Last Chance to Enter the $50 Safeway Gift Card Giveaway!

If you haven't gotten your entries in to win one of three $50 Safeway gift cards, do it soon! The giveaway ends tomorrow at 12:00 PM PST, no entries will be counted after that time!

Go HERE to enter now, and don't forget you can get up to 3 entries!

Toys R Us - Fabule$$ Hasboro Game Deal!

Toys R Us has a HOT promotion going on this week. Spend $25 on participating Hasboro games and receive a $10 gift card. Plus you can submit for a $2 Hasboro rebate per game.

Here is what I bought and for how much:
7 Games - $3.99 each (Regularly $9.99 each)
Ant's in the Pants
Don't Break the Ice
Cootie
Chutes/Ladders
Candy Land
Memory
Hi Ho Cherry-O
Total: $27.93 (add $2.65 Sales Tax = $30.58)
Received $10.00 Toys R Us Gift Card
Submitting 7 $2.00 Rebates HERE for an additional $14.00 off. Only 1 rebate allowed per game type.
Total after taxes, gift card and rebates = $6.58 or $.94 per game!!
Your total will be lower depending on your sales tax rate, our's here in the Seattle area is a whopping 9.5%!

That is 7 great Christmas gifts for $7!

Please note: the games have to be the original themes, not the character games. For example, Memory has to be the original Memory, not the Dora the Explorer Memory game.

I was also planning to turn around right away and use my $10 gift card on the Playskool Musical Sit and Spin as they are on sale for $19.99 and I have a $10 off coupon from Coupons.com. However, the gift card they give you is not valid until 6 hours after your original purchase, so we will go back later to pick that up.

Thanks to Deal Seeking Mom for alerting me to this hot deal!

Online Shopping Tips ~ Holiday Planning

Shopping online has become a very common thing in recent years, especially during the holidays. I was very intimidated of buying things online a few years ago, but now it is almost the only way I seem to purchase things anymore. If there is an item I want to buy, I can almost always find it cheaper online.

Here are a few tips on getting the best deals while shopping online.

1. Never pay for shipping! Most websites will offer free ship codes or promotions so definitely do some research prior to clicking that order button. Sites like RetailMeNot.com have a ton of promotion codes for hundreds of retailers including money off and free shipping codes. **

2. Get the lowest price! Check out sites like PriceGrabber.com and find out which company is offering the item you want at the lowest price. Just enter what you are looking for and it will pull the prices along with shipping costs and show you a list of all the retailers that are selling what you want and how much it costs.

3. Shop through rebate sites! There are several sites out there that you can shop online through. Basically you register at their website and then click to go to your favorite stores from their website. When you make a purchase, you receive a percentage of your purchase back in your rebate account. These places are free to register at and often times give you a sign on bonus! For example, Ebates.com will put $5.00 in your account for registering, then once you receive an additional $5 in rebates they will send you a check! Go HERE to sign up with them now. You can also shop through sites like Upromise.com (rebates are credited to your college fund!) and SwagBucks.com (Receive 1 Swag Buck for every $5 spent!)

4. Don't forget about eBay! Check out eBay.com for the item you are looking for. A lot of times you can find the item you are looking for brand new or just slightly used with the packaging still for a great price. I have found a lot of "fabule$$" deals on eBay on brand new items, just make sure to check the seller's feedback rating to make sure they have mostly positive feedback and be wary of counterfeit items. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. For example, a brand new pair of $200 designer jeans listed for $25. They are probably fakes. Same goes with electronics.
P.S. Shop through your rebate sites when buying on eBay too! Ebates offers 2% cash back for your eBay purchases as well as Swag Bucks and Upromise!

**December 18th is the "Black Friday" of the online shopping world. Most companies offer free shipping and specials that day as well as a guaranteed arrival by Christmas Eve! As this date gets closer I will try to post a list of companies involved and their best deals. They are usually pretty good!

I hope this article was helpful to you and online shopping is a little less intimidating! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or leave a comment!

Weekly Dinner Challenge - Week 6!

I have to say I am having so much fun experimenting with new recipes every week and challenging myself to break out of my comfort zone in the kitchen! This week wasn't too challenging; actually it was surprisingly easy!

For dinner tonight: Marinated Pork Chops, Steamed Broccoli and Parmesan Risotto

I bought a large 4 pack of pork chops on clearance at Fred Meyer last week for $2.45! Since the pull date was close, I popped them in the freezer over the weekend so that I could cook them up this week. The broccoli was on sale as well but I can't remember how much I paid for it, whoops! I think it was around $1.00. The risotto was not from scratch but it was one of those splurge purchases from my Safeway trip last week for $2.66 and I haven't ever cooked risotto before. It turned out really yummy! I added some fresh parm flakes as well.

The "challenging" part of this meal was how to cook the pork chops. My comfort zone is to have James throw them on the grill with some spices or BBQ sauce and call it good. They are always pretty tasty but tonight I was looking for something more so I decided to look up a sauce/marinade recipe from my favorite, allrecipes.com.

