I went out with DaMama shopping on Sunday, not realizing it was the last day of the nationwide catalina for Post cereals. That's okay, since my store had plenty of the shelves (and two loaded end-caps), I grabbed 15 boxes of those yummy cereals and a few other things while I was out:

Jewel:
15 boxes Post cereal (14 honey bunches and 1 fruity pebbles)
10 Oscar Mayer Bologna/Salami (12 oz.)
1 dozen eggs
OOP: $9.32
Saved: 78.61

Dominicks:
24 boxes Pasta-Roni/Rice-A-Roni
1 Hillshire Farms Smoked Sausage
2 gallons milk
2 pkgs. crackers (Wheatable Crisps)
-$1/4 Rice/Pasta-Roni's (6)
-$.55 Hillshire Farms Smoked Sausage
-$1.00/1 Wheatable crisps (2)
-$3.50 OYNO
-$3.00 OYNO
Total OOP: $12.90
Saved $36.xx

Caputo's
$.93 - 3 bulbs garlic
$.10 - bunch of bananas
$.74 - Organic Braeburn apples (3 large)
$1.07 - Gala apples (4 small)
$.86 - Red Delicious apples (4 large)
$.59 - heart of Romaine
$.87 - baking potatoes (4 large)
$1.39 - 36 ct. tortillas
$1.99 - Dole orange juice
$.98 - Ancient Red Sweet peppers (2)
$2.07 - 3 pkgs. Scott Peterson jumbo hotdogs
$.79 - yellow onions (5 small)
$1.50 - pint of blueberries

OOP: $14.12

Total OOP: $36.34

I'm only planning for half the week, as my sister, Amy, and a mututal friend are coming down from Minnesota to surprise my mom (aka DaMama) for her 64th birthday. We've been meticulously planning for this weekend for a many months now, I can't believe it's almonst here!!! As it will be a busy weekend, and there are many places to go and restaurants to sample, I won't be planning any meals past Thursday, instead I have all the basic ingredients on hand to make most of the family favorites, and a few of my classic dishes.

To say I'm excited for my sister and friend to get here is an understatement!

Monday - Pan-Seared Pork Chops, baked potatoes, Sauteed Mushrooms in a Parmesan Sauce, salad

Tuesday - Grilled (if I can talk DH into grilling, that is) teriyaki chicken thighs, rice, cinnamon apples

Wednesday - Ginger Pork Stirfry, egg rolls, rice

Thursday - Brats, hashbrowns, salad, leftover cinnamon apples


Lunch of the week: Sammies! We have oodles of free bologna and salami and some cheese on hand, I'll boil some noodles and toss with jarred sauce for a second choice.

Dessert of the week: Blueberry Almond Bars (I'll bake those tonight while I'm in the kitchen anyway.)

Breakfast of the week: Oatmeal and cereal, apples and peanut butter. Simple, but we work with what we have. And yesterday, I scored 15 boxes of Post Honey Bunches of Oats (assorted varieties) for less than $3!! I doubt any cashier would ask what was for breakfast in my household! LOL.

Want more meal planning ideas? Check out these other ladies over at www.orgjunkie.com for links to dozens of other meal plans!!

In the Jewel flyer, there are a bunch of manufacturer coupons, including a coupon for $1/4 Rice-A-Roni & Pasta-A-Roni. These are on sale at Dominicks for $.75 each when you buy 4. Grab a few Jewel flyers are buy the rice and pasta mixes for just $.50 each in multiples of 4.


There is no limit on the number of these you can buy per transaction! I just grabbed a dozen this morning without any problems at all. Remember, for every $50 you spend at Dominicks (after fresh value card and store coupons), you receive $10 in Kohl's Cash!

Last Friday, I had lunch with my other mother (my mother-in-law) at Panera. While the atmosphere was crowded and noisy and the food was good, but a little pricey for my taste - I discovered a new love. Not just the yummy, over-priced tuna sammie (which with Dijon mustard was a nice change), but the luscious, plump wild blueberry scones that we treated ourselves to as dessert. One bite and I was in love. Head-over-heels, want to eat a dozen more kind of love. The dangerous kind...

