Did you know that everything you need in life can be purchased in CVS? Okay that might be a bit strong, but it’s close. The fun part is that if you understand their sales and deals then most of what you purchase can be amazing prices or even FREE using the instore reward system called Extra Care Bucks (ECB).
I get a lot of questions each week on how this works and how to get started so here is a detailed video to help you learn the ropes.
In the end:
Start Small and just try it. You can sit here and watch this over and over again, but it will make a lot more sense once you get in the store and do it.
For even more details, read the CVS getting started guide.
(This is part one…)
Most people have goals to save money and lose weight. One of the common myths is that products with coupons are all unhealthy. Each week, this list will provide you with some tasty, good-for-you frugal meal and snack ideas based on sales at the grocery store. We are starting to see better prices on produce and these will get better as we get closer to spring.
*These prices are based off of averages and are subject to change weekly
Snack & Breakfast Ideas
Vitamuffin VitaTops, 8 oz., $2.84 (at Harris Teeter)
(2 Points Plus)
Whole Wheat Thomas English Muffins, 6 ct. $1.84 (at Harris Teeter)
& 1 tbsp. of Reduced Fat Peanut Butter
(5 Points Plus)
PopSecret Light Popcorn 6 pk., $1.49 (at Bi-Lo)
(2 Points Plus)
Yogurt Fruit Dip
Non-Fat Greek Yogurt FREE (at Bi-Lo, Publix, Kroger, Harris Teeter)
Fresh Plum, Peaches or Nectarines $1.99 lb. (at Bi-Lo or Publix)
Strawberries, 1 lb., $2.49 (at Harris Teeter)
Pineapple $2.50 ea (at Kroger)
Cantaloupes, $1.50 (at Publix)
Recipe makes 8 servings, serve with fruit
5-8 oz. cup of Greek Yogurt
1/2 of an 8 oz. block of 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1/8 c. of honey
(2 Points Plus)
Lunch & Dinner Plans
Szechuan Pork and Vegetables – Recipe
Red, Yellow, or Orange Bell Peppers $2.50 (at Harris Teeter) or $1.50 ea (at Kroger)
Broccoli $1.99 (at Publix) or Broccoli Crowns $1.29 lb. (at Kroger)
(8 Points Plus)
Tex-Mex Fish with Sweet Peppers – Recipe
Red, Yellow or Orange Bell Peppers $1.50 ea (at Kroger)
(9 Points Plus – will vary depending on fish used)
Chicken Ratatouille with Penne – Recipe
Publix Chicken Breasts Frozen, 32 oz, $5 (at Publix)
(8 Points Plus)
Many of you got a fun new rebate yesterday for Box Tops for Education. When you purchase 10 participating products you can get either a $10 visa gift card or 100 box tops for your school.
Sounds awesome right? There is one snag the fine print on this rebate states that it is only for the folks that got the rebate form in their email. You can easily find the form on General Mills’ site, but I don’t know that I would waste the time doing the rebate if you didn’t get the email.
So go check your email and see if you got it!
(thanks to everyone that emailed!)
TOT Gallery is full of fun custom-made canvases and prints. They are created on a computer program by April Rollins. Her art is inspired by creative ways to decorate a room for your kids. She has some great prints for both boys and girls.
Her Facebook page contains albums for each series of prints. There are usually 2-5 prints per series, all following the same theme. For example, pictured above is one print from both the Football series and the Vintage Plane series. When she posts them on Facebook, she includes fun decorating ideas to create a room around her print series’ theme.
TOT Gallery contains a wide variety of series to choose from – Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy, Rescue Team, Summer of Love, Down by the Pond, Sweet Dreams Cutie Pie, Arrrg, Pirates, and lots more!
Win It!
2 Winners will receive one set of prints each.
How to Win it:
1. Leave a comment below on your dream theme for your child’s room.
2. “Like” TOT Gallery on Facebook and leave a comment with which series is your favorite.
Graveyard Mall is offering a fantastic discount on their Korbie 3-in-1 Diaper Bags – reg. $179.99, they are now $59.99. Even better, get $30 off at checkout with the code southernsaver30 – making the total $29.99 plus $5.99 shipping!
To get this deal:
1. Go to Graveyard Mall.
2. Choose between red, black, or tan.
3. At checkout, enter the code SouthernSaver30 to get an extra $30 off!
What is the Korbie Bag??
The Korbie diaper bag is a diaper bag, bassinet, and changing table all in one! The changing table and bassinet are removable and comes with a carry strap and canopy for the baby. This is perfect for those sunny days, when you need to shade your baby from the sun.
The bag contains pockets that are insulated for milk bottles. It is made of water repellent nylon, protecting all that is inside. The bag also has an adjustable shoulder strap so that you can carry it at your comfort.
Facebook recently made some changes to only show pages or friends that you visit regularly in your news feed. This is a little strange for a social networking site, because now if you have a friend you never see you’ll never get there news.
