Free Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent after Rebate

The other day while I was shopping I needed to pick up some baking soda for the freezer, which I had just cleaned out and defrosted. I picked up two boxes of Arm & Hammer baking soda and was pleasantly surprised to find a rebate for up to $5.00 for a free bottle of Arm & Hammer liquid laundry detergent. 

All I needed to buy was two boxes of baking soda and one bottle of detergent, which I had already bought this month. So I came home, printed off the form, and sent it off with my receipts. The offer is good through 2-15-14. Here is a link to the rebate offer if you are interested: 

Get one Arm & Hammer Liquid Laundry Detergent Free

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

A Little Humor for the Day

Image Credit

hehehe ;)

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Christmas

We celebrated a pretty simple Christmas in our home this year. 

We made our traditional Sloppy Joes for Christmas Eve dinner, and I also made a very nontraditional Taco Salad, which we warmed up today when we got hungry rather than making a big Christmas dinner. We decided this year to make it easy on ourselves and not cook a big Christmas dinner and just enjoy the day without having to cook or clean up a messy kitchen. It was really nice to just be able to enjoy each other's company and not have to worry with cooking and cleaning up the kitchen. I think this will be a new tradition for us in the years to come.

I actually lucked out on the price of the ground beef for the Sloppy Joes. I was behind another customer who was right behind the meat department employee who was marking down the meat with yellow stickers and I was able to purchase four pounds of ground chuck for $9.49, so $2.38 a pound, which normally sells for $13 plus change for the same package. This made a large amount of Sloppy Joe meat, which will be frozen after Christmas into meal sized portions for those who want them. This will last for several months. 

Presents were kept simpler this year than in years past. There was no big gift for my daughter this year, but I did take the time to pick out several smaller, thoughtful gifts that I knew she would like. One was a personalized notebook with her name on it from Etsy, and a handmade necklace, also some Harry Potter stamps from the post office, which she was thrilled with and said she would never, ever use because they were so special. In the end she was very happy with her presents and that made me happy as well. 

As for the tree, we used our artificial tree, which was bought on clearance from Lowe's several years ago, the special ornaments that we've collected down through the years, and the wrapping paper was also from the past, bought on clearance in January of 2012. At the rate I am using these ten rolls they are going to last me for a long time. 

I sent fewer Christmas cards this year and even used some forever stamps that I already had on hand rather than buy new Christmas stamps. And of course I already had the cards from past years as well. The number of cards we receive diminishes each year and I suspect younger generations are more into greetings on social media and not the Christmas card tradition as older generations were in the past.    

As we begin to close out the 2013 year, we think of many of the things we accomplished this year and look forward to what is in store for us in 2014. I hope all of you, my readers, had a blessed Christmas day today and your 2014 holds many treasures for you. 

Until next time,

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my readers from the Frugal Workshop. 

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Final Day Triple Coupon Deals

Saturday was the final day of the Bi-Lo triple coupon promotion. Here is a photo of what we were able to purchase:

One of our deals today was Hunt's spaghetti sauce, which was on sale at 10 for $10.00. I also had 6 coupons for 55¢ off two cans, which were tripled, so I bought 12 cans. 

Spaghetti Sauce

Cost before coupons: $12.00

Coupon amount: $9.90

Cost after coupons: $2.10

Cost per can: 18¢ per can

Yesterday I bought the pasta and today I bought the sauce. Imagine how inexpensive our spaghetti meals will be for the next few months with free pasta and 18¢ sauce. I love triple coupons! :)

The following three items were completely free after coupons:

We were able to pick up one more box of the Barilla pasta for 24¢, so we now have two of those in our pantry for a total of 48¢.

We picked up 4 Dannon Oikos yogurts, which had 50¢ off coupons on them. They were originally $1.19, but the coupons tripled, so those were free as well. 

Other items include 2 bottles of Dawn for 75¢, and 6 boxes of Puffs Lotion tissues for $1.00 each. 

