deals
« Previous EntriesLucky to Have Friends Like You – Movie Fun
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011I wish we were able to go to the movies to see films when they are on the big screen. The reality is that we can not afford to do this too often given the price of a movie experience. Of course, this does not stop us from having a family movie night. We are able to make our own Whirly Pop Popcorn, curl up on the couch, and watch a rented DVD. It’s all about family time. Now thanks to a Global Influence campaign (see my disclosure below), I have some fun news to share with you.
Details about the Lucky to Have Friends Like You from Redbox:
From today to St. Patrick’s Day (Thursday, March 17th), Redbox is giving everyone a chance to receive as many free one night movie rentals as you can. What’s the catch? Nothing more than telling your friends and family via spreading the word about the fun.
How does it work?
- Sign up at www.redbox,com/luckyus
- Redbox will e-mail you a unique web address for your referrals.
- Each time someone reserves a movie online through your unique web address, you will get a credit for a one-night DVD rental FREE.
- If your friend has never reserved a Redbox DVD online before, they will also receive a credit for a free one-night rental.
- Please note that rental credits are valid for 10 days after they are deposited into your account. This means you can have quite a nice movie filled March.
So what are you waiting for? Head on over to score some free movie nights with your family and friends. Then spread the lucky news by e-mailing it, posting to Facebook, and sending Tweets to everyone you know.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post from Global Influence and Redbox. For sharing this information, I will be receiving compensation.
Black Friday 2009
Friday, November 27th, 2009I have to admit, I do not think I have ever gotten up before the sun comes up to go to Black Friday sales. My mother never did it, so I never caught the bug. Sure, there are things that interest me, but I am not into fighting crowds of people hounding the same deal of which there are not enough to satisfy the masses. I would rather stay home, cozy and warm in the house. My hubby works today, so the boys and I will stay home and do something special together. If we venture out it will likely be to a quiet lunch location and maybe the newly library.
On Thanksgiving I did head out shopping. I pulled out the newspaper and looked at the CVS and Rite Aid ads. A few things were very interesting to me because they were free or 99 cents. NHL was up and watching the parade while JSL and TechyDad still slept. I went to CVS first. The items I bought were close to $50 on sale, once I used my ECBs (which were expired, but this store accepts them), my total was $3.50 for the tax.
I could have done a little better had my coupons not disappeared. Still this was a great deal and I still have almost $35 of ECBs to use for another CVS visit. Oh and the candy was free with ECB and needed so I would not forfeit additional ECBs that I had to use.
After this I went to Rite Aid and had my $5 coupon from Fall Spending. I almost bought NHL the $20 Guitar Hero for the Nintendo DS, but my trusted friend that works at a gaming store said it was not a good plan for a child. So it was a no go. I spent just about $20 on sale items – my coupon. Of the $14 that I spent out of pocket, $12 will be coming back in Rite Aid rebate. The cost of the Hot Wheels cars was $3, so this was a fabulous deal, even without my missing coupons.
So, I bought all of the above items for under $7 out of pocket! It was so nice and quiet in the stores Thursday without many bargain hunters. Sure, I would love some of the deals on Black Friday, but I will enjoy the day home without the crazy stores. Now to see if there are any Cyber Monday specials.
My question this week:
Will you or have you already gone out to shop this Black Friday? What are your favorite places to go to? Please feel free to share the deals that you got.
BTW – Be sure to check out three giveaways that are going on right now: Softlips Winter collection, Movie Moments Prize Pack (4 movie tickets and cereal), and Sweet Ones Prize Pack. Another one for the kids will be coming soon (hint – it will be a Crayola product).
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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.
Aloha #76
Coupon Crazy
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009With the tough economic times more and more people are clipping coupons. Count me into this mix. JL and I work as a team to do this. He has been quite pleased with the amount that I have saved using coupons at places like CVS, BJ’s and the grocery store.
One problem we have had is file folder that we used for the coupons. Here it is:
This was great when we first started to be serious about couponing, but we quickly outgrew it. There were not enough sections for different categories. Plus when we began buying extra Sunday papers it was filled too quickly. Here is a fresh new pile of coupons that I cut yesterday and another stack of inserts ready to be done.
Many bloggers have been talking about systems to use with coupons. Several mentioned binders and baseball card holders for the coupons. We had the binders and tabs already at home. A week or two ago we bought the card holders. This weekend we finally started the process of moving things into the binder.
I usually pull out the soon to expire or expired coupons, cut new coupons and JL organizes them into the binder. It is a great system and we hope to save even more with it. Here is what I bought on my most recent CVS trip. I was using the old coupon system. I had coupons from the Sunday paper, CVS coupons, and ECBs. I spent less than $2.50 out of pocket on everything in the photo.
