Archives for April 2010

How to pay less for fried chicken

Published April 30, 2010 by Carrie in Expired

Did you know that you can pay $1 less for an 8 piece fried chicken at King Soopers? Order “all dark meat”, and instead of getting 2 brsts, 2 thighs, 2 drumsticks, and 2 wings, you’ll get 4 drumsticks and 4 thighs!

We’re already partial to dark meat at our house anyway, but this deal is a no brainer to us. Trade the wings and brsts for drumsticks and things for $1 less? It’s quite possibly the same amount of meat, if not more, and you don’t have to fight about who has to eat the wings.

Do any other stores besides King Soopers do this?

PS – please put the $1 you saved into a Health Savings Account if you take advantage of this tip often. ;)

New Whole Foods coupons and sales

Published April 30, 2010 by Carrie in Grocery Deals

There are new Whole Foods printable coupons available this week! According to our local Whole Foods stores’ policies, you can combine these coupons with manufacturer’s coupons, so I’ve listed some potential “combining” options here, too:

$1.00 off any THREE (3) CLIF BAR, MOJO, CLIF Builder’s or CLIF C Bars (mix and match ok)

$1.00 off any ONE (1) Ben & Jerry Pint

$1.00 off any TWO (2) Rudi’s Organic Products

50¢ off any ONE (1) 20oz. Vitamin Water or Vitamin Water Zero
Combine with $1/2 VitaminWater 20oz 4/25/2010 SS Insert

$1.00 off any ONE (1) Pacific Natural Foods Hemp Milk
Combine with $1/2 Pacific Naturals Product

$1.00 off any ONE (1) Earth Balance Creamy or Crunchy Peanut Butter or Creamy Almond Butter
Combine with $1/1 Earth Balance Apr 2010 All You Magazine

75¢ off any ONE (1) Annie’s Naturals Product

$1.00 off when you buy ONE (1) box any flavor/variety Cascadian Farm® Granola Bars or Cascadian Farm® Cereal
Combine with $1/1 Cascadian Farms – CascadianFarm.com
or $1/1 Cascadian Farm Product – Coupons.com (may not be available anymore)

$1.00 off any TWO (2) Pints of Ciao Bella Gelato or Sorbet

$1.00 off any ONE (1) Scharffen Berger® or TWO (2) Dagoba® Chocolate Products

$1.00 off any ONE (1) Kashi® Organic Promise® Cereal
Combine with $1/1 Kashi Organic Promise Cereal – AllYou.com

50¢ off any ONE (1) Tazo® Zero Calorie Ice Tea

Go here to print the Whole Foods coupons.

Make sure you check out their entire ad online to see the rest of what’s on sale.

What I did to be frugal this week: cooking dried beans

Published April 30, 2010 by Carrie in Grocery Deals

I really prefer canned beans. I mean really, really prefer them. I have problems getting dried beans cooked all the way, and I really like having canned, already perfectly cooked beans ready when I need them.

However, I haven’t seen a good sale on canned beans in awhile. Like a few years. Seems like two years ago, Albertsons ran several wintertime sales where canned beans were about 33¢ each. I haven’t seen anything near that price since them.

With barbecue season here, we’ll be eating a lot of baked beans, and the thought of paying a few dollars just for beans for a side dish was not very appealing. So, this week I’ve been cooking dried beans. I’ll be freezing most of them so that I can pull out already cooked beans from the freezer whenever I need them. Almost as convenient as canned (though they still need to thaw).

The cost savings? A pretty significant percentage. I went to Walmart to buy a few varieties of dried beans, and while I was there, wrote down the shelf prices of the same varieties of canned Great Value beans.

I then checked Cook’s Illustrated, which told me that “for every pound of dried beans called for, you’ll need 58 ounces of canned beans”. So, I figure that means that a pound of dried beans yields about 58 oz cooked.

