Frances | April 23, 2010

We discussed Upromise at the Bel Air Mall workshop so we thought we would mention it again this morning.

Upromise is a fantastic free program that anyone can qualify for. We have registered our debit cards, CVS, Winn-Dixie, and now have a Publix card on the secured site. For each qualifying purchase we are able to save for our little one’s future. We have been doing this for years and have saved a lot of money for college. Upromise even has eCoupons on the site that you can click on and they will automatically download to your registered store cards (CVS, Winn-Dixie, Publix…). When you purchase those items money is credited to your college account. Here is an example of how this works:

You can also earn money for college when you book travel; get insurance quotes; order take-out; subscribe to magazines; take a survey; buy, sell or refinance a home. It’s a great way to save for college or pay down student loans.

At the beginning of the month we download all the eCoupons to our cards, it takes 3-4 minutes to do every month. That way we get the full potential no matter what we purchase.

Upromise is the smart way to save for college – Click Here to Become a Member Now!

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Frances | April 16, 2010

Publix is offering this coupon for $1 off a 2-pack of select CFL light bulbs &  Free reusable shopping bag. Coupon good until 4/30/10.

Get the coupon at this link

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Frances | April 13, 2010

We found the following coupons behind the Fairhope Publix customer service counter. It includes the following Publix coupons which can be stacked with manufacture coupons.

• $.55 Bertoli Pasta Sauce.
• $.55 Wish-Bone Salad Dressing 16oz
• $.55 Klondike Bards 6pk
• $1 Dove Soap Bar 6pk or Dove Body Wash 13oz
• $.55 Degree Deodorant
• $.55 Suave Hair Care 12oz

Coupons expire 4/30/10.

Printable Coupon Match Ups
This is a list of all the printable manufacture coupon match ups for the Publix coupons listed above. Remember you can only use one manufacture coupon and a store or competitor coupon for 2 way stacking.

Wish-Bone
$.50 printable

Dove
$1 printable

Degree
various printable & printable & printable

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Frances | April 12, 2010

Use the following pdf file to get free sponges from Walmart.

With this deal Frugal Fairhope is coining a new phrase called “Caution Coupon“.  This would mean to be careful when using this coupon at some stores. Caution Coupon would also mean to take your time and don’t be in a huge hurry because they will probably have to call over a manager to approve. In this case we got the supervisor and co-manager at our store and we were asked to sign the coupon, which were were more than happy to do (hey if that makes you happy). Here is the breakdown:

Scotch-Brite Sponge $.84
-$1 printable
Final Price: Free!

So what was the big deal and why would we call this a Caution Coupon?
First thing is the register, the $.84 price and the $1 coupon do not play well together. What suppose to happen is the cashier is to adjust the price of the coupon down to $.84 making this product free. But one of the managers had a really good point, Walmart will be reimbursed the $1 and not the $.84. This manager was not happy with Walmart “committing fraud” by being reimbursed the extra $.16. Understand that stores send in their totals and the package of coupons to manufactures (clearing house), rarely are they audited. No sane manufacture is going to ask to see the transaction history of every single transaction evolved with using their coupons, not even sure this is possible. They will however, pull the video tape if the coupon is fraudulent so they can get a clear photo of the person committing the fraud.

Second thing is the coupon clearly states “Save $1 on any one Scotch-Brite Brand Product” but it also states “only on products indicated“. The “only on products indicated” is the “any one Scotch-Brite Brand Product“. So one of the managers went the “not photographed on the front” route. We all know that it does not matter what product is on the coupon, it is all about the writing. By the way one of the products photographed on the front of the coupon indicated the Scotch-Brite Heavy Duty Scrub Sponge, which is what we purchased. It is really hard to see printed in black in white and we didn’t realize this until we got home and looked at the pdf file. Remember it does not matter what product photo is indicated on the front of the coupon. A coupons rules are what is written on the coupon.

So how did it turn out?
All worked out fine, we were nice no matter what and let others that were placing their products on the belt that we would be a while. We also let the two managers know that we will not be the last ones that take advantage of this deal. Hopefully we have made it easier for Frugal Fairhope readers to do this deal?

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Frances | April 12, 2010

Get free Starbucks coffee at participating locations when you bring in your own travel mug on April 15th. Click here for details.

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Frances | April 10, 2010

Get a $20 gift card when you sign up for the Upromise Speedpass offer AND get $.01 for college per gallon of gasoline when you purchase gas at Exxon and Mobil locations with a registered card, or a Speedpass linked to a registered card.