Hopefully with this new coupon binder we will be able to save even more!
A Sweet Valentine Treat
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009Valentine’s Day is just over a week away. This year the holiday falls on a Saturday, so if kids celebrate at school it will likely be on Friday, February 13 (*gulp*). As room parent in NHL’s kindergarten class, I was asked to have a few things in the room for a snack that afternoon. The kids were also told that they could buy Valentines to hand out to each of their friends.
One day I read about Friendly’s having a deal for Valentines Day. This weekend the boys, Papa and I went to the mall so I decided to check it out. For a $1 donation you receive the following:
Each sheet contains five Valentine cards that are also coupons for kids 12 and under to receive a free kids cone at Friendly’s. In addition to this, there is a $5/25 for your next visit. NHL agreed that it would be fun to give his friends an ice cream cone coupon. Yes, these probably cost a little more money than the boxes of character cards. The big plus is these cards are a donation and the kids will get something beside an item to toss away. The only catch, if you call it that, is that the cards must be redeemed between February 14 and March 15.
We thought it would be nice to bring a smile to the kids in NHL’s class that may not have had a cone in a while.
Bargains for under a buck
Saturday, December 20th, 2008On Sunday I asked hubby if we could stop by CVS. I had some really good coupons and wanted to check out the deals for the week and month. I had not been to CVS since Thanksgiving Day, so I had a lot of ECBs to use. I mentioned to JL that they had a General Mills cereal special. The boxes were on sale 3/$10 and if you spent $20 on cereal you would receive $10 in ECBs back. That would make them $1.67 a box, but I had coupons for General Mills that made them even less.
The six boxes of cereal:
Deodorant (99 cents each after sale $2.99 and ECBs $2.00) and toothpaste (free + overage thanks to sale, CVS/MFR coupons and ECBs):
Now for the math part of the trip:
Price w/out sales –> $43.99
Total of all 11 items w/sale –> $34.95
Mfr Coupons used –> $4.35
CVS Coupons used –> $6.00
ECBs used in transaction –>$23.76
Money spent out of pocket –> $0.84
ECBs earned during the trip –> $20.00
Sure, I lost $3.76 in ECBs, but I still did quite well. I went to another store Thursday and completed the limit of 5 on the deodorant. I also picked up 5 of them for my mother with her CVS card. I was lucky that that store had plenty left.
Thanksgiving Day Shopping
Saturday, November 29th, 2008Black Friday sales are intriguing to me, but fighting traffic, trying to park, waiting on never ending lines to check out and dealing with rude people keeps me away. I was thrilled to see that CVS actually started their amazing deals on Thanksgiving day. We left early before heading to dinner and stopped at the CVS that I like near here. I had recently used my ECB’s on allergy medicine for NHL (I was afraid they would get lost) so I had to spend money this time around. This is the first time I had really gone to CVS for good deals in a while, I have been doing the single check rebates at Rite Aid recently.
This is what we bought Thanksgiving afternoon at CVS:
Like I said, I had no ECBs to roll over from last time, I still did VERY well.
Total regular price – $66.89
Total price w/items on sale — $50.19
Coupons used — $23.00 (a $10/50 coupon printed off when I scanned my Extra Card – so I had incentive)
Money spend — 29.53
ECBs earned — $42.71
Profit — $13.18
Not too shabby for items that we will use.
Did you get any good bargains on Thanksgiving or Black Friday? Please share!
Terrific train deal
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008On Friday JL and I both read several different blogs and deal forums that linked up to coupons for a free Thomas the Train car at a major toy store chain. Since JL was home early we packed the boys up and went to the store, each armed with a coupon. They told us that not only could JL and I each get one, each of the boys could as well. So Friday evening we had NHL select four new trains.
Saturday after strawberry picking we happened to swing back near another store and decided to stop by to see if any of the Thomas Trains were left. There were, so NHL picked out another four and we left quite content.
These are the trains that we are the proud new owners of:
These trains retail for $10.99 and $12.99 each. Our total would have been $101.04. We paid $7.32 which covered the cost of tax. Not too shabby. The best part is NHL and JSL only had two trains, so now they have ten!
