Red Plum News!

Well ladies, bad news has struck us! I've been hearing rumors of it for months now and finally it has hit. Red Plum inserts will no longer be available in our Sunday papers. Red Plum/Valassis has figured if they mail these coupons inserts to targeted areas they will reach more people than offering it through the newspapers. We don't agree! Please help us by voicing your frustrations about this matter. Check out the PYP forum for all the details on emailing Red Plum and all the manufacturers too! Join us on our crusade! they will hear us!
Now I'm not sure who will be in their targeted mailing lists. Salt Lake ladies have already started receiving their inserts in the mail. So hopefully everyone will still get at least one in the mail weekly. Over on my right hand side you can click on "Coupons by Dede" and order additional inserts on line if you wanted too. The good news is that 80% of the coupons we currently use from our newspapers are from the Smart Source and P&G and they're not going anywhere.
Also, good news for all the ladies in Utah County... The Daily Herald is continuing to supply Red Plums at least for one year. They are the only paper in Utah that will continue to do so. I guess they have a longer contract with Red Plum, so for anyone in Utah County that gets the SL papers, call me to switch your subscriptions over to the Daily Herald!! They have a great deal on the Sunday Onlys!!! Please feel free to call, email, or leave a comment if you have any questions.

Kraft Promo starts 8/7

Start printing all the Kraft coupons you can now! Next week (8-7) Kraft is doing a Promo... buy $25.00 in Kraft products, get a $5.00 Catalina print out good on your next visit. Then a MIR (mail-in rebate) will print out which is good for $20.00! Click HERE for more info. This makes it all FREE! We love FREE! Here is an on-line site where you can print some Kraft products...
Click HERE.
Please comment if you find anymore online coupons so we can all partake!!!

Albertsons Doublers

Sunday's our newspapers are loaded with awesome coupon inserts, restaurant coupons, and other store deals. On top of ALL that, Albertsons will put out 3 double coupon coupons (that was weird, but how else to you state that)! You can double up to 3 of your coupons worth $1.00 or less. Of course I get 6 Sunday newspapers so potentially I have $18.00 worth of savings. Now there are a few rules. You are suppose to use only 3 per day, or per trip. So bring someone else with you to use them in another line (Oops, I didn't just say that)! I've never used all of mine, but when I use them I at least use $6.00 worth! Here are some good ideas at Krazy Coupon Lady on how to use your doublers and what great deals you can get with them. Remember, they're only good til tomorrow, 7/28! So take advantage of their savings!!!

How I pick my stores

One of the most frequently asked question that I get in my Grocery classes is...Do you try to hit every store to take advantage of their sales that week? My answer to this question is NO!!! I am way too busy to shop at all the stores every week! I'm sure most of you are too. So here's my tip...I usually pick one store from the grocerysmarts list to shop at that week, whoever hosts the best sale (most of the time its Albertsons). So I print off my list, clip my coupons, and stock up at that store. Then I choose either Wal-Mart or Costco. Why do you say? Cause that's where I will pick up all my perishables like produce, milk, eggs, and bread for cheap. If there is quite a few other stores that have some great deals I will price match them at Wal-Mart. But I prefer Costco for my perishables, and we all know why ... Wal-Mart=Yuck! This way I don't buy these items for regular price at Albertsons, or Smiths, etc. It will defeat my purpose of SAVING!!!

Sugar!

Just thought I'd let you know that C & H Sugar is on sale at Albertsons this week for $1.40 per 5 lb bag. I haven't seen sugar on sale as a 5 Star rating for about a year now. So my tip for today would be to head on over to Albies sometime this week and stock up on sugar!!!

Price matching

So these were the items Smiths was out of when I shopped last week. Today I ran to Wal-mart for some perishable so I price-matched these items. The gum was already reduced to $1.50 ea on the shelf. The gloves were not. Wal-Mart had them priced at $1.88 ea and Smiths had them for $1.00 ea. So for all this I paid a total of $3.00! Not bad!

News Flash!!!

Target now price matches! Yeah!!! The only bad thing about price matching at Target is that you For Sure have to have the ad with you, and you have to pay full price for the item your price matching and go to their customer service desk and they'll give you a refund. So it's a little inconveniant unless your doing quite a bit.

Today's Inserts

Don't worry when you rummage through your papers searching for your red plum insert...It's not there. Today we only get the Smart Source but don't worry, next week we'll get two! And the week after we'll scheduled to get three! Our binders and file boxes will be brimmed with coupons!

What to do with all this Yogurt!

Okay, so I am thinking today to myself, how am I gonna use up all this yogurt before it goes bad? I mean I like to eat yogurt, but my kids aren't crazy about it. They'll eat a few bites and leave the rest on the counter for me to find a few hours later. So I just found out (hopefully I'm not the only one) that you can freeze yogurt! Wow, I was way excited about that. I guess i've always froze my go-gurts so I don't know why i've never tried regular yogurt. Plus isn't frozen yogurt more of a tasty treat? Maybe my kids will like this better! Using GrocerySmarts I am always finding killer deals on yogurt so let's not be afraid to buy too much now! FREEZE IT!! This is my tip for the day!
This is another thing I love to do with Yogurt...I make yummy fruit dip with it. Summertime is the all time best fruit months, and topping our fruit dishes with dip is spectacular. I mix my yogurt with a package of cream cheese, add some sugar, and a dash of vanilla and Voila...Yummyness!!! My kids will pound away at fruit when it's dipped in fruit dip!

