CiCi's is lowering their buffet price to $3.99 per person

not sure if this is nationwide, statewide, or even regionwide but the one by my house will start their new price next Wednesday!! Check out if you have one in your area. CiCi's

you are now in the SMART CIRCLE!!

okay there it is... another place we can find AWESOME deals. I was introduced to this marketing company about 18 months ago when a sales guy came into my office and offered me 4 oil changes for $30 at NTB! Plus, the punch cards had other offers like 20% off other services such as new struts, brakes, etc and free tire repair. The cards just expired at the end of January, I had over a year to use these cards. I bought one for each car plus bought some for family/friends for Christmas.

THE SMART CIRLCE

FREE QUIZNO'S SUB

WWW.MILLIONSUBS.COM

click on the free subs, fill in your name, email, birthdate, sex etc

get an email with a link for a free sub. Happy free sub day!!

Meijer buy 10 get the 11th free sale

OH yeah.. Meijer.. every once in awhile they blow my socks off (or on) with great deals. That great half off cleaners sale or when they have the Hanes deals where you buy 3 products and get $10 off. I've gotten 3 bags of 6 pairs of socks, so that's 18 pairs of socks for $5.xx!! But this buy 10 get the 11th free gets me every time.

So today I spent the day getting my trusty coupons together trying to make the best of their sales this week. Here is what I came up with.

BUY 10 GET 11TH FREE
1 Kraft BBQ sauce *filler/no coups*
2 Banquet frozen breakfast sausage *fillers/no coups* (my hubbie's fav)
4 Old Orchard frozen juice $1/4 IP coup
5 stove top stuffing used B4G1F coupon (I found this on shelf around t-day)
6 Whiskas cat treats $1/2
8 Green Giant veggies 4 50/2 coups
9 Chef Boyardee 3 35/3 coups (how was that worth it?)
9 Tortino pizza rolls 9 35/1 coups
44 items. got 4 free from the sale

5/$10 Kelloggs Cereal +++ GET FREE MILK
3 boxes frosted mini wheats
2 boxes apple jacks
$1 IP Kelloggs frosted mini wheat coup and 2 $1.50/2 Kelloggs cereal manus
MILK FREEBIE

10/$4 Lite n fit yogart used $1/10 manu

1 Trident gum 99 cents used 75 cent manu

1 Electrosol dishwasher tabs $3 used EXPIRED $2.50 manu 50 cents
YES MEIJER TAKES EXPRIREDS!!!

$5/$60 CAT from my last trip
my total $35.43 with tax

The Meijer receipt at the top says:
TOTAL MEIJER PROMOTIONS $11.00
TOTAL NON COUPON SAVINGS $32.41
TOTAL COUPON SAVINGS $19.80
SAVINGS TOTAL $63.21

so I roughly saved 74%!!! amazing!
**sorry no pics, hubbie was ready when I got home to put everything away**

remember that HORMEL coupon?

ummm yeah.. on Monday I went to Dominicks to grab another pork tenderloin for $4.99 or $3.99 with the $1 Hormel coupon HOWEVER I realized when I got there I forgot the coupon BUT THEN after getting home found the coupon in my purse... yeah.. not so good... so today I went to Dominicks to grab 4 99cent Ragu's (I know a few weeks ago WAGS had a super deal on them and I didn't jump on it) so I decided to check out their clearance meat and GUESS WHAT WAS THERE? The HORMEL pork tenderloins for $3.99!! ha ha ha and I still had that trusty $1 coupon with me. I got a pork tenderloin for $2.99!! whoo hoo

no more pasta?

what? I was buying pasta 10-12 boxes at a time for less than 50 cents a box or even free some weeks during the summer. I grabbed the last box tonight! I can not believe I've blown through all that pasta. To make matters worse I held onto SEVERAL great coupons for pasta waiting for the next big sale and they expired! *sigh*

anyone got any good pasta deals I could get in on?

update LINKS TO FREE KASHI

sorry ladies..

COUPONING 101 was the site I found this deal on and she's got all the links!

FREE Kashi granola bars at TARGET

I got this idea from another site, don't remember which but then tried it this morning and it worked fabulous. Sorry I'm at work so I can't find the link but there is an IP out there. Just wanted to get this idea out there.

Sale 2/$5 or $2.50
use $2 IP
or $2 manus that were sent out I think through Bzzagent and others
$1 Target coupon (you can print at the store or on their site)

FREE PLUS OVERAGE or if your store just enters them down.

I got 10 boxes for 33 cents. We have to pay tax here in Illinois.

sorry no pics either.

