Good news – this site (and Jeremy’s) are back up and running normally!  Hopefully my nightmare of the past three days has been over.

I’ll be back with more posts this evening.  Thanks for your patience as I get back into the swing of things as this issue basically sucked three days out of my life!

By the way, I believe everything is functioning normally with the exception of the Wall – I’ll try to get that up and running again soon.

Our baby in the tent *before* she decided to cry all night

Mandy evidently has springtime on the brain – she’s already thinking about camping! She emailed to ask this question:

Where’s the best place to go camping with young kids within an hour of Colorado Springs?

So, camping experts, what suggestions do you have? We just started camping in the past year or two – something I said I’d never do, but here I am! One of our would-be favorites is this free campground just outside of Colorado Springs – but I say “would-be” favorite because our camping days have been paused for the moment.  The last time we went, our youngest was 8 months old and screamed, um, well, most of the night. Hopefully none of you were the other campers in the area that night- if so, please accept my apologies!

Anyway.  Where do you recommend for a kid-friendly place to camp close to Colorado Springs?  Please leave your suggestions in the comments.  If you are reading via email, please click here to comment.

You can submit a Reader Request, and view archived requests as well.  Please feel free to keep adding suggestions on archived requests as they are still being viewed!

Don’t forget to stop by Panda Express tomorrow (Wednesday) to try their new Honey Walnut Shrimp for free!  No purchase is necessary.

Valid at participating locations only, and you’ll want to call to make sure our Colorado Springs locations are participating.  Haven’t had time due to working on website problems.

Again, thanks for your patience.

Today Colorado Springs Chick Fil As are giving away free Yogurt Parfaits as part of their Customer Appreciation Week! My freshly-squeezed lemonade yesterday was awfully yummy – thanks, CFA!

Thanks for your patience with the shortage of blog posts – dealing with some major site problems on this end and haven’t even had the courage to blog even the minor deals. I’m praying for a fix soon!

Megan and Traci found a great use for the 55¢/1 Barilla pasta coupons that came out in yesterday’s paper. It’s on sale for $1 at both King Soopers and Safeway, so after doubling, you’ll net some free pasta!

If you want to stock up on pasta but don’t have enough coupons, don’t forget that Safeway brand pasta is on sale for 50¢ through Tuesday, I believe. Not quite free, but about as cheap as it goes without a coupon!

Don’t forget that this is Customer Appreciation Week at Colorado Springs Chick-Fil-A’s, and today they’re appreciating you by giving you a free medium sweet tea or freshly-squeezed lemonade!

Here’s the rest of this week’s freebie lineup. We’ll see you there!

Hot new printable coupons up at Coupons.com!  If you want ‘em, print ‘em – they’ve been disappearing crazy fast lately!

• $1/1 Kraft Deli Deluxe Slices
• $1/1 Dial body wash, bar soap, or liquid soap (no size restriction, I believe!)

And from Smartsource.com:

• 55¢/1 Challenge butter
• 50¢/1 C&H sugar products 2 lb or larger

Those two products (butter and sugar) are ones that usually go on sale for Easter, often for the last time until Thanksgiving, some I’m hoping for some stock up sales!

Also, Melissa commented on the King Soopers Instant Win Game post about the Buy 8, Save $4 deal – the participating product list says prices are valid 3/14-3/27, so we probably will be getting it, it just hasn’t started yet!

I mention that because you may want to look over all the printable coupon websites for coupons that are valid on products on this listl, so you can know you have them on hand for the King Soopers promo!

Just took a look at Sunday Coupon Preview and I’m seeing some hot coupons in tomorrow’s inserts!  Here’s some of the frozen food ones that may go along with Safeway’s frozen food promo, I’m not 100% sure these particular brands and varities are included:

• Freschetta Multi or Single Serve Pizza Save $1.25/1
• Tyson Any’tizers Bag snacks Save $1.00/1
• Tyson Any’tizers Box snacks Save $.55/1
• Jimmy Dean Breakfast Skillets Save $1.00/1

And here’s a few others I’m excited about:

• Mission Tortillas Save $1.00/1 - the small tortillas are on sale for several more weeks at King Soopers for $1.29, and the burrito size are $2 until 3/23, so great prices on both this this coupon!
• Reach Dental Floss or Reach Access Flosser Save $1.00/1 – on sale for $1 at King Soopers through 3/23, free after coupon!
• Reach Toothbrush or Reach Value Pack Save $1.00/1 – on sale for $1 at King Soopers through 3/23, free after coupon!