For one delicious moment, I imagined making that a weekly treat. Then I imagined how much that would cost over the course of a year, and quickly put an end to that foolishness. So, next stop: the cookbook collection. Naturally, scones were not so much in style over the last decade and recipes for them either: required ingredients I do not typically keep on hand or were deemed a little too unhealthy (heavy cream, anyone??) so I kepy looking. I finally made my way into DaMama's cookbook collection where I found a base recipe I could use as a start point.

What is a base recipe? For me, a base recipe is one I can use the structure of (for dry and wet ingredients) while adding my own spin on things. Which I do. Always. I often start by adding some sort of extract (to any baked dessert or sweet treat), or changing the flavor originally called for in the recipe. Vanilla is nice, but I live my life by rum - extract, I mean. We all have a favorite flavor, mine is simply not vanilla. My rule of thumb: I make what flavors I love, after all, I am the cook/baker.

My first batch of scones I tried using some blueberries I needed to get out of my fridge anyway, and they were good, but not as sweet as I may have preferred. Definitely not as sweet as Panera. But the form and texture were perfect. So, last night, I tried my hand at a second batch of scones, using the original base recipe, and adding some brown sugar which was not called for in the original. This batch has all the flavor I was looking for, the texture is good, the result: a definite keeper. This is the kind of thing you could bring to a fancy brunch and watch people fall all over themselves. Now, I just need some local friends that do brunch, and I'll be all set! If not, Easter is just around the corner.

Cinnamon Raisin Scones Recipe

While I shopped myself silly last weekend - and the deals at Dominicks were so crazy good, they were the: I-saved-$115.xx-got-52-items-filled-an-entire-grocery-cart-and-the-back-of-my-Saturn kind of good. Now, the shopping has (momentarily) died down and it feels so strange. I haven't gone properly shopping (the kind that requires me to use more than one coupon) in more than 4 days! I am seriously in withdrawal.

It feels so strange... (Yes, I know, I said that before, but it bears repeating.) Like I'm going about my routine and missing something. Not that I have tons more free time - I just have visits with DaMama, working, laundry, cleaning the kitchen, cooking, working, wishing I could take a nap, filling out more paperwork, working, etc. to keep me busy. Did I mention work was keeping me busy? I work in the office of a small non-for-profit (there are only 5 of us in the office) and my work load has doubled overnight after they let one of my coworkers go back in February. While I'd love nothing more than a walk around the artificial water-thingy (I don't know if it's called a pond, an estuary, a mini-lake, or a water feature, etc...), I'm stuck trying to unbury my desk from the never ending avalanche of projects that keep threatening to go all Colorado-mountain big-snow(paper)-avalanche on me and I won't be found until mid-July. Or whenever the spring thaw happens to be.

All I want to do is grab my box-envelope-coupon-organizer full of coupons and escape into the world of deals. I guess this is a couponer's form of Spring Fever. When the deals start slowly popping up like the first blades of grass in the spring, warming to the sunshine (or to the box of coupons stashed in my car), and the longer hours of daylight inspire me to get out more, use more coupons, and generally - get back to the life I think I have waiting for me out there somewhere.

Anyone else experiencing Spring Fever? What are the warning signs that Spring Fever is upon you?

Dinner Dilemmas: When something in the fridge is not what is appears to be! A cautionary tale....

I hope I'm not the only one out there that has dinner dilemmas. Even though I'm pretty good about meal-planning, sometimes the components you plan to work with are simply not there. Last night is a perfect example.

When I asked DH what ideas he had for the meal-plan, he said there was some leftover ground turkey that was browned up - why not make Hamburger Helper or tacos. For a change of pace, I figured helper would make my cooking and prep time a little shorter, so I planned tomato basil penne (or something that sounded like that). That is, until I go to the fridge to pull out the ground turkey - and it's fried rice from the week before. Oops... and I didn't have any other meat thawed except some chicken and mozzarella sausage and deli meat - and we each had sammies for lunch. And we both are not the biggest fan of eating the same thing for lunch as well as dinner.

What I did have is 2-3 lbs. fresh mushrooms and more jarred pasta sauce than I can shake a stick at (though why I would be shaking a stick when I was trying to get dinner ready is completely beyond me. Maybe I'm just quirky like that.). And I did plan to use mushrooms in nearly every meal this week.

