Even though school is out, reading shouldn’t be! Summer reading is vital for improving your child’s literacy skills to prepare them for the upcoming school year.
There are a ton of great programs to keep your child’s brain active this summer. These programs encourage your child to read by providing fun incentives.
Read 8 books and record them in the printable journal and get a free book when you turn in the list to a participating Barnes & Noble store.
Log in the minutes your child reads online. When you child reaches their weekly reading goal they win digital prizes.
Border’s Double Dog Dare Challenge
When your child reads 10 books they get 1 free. Just list the books on the entry form and then use the coupon for a free book.
H-E-B Grocery stores mail kids a package of cool prizes after they read 10 books. Just fill out the form and mail it in. The package arrives in 3-4 weeks.
Half Price Books Feed Your Brain
Read for 600 minutes in June and July to get a $5 gift card to Half Price Books. Complete the form and take it to your local Half Price Books.
TD Bank will deposit $10 into a new or existing TD Young Saver bank account when they read 10 books. Just fill out the form and take it to your local TD Bank. If you are creating a new account you will need a picture ID for your child.
Chuck E Cheese Reading Rewards
Earn 10 free tokens when you child reads for 2 weeks straight. Food purchase is required. Just take this form to your local Chuck E Cheese.
Complete a reading list and get a free book. Just fill out the form and take it to a local store.
Don’t forget to also check out your local library for their summer reading program!
Do you know of any other programs?
Need something to do this week? Tomorrow, June 21st, is a National Park Free Entrance Day in honor of of the first day of summer.
This means you can get in free to most parks that normally have entrance fees. Make sure to call your park before heading out, and then enjoy your free day!
After Tuesday, there are two more free entrance days this year:
September 24th – Public Lands Day
November 11-13th – Veterans Day Weekend
If you’ve hung around Southern Savers for any amount of time, you’ve heard of Thirty-One and I’m sure a lot of you use some of their great stuff!
Thirty-One is a direct selling company that sells cute totes, bags and accessories. Their product line ranges from products for women, to teens, to kids. You could buy a bag for yourself and get your daughter her own bag so she can be “Miss independent.” You can even get your favorite Thirty-One purchases personalized! Their mission is to celebrate, encourage and reward women through offering quality products and an outstanding opportunity to become successful business owners.
You’ll find that these products are great to use for this summer at the beach, the pool, or just to tote things from one place to another in a fun, colorful print!
Shop for Charity
Heidi is also hosting a party for Southern Savers Readers until 6/28! Just go here and click “shop now” at the bottom and shop away! She is donating all proceeds to Hannah House women’s shelter in the form of Thirty-One products. So, go ahead and shop under “Southern Savers Bash” and help brighten the day for these ladies!
This June, they have a great special going on! With any order of $31 you get a large utility tote for only $9 (this is a 70% savings!), and there is a special Pink Circle Spirals print in the large utility tote just for June!
The Giveaway – over now
Thirty-One Consultant, Heidi, is giving away 5 awesome gifts from her Thirty-One website to (1) lucky Southern Savers Reader!
Tote-Ally Awesome Beach Bag (Circle Spirals)
Picnic Thermal Tote (Circle Spirals)
All In One Organizer (Circle Spirals)
Mini Zipper Pouch (Circle Spirals)
Large Rosette (Pink)
You have 3 chances to win (feel free to do as many as you like)
1. Tell me which one of the above Thirty-One products is your favorite.
2. Share the giveaway on Facebook
3. Follow Southern Savers on Facebook, Feed Reader, or Daily Email and leave a comment below that you are.
You can stay on top of future sale and deals from Thirty One by following Heidi’s deals on her Facebook Page.
Update: These are all gone now.
Target is offering a free sample of Jif-to-Go right now. Target samples go quickly, so start your Monday off by heading over and getting yours while you still can!
Starting Sunday June 19th there is a fun Challenge starting to encourage us all to be better at couponing and saving money. Every year All You Magazine runs the Grocery Challenge, and it is time yet again for this years competition.
