Free Coffee!! Free Coffee?

Hey, there is free coffee to be had at Barnes and Noble. All you need is the coupon for it. My friend Lori has so lovingly left a link on her blog to the coupon. Run, don't walk to her blog and print out yourself some coupons. I printed two but that's just me.

Crock-Pot Deal

I must tell you all about a Crock Pot deal. First let me start by saying that I have wanted a new crock pot for about 6 months now. The one I have is still working o.k. but it is a non stick kind that sits on a griddle base and the non stick is wearing off. I have been looking and lurking on blogs and website eyeing new Crock Pots and have been biding my time. The time has come to buy a new one. There is a $5 rebate on any Crock-Pot over $24.50. If you would like to print the rebate form click here. The crock pot I am looking at runs about $55.00.

Enjoy the picture of my future crock pot. It comes with all the bells and whistles. This thing will do everything except go to the freezer and throw the meat in. Here is a quick features list.

• 6 Quart Capacity
• Digital timer tells you when meal is ready
• Programmable cooking times from 30 minutes to 20 hours
• Automatically shifts to warm when cooking is done
• Removable oval stoneware for easy serving and clean-up
• Dishwasher safe stoneware and lid

It's that time of year again

It's that time of year again. The time of year when the leaves are starting to change. The time of year when the air is getting cooler and the days are getting shorter and shorter. It's that time of year when you load up the family and head to the apple orchards and the pumpkin patches to wonder the fields and pick, pick, pick. That is exactly what we did yesterday.
We first headed to our favorite orchard only to find out that our orchard was already picked over. They, graciously, gave us directions to another orchard where we picked and picked and picked. We picked 261 apples.

Here is my money saving tip: Pick your own apples. We go once a year and pick them and then we peel and core and bag them up. We actually did all the peeling and coring today. We bag them in gallon size Ziploc bags in apple pie portions. This year we got 27 bags of apples. We freeze them flat so that we can store them in the top of one of our freezers.

I use these apples through the year to make apple pies and fried apples mostly. People are always surprised when I tell them that my apple pie is my easiest dessert I do. Since the apples are ready to go I just add the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. I use the Pillsbury ready made pie crust, you know the kind that you just unroll and its ready to go.

If you haven't gone picking this year you better get to it. Time is running out.

Shoe buying time UGH!!

After spending $118.00 on 3 pair of shoes for my kids yesterday I was feeling pretty drained. Buying shoes for my kids always wears me down. One of mine has a narrow foot and the other has an extra wide foot. Unfortunately the best fitting shoes are Stride-Rite. I say unfortunately because we pay anywhere from $35.00 per pair to $55.00 per pair. You can probably guess, my kids only get 2 to 3 pair a season. Last year I found a sale and bought 4 pair of shoes for $20 each in 3 different sizes and thought I would have this season covered. I pulled out the shoes a couple of days ago, patting myself on the back for getting such a great deal, only to realize that my child had a growth spurt and two pair of shoes don't fit. UGH! So I pulled out the next pair and they fit good or so I thought. We went to the shoe store to find tennis shoes and the girl measured my childs feet and said, "These shoes are to small." I told her that we had just gotten those out from the closet. The sales girl looked at me and said, "I would wear these out then, because this child is not going to be in these long." Again I say UGH!

I walked out of that store with a $52.00 pair of tennis shoes for one child, that I hope last through the winter and one pair of shoes that were $49.00 for my other child and a 3rd pair for the future which cost $18.

My Buddies came in today

I went and picked up my buddies today. I got 48 Johnson Buddies bars and 3 bags of candy and paid just a little over $8. Yay, I love coupons!!

While I was at Kroger

I received some coupons last week for $3 off when you buy 3 Johnson items. We discovered on vacation last week that the whole family likes the Johnson Buddies bars. So while I was a Kroger the other day I had them order me 8 cases of them. Yes, I will be using all of my coupons and getting 48 Johnson Buddies for FREE! I will have to pay tax. The Buddies are .99 at Krogers and every three I buy I will get $3 off.

I figure if we use 1 a week I almost have a year supply.

Me Likie me some deals!!

Still Digitally Challenged

I hate to say, but, I am still digitally challenged and went to Kroger today. I am sorry to report that I do not have a picture of my load. The load this week probably would have covered the top of my freezer. My freezer is where all my pictures are taken. Here is the very looong list of things I got this week. Also this was broken up into 4 transaction because Krogers deal was buy 15 participating items receive $3 off bill. I broke up my transactions to get the most savings. Here we go:

2 Pepperidge Farm Goldfish
24 cans of Campbells soup
6 boxes of Nature Valley granola bars
4 lbs of I Can't Believe Its not Butter
1 bakery baguette
1 bag of fresh spinach
1 bag of sunflower seeds
1 bunch of celery
2 cucumbers
2 packs of Ball Park franks
2-2 liters of Diet Coke
1 Deli fried chicken
8 4 packs of Yoplait yogurt (shortcut discount as well)
1 Pillsbury crescent rolls
2 Jumbo packs of Huggies diapers (shortcut discount)
2 bags of Pillsbury frozen dinner rolls
1 bag of frozen Pillsbury biscuits
3 Johnson Buddies (FREE)
2 bottles of Greased Lightning
1 Kroger Sour Cream (FREE)
1 box of Chex Mix bars (.40 for 1 box) (shortcut discount)
1 pack of Kroger Oreo cookies
9 bags of Betty Crocker ready to make cookies
4 boxes of Bettery Crocker Supreme Brownie

I had coupons for just about everything I bought this week. I had so many coupons I handed a couple off to another shopper.

My total before coupons or discounts was $192.95

The Total I paid out of pocket $91.45

I had a total of $56.20 in coupons. I think that will pay for my next 5 renewals to the grocery game. I should have done a little better but I messed up one of my deals and forgot to use a coupon. My total would have been $4.50 cheaper if I had done everything correctly--UGH!

This is outrageously high for me but I was loading up on soups. I also bought two packs of diapers which shoot up a bill by themselves.