Favorite Things Friday

Well I am going to do two things for Favorite things Friday. Why? Because I am stealing one idea from my sisters blog.

First Favorite Thing (the one presented by my sister Steff)...

Clorox Toilet Bowl Cleaner with Bleach

This stuff is GREAT! I don't love cleaning toilets, but I do love clean toilets. So keep a bottle of this stuff under the cupboard in each bathroom. Once a week before you to bed, spray the inside of your toilet bowl with the Clorox Toilet Bowl Cleaner and leave it. In the morning you will have sparkling clean toilets and that lovely bleach smell. I don't recomment wiping down the seat of the toilet as it left little spots that were whiter in some areas than other on my toilet. Just put it in the toilet bowl (and under the ledge). I have heard this works on hard water stains and other such nasties. So try it... you will be a happy camper.

My second Favorite Thing for today is a neat website that helps you save a lot of money and lines out good deals. There are some you can do with online purchasing (great for Christmas presents) and there are local deals that most people are unaware of. Typing this, I just realized that I got this source from my sister also. Even though she is 12 years younger than me, I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Second Favorite Thing...

Pinching Your Pennies Website

Go to www.pinchingyourpennies.com and when the page loads click on "forums" at the top. To get the most out of this website you will need to register. I recommend setting up a junk email address (even if you aren't registering here you should have a junk email address to use for misc. things so you don't get junk mail in your main email address). You can do this at hotmail or gmail. On the right hand side, upper corner there should be a place to register. Once you register you should see a page that looks like this....

Screaming Deals online is a forum that people from pinching your pennies add to on a daily basis. Usually there are ops who run each forum but people are really good about sharing great deals they have found. This is also a good place to do some early Christmas shopping. With the high price of gas, it tends to be cheaper to purchase online and have it shipped right to your house rather than driving all over town trying to find a good deal. In the past when you purchased online you didn't have to pay tax (unless that store resided in your state) and that covered the cost of shipping.

The next is Screaming Deals Around Town which is where deals from local stores can be found such as Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart, Target and so on. You can also learn how to do rebates from Rite Aid and Walgreens that often make certain items each week free. Rite Aid does online rebates which I find easy, but I heard that Walgreens was going to start doing the same thing. I have also found good deals at Office Depot, Borders etc. It is a great forum to check back on periodically, especially if you are going shopping so you can see if you should drop in some place for a good deal.

There are a few other forums after those which you can browse around in, and then there is Screaming Deals by State. This is where the local ads for grocery stores are put. Each week someone goes through each grocery store ad and matches it with coupons so you can get the best deals. Even though Washington is okay, if you check out Utah they usually post the Albertson's ad (our prices might run a wee bit higher) and the specials are pretty much the same. In the Arizona forum they list the Safeway ads (again prices might vary slightly and we cannot double coupons which they show). Couponing can be a great way to save money. During the General Mills sale and Quaker sales I can get a couple of hundred dollars in groceries for under 25 dollars (if I am planned out). I would buy 4 Sunday papers each week on Monday (or 6 if it was a great coupon week), cut out my coupons and store them in a fishing tackle box (I will take a picture and post it) which my sister bought me at a sportsman warehouse. There are many ideas on PYP (pinching your pennies) on how to store coupons, so read posts and see what works best for you. Some prefer the binder method, some just store the ads and cut coupons they need. If you have any questions, ask. Everyone is ready to help. Below is a sample of matching coupons with specials on the Albertson's ad..


The first column is the stars given to this deal. The more stars the better the deal (in the opinion of the moderator). Second column is the item on sale, third column is the sale price, fourth column lists any coupons available (either from newspaper or links to print coupons off), and fifth column is the final price after discounts. Here is at the bottom of this chart where they Malt O Meal sale is going on...


You can see that if your purchase 4 Malt O Meal cereals at 4 for 9.00 you will then get an automatic 5.00 off your purchase plus there is a link to coupons you can use on those cereals. Now if your puchase 5 cereals you can also get items for free in an additional promotion. This is a little more confusing promotion because it gives you several options for free items. Again feel free to ask questions in the forum and people will help you. You can also read other peoples responses because odds are your question might already have been asked.

If you go back to the main forums page, there are many other topics that might be interesting to you. There are forums on cooking, families, health, couponing, selling or trading items and free things you can get in the mail. Personally on the man page at the top, when I log in, I click on "New Posts" and this shows me all the new posts since I have been on last so I don't miss out on anything.

This can be a little confusing at first, but I promise if you put a little work into you can save a lot of money. I cut coupons while I am watching TV and sometimes I get my kids to help. A tip from my sister is to get the same page from each of your four ads and put them on top of each other, then cut generously around that ad so you are only cutting once for 4 coupons. I then sort them into my box (I will post a picture later) where I have made cards with different catagories. Here is a link that might help you decide how best to store your coupons.

I took a little time off from my couponing and am jumping back in this week because my food storage has slowly been depleted. When you can get granola bars for .50 a box and end up with 4-6 boxes, then I am set with snacks for school and am saving money. I don't pay much more than 1.00 for a box of cereal (and yes that is general mills and quaker name brand cereal not some cheap brand). I get razors for free and haven't paid for a toothbrush in over a year (and yes we change out our toothbrushes every couple of months). There so many deals around that we are not taking advantage of. I have hesitated about sharing this because in places like Utah (no not all people on this website are LDS) there are a lot of people who do this and there is pretty stiff competition to get to the store. I have been lucky that only a few of us do it in our area. But since I love you, and want to share in the "high", yes it is a high to bring out your receipt that is 4 foot long and see that you saved over 150 dollars and only spent 25.

If you don't understand anything or have any questions, please let me know. I would love to help you. Good luck and happy savings.