I started by chopping the mushrooms and wondering what the heck I was going to do with them. But thinking as fast as my tired brain could manage, the basic idea is finally hatched: I'm still making helper, it's just not coming out of a box anymore, it's coming out of the pantry. Though hubby is not the biggest fan of a meatless meal or alfredo sauce for that matter, I grabbed a jar of Alfredo and a bag of medium shells.

The more I got to thinking, the less the idea of meatless appealed to me, either. So I started by looking in the freezer for leftover cooked chicken - and promptly struck out, unless I wanted to add some chicken nuggets to our meal, and I wasn't willing to go that far out on a limb. A better the idea, in the form of chicken sausage in the pasta sounded do-able, so I tossed sauteed mushrooms, browned some chicken sausage medallions, and medium shells with a jar of Ragu's Alfredo and a 30-minute meal was born. Why - because sometimes, every once in a great while, things do not go as planned. The up side: the fried rice will be making an appearance tonight with the Thai ginger pork stirfry.

Tell me - have Dinner Dilemmas ever happened to you? What was your saving grace?

I got some good deals on an insane amount of mushrooms this week - so I'm going to have to make our meals Iron-Chef style: secret ingredient is mushrooms. Let' see how many ways I can work them in!

Monday - Tomato basil penne with ground turkey and mushrooms, garden salad
Tuesday - Pork Stirfry, Simply Sweet Salad
Wednesday - dinner at Mom's - Corned Beef and Cabbage, carrots and potatoes, biscuits
Thursday - Creamy Garlic Chicken in a Crockpot, egg noodles,
Friday - Alfredo pizza with mushrooms, bell pepper, and mozzarella, stuffed mushrooms (minus the meat - for Lent), and salad
Saturday - Date Night
Sunday - Enchiladas con picadillo, Chicken & Mushroom Quesadillas, beans, and rice

Breakfast of the week: Blueberry Scones, oatmeal, cereal (we've got more than 12 varieties to choose from!)

Dessert of the week: Brownies

Lunch of the week: Scalloped Ham casserole, ham and turkey sammies, and salad

As any couponer shopping today knows, there is a such thing as coupon karma. What this means, to me anyway, is that good is rewarded with good, and the reverse is quite often true. While I've come across my share of snippy, rude, and obnoxious cashiers - every once in a while...I find a true gem.

Last night, while taking my last run at the Jewel freebies (Suave and Ragu products) and grabbing my well-placed filler items (Jewel brand mandarin oranges, tomato sauce, refried beans, and enchilada sauce), the cashier, Megan, scanning the coupons at the self-check was amazing! Megan was everything I adore in a cashier - upbeat, friendly, and helpful. A pleasant bonus - she wants to learn how I shop! I spent less than $10 on Ragu pasta sauce, Buitoni tortelloni (4 pkgs!!), 2 dozen eggs, lots of Suave shampoo and conditioner, fruit, tomato sauce, and more.

Megan and I chatted each time she had to come put a coupon through for me - she was giving me tips on which were the better types of Sauve, I was outlining the cheapies and freebies using the YourBucks system - I couldn't have hoped for a smoother, easier time at Jewel than what I got. And to think...I almost went to the "other" Jewel - the one in the neighboring town where the store is much dirtier, the customers are rude, and the staff barely speaks and looks no one in the eye.

My hometown Jewel - got bless their hearts - haven't given me any problems with my couponing in many, many months. They actually get it! One cashier recognized me from seeing me drop stuff off for the food pantry, maybe that's why they are so friendly. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I am all smiles after that shopping trip. Now - off to give Megan a very well-deserved pat on the back through the customer survey that printed at the bottom of one of my receipts!

Well, from my fellow bloggers - rumor has it Jewel will start limiting the number of YourBucks offers to 12 per preferred card. With that rumored deadline predicted for tomorrow - I have made a few more runs at the Suave MM and the free Ragu - before they put the breaks on this fun ride, I'm gonna ride it to the end! So, during my lunch break yesterday and on my way to work today, I squeezed in a few small transactions - and after work yesterday, I picked up my hounding/shopping buddy and grabbed another dozen.

