Optimize your savings with pre planning

Today for breakfast I had Yoplait Yogurt Light in Cinnamon Roll.  It is normally .69 but I had a coupon for it to be free so 0.00 was the perfect price.  This was the coupon that I had from that wonderful Yoplait Do The Swap Giveaway.  Add in a glass of ice water and I was already set.  Hydrated from my nights sleep and the probiotics in the yogurt was working to keep me healthy.  With 100 calories and 0 fat this is a great tasting breakfast for me.  And let's not forget a good source of protein too.  You can get download a printable coupon for $1.00 off the purchase of three (3) cups of Yoplait Light yogurt to get you started with the "Yoplait Light Swap"  HERE.

And I have also picked a winner too!  The winner for the Do The Swap Yoplait Yogurt goodie bag is: Maurine who won by Following @CrazedMind on Twitter. Thanks so to her and congrats!  I have e-mailed her and am waiting on her response to send in to Yoplait and My Blog Spark.

At lunch today I had a wonderful thanks st T.G.I.Fridays.  Wonderful Cajan Style Alfredo Chicken & Shrimp heated up quickly in the microwave here at home.  See I did not even have to dress up to have a resturant meal at home.  Add in that I had a free coupon from SocialSpark.  So that 3.69 cents became an automatic 0 too.  I added in a Route 44 soft drink from Sonic.  Yeppers, from the info on the bottom of my last reciept I was able to get a free Route 44 drink.  Lunch served up at no cost.

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Dinner now I had to take care of 4 of us here at home.  I was not able to bring that about for nothing though.  But I did get the Real Big Deal from Brookshires.  It was FREE ONE Of Each Item:
 Kings Hawaiian Rolls 4 Ct,
Food Club Vegetables 28-29 oz I opted for corn,
Pillsbury Brownie Mix 19.5 oz  
Country Crock Deluxe Side Dishes 21-24 oz there we went for the brocolli and rice cassarole.
WHEN YOU BUY ONE Hormel, Lloyd’s Woodfire Barbeque Or House of Tsang Entrees 10-17 oz.  I chose the Lloyd's Woodfire Barbeque as we could make sliders with it using the Kings Hawaiian Rolls.  
With Brookshire’s Thank You Card I SAVE UP TO $10.86.  It was 7.98 for the main course.  I then stopped at Sonic again.  Used two more of the savings codes from the survey on the bottom.  Ordered 2 Rt 44 drinks without ice.  Took them home to serve up for drinks for all four of us.  Dinner for four at just 1.99 a person.

If I took the whole day, I served 6 meals and only spent 7.98.  That is 1.33 a meal.  This is what they mean by Saving Savvy!  Kelly Hancock, founder of the wildly popular blog FaithfulProvisions.com, started employing easy money-saving strategies of her own.  After slashing her families grocery and eat-out budget by 80%, she started blogging her secrets.  Soon, legions were following her simple steps and daily deals, and her wisdom is now collected in Saving Savvy: Smart and Easy Ways to Cut Your Spending In Half and Raise Your Standard of Living...and Giving! I love the ideas and planning tools in here. And was not surprised to see that my frugal lifestyle already had 90% of these habits in it. But that is not the norm. Most people do not feed a family of four on $100 a month at best. Inside Saving Savvy, readers learn how to:
· Learn their saving style, via a special spending-style quiz
· Eat/cook organic foods on a budget
· Create a money-saving freezer template
· Cook ³ingredient-based meals based on sale + seasonal items
· Teach children about money and budgeting
In addition, those who buy a copy of Saving Savvy can receive a free issue of All You, a magazine packed with high-value, exclusive coupons and offers on national brands (up to $100 of savings). The redemption form is on the back flap of the book for the reader to return with their store receipt for the free issue. I wish I could do this one! But since I was sent the book as a review I do not have the store receipt for the free issue. Alas that is the life....can not get everything for free but I sure am trying to do all I can to help out my family.

On FaithfulProvisions.com, the site that inspired her book, Kelly's money-saving e-tips  are eagerly gobbled up by 150,000 unique visitors per month. Links to offers by national brands, such as Target, CVS, and Walgreens are available on her site, which has even become its own iPhone app and thriving Facebook community. Just saying, you may wanna go hang out there for a bit too.  Sadly most of these items do not work for me in my one horse town.  With only one grocery store and very few chains of fast food we have our limits.  Let's not even think about any kind of a discount store bigger than the local Dollar General.  But I do shop smart, shop locally and find many savings just by applying my time and attention to doing the pre-planning.