This is very easy to do but it will take a few steps:

1. Sign up for UPromise
2. Search for “speedpass”
3. Follow and click on the Speedpass link “Sign up for FREE at speedpass.com” at the bottom of the screen
4. Enter your name, address, promo code UPM10, & debit card information, create a user name, password and security name
5. In 7 days you will get your Speedpass kit along with the $20 gift card for free gas.
6. Follow the instructions from the mail and activate your speedpass.

We can not wait to get ours, wave it at the pump and go is right up our alley.

Offer expires 5/5/10.

UPromise – How Smart Parents Save for their Kid’s College Education

Get your $20 Gift Card when you sign up online

It’s Fast, Easy & FREE! Enjoy the convenience of ExxonMobil’s Speedpass™. Just wave it at the pump and you’re done. Your Speedpass allows you to pay for gas and other items at any of 7,600 participating Exxon and Mobil locations. Get a $20 Gift During this special promotion, new Speedpass customers can get a $20 ExxonMobil Gift Card for signing up and activating a new Speedpass account. Just sign up and activate online to receive this great offer. Be sure you use promo code UPM10. Offer expires May 5th, 2010. Upromise Savings When you link your Speedpass to a credit or debit card you’ve registered with Upromise, you’ll earn an additional 1¢ per gallon* when you buy 20 gallons or more in a calendar month. learn more » Buying gas has never been faster or easier.

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Frances | April 9, 2010

Are you itching to get out side and turn up the dirt in your flower or vegetable beds? Good Friday has passed and it is time to get those summer vegetables planted.

Home Depot has the following on sale this weekend:

$1/2 Flowering Annual
$9.97 16pk Annual
$2.97 Quart Vigoro Annual
$3.97 Miracle Grow Garden Soil

$27.97 5lb Scotts Turf Builders
-$5 printable
Final Price: $22.97

Here are some tips for shopping at Home Depot

• Check out the USPS moving envelopes at the post office for a 10% Lowes coupon
• Home Depot and Lowes will take each others coupons, along with price matching
• All Lowes and Home Depots honor a 10% military discount

Sign up to receive emails about special offers, coupons, and promotions from The Home Depot.

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Frances | April 8, 2010

$19.36 (before tax) for $96 $65.36 in Publix Groceries!

This is not the best we have done at 71% savings but this week we had to make our monthly milk run, you know the almost $8 a gallon organic milk. It hurts just typing this. With the money we are saving we shouldn’t feel too bad and we know it is for a good reason. We still can’t help but think about the availability of fresh cow’s milk? Something to ponder this summer as we are collecting the vegetables from our organic garden, gathering honey from our bees, and collecting those beautiful fresh eggs. If someone knows of fresh milk for sale in the Fairhope area drop us a line. We would rather pay a local farmer than Publix any day. We did receive help from a few Frugal Fairhope Readers (no names mentioned) that sent us envelopes of coupons for organic milk, with notes clearly marked inside AND outside the envelope that those coupons were for us. They know us too well. It was a huge help and a fantastic happy to receive these organic milk coupons. THANK YOU!!!

Here is what we purchased

4 Organic Valley Milk $3.50 (on sale from $3.99, not something to get excited about but we will take it)
-$2/2 coupon
-$1/2 coupon
Final Price: $2.75

Publix Milk $3.09

2 Publix Cheese $2

Publix Chips $2.59

7 Olay Bar Soap $1.68 (sale rack near the Pharmacy)
-$1 coupon 4/4 P&G
Final Price: $.68

FFF Tip: Always check the sales rack near the pharmacy with your coupon binder. You never know what you will find.

6 Reach Floss $.99
-$1 printable
-$3/3 CVS printable
Final Price: Free plus money maker

FFF Tip: The cashier mentioned AFTER she accepted the $3/3 coupons that these were manufacture coupons. We had to disagree with this, the $3/3 printable coupons were printed from the CVS site, confirmed with the CVS district manager, and clearly stated on the coupon that they are CVS/Pharmacy coupons. We think Publix will continue to take them as competitor coupons but we thought you might want to know that something could be said. If we understand it correctly, the argument was the reimbursement instructions at the bottom of the coupon, the bar codes are similar to manufacture coupons, and the coupon scans like a manufacture coupon. While we do agree that they are similar, we know there are thousands of different flavors of coupons out there, they all don’t look alike (they should), but we do know that if a coupon is a manufacture coupon it will state “manufacture coupon” on it, regardless. We always follow what the coupon states, and this particular coupon clearly states “CVS/Pharmacy” on the top where the manufacture coupon would be if it were in fact a manufacture coupons.