I’ll definitely be buying extra papers this week!  Head on over to Sunday Coupon Preview to see approximately what coupons we’ll be getting.  What’s in coupon inserts varies by region, but usually the list is pretty close to what’s in the Denver Post.

Two readers submitted clearance finds for Walmarts here in Colorado Springs!  Rene said:

I wanted to pass on a screaming deal I found at the Walmart on Woodman. They have girls character thermal pj’s for $1 and what was left of their selection of girls hanes sweats and sweatshirts. They had a pretty good selection of the pj’s but not a lot in the sweats.

And Joanne commented on The Wall that…

I was at 8th Street WalMart and they have Monopoly Jr. Disney Channel Edition games on clearance (back by the fish dept.) for $5. You can go to Playsavers.com and print a $5/1 *any* Monopoly game coupon to get for FREE ~OR~ use the $4/1 Insert coupon that came in USA Weekend a little while ago to get for $1; but that insert exp. 3/7/10 so hurry if you want to use that one!

Thanks for the tips, ladies!  Remember that clearance goes fast and varies widely by location.

Kathy is the Commentor Of The Week for her tip about Albertsons announcement that they are doubling and tripling coupons! Thanks for the hot tip, Kathy – we wouldn’t have known if not for your tip!

As a thank you to Kathy for her contribution, I’ll be contacting her via email and sending her a $10 King Soopers gift card to spend on whatever she pleases. I’m sure she can put her amazing couponing skills to use and streeeeetch that $10 a long ways!

Also, I’ve randomly chosen a winner from the survey giveaway. Since the survey was anonymous, I won’t reveal the winner here, but they’ll be hearing from me via email and will be receiving a $20 gift card to Alice.com and a few other fun surprises from my recent blogging conference, too.

Stay tuned for next week’s Commentor Of The Week – maybe it will be you!

Note: none of the above mentioned companies are affiliated with either of these giveaways.

Just saw via Panda Express’s Facebook page that they’ll be giving away servings of their new Honey Walnut Shrimp next Wednesday, March 10th! As usual, it’s valid at participating locations – last time they did a promo like this, the stores in the Springs did participate, so here’s hoping they do so again.

I’ll give a couple of stores a call and see if they are participating and let you know for sure when I remind you about this deal next week!

This past week I bought some CFL bulbs to replace a few lights that had burned out.  This time, I bought name brand, since we purchased an off-brand at Walmart the time before and they only lasted as long as a “normal” bulb.  I happened to think that I should keep the pacakaging in case it doesn’t last as long as it’s guaranteed to, and noticed that the receipt and UPC is required to get your money back.

I usually keep my grocery receipts in one envelope until it gets full and then throw it away.  I’m always hoping I’ll find a rebate for something I’ve already purchased.   I’ve gotten lazy lately and just thrown some of them away, though.  Like the one I needed to save for the CFL light bulbs, just in case.

I’m curious – what type of receipts do you keep, and for how long? Do you have a special storage system?  A particular rhyme or reason for saving some and not others?

Please share your opinion and strategies in the comments.  Last week we talked about what to do with extra milk, and I and many others learned a ton – here’s hoping we can share more great tips on thits subject!  If you are reading via RSS or email, please click here to leave a comment.

Related: How To Read Your Grocery Receipt Series

Image credit: cafemama

Whole Foods on North Academy is celebrating their 6th anniversary tomorrow and they’ll have lots of vendors on-site, including Organic Valley farmers Scott and Robin Mitika from Elbert County. Melissa commented on the Wall and said there are supposed to be gluten-free vendors, as well, and I’m hearing there will lots more in-store sales and coupons being handed out!

Here’s a sneak peek of some of the sale items! These are only good at the North Academy Whole Foods from 11 AM until 3 PM.