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Scary Costumes Make for Warm Memories

I am happy to host Barry Boone and his hints on saving this year for Halloween. I hope that

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some of the following will help you out.

Barry Boone, the founder and CEO of www.DealHunting.com and www.CurrentCodes.com, wants the memories of smiling youngsters trick-or-treating this fall to remain fresh long after the last candied apple has been eaten and the last red cape has been folded and tucked away. And so he is reminding parents that they can find unbeatable savings on costumes, candy and digital photo processing online this Halloween.

“We have lots of listings of coupons and sales for retailers that sell costumes, like BuyCostumes.com and Costume SuperCenter,” says Boone, “but we also have really great coupons for stores that do digital photo processing, like Snapfish.com, KodakGallery.com and YorkPhoto.com. So whenever you take pictures of your kids in their Halloween costumes, you can find a coupon to process those digital photos at a great price.”

“DealHunting.com is a daily shopping list,” Boone explains. “You can go there on a daily basis and find a listing of all the different good sales we found on the internet for that day. These are the newest, latest, greatest sales, and if there are some really deeply discounted items for those stores, we’ll have them listed.”

Sister site Currentcodes.com is a database of coupons for more than 1,300 online stores ranging from Amazon.com to Zales and everything in between, including CompUSA, Disney, Esprit, The Gap, JCPenney, L.L. Bean, Old Navy, Orbitz, Overstock.com, Staples and more. Each has a place within its shopping cart for a "coupon code" that gives a percent or dollar amount off of a purchase.

“If you don't know the code, you can't take advantage of the discount,” says Boone. “You can find these secret discount codes and coupon codes listed on many sites across the internet, but the problem with these sites is that they're usually personal homepages, and don't maintain their lists.”

DealHunting.com and Currentcodes.com have a full-time trained staff whose only job is to find new sales, coupon and discount codes and verify the accuracy of the existing database. “We don't flood you with ads or popups, and we don’t require any personal information from our visitors.” Boone says.

What sets DealHunting.com and Currentcodes.com apart from their competitors, Boone feels, is that “we are by far two of the most thorough sites as far as the breadth of companies we cover.”

In the months ahead, Boone and his team will launch additional features for searching products more efficiently.

My Little Pony Give Away

College Girl grew up in the 80's and 90's so she was able to see videos come into the home for entertainment. And those videos change over to DVDs. And like so many others we were always happy to find her one that she just loved to watch over and over again.

Well, now I am helping watch College Girl's lil sister who is 3 years old. And just like her big sis, she has her favorite DVDs. Now there is a new one for her. We were able to introduce her to My Little Pony. Yes, the one and same that her big sister use to watch. And Emma (lil sis) loved it just as much.

This next week on October 13th My Little Pony's newest DVD released for home viewing will be the Twinkle Wish Adventure. How did we do that? Connections......lol.
Actually we were lucky enough to be asked to review the Twinkle Wish Adventure. So this last

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weekend we popped it into the DVD and watched not only the movie but Emma too!

It is so much fun to watch a lil one get all excited. She did as so many lil girls do. She danced around with the ponies and squealed that this was the bestest movie ever. And we had to play the extra sing-a-longs too(all 6 of the). There was also 4 activities we downloaded for her too! Now she may only be 3 years old, but try and get a child to watch a boring movie. NOPE NO CAN DO. So when it was requested at her house the next day, we were happy to let her borrow our copy. Remember, the movie Twinkle Wish Adventure does not make it to the stores til October 13, 2009.

But! Yes, there is a but! I have a Surprise!
I have scored a copy for a give away.
Do you want your very own copy of Twinkle Wish Adventure?
Great!

Then just start off by leaving me a comment here.
What do you remember as your fav childhood DVDs? Or was there one your kiddos could not live without? Would you like to introduce them to My Little Pony? And you can always do all the other comment things to get extra entries. Twitter, grab my button, become a follower, blog about the give away. Just make sure there is a comment for each thing you do and a way to contact you if you win.
I plan on drawing a winner on.....yeah, October 13th 2009.