 In all I spent $128 in the past three days at Bi-Lo and saved $90.00 with coupons. This was a rare coupon promotion from Bi-Lo and not one we normally see here. I suspect it was because we recently had a brand new Publix grocery store open up in our area in the last month and these two big giants are competing for customers. 

Either way, it pays to be aware of the sales cycles. We had heard chatter online about Bi-Lo doing this early last week, and we always get the newspaper on Wednesday for the sale ads and sure enough the chatter was correct. As we were checking out last night, our bag boy asked the cashier, "How are these people getting all this free stuff?" It pays to be aware. :)

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Triple Coupons at Bi-Lo

Bi-Lo has been offering triple coupons for the last 3 days and tomorrow is the final day for this promotion. The policy is 20 coupons per day per family with a limit of 3 like coupons. We shopped on Thursday and Friday and have plans to return tomorrow for the final day. Here is a photo of today's shopping trip:

I had 3 coupons for 75¢ off Mueller's new pot-sized spaghetti, which were tripled. They were on sale for $1.88 and buy one get one free and each package had a 55¢ off coupon attached to it. So I bought 9 packages and received them all for free. 

Some of the other prices after triple coupons were Barilla pasta for 24¢, 6 bottles of Herbal Essence body wash for 25¢ each, and Success Rice for 48¢, 4 cans Hormel Chili for 46¢ each, and Bounce dryer sheets for 85¢. 

My totals for today were:

Before Coupons: $55.17
After Coupons: $19.92

And that was just today. We also went yesterday and watched as our total went from $107 down to $69 using the triple coupon promotion. 
We've saved $63.79 in coupons in the last two days and have only spent $89. We plan on going back tomorrow for the last day and seeing what else we can find. This is just too good of a deal to not participate. 

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2013.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

December Update from the Frugal Workshop

Stocking Up

I combined some terrific sales with coupons in November and as a result I have stocked up on several items we use regularly here at the Frugal Workshop. 

I don't have pictures of everything, but some of the bargains we bought include:

Four bottles of Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent, 50 ounces for $1.61 each. 

Five cans of Campbell's tomato soup for 24¢ each, which was just too good of a deal to pass up at that price.  

At Aldi, I picked up two, ten pound bags of potatoes for $1.99 each, two bags of cranberries for 99¢ each, and celery for 69¢.

At Publix I was able to stock up on one pound boxes of butter for $1.50 each, two Hellman's mayonnaise for $1.90 each,  several packages of Mueller's pasta in the one pound box for 80¢ each, and mustard for 87¢ each.

At Walgreen's, I bought two cans of salmon with an in-store coupon for $1.99 each. 

I price matched several sale items at Walmart because the stores were out of stock on the sale items. These include a four pound bag of sugar for $1.41,  and Philadelphia cream cheese for 99¢ each.

Christmas

Christmas is eighteen days away. I have the majority of my Christmas shopping done and have kept it simple this year as I did last year and the year before when I made the decision to simplify Christmas and cut my gift giving and the number of Christmas cards I sent. These days I only send Christmas cards to a select few people, in fact it is so small a number that I've been using the same box for a few years now. 

Child Support

I had a bad feeling the other day when I realized my daughter's child support did not show up in the bank, so I made some phone calls and found out my ex-husband quit his job without any word to me about it.

 

I've made a few telephone calls since then, but am very apprehensive about spending any money right now because I don't know what my finances will be like in the weeks and months to come, so I'm being careful. I'm glad I stocked up on needed necessities in November as I've put a brake on any unnecessary spending for now. Hopefully this will be resolved quickly. 

Employment

I applied for a permanent position with my employer, but was passed over for someone else, but have been working every day that is offered to me . Next week I have every day scheduled, so I am grateful for that. What would be even better would be to have permanent full time employment. Hopefully someday soon that will happen. 

In Conclusion

I hope all my readers are doing well. I've been reading many of your blog posts, but have not been commenting. The captcha portion of commenting is sometimes frustrating, so many times I read without comment. Please forgive me. 

Until next time, take care of yourselves. :)

Belinda

CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer

© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2013.

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”