Using What You Have to Make Trail Mix

Erin at $5 dinners had a great idea using leftover grocery items that you have in your pantry for trail mix.  I ventured out to find what I could mix together from my pantry to make my mix.  Here is what I had…

raisins, chocolate chips, cheerios, and peanuts.

I then mixed all the ingredients together and placed in resealable baggies so that my could have a good snack on the go.

Free Milk

FREE MILK!!   Go HERE to enter to win FREE milk for a year and just for entering you’ll be able to print a coupon valid for a FREE gallon of milk (any brand) with a $100 grocery purchase (Before coupons–Nice)! You’ll see this coupon offer advertised in the bottom left hand side after you find out if you’ve won or not. You’ll also receive this coupon link via email after entering.

Thanks, Smart Shopping 2009

Grandparents Guide: 100 free activities

Here is a great free guide for fun free activities to do with your family.  I am not going to become a grandparent for a long time but I printed this guide because it has some really great ideas for free family fun.  Anything that gives us free fun makes my new budget plan smile.

Great craft sites for free ideas:

Birthdays On A Budget

I have been so guilty of spending way too much money on birthday presents and parties for my kids.  This year we are on a budget and we are not going to spend as much money on presents and parties. 

Here are some easy money-saving ways to have a cheap birthday party while still making it memorable.

1.  Make it a Brownie/ Ice Cream buffet party.  Have a table set up with brownies/ice Cream and all the available toppings such as, ice cream, sprinkles, whip cream, chocolate syrup and let the kids decorate their own brownie/ice cream.  Use what you have and try not to buy these toppings.

2.  Create a banner that says happy birthday by printing out the letters from your computer and gluing them to construction paper.  Connect using a thin string and then hang it up for everyone to see.  If you have scrapbook paper that you aren’t going to use then place the letters on the paper for a creative background.

3.  Go to Kaboose and click on the printable birthday invites for a tutorial on how to print your own birthday cards.  Lets just admit that the cards are great reminders but after the party we throw them away.  There is no since on spending a lot of money buying invites.

4.  Have the party at home.  Yes it is a lot of work to have a party at your house because of all the clean up work but I get motivated to clean if I am having a party.  Sometimes my husband wishes we had more parties at the house for this reason.

5.  Grab bags or treat bags.  Use candy instead of toys.  The cheap toys that we put in these bags will end up being left in the car or thrown away because they didn’t last long enough.  You can also give good treats such as Cheezits or other snacks.

7.  This isn’t the perfect party guide but it is a way to save money.  If you have other ideas I would love to hear them.

New Product by Yoplait

If you are part of the website Psst! General Mills Program you may have something arriving in your mailbox pretty soon. 

I was so excited  to see these coupons in the mail.

I received 10 coupons for $1.25 each package of Smoothies and also a coupon for a free bag.  I had to go the grocery store today anyway to get bread, milk, and bananas so I of course wasn’t going to let this coupon sit around and get lost.  Once I got to the Publix, I also noticed that these were 2 for $5.00.  I didn’t want to use my other coupons and  spend $1.25 on these if I didn’t like them so I got my free bag with the other coupon and headed home.

Once we got home, the boys and I added the mix and milk to the blender and made us a smoothie to share.

Amazing!  It was very easy and tasted really good.  I will definitely try these again and hopefully Publix will have these as a buy one get one free deal soon.

If you aren’t part of the Psst Program I highly recommend it.  Just like this promotion you can receive many other great offers in the mail.

Did you adopt a dog in 2009?

We adopted a boxer/lab from the animal shelter in December 2009 and it has been a wonderful gift to our family.  Thanks to Serena for posting this free dog food opportunity at Smart Shopping 2009.  Click here to download your form if you adopted a dog in 2009.

Free Sample – Avery Removable Label Pads

Click here to get your free sample of Avery Removable Label Pads.  It will take up to 4 to 6 weeks for delivary.  Bummer!

I looked through the site to post a picture of the labels but there are a ton of labels out there so I am not sure which ones you will receive.  It is free so go and sign up!

Possible Overage at Publix

Like I have said before the Publix on 81 in Anderson, SC is the best Publix for these deals. 

SundownVitamins

1. Go to www.sundownvitamins.com and print two ( click the back browser twice and it will allow you to print it again )

2.  Clip one $6.00 off of 2 from the new Green Advantage flyer.

3.  Purchase 2 Sundown vitamin D $2.99 each.

This will give you overage $3.02.  This was also a deal last month so they might be out of vitamin D.  If so you can purchase the small meletonin vitamins for around $3.89 and get overage but it will be less.

Bayer Asprin priced at $2.67

1.  Use the $5.oo off 2 in the Publix booklet

2.  Use two -$1.00/1 Bayer asprin) –  in the 10-25-09 Red Plum insert.

3.  Purchase 2 Bayer chewables at $2.67 each.

This will give you overage. 

more overage to come…..

2010 Savings Tracker

Thanks to The Coupon Project for providing a free downloadable worksheet you can use to…

• Easily imput your monthly and yearly goals
• Enter data from your reciepts and let my preset formulas tally your spending, savings, actual-to-budget, and more
• Track and manage your rebates (NEW!)
• Determine how much you saved with coupons, store sales, and rebates
• Have your monthly and year-to-date savings ratio update instantly

This is a detailed worksheet but if you are disciplined enough it will hopefully help keep you on track for 2010.  If you do not have Excel on your computer you can download it and then open it through Google Docs.

New Coupons released!

I always get so excited at the end of the month/ first of the month because coupons reset and I can update and replenish my stash. There are a ton of brand new free coupons to print. Click on the image above to go directly to your coupons.