I wonder who will win? I do know that tomorrow we will be watching My Little Pony's Twinkle Wish Adventure here with Emma again. Oh, and don't forget to enter to win. And if you do not win? Well here is a $5.00 off coupon for My Little Pony.

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Check out these super deals!

Enter September 1st -30th 2009 to Win 3 boxes of Holey Donuts! Low Fat Gourmet Donuts! and maybe it will be you that finds the $1,000.00 inside this time!

5 Lucky winners will be selected to win 3 boxes each of Holey Donuts! Ultra Low Fat Gourmet Donuts! But wait! One winner will be the luckiest when they open their winning box of donuts with an ENVELOPE inside the box containing $1,000.00 Cash!

Great tasting, Low Fat Gourmet Donuts and a chance to win $1,000.00 Cash! It doesn't get much better than that!

How Can I Enter? - Just click below and enter your email address at the bottom right of the Holey Donuts! homepage. Look for the email sign up box in the lower right hand corner and add your email address to join the mailing list. That's it! Yes, you can tell all your friends, family and co-workers about the Holey Donuts! Contest too! CLICK HERE

And you also get to use these codes to save you even more.

Choose the one savings that works best for you today. Limit 1 code per order. But you can choose another code with your next order before it expires on 9/30/09

- 30 Low Fat Lemon Vanilla Donut Holes FREE code = lemon

- $8 off SHIPPING from your friends at Holey Donuts! code = holey08

- $18 off shipping when your product order is over $59 code = HD18

- 4 Jumbo Low Fat Cinnamon Buns FREE! code = 4FREECB

How to redeem your code - Add the items you want to purchase to your cart and proceed to checkout. On the checkout page locate the coupon code/voucher box. Enter the code you have chosen. Then hit RECALCULATE and your offer will be applied!

Limit One coupon code per order. Offers cannot be combined. This offer applies to new orders only. All codes expire at midnight 9/30/09. (Yes, we are in the last few days of the month so don't wait. Place your order now! at www.holeydonuts.net)

Passing on the Savings

I have a few goodies to share with you if your interested. Coupon codes, free new site and the such! Ok here we go. . .

Clickinks.com is where I buy my ink for my printer. They have the best price for me and since I have to have over 6 cartridges I need the best price I can get. Well with my last order I received two more coupon codes. For 5% off your orders use coupon codes FRIEND3 and FRIEND4. These are not applicable on OEM products though.

Holeydonuts.net is my fav place to order my lowfat yet yummy donuts. And you can get 4 jumbo reduced fat cinnamon buns when you order any other donuts. Just use the coupon code of 4FREECB at checkout! Enjoy these sinful tasting but not waist widening goodies. And there is also a coupon code to give you $10.00 off instead by typing in 10OCT. Now that is a decent savings there.

Oh and go over to My Job Chart at http://www.myjobchart.com/. They are now all FREE. Sign up and use this great online tool with your kiddos to keep track of their chores. Great lil site to help them keep on top of chores and task. And helps you too! I know that I would be there right now if College Girl was not College Girl but just School Girl.

Have a great day y'all and enjoy the savings too!

The Glow of the Blue Light Special

Kmart Bluelight Specials are back! We thought they had left us but we were all wrong. Once again we can bask in the glow of the. . .

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Bluelight Specials!

- This is a one day only sale, July 25th, where you can get Special offers throughout the day on everything from patio furniture, to grills, to jewelry... all at Kmart Bluelight Special prices!

- Did you know that there will be over 40 great Kmart Bluelight Specials throughout July 25th, in-store. Other great offers will also be on the web at kmart.com only on this Saturday the 25th of July.

- Make sure you follow on Twitter @kmartdealsnnews for updates and more specials!

One of the deals you will find is the 2-day Christmas Lane event going on July 24-25 only, at www.kmart.com/christmaslane - great deals on shipping!

Another great lil special just in time for back to school is

Free Scissors Coupon for Back to School!!!

To print savings reward to use in-store, click here.

There is also a $5.00 off of any $50,00 purchase.

Click here to print coupon with bar code to use in-store!

It seems that Kmart is getting back into the saving game. It will be so good to have the help in savings during these hard times. This is just what is needed by so many families. So are you ready for your Kmart Bluelight Specials?

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