Before you think that we are running down aisles playing some version of the supermarket sweep, let me tell the goal of this challenge to see how creative and healthy you can get to feed your family on a limited budget.
The Challenge:
Live for one month on a budget of $25 per person in your family per week. So, for example you have a family of 5 then try to live on $125 a week for groceries. Personally this is incredibly easy for us, our weekly budget is only $50 a week (or $10 per person), but for some of you this is a great chance to really start to focus on the big picture.
If you win, you get a $1000 Grocery gift card and get featured in an issue of All You. Last year one Southern Savers user came in the top 10, I firmly believe we can see at least one more top 10 placement this year!!
A big tip:
Use this as a chance to really look at what you are buying. If you are saving a ton and finding that now you are able to buy more but you are saving more, then now is your chance to focus on buying the deals that your family needs and not just every deal that is great price. The first things to go in our purchases when money is tight: juices, sodas, non-healthy snacks, and special seasonings.
If you want to try for it, go ahead and get registered so you are ready for Sunday!
I just got home late last night from a quick trip up to Woonsocket Rhode Island, home of CVS corporate. I shared with many of you on the Southern Savers facebook page and on twitter a few snippets of what we were discussing and doing, but thought I would take a minute to summarize everything.
I was with a group of other bloggers invited up to meet the head folks behind the Extra Care, Beauty, Housebrands, and Store Design teams. We talked about things they could do better, things they have planned for the future and lots about what is going on in our local stores right now.
Heading up Wednesday, it couldn’t have been a better day to visit CVS. This was the day of the major Pepsi fail, and they started our time off with a general “we screwed up” apology. It was awesome to see that they were openly saying they learned a lot from it and were going to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do similar offers better.
The big things you wanted answered:
Can we get a corporate coupon policy?
Yes. Will be posted on CVS.com? I don’t think so right now. We tried very hard to impress upon them that this was needed, they were willing to give a little and will be sending an official policy that we can post for you. They want to still have room for individual stores do make decisions based on their area. Logically this doesn’t make sense, something is either acceptable in coupon land or unacceptable – there are no gray areas – but we’ll keep working them.
Store Supply Issues:
We learned that they are implementing a new way to track each stores past sales and use that to reorder. It is not their intention to not have enough promotional items, they actually create a number weekly called “lost sales” calculating just want they could have sold had there been enough for the demand. They did say that it will take a bit for the new calculations to help in store ordering, but still awesome to hear that they are working on it.
We mentioned that they also needed to start factoring in coupons available into their quantities ordered. They said that right now they only factor in that Sunday’s coupons, the general consensus was that they needed to start considering the last 4 weeks at least.
Folks with multiple cards:
We discussed ways to help them link cards together for the same address, etc. to cut down on one person having 6 cards and buying out the entire store. They sounded as if they never realized people did this, so hopefully that was an eye opener for them!
My big takeaway was their focus on getting people to stop throwing away their extrabucks. They are redesigning the way that they look so that folks will feel like it is money, and a few others things to help motivate people to redeem them. One big thing to help with redemption, you now have the ability on CVS.com to reprint any ECB that you haven’t used and have lost the paper version of!! They are still good for the original length, but it’s awesome to get it back if you lost it.
One fun thing they did… they handed me the next three week of CVS ad’s! So for a future deal print this coupon for a money maker starting 6/26:
-$1 off RepHresh Brilliant Tampons Super or Reg printable
Here’s hoping more stores get this open and cool!
Here is a list of some great freebies for father’s day! Show dad that he taught you how to manage money well by taking him to Ikea for free breakfast, Spaghetti Warehouse for free lunch, and Beef O Brady’s for a B1G1 dinner. Top it all off with free yogurt from TCBY and gifts made by the kids and you have a fun and frugal Father’s Day!
As always, be sure to call your location ahead of time to make sure they are participating!