Also, fish crackers are on sale for $1.66. Grab the $1 Target coupon and get them for 66 cents!

free day means SHOPPING

Okay ladies.. I'll admit I've been missing hounding something fierce especially after having to go to Woodmans the other night and spent $96. Yeah it was $96 of darn good deals, but having to shell out that kind of cash.. yeah well.. you guys understand. I haven't spent $96 in an entire month on groceries. oh well

Okay I only put together a few deals and it took me long enough to do these.. so bear with me.

Butera
3 cans of black beans 69 cents each used $1/3 coupon
2 clearance sausage $1.15 each
1 clearance bacon 99 cents
6 v-day clearance cupcakes $1.50
1 can sardines for my cat 99 cents
total $6.96



Dominicks
I got there and *thought* I had forgotten a HORMEL coupon so I didn't do the same pork tenderloin deal as I had done on Sat night. Then, when I got home I realized I did have one with me.. grr
4 boxes cereal 4/$10 store coupon $4 off (makes them $4/6) then used two $1.50 off 2 manus = 4/$3 or 75 cents each
1 bag chips $1.99 store coupon $1 off 99 cents
1 head of lettuce $1.49
total $5.63

CVS
4 boxes of Pop Tarts $2 each used $1/2 manus $6
1 CVS soap $1.69
2 CVS allergy $1.79 each (clearance)
2 boxes CVS cheese crackers $1.97 each
1 CVS 10ct Ibuprofen $1.99 FREEBIE with a coupon I got from the scanner!!
2 cans Campbells Healthy Request soup BOGO used FREE COUPON BOTH FREE
$2/$10 cvs coup, $7.50 in ECBS spent $5.xx OOP and got back $2 ECB for the crackers
total OOP $5.90 *gasp



Meijer
2 sour cream $1.29 each used $1/2 Meijer coup and 2 55 cent manus
2 coffee mate $2.99 each used $1/2 Meijer coup and $1 IP manus
1 bag of cat food $3.76 FREEBIE with manu coup
total $3.86 left the cashier scratching her head!! for real!

I also went to Petco but really only got my cat a few things. Not much. I wanted to go to Woodmans again and Jewel but seriously ran out of energy.. sick huh.

♪MOM SONG♫

If you haven't seen this IT'S TIME YOU DO!! dedicated to all the moms out there!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!

Hey everyone.. I finally did the unimaginable.. I didn't take any work home for this 3 DAY WEEKEND! I started the weekend off with a bang by staying home with my son and making smoothies for the two of us. We watched freebie stand up comedy video's through the XBOX 360 and Netflix. It was fun.

I finally came up with a place I wanted my hubbie to take me for good old Valentine's Day. He said I could pick, anywhere I wanted to go.

Here is the catch. About oh 15 years ago they closed the one and only Ponderosa Steakhouse in our area. Since then, my sister had moved to Cincinnati for 3 years so if we were out there we went to Ponderosa and other than that we could drive an hour to get to one. So in our entire 13 year relationship we've been there probably 10 times or less and it's a place both of us love.

My son swears he's never been to one, I'm thinking he just didn't remember going in Ohio.. but that was years ago. So we drove the hour today and it was yummy. Not as good as I remembered.. but yummy.

I also did some shopping today!! Amazing!! Those $1 coupons came in (and are burning a hole in my pocket) for the Almond Breeze so since I just opened the last of the last batch I bought a few weeks ago and I am totally out of the sugar free syrup I needed a shopping fix. **someone asked what Almond Breeze is!! It's a 54 calorie per 8oz serving no dairy beverage. In the Weight Watcher world this can be used for a ton of things and only being 54 calories we find MANY ways to use products that cost us the least amount of points. Check outAlmond Breeze website.

I had seen on line other people talking about Dominicks having a great deal on cereal. My son LOVES the Blueberry Muffin mini wheats and that was part of the deal. Basically they were on sale for 4/$10 but then with an in ad coupon they were 4/$6. Then I had all those IP coupons still from over a month ago for Kellogg's cereals and they were all for another $1 off. So I got 4 boxes of my son's favorite cereal for $2.

When I was searching for this in ad coupon I came across Hormel pork tenderloin on sale for $4.99 with an in ad coupon. I found $1 Hormel pork tenderloin coupons from an insert and got a nice size pork tenderloin for $3.99. Not too shabby.

Also they had another coupon for 99 cent Mission tortilla chips. I was glad to find they had 3 different varieties to choose from.

