Free Sandwich at Chick-Fil-A

Today only, go into any Chick-Fil-A sporting your favorite team gear (whether it be NFL, NHL or your kid's soccer team!) and get a free Chick-Fil-A sandwich. Stella approved of this deal - see the thumbs up! I think she really liked her sandwich.

Be prepared for a long line but they'll get you out fairly quickly. Happy Labor Day all!

Free Softsoap Body Wash at Lowe's Foods!

Just wanted to pass a quick freebie to you Lowe's Shoppers- all Softsoap body washes are currently on sale for 2/$3 (even the new Serum kinds!). Pair the sale price up with the .75/1 coupon that appeared in last Sunday's SmartSource and it's free thanks to coupon doubling!

Drugstore Deals - Week of 9/05

This is not a particularly noteworthy week for drugstore freebies & moneymakers but there are a few things I'll be taking advantage of... here's the scoop drugstore by drugstore!

Rite Aid

I'll be skipping out on a Rite Aid trip this week as there is nothing, in my humble opinion, worth stopping by for- but I'll definitely be there next week when they have a Huggies sale & Single Check Rebate offer. I'll be picking up 3 Huggies Pure & Natural Packs for $13 out of pocket and then filing for a $10 SCR- making each pack a mind-blowing $1 each. You can read all the details about this deal & others from this coming week here at southernsavers.

CVS

I'll only be doing one deal at CVS this coming week- and that is for FREE multi-packs of Schick razors after ECBs and a $3/1 coupon from 8/16's SmartSource insert. Click here for summaries of all the other deals available at CVS this coming week.

Walgreen's

There are a couple of really good deals to be had at Walgreen's- namely, a FREE Scrubbing Bubbles Shower Cleaner kit (after Register Rewards and a $7 printable), yet more free Glade candles (these will make great teacher's gifts!) after Register Rewards and $2 printables and another free Glade Sense & Spray to add to our growing collection after Register Rewards and the $4/1 insert coupon. If you have $2/1 Starbucks ice cream coupons on hand, you can also get yourself some free Starbucks ice cream! You can read all the details on these and other deals @ Walgreen's this week here.

One thing I've been delighted to recently discover is that you can use your Walgreen's Register Rewards at Harris Teeter!

That's about it for drugstore deals this week! Hope y'all find my lists helpful. Many thanks & kudos go out to Jenny @ Southern Savers for spotting and sharing these deals.

Organizing Your Coupons

There are probably nearly just as many ways to organize coupons as there are hardcore coupon shoppers out there. The key is to experiment a bit until you find a way that works best for you and your household! After a year of coupon shopping, I've finally come up with a system that works well for me. I can't guarantee that it will work for you, but I will share in the hopes that it might help some of you who are just starting out or those who've been doing it a while and haven't yet felt like they found a good working system. Here's a little video I made illustrating my current system:

I highly recommend the use of a zippered binder for you to carry coupons to store. Some folks will use giant boxes (no I'm not kidding!) and cart these around while shopping - and this will allow for some really awesome deals when you spot stuff that's unadvertised or clearance deals but for me, personally, that is too much of a chore. I'd rather have stuff planned out ahead of time and have my coupons ready for use then lugging an oversized box around and then hunting around in it for minutes on end when shopping. Shopping with kids in tow is difficult enough as it is...especially when one is strapped to your chest while you're shopping.

My carry to store binder has a section where I can pop in receipts and copies of submitted rebate forms/receipts, a zippered section on the interior where I can put coupons that won't fit into the standard baseball card sized insert, a pair of scissors and a handheld calculator (because like the old Talking Barbie of my youth, I suck at math!). In the front of the 3 hole punched section, I have pockets for rebates which I have not yet qualified for so I can pop the receipts in when I purchase qualifying items, 3 pages of baseball card inserts for good winetags and FREE coupons that I can use wherever and then sections for each store I shop at (CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Harris Teeter, Lowe's Foods, Kroger, Food Lion, Target and Misc). My CVS section also includes all 3 of my CVS ExtraCare cards and their corresponding coupons/ECBs.

At home, I have a file system for inserts and All You Magazine coupons. These are placed in file folders labelled with date of insert/magazine- inserts are also filed by type of insert (RedPlum, Smart Source or Proctor & Gamble). When Sundays roll around, I'll tear apart each of my inserts (I typically have 10-12 on hand) and separate them based on pages so that each like page will be filed with each like page. This makes it easier to clip many of the same when needed for shopping or trades.