Here’s how the price breaks down between canned beans and dried beans, cooked.:

Bean Type	Canned, per oz	Dry Beans, per oz
Black	4¢	1.9¢
Red	5¢	2.1¢
Kidney	4.4¢	?*
Pinto	5¢	?*
Great Northern	5.2¢	1.7¢
Garbanzo	5.2¢	2.4¢

*I forgot to check the prices of these beans and didn’t purchase them myself. Pinto beans are cheaper at Sam’s or Rancho Liborio. I do remember noticing that the 2 lb bag of dried pintos was more expensive than the 1 lb bag!

I make Amy’s Baked Beans With A Kick (minus the picante sauce), and I figure that buy using dried beans instead of canned, I’m saving about $1.21 each time I make that dish. (I still buy the canned pork and beans, and I switch up which types of other beans I use, so that’s an approximation of the savings.)

$1.21 doesn’t sound like much if we’re talking about reducing our electric bill or house payment. But, if you could shave $1.21 off every meal you eat in a month, that would be a savings of $108 per month!

Some people, myself included many times, scoff that taking a little extra time to do something like cooking dried beans from scratch isn’t worth it. But, I’ve found when you’re trying to reduce your grocery budget, there’s no one thing that you can do to automatically reduce it by $100 per month. It’s usually a bunch of little things, like cooking dried beans, all added together that help you save.

Have you done anything lately to be frugal? A lifestyle change, a project, a simple thing like cooking your own beans?

PS – if beans went on sale for 33¢ a can again, I would be all over it. ;)

Don’t miss these weekend deals

Published April 30, 2010 by Carrie in Expired

Just a reminder about these events and sales going on this weekend:

Free kids workshop at Home Depot – build a picket fence planter

Free kids workshop at Lowe’s – build a “schoolhouse”

30% off everything at Old Navy

Big Safeway weekend sale – berries and coffee for cheap!

Case lot sale at the Fort Carson Commissary

Free Comic Book Day on Saturday

Other upcoming events are on the local events calendar!

Sign up for a Mother’s Day gift from Pei Wei

Published April 30, 2010 by Carrie in Expired

Just a heads up – if you’re not already on their list, you may want to sign up for Pei Wei’s e-club. They’ve promised on their Facebook page to send out an email-only coupon for Mother’s Day!

Last year, the coupon was for buy-one-get-one-free – pretty awesome for a restaurant that rarely does coupons. This is one of our favorite places to eat – great “sit down restaurant” food at fast casual prices.

I’ll be working on a list of Mother’s Day specials for next week. Wait, is Mother’s Day really next week?!

40% off at Borders Bookstore

Published April 30, 2010 by Carrie in Expired

You can take 40% off the list price of one book at Borders with this coupon! You do have to be a Borders Rewards member to use it. If you’re not already, you can sign up online or in-store – it’s free.

Thanks, Mojo Savings!

Couponing FAQ: finding the insert date

Published April 29, 2010 by Carrie in Expired

There’s no need to freak out if you file your coupons by insert and forget to write the date on the cover – did you know that information is printed right on the insert every week?

It’s teeny-tiny print, and often right on the fold, but if you’re trying to figure out what date a coupon insert came from, check the outside cover of the insert – on the binding you’ll find the insert date and a list of the newspapers it came in.

If you file by insert, it’s probably still easier to write the date on the cover, since the printed date is so small. But if you ever forget, or someone gives you old inserts, just check on the edge!

Old Navy: 30% off entire store

Published April 29, 2010 by Carrie in Expired

I heard via Old Navy’s Facebook page that their entire store will be 30% off from April 30th to May 2! The fine print says this:

Offer valid from 4/30-5/2/2010 at Old Navy stores only. Not valid online. Discount applies to merchandise only, not value of GiftCards purchased, packaging or applicable taxes. No adjustments on previous purchases. Not valid for cash or cash equivalent. Cannot be combined with other offers or discounts including Gap Inc. employee discount.

I don’t see sale or clearance prices excluded, so you could potentially find some really nice deals on stuff that’s already marked down. You may want to clarify that the discount applies to reduced merchandise.

Archives for April 2010

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