2 Stouffer’s Family Style $3.99
-$2.50 printable (when you become a Facebook Fan)
Final Price: $1.49

-$5 off $25 Rite Aid Coupon

That is it, a clean and simple deal. We could have used the $2.50 Register Rewards from the Walgreen’s trip but we decided to save those for another time.

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Frances | April 8, 2010

Out of Pocket: $3.75 (before tax) Receive $2.50 RRs & $4.50 MIR

Quaker Quick Oats 18-oz $1.50
-$1 printable
U by Kotex Pads  $3.49
-$1 printable
4 Pilot Erasable Pens $1.19
-$1 Walgreen’s April Coupon Book = $4
-Receive $4.50 rebate (MIR)
-Received $2.50 Register Rewards (RRs)

Final Price: Free plus $3.25 money maker!!!

This is pretty easy thing to do right now, the Fairhope Walgreen’s store has plenty in stock and the coupons are available for printing.  We will be donating our pens to a school teacher.

The Walgreen’s April Coupon Book is located by the door of any Walgreen’s store, next to the current weeks circular. You do not need to cut the coupon out of the book, just show the cashier the coupon to be scanned and it will automatically adjust the register to the total amount purchased. In this case, scanning the coupon once took $4 off.

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Frances | April 8, 2010

Those of you who have been following Frugal Fairhope for a while you know that I don’t mix Frugal Fairhope with personal stuff but in this case my heart has been telling me to not only share this with others but to gain support to rally around a cause and do what I can to help others….

A couple weeks ago I faced something that took my breath away…Breast Cancer… My thoughts were not to myself, I knew I could deal with this but my thoughts were how my Little One would deal with it. Too young to explain or understand what is happening, that broke my heart.

While everything turned out OK, my thoughts went to others. I only got a small breath of what is like to deal with the threat of this terrifying disease. So what to do about it?

One Day, One Dollar for Breast Cancer

I am asking Frugal Fairhope readers to donate one dollar on Mother’s Day for breast cancer research.

Frugal Fairhope will only do one post on Mother’s Day in honor for those who have suffered and are facing this dreadful experience.

I am also asking all Mommy and Daddy bloggers around the blogosphere to join me in creating a post on Mother’s Day to set up donations for Breast Cancer Research.

Here is where I need your help, not just to donate a single dollar on Mothers Day, but to please ask the other bloggers you visit to participate in this cause. Most bloggers rely on their blog as income, not all bloggers can donate the one day for one post (we completely understand) but if they will at least add this to their Mother’s Day posts that would really help.

Frugal Fairhope currently has over 4,000 Facebook Friends, imagine if everyone donated just a dollar. That is just Frugal Fairhope, there are thousands of Mommy and Daddy bloggers across the country… do you see what I see?  WOW!

Sunday, May 9th is Mother’s Day. Frugal Fairhope will create on one post on that day with a PayPal account set up so that donations can be easily made with a click of a couple of buttons.

As always thanks for reading.

Frances

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Frances | April 5, 2010

Rolling ECBs or Rolling Register Rewards is a common term used when shopping at CVS or Walgreen’s. Rolling means to pay for something with ECBs or Register Rewards and get ECBs or Register Rewards back. See below for an a simple no frills (or coupons) example of Rolling ECBs.

We received $10 ECBs by email when we completed a CVS survey. Once we completed the survey we printed the $10 in ECBs. We then used the $10 in ECBs to do the following transaction:

Complete Multi-Purpose Solution $8.99
Stride Shift 14-pk Gum $.99
2 Hershey’s $1/2
Total: $10.98
Paid with $10 ECBs from CVS survey

-Received $8.99 ECBs for Complete
-Received $.99 ECBs for Stride

Final Price: $.98!

As you can see we rolled $10 in ECBs from the survey to pay for items and got $9.98 ECBs back. We will then use the $9.98 in ECBs to pay for more items that will give us back more ECBs.

Our plan is to show you how far we can stretch this $10 in ECBs and what we can buy with only $.98 out of pocket!
So Stay Tuned for More in the next couple weeks!

.

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