I did vary from the recipe a little, here is how I made the marinade:

2 Tbsp thick Teryaki sauce

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp Veg. Oil

2 Tbsp Ketchup

2 Tsp Lime Juice

2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

Mix it all up and spread 1/2 of it it over the chops in a baking dish and cover with foil. Depending on the thickness, bake at 350 for 20-30 min. Uncover, flip the chops and cover with the remainder of the sauce and re-cover with foil for another 20-25 min. Uncover and turn on the broiler on high for about 5 min just to seal in the flavor of the sauce.

Everyone thought these turned out totally delicious! I wish I would have gotten a good photo but they all turned out blurry, besides, meat never photographs very well!

Since I didn't need to purchase any of the ingredients for the sauce, I ended up spending around $7.00 total on dinner tonight for 3 adults (sis was over) and Naomi!

I was feeling being in the kitchen tonight and decided to use up the last of my pumpkin puree from last week on one last batch of cookies for dessert. All in all from that one small pumpkin I rendered 2 large batches of pumpkin cookies and 2 large loaves of pumpkin bread. I do love my pumpkin goodies during the fall!!

What did you make this week? Leave a Comment!

HUGE Deals this Weekend at Safeway!!

Safeway has a TON of promotions going on this weekend! If you haven't done your weekly shopping yet this would be the time to go!

Among the promotions:
- $10 off $50 purchase coupon in the ad
- $10 Kohl's Cash Catalina for every $50 spent (After club card and Safeway coupons, but before manufacturer coupons!)
- Home for the Holidays Promo (Spend $25, get $5 Catalina - Specific Items - lots of baking supplies!)
- Coupons for 4 FREE breakfast items with $50 purchase
- Mix and Match Cereal Sale

I am so bummed that I didn't wait to use my $50 gift card Safeway sent me last week! This would be THE week to stock up on your holiday baking supplies!

A sale like this requires some good planning so you can make your dollar stretch as far as possible. Frugal Living NW has done just that and I definitely recommend reading their posts about this FABULE$$ sale HERE, HERE and HERE!

Also, don't forget to get your entries in to win one of 3 $50 Safeway gift cards! The giveaway ends on Monday, November 9th at 12pm! Go HERE to enter now!

Buca di Beppo - $10 Off Coupon

Go HERE to print off your coupon for $10 off a purchase of $20 or more between now and December 31st, 2009. Our family LOVES Buca di Beppo! My favorite dish is the gnocci, so yummy!

Thanks Money Saving Mom!

Halloween Clearance at Target!

Just updated this post in the comments!!

Hello to all of you in BloggerWorld on this soggy Seattle Thursday!

Naomi and I got off work early today so we decided to hit up Target to check out a couple of deals they have going on right now. My original plan was to stock up on THIS awesome Glade deal. Unfortunately, my store in Woodinville was all out of the holiday scents. I still have my Glade coupons though so I will go try a different store this weekend and hopefully get a bunch of the holiday tins and refills.

We had some time to kill so we went to check out the toy section and on the way I came across the clearance area for Halloween. ALL things Halloween are now 75% off at Target, including the candy! I saw a ton of M&M's, Snickers, etc. bags left at my store. This would be a great time to pick up a costume, decorations or other goodies for next year!

I bought 300 Hershey's Kisses for $1.43!!!!! The best thing is: these are not Halloween colored, just wrapped in packs of 3 for trick or treaters. If I can keep these around until Christmas I can use them in gift baskets and cookies!

Here's how I did it:
50 pack (150 ct.) bag of Hershey's Kisses x 2 = 3.48
(2) $1.00 off any Hershey's Kisses product (found in a SS coupon insert in October)

Plus I got a $.05 discount for bringing my own canvas bag.
TOTAL: $1.43 for 2 huge bags of candy! Total Savings: $12.55!!

This is still a good deal even if you don't have the coupons. Target.com still has some good Halloween candy coupons HERE. There are no print limits on those coupons either. Plus, remember you can pair a Target coupon with a manufacturer coupon as well.

Have you found any Fabule$$ deals on Halloween items anywhere? Share them with us!

A Few Tips for Surviving the Holidays!

So it's officially November now, and as you all know, the Christmas madness is upon us once again! The second Halloween is over, out come the Christmas supplies at the stores and the ads take over the television!

Every year I always say, "I am going to do things on a budget this year and not go overboard!" Every year, I fail. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas. It is literally my favorite time of year and I just cannot help myself! I love every aspect; the decorating, baking, gift giving, family traditions, everything!

So now that I am a self appointed "frugalista", I really want to see how inexpensively I can do things. I want to save money wherever I can without letting my traditions suffer. I know it can be done!

Here are a few things that I plan on doing this Holiday Season:

1. START EARLY! I have always done this but this year I started even earlier, like last January! I went to Michael's last year and got an awesome deal ($1 each!) on some Christmas containers, so I bought all they had and I can put my homemade caramel corn in them.