Primo Fruit Preserves
Regular price $6.99, on sale for $4.99

Haystack Mountain Goat Cheese
Regular price $5.99, on sale for $3.99

Whole Rotisserie Chicken
Regular price $8.99, on sale for $5

Pineapple (conventional)
Regular price $3.99, on sale for 2 for $3

Mangos (conventional)
Regular price $2.99, on sale for 88¢

NY Strip Steak
Regular price $14.99, on sale for $9.99

Continental Sausage (Avalanche Ale/Smoked Bratwurst)
Regular price $5.99, on sale for $3.99

Whole Foods Rocky Mountain Bakehouse Cookies (6pk)
Regular price $5.89, on sale for $4.99

Yellowfin Tuna
Regular price $21.99, on sale for $17.99

Garden of Life Raw Perfect Food powder
Regular price $34.99, on sale for $17.49

GAIA ADRENAL Health 120 capsule
Regular price $39.99, on sale for $19.99

Wish Garden Kick Ass Allergy 1/2 ounce
Regular price $9.99/$15.99, on sale for $4.99/$7.99

John Masters Lip Calm
Regular price $5.99, $2.99

Selected Naturtint Permanent Hair Color
Regular price $16.99, on sale for $8.99

Schultz Hot Sauce
Regular price $7.99, on sale for $6.99

Two Mom’s in the Raw Sauce
Regular price $9.99, on sale for $8.99

King Chef Sauce
Regular price $5.39, on sale for $4.39

Nuffin’s Bakery
Regular price $4.99, on sale for $3.99

Sweet Cajun Fire
Regular price $3.99, on sale for $2.99

You may want to print all of the Whole Foods store coupons before you go, just in case some of those products are on special! Especially the Organic Valley Yogurt one… just a hunch, but if there’s an Organic Valley farmer there they might have some Organic Valley sales. There are also some Organic Valley manufacturer’s coupons here.

And, if you’re lucky, you’ll win your entire cart of groceries for free – Organic Valley will be paying for one customer’s cart of groceries… Your cart must include an Organic Valley product to win.

Mmm, I might go just for the free samples and the $5 rotisserie chicken!   Don’t forget that this is only at the Whole Foods on North Academy from 11-3 tomorrow (Saturday).

Become a fan of Sun Chips on Facebook and get a free 10.5 oz bag of their chips!  First 100,000 only, limit one coupon per mailing address.  Thanks, Mojo Savings!

Here are some other freebies that I’ve shared in the sidebar Freebies area in the past day or two:

Nescafe free sample for Facebook users

Ideal Natural Sweetener sample

Free Dove hair care when you upload a video

More freebies always available in the sidebar!  Make sure you consider these ways to protect your information when requesting freebies.

Thanks to Kathy for commenting to let us know that Albertson’s published a one-page ad in today’s Gazette that stated they are doubling and tripling coupons!

This definitely changes the ad review for this week – I thought I’d update with some of the cheap and free deals.  However, this is going to be difficult to do since Albertsons’ doubling policy varies on location, manager on duty, and cashier.  Last time I was at Albertsons I asked if I could have a copy of their official policy, but the cashier told me there wasn’t one because it was always changing!

Colorado Springs Albertsons stores, if you are reading this, please release an official coupon policy!  We just want to know the rules so we can know what to expect.

So, here’s what you can expect based on past experiences: coupons “33¢ to 49¢” will be tripled up to $1.  So, your 35¢ coupons will be worth $1.  Coupons 50¢ to 99¢ will be doubled up to $1, so your 50¢ and 75¢ coupons will be worth $1.

Albertsons may or may not double coupons that state “Do Not Double”.  If the coupon barcode starts with a 5, the computer should automatically double it, but in the past some Albertsons stores have manually overriden this by taking the doubling amout off.  Some stores may not double internet coupons even if they don’t say “Do Not Double”.

I’m giving you these matchups assuming coupons will double as long as the barcode starts with a 5. Please remember the above, though, and know that I have no clue what your experience will be!

Gatorade G2 $1
Use 50¢/1 insert coupon
Net cost at checkout: FREE

Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers $1
Use 50¢/1 printable from Smartsource.com (states DND)
Net cost at checkout: FREE

Green Giant Frozen Boxed Vegetables $1
Use 50¢/2 printable from Smartsource.com or Coupons.com (states DND)
Net cost at checkout: 50¢ each – there are also insert coupons for 60¢/3

Rosarita Refriend Beans $1
Use 50¢/2 insert coupon
Net cost at checkout: 50¢ each

Campbell’s Condensed Soup $1
Use 40¢/2 insert coupon
Net cost at checkout: 60¢

SaraLee Soft and Smooth Bread $1.99
Use 55¢/1 printable from RedPlum.com (states DND)
Net cost at checkout: 99¢

What else do you see that’s cheap or free with doubling?

This weekly ad review is part of BeCentsAble’s Grocery Gathering.