Many of you are emailing about missing Southern Savers facebook posts in your news feed too. To fix that:
1. Go to your news feed and click on “Most Recent”
2. At the bottom of the drop down, click on Edit options
3. Select to show posts from all of your friends and pages.
If there are pages you don’t want to see you can add those in too. (I’m not one for certain images so have a few blocked…)
Now you should be all set to get deals from Southern Savers and find out when your old college roommate is getting married.
(thanks Mercedes!)
Yummm… Cookies! One of my favorite things to do is grab all of my girls and have a baking party in the kitchen. If you have never baked with little folks they love to help no matter how small the job. With Valentine’s day coming up it’s time to start baking sweet treats again.
If you need ideas for baking, check out Crisco’s Cookie Central for recipes and other cookie-related fun. My favorite recipe is anything with chocolate… These Chewy Brownie Cookies are a delicious combination of two of my family’s favorites, cookies and brownies, all mixed together! They also have gift ideas with free gift tags and a free recipe book.
Get a chance to get all new cookie baking gear provided by Crisco. This will give you all the tools to masterfully bake cookies to impress and satisfy your family this Valentine’s Day. They are supplying all the utensils and gear so all you have to do is bake away!
The Giveaway
Win a baking set from Crisco including Williams & Sonoma measuring cups and spoons, an Orka baking sheet, Crate & Barrel cookie dough scoop and silicone cookie spatula, a jar of Williams & Sonoma cookie cutters and Crisco baking sticks!
To enter leave a comment sharing:
(1) Who is the first in your family to reach into the cookie jar?
(2) What is the cookie culprit’s favorite recipe from Crisco.com?
(Crisco provided products for this giveaway. All opinions are 100% my own.)
Yesterday I left my comfort zone and flew to Haiti with Samaritan’s Purse and Operation Christmas Child. It’s been a very long and emotional 24 hours since we got here but very awesome! I’m working on a video of everything we have a seen and done but want to share a few pictures with you really quickly (and a short video at the bottom as a present to my husband).
First the country is beautiful. We are staying in an extremely old “club med”, so old that my shower head broke off this morning and basically bathed using a hose (with cold water). I can look out the window in my room and see the ocean and then walk out the door behind me and see the mountains. The picture below is the view from my door.
There are about 50 of us here distributing Operation Christmas Child Boxes. We have split into 4 teams and each team has 5 different schools or churches that we will visit. Today alone the four teams gave out over 2000 boxes combined! Total Haiti will receive 250,000 Christmas Child Boxes.
The children are adorable. I want to bring them all home with me!
This little guy got a tiny little box that children’s shoes would have come in. I felt so sad for him, but God has all these things worked out. When he opened his box it was completely packed with mega blocks and his little face lit up as he said “block” over and over again in Creole.
Now for a quick present for my Husband, today was his birthday and it was very sweet of him to send me off with love and encouragement.
I’m am also thankful to the folks that have stepped up to run things here while I’m gone. The internet is in and out and just making this 50 second video took a couple hours to get online. I hope that things are going smoothly, but if not thanks for your patience this week while I get to experience so many amazing things!
I can’t wait to share even more stories and pictures with you!
If you shop at Publix, one thing you love them for is their competitor coupon policy. It can be frustrating for folks shopping different stores in different areas that the coupons accepted vary depending on what’s in the area and sometimes even with managers.
I want the Publix list here on Southern Savers to be as helpful as possible, so we did a fun little poll to see what coupons you guys are able to use. First here are the numbers, then we’ll talk about how they’ll be used. There were a total of 8849 total responses so thanks for helping out!!
It might surprise you that the majority of Publix Shoppers are actually not in Florida, with Georgia coming in first by a pretty huge margin.
Now for what your stores are taking:
I wanted to get a general feel rather than store by store so that I could make some decisions as to what coupons to include or not include. In my area only traditional grocery store competitors have been accepted for almost two years so it’s hard to remember sometimes that some of you can use other things.
Target:
To be a competitor most Publix stores will say that you need to have a super Target nearby. Exactly half of you have a Super Target nearby, but yet over 63% of you said your stores accept Target as a competitor. I will continue to match them every week, so for those of you whose stores don’t accept these, please pass by them in the matchups.
Drug Stores:
Almost 30% of you are still having success with drugstore coupons (Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid). I have a really hard time with these stores being seen as competitors but if 1/3 of you can use them I will add them to the lists.
Other Stores:
We had lots of other stores reported but all the store combined it was still only 5% of you. They included Family Dollar, Dollar General, Save-a-Lot, Earth Fare and others.
In the end, remember that every store is allowed to decide who is a competitor to them. It is always best to call your local store and ask them what competitor coupons they accept before printing any (and wasting ink). Also please realize that competitor coupons are coming out of your stores pockets. It is not affecting Publix corporate but your local area. So use them nicely and ethically.