More Shopping Deals (6-13-2008)
Saturday, June 14th, 2008After dinner Friday night we packed the boys up and went to CVS for some shopping. I had a game plan and a slew of coupons. When we arrived they did not have some of the cereal that we had planned on buying. We toyed with some options and eventually figured out ones that we all like and will use. The boys wandered around with me and JL held the coupons as I planned my attack. I had thought about buying the Dove face SkinVitalizer. It was on sale for $9.99 and I had a $3.50 coupon, the $3/15 CVS coupon, plus it qualified for the $10 Dove purchase for $3 ECBs. It would have been a great deal, but the refills are quite pricey and it may bother my really sensitive skin, so I opted to pass on the deal.
I also wanted to try the new Dove Frizz Control shampoo and conditioner. They were BOGO this week, plus I had $2/1 coupons to use! That made them 50 cents each! Worth a shot at that price. Everything else were fillers that we needed or had coupons for and would use to get to the $15 to use the $3/15 CVS coupons.
Transaction 1:
Subtotal with sale prices – $14.99 (Thanks to 3/$10.00 cereal and BOGO on the Dove shampoo and conditioner
Coupons used – $9.60
ECBs used – $4.00
ECBs earned – None ($10 toward $20 for the cereal reward)
Out of pocket – $1.39
Transaction 2:
Subtotal with sale prices – $15.38
Coupons used – $6.68
ECBs used – $6.98
ECBs earned – $10.00
Out of pocket – $1.71
Totals:
Subtotal of both transactionswith sale prices – $30.37
Coupons used – $16.28
ECBs used – $10.98
ECBs earned – $10.00
Out of pocket – $3.10
We shall see if there is anything interesting next week. Thanks to Money Saving Mom for all of the great tips.
More Shopping Deals (6-6-08)
Saturday, June 7th, 2008After Monday’s visit to CVS there were a few items I was thinking about purchasing. Yesterday I decided it was well worth the trip there with all of the coupons that I had. So after NHL’s nursery school party and swim lesson the two boys and I went to CVS hunting for certain items.
This is everything that I bought:
Once again I broke them into three transactions to maximize using coupons. Below are breakdowns of everything.
Transaction 1:
Total of transaction including sale prices – $15.98
2 packages of Pampers.
Coupons used – $5.00
ECB used – $9.98
ECB earned – None ($16 toward ECBs earned after spending $20 on Pampers)
Total out of pocket – $1.12
Transaction 2:
Total of transaction including sale prices – $14.96
4 bags of Chex Mix (various types)
2 Listerine Berry Smart Rinse
2 sheer CVS bandages
Coupons used – $7.00
ECB used – $6.00
ECB earned – $10.96
Total out of pocket – $2.12
Transaction 3:
Total of transaction including sale prices – $15.98
2 packages of Pampers.
Coupons used – $5.00
ECB used – $10.00
ECB earned – $5.00
Total out of pocket – $1.10
Totals for all items:
Total of transactions including sale price - $46.92
Coupons used – $17.00
ECB used – $25.98
ECB earned – $15.96
Total out of pocket - $4.34
Sure I lost some ECB’s buying more diapers than I needed for the $20.00 total, but I saved in not having to drive to BJ’s for diapers for a little while.
Thanks to Money Saving Mom for all of the great tips!
Shopping deals for today (6-2-2008)
Monday, June 2nd, 2008The last few weeks there have been only a few items that have been of interest at CVS. Thanks to that and other things going on I never was able to get there. Today I decided to try to get a few things and use some ECBs that were outdated (5/31). I knew I could use them, but some stores are not as good about this even though corporate tells them to allow use.
After NHL was dropped off at school, JSL and I went to the CVS near our house. Unfortunately, they did not have the June deal book available. I knew what the weekly specials were that I was interested in. I went to get those and then went up and down aisles looking for ECB signs for June. One that I found for bandaids was already out of stock (not shocked).
Still, I was able to find quite a few items that I wanted, but decided to pass on the Pampers for now. Even with the coupons and ECBs I think BJ’s may be slightly cheaper. I may do this later in the week though since we are starting to run low on things. I divided my items things into three transactions.
Transaction 1:
Total of transaction including sale prices – $15.47
Coupons used – $7.50
ECB used – $6.49
ECB earned – $7.98
Total out of pocket – 37 cents!
Transaction 2:
Total of transaction including sale price – $14.99
Coupons used – $5.00
ECB used – $7.48
ECB earned – None ($15/20 toward ECB)
Total out of pocket – $2.87
Transaction 3:
Total of transaction including sale price – $16.55
Coupons used – $8.29
ECB used – $7.98
ECB earned – $11.00
Total out of pocket – 74 cents!
Totals for all items:
Total of transactions including sale price - $46.96
Coupons used – $20.79
ECB used – $23.44
ECB earned – $17.49
Total out of pocket - $3.98
Not too shabby if you ask me!
