Frances | August 26, 2009

Remember our post about the $1 General Mills coupon that Target refused to use on the cereal cups? Here is the link to the post. In summary they told us that the coupons were not intended for the cups. So we  had them remove the cups from our groceries. A reader D… ran into the same issue on her second visit to Target in Mobile.

Here is what she writes:

First, I would like to say that I love your website. I’ve only been going to it for a few weeks now. A friend at work told me about you and I’ve been hooked ever since. I have been telling my friends and relatives too.

I read an article you wrote about a week ago about the $1 off General Mills cereal coupon at Target. You said that it did not work at your Target because the individual bowls cost less than the coupon. At my nearby Target…where they cost $1, I went in and bought some free with the General Mills coupon.

However, when I went in there for a second trip to pick up two items and to “get” a few more cereal cups the cashier and manager denied me. They said that the coupon was for the boxes of cereal and not the cups. I told them that the coupon did not state this. After debating for a minute, I told them to take the cereal cups off my bill and asked for the coupons back.

I called the corporate office and got a very nice lady that said that they should have taken my coupons and apologized. She said that they will be sending me a coupon for $3 off my visit and I asked her to please send me a copy of the coupon policy, which I will keep with my coupons when I go shopping in the future.

The lady at corporate said that if a coupon is more than the product, the store is supposed to take the coupon for the amount of the product.

The following is the email the corporate office sent.

D…

______________________________________________________________

Thanks for asking us about using coupons at Target. Coupons are a great way to save even more when shopping with us, and it’s easy to use them at our stores. Because of the variety of coupons available to our guests, we do have some guidelines for how coupons can be redeemed at Target.

When accepting coupons, we use the following guidelines:

- We accept two kinds of coupons: Target-issued and manufacturer-issued.

- We’ll accept one Target coupon and one manufacturer coupon for the same item, unless either coupon prohibits it.

- We can’t give cash back if the face value of a coupon is greater than the purchase value of the item; in this case, we’re able to adjust the value of the coupon to equal the price of the item.

- We can’t accept coupons from other retailers, or coupons for products not carried in our stores.

- All valid coupons should be presented to the cashier while you’re checking out.

For questions about using a specific coupon, we encourage you to stop by the Guest Service Desk and ask to speak with the Guest Service Team Leader. They’ll do their best to help while you’re in the store. If you still have questions after speaking with them, please call our Guest Relations team at (800) 440-0680. Either way, we’re here to help!

We appreciate the opportunity to share this information with you.

Sincerely,

Val

Target Guest Relations

Way to go D…! If you would like an copy of the email so you can keep it with you when you shop at Target, send an email to Frances at Frugal Fairhope dot com.

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Frances | August 26, 2009

Silent Programs V

We have noticed that there are programs (government and private) that no one seems to know about. If they do, they are keeping it quiet. Well, we are going to try and bring these programs out in the open in hopes that it will inform the people who really need it. We started a series of posts called Silent Programs. Here are the last four posts.

Click here to see the first Silent Program – FEMA 1835 – 1836 DR-AL

Click here to see the second Silent Program – Charitable Pharmacy

Click here to see the third Silent Program – Children’s Dental Assistance

Click here to see the fourth Silent Program – Discount Drug Card

For the fifth issue of silent programs, we found a program that has been around for a long time. WIC is a program specifically designed for meeting the nutritional requirements for women, infants & children.

Here is some information from WICs site:

Women, Infants & Children (WIC) is a supplemental nutrition program for pregnant women, breastfeeding women, women who had a baby within the last six months, infants, and children under the age of five. One must meet income requirements and have a nutritional risk that proper nutrition could help to improve.

Income requirement for Florida and Alabama:

Family Size	Annual	Month	Week
1	$20,036	$1,670	$386
2	$26,955	$2,247	$519
3	$33,874	$2,823	$652
4	$40,793	$3,400	$785
5	$47,712	$3,976	$918

To find our more information or find a WIC program in your state, click WICs site for more details.

Have you recently suffered a job loss or want more information about other programs in our area? Check out this post for a one stop shop for some money saving links.

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Frances | August 25, 2009

With the Coupon Workshops that we have been giving all over town, the most popular topic question is Coupon Organization.

In our minds there are three levels of coupon organization:

1. Envelopes
2. Binder or Index Box
3. Advanced Binder or Index Box

Here are some tips for these three levels of coupon organization:

As a beginner, we would start with envelopes.

1. Create envelopes with store names on them and put the coupons for that weeks deal inside.
2. Create envelopes for product categories and take those with you shopping. You can use the product categories similar to the Coupon Swap; of course you may want to break down the grocery category to more envelopes.
3. You could also purchase a small cloth envelope coupon organizer but chances are that you will grow out of that envelope faster than you think. So we would go with the cheap way and use paper envelopes until you find your own way.

FFF Tip: If you tape the ends of your envelope, the envelope will last longer.

Binder System or Index Box

1. Using a cloth or vinyl binder with business card sleeves is a great way to get your coupons organized.  Using business card inserts is really handy to view the expiration dates. Folding the coupons so that you can see the value, product, and expiration date will make it easier when the coupons start to expire at the end of the month.
2. A plastic photo album with black or white pages would also be a great way to organize your coupons.
3. Use product categories to make labels for your binder or just place the coupons in the particular categories.
4. Using a index paper box with labels would also work as well. We were using this at one time but found the plastic box was too cumbersome for us to take into the store.