I used to clip every single coupon from every single insert and then file them in an oversized baseball card collector book by category (ie bread, personal hygiene, snacks etc). This just got to be too much work. You'll learn as you go that there are many coupons in the inserts that you'll never use or need. Why bother clipping if you're not going to actually use these? I switched to filing the entire insert pages unclipped and it's saved me a lot of time and hassle.

Each day, I typically get A LOT of non-insert items from trades, coupon trains (these are fun things you can join as a trader on http://www.hotcouponworld.com/) writing manufacturers for coupons or collecting blinkies/peelies/tearpads from stores. I have a separate expandable file for these that are separated alphabetically by brand name. This makes it easy to just pop them into after I receive these and also easy to recover when trading or getting ready to shop.

You can do a search on the internet for methods of organization and find hundreds of ways to do so. You'll also find that you'll usually want to tweak a method once you adopt one. Don't throw your hands up in frustration if something's not working for you- change systems or tweak the one that you have until you find something that works well for you!

Handy Dandy CVS ECBs

It looks like a couple of consecutive blah weeks at CVS so I decided to burn through some of the nearly $80 worth of ECBs I've accumulated on various household needs. I ended up getting the following stuff for just over $5 out of pocket:

Jumbo pack of CVS brand toilet paper (24 rolls)
2- 100 ct. bottles of prenatal vitamins (no, I'm not preggers again- just still nursing!)
2- 30 ct packs of Probiotic Acidopholus tabs
1- toddler toothbrush & toothpaste
2 marble composition notebooks

I got more bang for the buck by separating purchase into 3 transactions and using one $5/$25 q and two $2/$10 vitamin autofill coupons. And I earned another $2 ECB by using a raincheck for the marble composition notebooks.

Grocery Deals - week of 9/02

I meant to post this yesterday and make this a weekly Wednesday feature, but Stella's been a bit of a fuss-budget as of late. My apologies! Lots of Labor Day themed specials on meat, paper plates & plastic cups can be found at practically every store. Here are my picks for this week's best deals at Triangle area grocery stores.

Food Lion

Sadly, FL has discontinued their Guiding Stars FLIP (a store specific internet printable) that would allow you to get free or nearly free produce, eggs and other healthy stuff. This was a $1.00 coupon that could be used on any "healthy" item in the store- paired with specials and carefully measured produce, you could get some really wonderful deals on whole foods. I'm hoping they'll bring it back.

I'm not a big FL shopper since they don't double q's but I do stop by on occasion for really good deals.

This week, they'll have free or nearly free Mt. Olive Sweet Relish if you have 50 cent coupons handy from 7/19 or 8/16 insert. If you haven't exhausted your supply of Glade Fragrance collection coupons you can get free or cheap candles since they're on sale B1G1. With the $3 printable or the $3 All You coupon, you can get these for free. If you have $2 insert coupons, you'll pay $1 for each.

Harris Teeter

There's a rumor swirling on HCW right now that HT will alternate between super doubles and triples every other week until the end of year. I don't know about you, but I find this prospect both exciting and exhausting. Guess we'll find out soon. In the interim, they have some good freebies and cheapies this week with their typical doubling of q's.

My personal faves? Sorrento string cheese can be bought for a mere 33 cents each pack when you use the $1 coupon from 8/23 Smart Source. Coke 12 packs are also on sale for a rock bottom 4/$10 ($2.50 each). There's a limit of 8. I've traded for a bunch of $1/2 q's so I'll be stocking up on our beloved Coke Zero for $2 each 12 pack.

You can also get Reynolds Recycled 35 ft aluminum foil for 14 cents with the 75 cent coupon found in 8/16 Smart Source insert.

Both Smithfield Bacon and French's worcestershire sauce will be free with printables (click on each item to find and print!).

Kroger

No big deals going on at Kroger this week- will buy a couple more packs of the Kroger Comforts diapers for our little munchkin but nothing else really stood out for me this week.

Lowe's

Lowe's has an instasave special (sign up on their website) where you can get a 4 lb. bag of sugar for 99 cents (limit 2).

Other standouts this week include Lawry's marinades for 54 cents with 50 cent insert coupon, Kellogg's cereals (selected kids flavors) for 65 cents a box with $2/2 insert coupon, A1 Marinade for FREE with $2/1 insert coupon.

Please feel free to post comments if you spot other good deals at any of these stores, Super Walmart or Super Target!

New Printables Out Today!

Both http://www.coupons.com/ and http://www.smartsource.com/ have been restocked! Check out each - certain coupons will appear on both sites. Be sure to print out the 2 copies you're allowed for the ones you want.

The Green Giant .50/1 will likely go fast (if they're even still there!) so be sure to get your 4 copies of these (2 from coupons and 2 from smartsource).