Hubby officially thinks I'm crazy, my under the sink cabinet is 2/3 full of Suave products, and I have to reorganize my pantry to fit in all the free Ragu. Good thing, I have nothing planned for the weekend to start getting my house in order. With my sister due to make a visit in a few weeks - I know the extra space I need to make in my pantry is only temporary. When she's sees this haul, she'll be loading up her car! Which I must admit - I am counting on...

I think I'll try one final run at this deal after work today, before I finally let it rest. Let's hope some stores in my area have the shampoo left because all I keep finding of the Suave is conditioner. Really, my hair can be soft and silky, but if it's still dirty, well...it's still dirty. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself after this deal is done - I've been squeezing in a few bottles of body wash/shampoo/conditioner here and few jars of sauce there since it started, it's almost become routine to me.

What I find most interesting in all this shopping is the wildly different attitudes that I come across in cashiers. At my "home" store, they couldn't be more helpful. Even if I have 6 orders back to back, they are polite, friendly, and understanding. At the neighboring stores - I'm treated with vague annoyance - like, "Why are you wasting my time? DOn't you have somthing better to do?"

But the one that takes the cake is the one closest to my office where the front end staff is outright hostile. Yep, these ladies have been working there for 12-30 years and they are none too happy about it. One cashier even told me that there was a limit of 1 coupon transaction per day. I started reading the coupon and asked her to point out where it said that. Needless to say, she was flummoxed and let me do my 3 transactions. Since then, I've been treading somewhat lightly and only running 1-2 there per day. This morning was a classic, I grabbed the last 3 bottles of Suave (conditioner, of course) they had left on the shelves and paid for the first 2 bottles, then went to use a coupon on my final bottle (and jar of Ragu). I waited for 7 minutes, after hitting the coupon button 3 times and she didn't come over. I finally had to ask her to come to the register to put the coupon through (she was busy talking to a co-worker, pointedly ignoring me). The attitude of the front end there - especially during the work day, is nothing short of atrocious. Why couldn't I work closer to a nice Jewel - one with pleasant or even uninterested front end staff? Unfortunately, I am stuck with the mean, old, and bitter hags.

Sorry for the rant, I just had to get that out of my system. I feel much better now. Back to my regularly scheduled program...

Time for a mini-slow down after the crazy week of hounding! This will be a light week of meals for me as DH is going to be out-of-town Thursday-Saturday. I've got tons of free flour tortillas to make my meals a snap!

Monday - Bacon, egg, and cheese wraps, peach slices
Tuesday - Ground turkey tacos with pepper jack cheese, rice, beans, and all the fixin's
Wednesday - Chicken teryaki wraps, potatoes julienne, salad
Thursday - dinner at DaMama's
Friday - Mushroom & Swiss frittata, toast, hashbrowns, fresh fruit

49 jars Ragu pasta sauce $1.99
47 bottles of Suave body wash, shampoo, or conditioner
24 tubes Colgate toothpaste
32 cans Shoppers Value tomato sauce
30 cans Chicken of the Sea tuna
19 cans Shoppers Value tomato paste
1 box Rice-A-Roni

Total OOP: $9.79
Total coupons spent: $240
Total savings: $399.28

Looks like spaghetti is going to be on the menu each week for the next year....not worrying about having a meal ready to go - priceless!

With the easy to use, individualized catalina deals that are running at Jewel through YourBucks - I've gotten a 12-18 month supply of lots of goodies - can you believe these deals??

Transactions 1-8: (I've repeated this transaction 8 times!!)

1 jar 26 oz. or larger Ragu pasta sauce
1 bottle Suave Body Wash - assorted flavors
1 tube 4.6 oz. Colgate toothpaste
1 can Shoppers Value tomato sauce
1 can Shoppers Value tomato paste

Total OOP: $.55
Savings: $6.99
Coupon savings: $5.00

GM Catalina deal:
(2) tubs BC frosting reg. price $2.29 each -$.50/1 Q's (2) - sale price $1.49
(4) boxes BC Supreme brownie mix reg. price $3.09 each -$.75/2 Q's (2) - sale price $1.99
(1) Box BC cake mix reg. price - $1.49 - sale price $.99
(2) BC Cookies mix pouches -reg. price $2.39 -$.40/1 Q (2) - sale price $1.69
-$7.00 catalina (from previous catalina deal)
-$2.00 catalina
-$1.00 catalina
OOP: $1.28
Saved: $22.20
Coupon savings: $14.30

Last 2 transactions:

1 jar 26 oz. or larger Ragu pasta sauce
1 bottle Suave Body Wash - assorted flavors
1 tube 4.6 oz. Colgate toothpaste
2 bags (small size) Doritos 3/$1 -$.25 Q's on each
1 can Shoppers Value tomato paste

OOP: $.31
Saved: $7.52
Coupon savings: $5.50

Total Spent: $6.30
Total Saved: $93.16
Coupon Savings: $65.40

Not having to buy toothpaste for a year....priceless! For that, and everything else: there are coupons!

