, but don't assume it's a store coupon just because there is a logo. Sometimes manufacturer's will limit the use of their coupons to certain stores so read the fine print.

So if you have a manufacturer's coupon for 50 cents off toothpaste and a store coupon for 50 cents off the same toothpaste you can use both and save $1.00.

Piggybacking is another way to use more than one coupon and it's my favorite way to coupon. Piggybacking requires some strategy and strategy is my favorite couponing tool!

Let's say you have a coupon for John's BBQ sauce and you have a coupon that says "$1.00 off your meat purchase when you buy John's BBQ sauce" you can use both and save on the John's BBQ sauce and the meat.

Sometimes these coupons confuse the register/cashier and be sure you're buying the required items and be prepared to explain the deal if the cashier has a question about it.