A successful Smiths trip!

I was really satisfied with my stock-up trip to Smiths this week. They were out of a few things that i'll try to price match later during the week at Wal-Mart. But all-in-all it was successful! My favorite buy would have to be the FREE Rolaids! Its great to get such a killer deal on stuff you use all the time!

I know these recepts are kinda fuzzy but here is my breakdown below...

Total Value of purchase $119.52

Total Saved $78.14

Total out of pocket $41.38

Total Percentage Saved 65%

I know I always talk about Albertsons and their great sales, but please don't forget to always browse through other stores in your area. At least once a month another one of my local stores will have a great sale and I will definitely make a trip across town to patronize them! This week Smiths has a great sale! Here are some items that stand out to me...

* Milk for $0.75

* Tums and rolaids are FREE (my husband has terrible indigestion, we go through these like crazy)!

* New York Steak $2.99lb

* Kroger yogurt $0.12

* 2 liter Coke products $0.69

* Keebler fudge shop cookies $0.49

* Kleenex Facial Tissue $0.74

* Playtex hand saver gloves - FREE

* Propel Fitness Water $0.50

* Scotch Tape (3 pack) $2.00

* Wrigley Extra gum (3-pack) $0.50 (My Favorite)

There's lots more so go check out SMITHS list this week!!!

5 Free Oprah magazines!

I signed up for this offer a few days ago, so hopefully the offer hasn't run out yet. Go to O-Magazine to sign up for 5 free issues of Oprah's mag. The best part about it is no strings attached!

Preview upcoming sale!

Click HERE to preview Albertsons sale this Wednesday. There's definitely some stock up items. Here's a list of items that popped out at me!

Capri Suns $0.50
kraft jet-puffed marshmellows $0.49
kraft salad dressing $0.49
homelife napkins 250 ct. $1.00
FlavRPac stir-fry veges $1.00
Sobe life water $0.50
Albertsons chunk or shredded cheese 8 oz. $1.00
Port Ribs (bone-in) $1.00lb
Reser's Baja Cafe salsa $0.49
Spray and Wash Spray $0.99
Kelloggs Cereal (assorted) $0.38
Nestle Nesquick flavored mile $0.50

There's lots more so let's stock up this Wednesday!!!

P.S. Milk is only $1.00 at Smiths til tomorrow! Catch it while it lasts. If you can't make it to Smiths price match it at Wal-mart!

This weeks treasures!

When I'm browsing through my Sunday papers I love to pull out all the adds for stores that aren't on our grocery smarts lists. I will look through them and highlight things I need/want/or think are a super great deal. Then I will go see if I have a coupon in my possesion in the Alphabetical Coupon Index on the home page of the GrocerySmarts website (See post HERE for more info). I usually can find some super buys this way at Rite Aid, Kmart, etc. Also I am noticing that school supplies are starting to surface at our stores. Staples and Office Max have some great deals going on. Don't miss the $5 off $20 purchase coupon at Staples too.

I love finding great coupons in the papers for my favorite places to eat. In the Salt Lake papers I found 8 coupons for Quiznos, which include 4 free sandwiches (buy one get one free)! Now remember I get 4 SL papers so when my family goes to Quiznos We buy 3 sandwiches and get 3 free! Our savings potential is not just limiting us to the grocery stores. We can get great deals everywhere!

Free Slurpee on 7-11

Tomorrow - Saturday July 11th (7-11) Stop by your local 7-11 convenience store and pick up free slurpees for the entire family!!! I live here is Sunny (and right now boiling HOT) St. George, so you better believe that I will go treat myself and my family to a free slurpee on 7-11!
ENJOY!

My filing system

Okay, so a lot of you wanted to know how I organize my coupons. Well, here it is... I use this hanging file box that I bought at Wal-Mart for around $10.00. This fits 5 months of my coupons perfectly. Remember I get 6 newspapers each week, so this works great for my situation. As you can see each hanging file holds one weeks worth of coupons. I do put a manila file in with that weeks coupons so I can see the date just by glancing at them. I write the date with pencil so when that week is 5 months old and ready to throw away, I re-use the file. I just erase the old date and add the new date. Piece of cake!

This file box just sits on the floor in my office so it's out of the way, and I love the lid so my 3 year old can't get into them. This file box contains thousands of dollars of potential savings for me so it's very important to stay organized and on top of things.

If you have a great filing systems that works great for you, email me at jodigardner@yahoo.com so we can all enjoy seeing other methods of organizing our coupons!

preview to albies sale tomorrow

Okay! whew! I'm finally back from one long vacation after another. Life is rough! Me and my family have had so much fun from baseball tourneys to Lagoon to Park City and Lake Powell. It is very nice to be back home. I am truly thankful for Grocerysmarts which I feel has made it possible for us to take a break out of life to make some memories with my family. I save so much money grocery shopping that I can take these vacations and not feel guilty about spending money! Anyway, Click HERE to preview tomorrows sale. Just FYI, don't get frustrated with seeing the same things on sale week after week. Some manufacturers will promote items for a month at a time. Or they will put their items on sale one week and back on sale again a month later. It does seem like we see the same items week after week. Don't worry! Soon enough we will see other items popping up on sale. REMEMBER... Everything goes on sale! On an average an item will go on sale every 3 to 6 months! Just be patient, and check out other stores in the meantime!!!