I haven't even gotten to Meijer and the $30 in cats I have to spend there yet!

Today I've grabbed another:
2 bottles Ragu pasta sauce
2 bottles Suave body wash
1 500 ct. box Q-tips
2 tubes Colgate toothpaste
1 can Shoppers Value tomato paste
1 can Shoppers value tomato sauce

OOP = $1.34
Saved: $13.42
Catalina left to spend: $20

All in a day's hounding!

Can't wait to see what my weekly totals on these items are!!

Lots and lots of free after coupon deals going on at Jewel this week! If you haven't signed up your Preferred Card for the YourBucks promotions - do that right now! Click here to sign up.
Okay, you're all signed up - good. That makes the rest of this so much easier. YourBucks are catalina offers for your preferreed card. If you don't sign up - no freebies for you. Here are the basic rules:

5. There is no limit (as of now) to the number of transactions you can do that will generate the coupons. Yippee!!

4. YourBucks are limited to the three (3) Jewel stores you frequent most often. I know, it makes the shopping more of a challenge, but think about the stores you shop at most frequently. Most likely, the one nearest home and work will be among your YB stores. For me, I have no clue which store would be my #3. I'll let you know when I figure it out!

3. It takes 36 hours for offers to load to your card, so start clearing some time in your schedule tomorrow for shopping. The offers are good for 3-4 weeks, on average.

2. Scan your preferred card first. No exceptions.

1. Unless otherwise stated, one like item will generate a coupon per transaction. You can do multiple offers per order, but only one like item will print the coupon. Example: 1 Suave shampoo/conditioner, 1 Ragu pasta sauce, and 1 loaf of bread will generate you: $2 YB (for the Suave), $2 YB (for the Ragu), and $1 YB (for the bread). They will begin printing as soon as you swipe the item. Watch the size, count, type of item carefully. If it helps, print out the list that YB's lists for you. Take it into the store in case there is any problem with the coupons printing - that will be your reassurance that you will get your coupons from customer service in the event that they don't print automatically.

The items (I know of) that are free or super cheap after YB:

1. Ragu pasta sauce $1.99 = $2 YB
2. Suave product (any but trial/travel sized)$.89-$1.79 = $2
3. Jewel large eggs, dozen count $1.29 = $1 YB
4. Jewel 16 oz. or larger loaf white bread = $1 YB

http://tv.catalinamarketing.com/ - Sign up and get in on the good deals!!

I've spent $5.27 for:
8 jars Ragu pasta sauce
4 bottles Suave shampoo/conditioner
1 Suave body wash
1 dozen eggs
1 loaf bread

And I still have $15 in coupons to spend!!! I love a good moneymaker!

To get so much for so little!

I feel like I damned near robbed Meijer blind - and grabbed some stuff that I (and my sis) needed anyway! How often does that happen? Not often enough, for my liking - so without further adieu - here are the deals I've hit this week:

MEIJER:

Buy 5 boxes of participating Betty Crocker items, get a coupon for $3 OYNO. (Cannot mix and match - must be 5 of same type of product).

Bought 15 boxes of Betty Crocker potatoes at $.60 each = $9.00 - received $9 in coupons!! Yippee - free tater stuff! Used 10 $.40 coupons - so I came out a little ahead on this one! That helepd with the next round of goodies-

Bought 25 boxes of Tuna Helper (my sister put out a big request for this one!) Spent $25.00 and received $15 in coupons OYNO plus $1.50 off $15 in meat (3 of those), $1.00 OYN bread purchase of $3.99 or more, plus 6-7 other OYNO of xx product.