2. Shop Early on Black Friday - I started doing this a few years back and had fun. The only problem is that I never really understood how to make those amazing deals work for me. Or I would always just wake up to late and everything would be gone already! This year I plan on having a list, coupons,a good alarm clock, and a big mug of coffee! Hopefully I will also have a buddy, everything is better with a buddy!

3. Make a Gift List and Stick to the List - I usually make a list but always end up adding things to the list as the shopping season progresses. So for example, I bought my sister a rice cooker but OH, look this sushi set is on sale! Surely I must get that for her as well to go with the cooker! Sorry Sis, I promise, you will get a nice gift but it will be done on a budget!

4. Coupons, Coupons, Coupons! As you can see from my coupons.com widget on the right of my blog there are a bunch of high value toy coupons on there right now. I have printed those coupons and am taking them with on Black Friday to make great deals un-beatable!

Target also has a toy coupon book available at their customer service desks. Go get one of these! Since they are Target coupons, you can also use them with those printable coupons to get a better deal.

5. Read About Other's Holiday Plans - I have noticed a lot of other blogs that are doing postings on how they plan to do things on a budget this year as well. I am reading all of these and getting a lot of good tips and ideas! Cha Ching on a Shoestring is only spending $50 on Christmas this year! Read about her goals HERE. Coupon Cravings is doing a holiday survival series HERE.

I plan on posting any hot holiday deals that I come across on here as well as more tips to get us through the season!

Let's get through this year without going into debt! What are your plans to save money this Christmas? Share your tips!

P.S. The pic above is of my little munchkin last Christmas! I cannot believe how much she has grown and changed over the course of just a year, WOW!

Safeway Has Lower Prices and I have a Giveaway!

Remember my post from last week about Safeway's new Everyday Low Prices Program? Last week, Safeway very generously sent me a $50 gift card to head to Safeway with and test out their new program!
So Safeway has lowered the price on thousands of items throughout the 198 stores in Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana! You can spot these new prices by the yellow tags. They show you the price before the drop, the new low price and then if the item is on sale, the club card price. Here is a photo I took in the store of Safeway's brand of flour; this 5 lb bag was originally $3.99, the new low price is $2.69 and it was on sale last week for $1.99! That is a great price for not using any coupons!

When I went shopping last week, I went with the goal to stock up on baking supplies for the holiday season: flour, brown sugar, ev. milk, choc. chips, etc. Then I figured that the rest could be spent on every day items that our family uses a lot like cheese, butter, produce, meat, etc. What I came away with is in the photo below:

I bought 5 lbs of flour, 2 lbs of brown sugar, 2 lbs of butter, 2 cans of ev. milk, yogurt, sour cream, spaghetti seasoning, spinach, bananas, apple juice ($.88!), 2 bags of chocolate chips, 2 lbs of cheddar cheese (new low price of $2/lb!), 2 large chicken breasts on markdown 50% and a couple of splurge items! My really big splurge was a jar of fancy teryaki sauce for $5.45. Yikes I know, but it is SO tasty!

I only used 4 coupons in this trip which is a smaller amount than usual but my grand total ended up only being: $41.19! Normally this would have cost me well over $60-$70. I noticed on a lot of items that the new lower prices are actually now falling into my stock up price. For instance, I love Safeway's brand of spaghetti seasoning. Normally it would have been $1.19 per packet so I never bought it unless it was on sale for $1.00 or less. Now the new price is only $.69 all the time! I am excited to see what it goes on sale for!

All in all, I really like the new Everyday Low Prices Program!! While a lot of the items with the new low prices are the store brands, I find that most of the time the base items I buy like flour and cheese are just the same as any other brand and now they are substantially cheaper than the name brands.

Now on to the fun part!! My first FABULE$$ Giveaway!! Safeway also sent me 3 additional $50 gift cards to giveaway to my readers!

Here is how you enter:

- Leave a comment on this post telling us what your favorite grocery store splurge is! Make sure you also include your email address so that if you win I can contact you!

Want up to 2 extra entries?

- Become a follower or subscribe to this blog/feed and leave a separate comment letting me know that you are a subscriber or follower. Please also include your email in this comment.

- Post about this giveaway on your own blog! Once you have blogged, leave a 3rd comment and include a link to your post where I can find it!

You have until 12:00 PM on November 9th to enter. Any comments received after that time will not be counted. I will use a random integer generator to choose 3 winners that afternoon and the winner will be announced on the evening of November 9th. Winners will have 24 hours to respond with their address or another winner will be chosen.

Good Luck!!

Happy 27 ~ Big Things In The Making!

Happy 1st of the Month Everyone! That means that new printable coupons are available!

This 1st of the Month just happens to land on my 27th birthday! Today was nice, not too busy, just relaxing with family and having a fun spaghetti dinner complete with my favorite cake, cherry chip! Thank you to everyone who made it simple and special, it was a very nice day!

Halloween was fun this year too, Naomi got dressed up and went trick or treating for the first time. She was dressed up as a baby chick and oh my, I have to say, the cutest chick out there! Here are a couple of pics from the evening:

Check back here tomorrow afternoon when I announce my first FABULE$$ GIVEAWAY! Have a good night!