All of these coupons had a little note on them saying "with a $10 purchase" so I sorta walked around the store looking for something we NEEDED. I found cheese 8 oz packages on sale for $1.49 and it's the Lucerine brand which is hormone free. Nice!

My total was $11.68 for everything mentioned above after coupons! I was dang happy to walk out with 4 boxes of NAME BRAND cereal, 3 8oz packages of shredded cheese, a bag of tortilla chips, a Hormel pork tenderloin, oh and a bottle of Dr Pepper I had a free coupon for. Not bad.

Then came WOODMANS.... ohhhhh my hubbie decided he wanted to come with just so he could pick out something for lunches... *sigh* $96 later we walked out with nothing but carp... oh well. We did get..
10 Almond Breeze 99 cents after coupons (on line they retail for $2.41 without shipping.. so I'm saving myself at least $2 each!!)
2 750ml bottles of Torani syrups for $5.29 each (I've seen them on line for $8.50 each and that's without shipping charges)
5lb bag of tator tots for $5 (my hubbies fav)
5 pizza's for $10
50 small variety pack bags for $11 (hubbie wanted them for lunches)

so right there is $45 ish dollars worth and we got a ton more than just that. I was pretty happy with our trip even though my shopping trips have cost me WAY more than before when I wasn't working. I guess that is my luxury now.. *sigh*

sorry no pics. My hubbie and son helped me put all the groceries away as soon as we got home.

Anyway.. hope everyone had a bang up Valentine's Day!!

CONGARA TEASE!!

OKayyyyyyy.. so Congara foods and Jewel were doing another bang up deal. Last week I went in just for the tomatoes.. I posted about that. Then last night I found out about a Healthy Choice soup deal. Now *most* of these deals work off of SHELF PRICE, but then combine these great deals with SALE PRICES and of course coupons and deals such as this work out even better. For example, THIS soup deal would work like this.

Buy $25 worth of product get $10 ONYO catalina

Heathy Choice soup Shelf price $2.80
so you must buy 10 to get this deal 10x2.80 = $28
sale price is $1 each.. even sweeter $10
add in coupons.. whatever you've got
pay less than $10 and get $10 back
ROLL AND ROLL AND ROLL

what was even better about this deal is that there were blinkies RIGHT IN FRONT of the soup for 45 cents off 2. Not awesome coupons but enough to bring your total under $8 MONEY MAKER AND FREEBIE SOUP!

So on my lunch hour (yes I actually got one of those today) I ran over to the mall to get my eyebrows threaded and on my way back to work I stopped to run this deal. *sigh* things never work in my favor it seems. I found another couponer/hounder in the same isle working the same deal. So I just confirmed with her that I had to buy 10 to make the deal work. I told her about my hunts tomato deal last week. She didn't know about it and quick back tracked to the canned tomato section.

I grab my blinkie coupons and soup and get to the register. get my total BELOW $10 and I'm standing there with my $10 ONYO from last week. hand it to her and she says it's not going to work DOH I didn't even think about overage. I had grabbed some banana's but not enough! oops.. so I grab some gum, she puts it through and and and and and NO FREAKIN ONYO CAT!

roll eyes! so the customer service lady tells me to come up, she returns my items and walks me to a self check to "try again" this time she paid with cash out of the self check machine! amazing what these customer service girls will do to help make a deal work. No ONYO CAT this time either! *sigh* She explained that sometimes halfway through these deals the companies decide to change it up and make it off the sale price.

I left there and quickly signed onto www.hotcouponworld.com only to find out the deal is dead now until the 26th.. I guess they are reworking it and then rerolling out this program. *sigh* so much for my deals... looks like my area is very over saturated with people doing the same deals I've been doing.

In the end I walked out of Jewel today with 10 cans of soup, a pack of gum, and what I thought was a large bunch of bananas all for 78 cents.

Loving Jewel!

Just got back from a Jewel run. I found out over at www.jillcataldo.com that Jewel was running a Conagra deal that wasn't advertised except on Catalinas. They had $1 HUNTS diced tomatoes and one of the deals was pretty easy. Buy 14 cans, use as many coupons as possible, spent at most $14 OOP and get $10 back. Hey $4 WITHOUT COUPONS for 14 cans of diced tomatoes.. I'm there! I printed a couple on line $1/3 coupons and digged for a few manus from the paper and went. Of course the printer jammed and didn't print my $10 CAT but the ladies at Jewel know better than to argue with me and just ask me what the deal is. They just rerang it up at the service desk and my CAT printed! Nice!

Also, while rummaging through my mess of coupons last night I found out I had a few 75 cent off Almond Breeze coupons!! and they are manus which means I can use them at Woodmans because Woodmans does not take IP's!! whooo hoo!