Advanced Binder System

1. Graduate to a large binder with business card sleeves, plastic paper sleeves, and pockets. We have seen some binders with baseball card sleeves. We purchase our business card sleeves at Staples.
2. We also use envelopes for each store, if we are going to make a quick trip inside the store. We place marked envelopes in the binder pockets.
3. Some stores will not have all the items we are looking for that we can get for free. We also keep a pocket to store our coupons for free items.
4. Using the envelopes as a grocery list is a great trick that works for us if we know we need specific items. We will pull the coupons from the binder inside that store’s envelope and look inside the envelope before getting in line.
5. We never felt the need to create a coupon database of the coupons we have in our binder (we would never have the time for that). But hey, what ever works for you go for it.
6. We do create a list of the printable Target coupons so that we can have a quick look at the competitor coupons we use at our Publix stores without having to cut and file these coupons (especially the ones with a short expiration dates).
7. We mix in the competitor coupons with the manufacturer coupons, the tear pads… in coupon categories so there is no guessing just a quick look if we can do a 2 or 3 way coupon stacking deal.
8. If there is a coupon that we have printed with a short expiration date we use the paper sleeves to store that coupon in the appropriate category. No need to waste time cutting if we are not going to use the coupon if there is not a sale.
9. Speaking of cutting, if you are buying more than one Sunday paper, staple the matching inserts together and do one cut.
10. We have created an OCF file (Only in Case of Free) that is in the back of our coupon binder.  At the time of the previous post we were using an index box. We now place our OCF file in the back of our binder. The OCF coupons are sorted alphabetically.
11. We have seen some that don’t cut coupons from the Sunday paper but place the inserts in a paper sleeve and date them. They keep a list of the coupons they have on hand, organized by date and publisher (RP, SS, or P&G). We have even seen a photo of someone’s closet where they keep the Sunday inserts on each shelf. This is a very interesting and creative way to organize coupons, but personally wouldn’t work for us.

We hope some of these tips have helped and inspired you to create your own system. As everything in life you will grow and find the best path that works for you.

We would love to hear how you organize your coupons and what progress you have made in organizing your coupons.

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Frances | August 16, 2009

SafeLink is now available in Alabama.

Here are the details from the site:

How to Qualify:

The process to qualify for Lifeline Service depends on the State you live in. In general, you may qualify if…

1. You already participate in other State or Federal assistance program such as Federal Public Housing Assistance, Food Stamps and Medicaid.
OR
2. Your total household income is at or below 135% of the poverty guidelines set by your State and/or the Federal Government.
AND
3. No one in your household currently receives Lifeline Service through another phone carrier.
4. You have a valid United States Postal Address. In order for us to ship you your free phone you must live at a residence that can receive mail from the US Post Office. Sorry, but P.O. Boxes cannot be accepted.

In addition to meeting the guidelines above you will also be required to provide proof of your participation in an assistance program, or proof of your income level.

About

Lifeline Assistance is part of a program that was created by the government to provide discounted or free telephone service to income-eligible consumers. To help bring you this important benefit, SafeLink Wireless is proud to offer Lifeline Service. Through our Lifeline Service you will receive FREE cellular service, a FREE cell phone, and FREE Minutes every month! SafeLink Wireless Service does not cost anything – there are no contracts, no recurring fees and no monthly charges.

Any Minutes you do not use will roll-over. Features such as caller ID, call waiting and voicemail are all also included with your service. If you need additional Minutes, you can buy TracFone Airtime Cards at any TracFone retailer Walmart, Walgreens, Family Dollar, etc). SafeLink Airtime Cards will be available soon.

Your exact benefits, including the number of free Minutes you will receive, depend on the state you live in. Please enter your ZIP code to get the details for your state.

Currently available in Alabama, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. It will be offered in the following states soon: Arizona Illinois Kentucky Missouri Puerto Rico Texas and Washington

For more information and to see if you qualify, click here.

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Frances | August 14, 2009

We are hearing mixed messages on the economy situation, one minute the news reports that we are coming out of the “recession” the next minute we hear that every person that gets a job, 6 people loose theirs.

So if you have recently suffered a job loss here are some links to saving money that we have talked about in the past:

Out of the Box Solutions for Job Loss Part 1 of 3
Out of the Box Solutions for Job Loss Part 2 of 3
Out of the Box Solutions for Job Loss Part 3 of 3

Free medications for Pfizer customers

We started a series of posts on Silent Programs after we noticed that there are programs (government and private) that no one seems to know about that may be of interest (especially the free child and low cost health care).

Silent Program – FEMA 1835 – 1836 DR-AL
Silent Program – Charitable Pharmacy
Silent Program – Children’s Dental Assistance
Silent Programs – Discount Drug Cards

Church on the Eastern Shore in Fairhope will provide a low cost health care facility in Fairhope.

Free Cell Phone & Minutes

Getting out of the house and meeting new people to network is an important path for anyone who is suffering this situation. If you are a mom, check out the following local and national Mom activities:

MOMs Club of Daphne

MOMs Club International to find the closest MOMS Club in your neighborhood.

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