Presents for Father’s Day
Michael’s Make it Take It Days – June 16th (duct tape wallet), June 17th (card), June 18th (key chain)
Home Depot – Father’s Day Kids Workshop (tool box), June 18th, 9 am-12 pm
Pottery Barn for Kids – DUPLO Jams building event, June 18th
Dining Freebies
Ikea – Free Breakfast and Cup of Coffee before 11 am
TCBY – Free TCBY Frozen Yogurt, cup or cone
Spaghetti Warehouse – Free Lasagna or Spaghetti Entree, no coupon necessary
Beef O Brady’s – Free Meal w/ Entree purchase or equal or greater value (select locations)
Fleming’s – $25 dining card for future use when you take dad there on Father’s Day
First Watch Restaurant – free Nike golf ball with the First Watch logo, dine-in only
Do you know of any other Father’s Day freebies?
There is an awesome deal at CVS where you buy Zyrtec 24 Hour Tablets, 5 ct. for $5.99 and get $5.99 back in Extra Care Bucks. This deal already makes the product Free! But now there is a new coupon!!!
Grab this $5 off Zyrtec printable coupon.
You will only pay 99¢ and you’ll still get the $5.99 Extrabuck, which makes a $5 profit!
(thanks Passion for Saving!)
It’s officially summer and instead of heating up the kitchen we are grilling out this week! You’ll notice that the marinades call for staple pantry items, which by now I’m hoping you’ve stocked up on. If not, a lot of these recipes call for similar items so at least you can buy it once and use it multiple nights.
By the way, if you’ve never grilled a peach before, you don’t know what you’re missing!
*These prices are based off of averages and are subject to change weekly
Grilled T-Bone Steak with Easy Barbecue Sauce – Recipe
Beef T-Bone Steaks $3.77 lb (HEB)
Brown Sugar, Ketchup, Worcestershire Sauce & Mustard (stockpile)
(7 Points Plus)
Grilled Summer Veggies – Recipe
Yellow Squash or Zucchini, 99¢ $1.49 lb (Food City, Lowes, Harveys)
Red or Yellow Peppers, $1.50 (Ingles)
Vidalia Onions, 39-79¢ lb (Harveys, Winn Dixie, Publix)
Cooking Spray (stockpile)
(1 Points Plus)
Spicy Grilled Chicken with Salsa Vinaigrette – Recipe
Chicken Breast, $2.19-2.47 lb (Bi-Lo, Winn Dixie, Harris Teeter)
Pace Salsa, $2 (Harris Teeter)
Grilling Seasoning, 2.75-3.4 oz, 99¢ (Bi-Lo or mix your own)
Red or Yellow Peppers, $1.50 (Ingles)
Limes 14¢ (HEB)
Small Avocado, 65¢ (HEB)
Vidalia Onions, 39-79¢ lb (Harveys, Winn Dixie, Publix)
Balsamic Vinegar, Dijon Mustard, Olive Oil (stockpile)
Fresh Express Salad Mix, 6-12 oz, 99¢ (Food City)
Tomatoes, $1.28-$1.69 lb (Ingles, Publix)
(6 Points Plus)
Slow-Grilled Country-Style Brisket – Recipe
Beef Brisket $1.88 lb (HEB)
Brown Sugar, Vinegar, Worchestershire Sauce & Canola oil (stockpile)
(5 Points Plus)
Garlic Herb Grilled Corn – Recipe
Georgia Sweet Corn, 25¢ (Winn Dixie)
(4 Points Plus)
Caribbean Grilled Drumsticks – Recipe
Chicken Thighs or Drumsticks, 99¢ lb (Harveys)
or Chicken Leg Quarters, 2 lb, 89¢ (Winn Dixie)
Lemons 20¢ ea. (HEB)
Brown Sugar, Jerk Seasoning (stockpile or mix your own)
(8 Points Plus)
Grilled Cinnamon Peaches – Recipe
Peaches 50¢-$1.69 lb (Lowes, HEB, Harveys, Food City)
(2 Points Plus)