Okay ***just*** googled Almond Breeze coupons and realized there are really great coupons out there! This meaning I can get Almond breeze for under $1 each!! HOLY COW! *sigh* couponing is great even if it means having to figure my own deals out! lol!

one hound this week

I had one $3 register reward or Catalina whatever you want to call it from Walgreens. It was expiring on the 5th SO on the night of the 5th I stopped at Walgreens on my way home from work got a gallon of milk and a package of skittles. I paid 44 cents with my gift card.

Thats it.. BUT then.. my husband decided we needed mass quantities of beer and wine coolers AND of course money to play poker or bunco this weekend (neither of which happened) so he spent $50 on beer, mikes hard lemonade's, crackers, and cash! geez.

Yeah then he starts telling me how proud I would be of him for buying 3 packages of crackers for $6 AND THEN REALIZES there is $1 peelies on EACH of the boxes DOH!

You guys.. I hate to say this, but I just don't have the time and/or energy to hound anymore. I've been trying to get through stockpile which is actually working to my advantage. Our freezer is actually looking empty for the first time in months. The worst thing is that I have no idea what coupons I have, what ECB's I have, or what rebates I have coming back to me. It's pretty nuts. I have about 2 feet of inserts (2 large stacks) and have no idea which ones are even still good or what. *sigh* someday I know I'll need them and I'll be glad I have them.

Okay and if you were following my last post about being sick over my car.. yeah my OLD car which has no problems other than the key being stuck in the ignition IS WORKING PERFECTLY FINE NOW! *DOUBLE SIGH* sooooo frustrating!! Today it was 51 degrees here in Chicago so I decided to clean out our garage and make space for my new car. I had to push my old car out onto the driveway to jump it and just to get out of the garage so we could clean. I got it out there and my husband's truck wouldn't jump it. I was SUPER worried, but then realized each time I had tried to jump it the key turned right back into position and came right out. So strange.

I finally called my dad and explained what was going on and he said he thought I just wasn't getting a good connection to Tim's battery or not making a complete circuit (maybe the negatives weren't getting a ground) So I moved Tim's truck out and moved my new car over and jumped my old car NO PROBLEM. Then I let it sit and run for like 30 minutes, drove it around the subdivision and came home. Backed it into the garage really close to the wall (that was scary) went to turn it off KEY CAME RIGHT OUT! sigh.. I just went out and spent thousands and it's working again!! not good!

My sister thought maybe with the warm up it might work again, but it was happening at the end of August, in September, and October. I finally tried to get it fixed in November and drove it all of December. So temperature did make it worse (the time became longer) but my nephew drove it on the worst day possible I think it was negative 5 that day and the key came out with no issues. He had to take the key out twice that day to drive it. So really.. no, it doesn't matter. *sigh*

I'm gonna give it one last ditch effort and let my cousins cousin (yes that's right my cousin has a cousin that's a mechanic) look at it and see if he can't fix it. We'll see. Also, my husbands truck needs new belts, new brakes, a new battery, and there is something wrong with his power steering pump! Great huh?

wanna be sick?

my keys came out of the ignition today.. each and every time I started it... sick

I saved another $500 on my new car!

Okay here it is.. I'm laying it out there. Everyone from Dave Ramsey to Suzie Orman would be screaming their head off at me for buying a brand new car. I agree with their reasoning on WHY to buy used cars, I know it's true that the minute you drive a new car off the lot it's value decreases immediately. My personal reasons for buying a new car are mainly the fact that I hate buying other people's problems. I know that other people do not maintain their cars as I would and in fact without www.carfax.com most people would have no clue how many times their pre-owned vehicles had been bought/sold/auctioned, in accidents, in floods, had major work done to them etc.

When my husband started badgering me YEARS ago that as soon as his car was paid off that I was buying a new car. I just didn't see the reasoning in going back into debt to buy another car when we just got out of debt. So I started scrimping and saving as much as I could to buy a new car. Unfortunately, my car didn't make the cut and I bought a car a few months shy of having the full payment which is fine because I have a home equity loan that I've kept open. I figured I would just borrow the remaining balance and pay it back in the next couple months as fast as possible. This is a win/win situation because borrowing against this home equity line helps my credit because we've closed all of our credit cards except one, and the one we kept we lowered our balance on. Many people do not know that closing accounts HURTS your credit. Also, creditors want to see that you have between 3-5 active revolving accounts. Other than my mortgage we have used nothing for months. I finally broke down and started using our one credit card for small purchases that could be paid off each month.

Okay so as soon as my husband started searching Carmax over and over and over looking for a car that I would like, was reasonably new with low miles I knew that if I didn't take some control he would wind up trying to persuade me just to buy a car so the deed was over with. (sorry but he thinks his truck is going to die any day now and me being in line for the next car was hindering his dreams of buying a Dodge Challenger in the next few years HA). Friday during the day and then Friday night I realized my key issue had gone from bad to worse. It was now taking between 4-8 hours to get that darn key out of the ignition.

My son and I started surfing a few more sites and as soon as I realized that the Avenger was going for only a couple thousand dollars more BRAND NEW versus the used cars that my husband was looking at.. I started actually warming up to the idea. Then I saw that Dodge had a new LIFETIME power train warranty and I started reading and realized UNLESS you are the first owner of the vehicle this warranty is null and void. I buy my cars to drive them into the ground. I buy new so I can get every mile I paid for and drive them into the ground so I can get penny I spent. This is just my personal thinking. Then, I saw that Dodge had employee pricing plus a local dealer added on a few other rebates.

We went in, got the car on Saturday and came home and then I realized I never got a rebate I had seen advertised on my Credit Unions website. I had mentioned it to my sales guy and he said he would look into it for me because I couldn't remember the exact details. After spending 6 hours there, driving multiple cars, deciding on what to do that $500 actually left my brain. I called dealership on Monday and talked to the Sales Manager and he told me I had to get a loan through my credit union. He said he would still allow the deal and not put my paperwork through if I could get this done in the next couple days.

I called my credit union early this morning and actually was able to get it done before noon today. I asked to leave work at 4pm, drove home got my husband and drove out to the credit union to sign docs and get our check. Then we drove out to the dealership, signed new docs, got a free car wash (yes my car was already dirty, stupid Chicago winters), and got home within 2 hours. Not bad.

So.. this is how I got the $500 (and you can get) or even $1,000 on a brand new Chysler or GM car http://www.lovemycreditunion.org/ has joined up with credit unions around the country and this deal lasts until June 30th 2009. If you happen to be in the market for a new car, check it out.. or pass it on. Okay Okay.. and before you get too jumpy YES I did have to get a loan for my car through my credit union to get this $500 bonus rebate, HOWEVER, I fully intend on paying it off as quickly as possible. If I can continue to keep our spending down we'll have it paid off in 4 months so I'm not too concerned.

a cartoon, my own cake wrecks, and super SPENDING Saturday.

well.. I got this cartoon from Jackie over at Mommy on a Debt Free Mission she also has a story about having to fight for her coupon rights... *sigh* so very frustration to me to read that other people have the same issues.. actually now that I think about it I'm not sure if that is a comfort to me to know that I'm not alone in that and the actual frustrating scenario is how so many glide through the SAME transactions I've tried with no issues what so ever.

Anyway.. go check out her page.

Also in the spirit of "cake wrecks" I have a few pics.. let me start with a bit of background. I live close to the small town of Woodstock Illinois where they filmed the movie "Groundhog Day". This town gets a little "into" the actual holiday because of that movie.


So last night after dinner my mom, my son, my husband and I all went to Super Wal-Mart. My son and husband needed jeans (really bad) and this is what we found (of course in addition to jeans, t-shirts, some thingy for my car to plug in my sons IPOD to, and some benadryl.




yeah not quite sure exactly what they were getting at here, and whom is going to buy these AND eat them.. but Punxsutawney Phil never looked so... soooo.. errrr.. welll ummm for lack of better words poopie!!

and on to the best news of all...


I broke down and got a new car! amazing huh? I found out Dodge was doing Employee pricing, plus all sorts of rebates, sooo out we went late Friday night exactly 15 minutes before they closed and looked at a few cars. We went back yesterday morning and drove and drove and drove and lunched and talked and played devils advocate, and fought and talked, and laughed and made shadow animals and finally after 6 hours I drove away in this....

2009 Dodge Avenger SXT
of course as always I don't feel I got the best deal I could have (that happens every time I buy a car). The very worst part is that I miss my old car already. I have been driving a 2000 Dodge Stratus. It has 106,000 miles on it and I've never had a single problem with that car until the key issue. Little stuff here and there, but always easily fixable and things that cost $300 or less to fix. That car was always dependable, never had it not start on me (except the other morning). So I kept that car which is now sitting in my garage and my new car has to sit outside. I'm trying to decide what to do with my old car. I guess I'll wait for my dad to come back from his snow bird southwest sun ranch and help me figure this thing out.