I have $18 in coupons to go shopping with - and might pair that with the meat coupon and load the freezer up - let's hope the mark-down meat is plentiful, to make sure - I'll just go after 7 p.m. tonight (when I notice the girl marking down the meat!)

JEWEL:

Helped myself to 6 more bags of Tyson chicken nuggets at $1.99/bag after rolling the $3 YB coupons that print out...before you've even paid for your purchase.

I plan to roll this another 3-6 times tonight...nothing like a lazy dinner - just pair this with those free Betty Crocker Potatoes and a hearty garden salad and some corn/peas/etc. A meal you can feel better about than drive-through and save your wallet too! Godo thing I'm stocked on BBQ sauce for dunkin' because this is not the best time of year to go shopping for it!!

Amazing how time flies! Now, to get my meal plan ready for the week:

Monday - Turkey and Cheddar brats, garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, corn tortillas, salad - was too cheap/lazy to buy buns

Tuesday - Grilled cheese and tomato soup

Wednesday - Empanadas, tacos con carnitas

Thursday - Oven roasted chicken, chicken rice, spinach salad

Friday - Roasted red pepper, caramelized onion, and cheddar frittata, hashbrowns or potato cakes, English muffins, fruit salad

Saturday - Tacos al pastore, red rice, beans, all the fixin's

Sunday - Currently undecided....

Breakfast of the week: Oatmeal, hardboiled eggs, cereal
Dessert of the week: Free Golden Oreos (they're pretty tasty), banana nut bread
Lunch of the week: Spaghetti and meatballs, chicken and gnocchi soup, ham sammies

I couldn't believe the luck I had yesterday at Dominicks! While I expected everything to be picked over - I was in for a pleasant, albeit mildly pleasant, surprise. They had just enough of everything in stock for me to score big:

8 boxes Kellogg's Fruit Loops $1.88 -$1/1 blinkie coupons (expired) (8)
2 boxes Kellogg's Apple Jacks $1.88 -$1/1 blinkie coupons (expired) (2)
Buy 5 get a $4 coupon OYNO - and I did!!

Pork Steaks at $1.69 lb. marked half price - individually wrapped $.84 & $1.02 (both were well over 1 lb. each!)

$1.99 bag Nestle mini-morsels - $1/1 coupon (printed from Jewel catalina machine - expired) - $.99 (wish I had a few more of those coupons!)

1.45 lbs. Honey crisp apples $3.49 lb. = $5.07 -$1 off produce purchase of $5 or more and $2 any fruit purchase WYB 2 Kellogg's cereals (2). I grabbed 5 Honeycrisp apples for a 7 cents! Got to love a bargain!

Total OOP: $13.61
Total saved: $33.64

Then I stopped over at Jewel to try the new YourBucks program and grabbed some more goodies:
$.79 Jewel brand bread 16 oz. or larger white or wheat only - receive $1 YB per loaf purchase in a single transaction - one YB per item per transaction - $.21 MM
$1.39 large dozen egg -$1.00 YB from previous transaction, - $.40 - recieved another $1 YB
Tyson chicken (normally $7.49 a bag) on sale $4.99 a bag received $3 YB for each one purchased in a single transaction.

Total spent $5.93
Received $1 YB (2), $3 YB (1) - then I went back and did it all over again...and only spent $2.43 on the second identical transaction! All I can think to say is....Hello, chicken - what's kickin'?!?

As part of DH job - he scored a pair of free tickets to the Chicago Auto Show (weekday only, of course) - so I'm taking an afternoon off and we're going to check out all the new cars! Last year, my favorites were the Saturn Vue and the Ford Escape. It isn't often that we get to go into the city for free entertainment, so when it happens - I get pretty excited!

Tomorrow, it'll be back to deal-hunting when I start canvassing all the Jewels in the area for the single serve Tennesee Pride breakfast biscuits - the one I popped in to this morning didn't carry them....go figure. I'll call around to a few of the other Jewels along my usual driving route and see if any of them carry it. I've heard that the ones neawr my home don't usually carry this, and since I have couposn that will make them free - it's worth looking into.

I've already used 16 $.40/1 coupons at Dominicks for the BC cookie mix pouches that were on sale for $.99 WYB 4. I also stacked on a cellfire $.40 coupon and spent $7.32 and saved $21.87 - not too bad!! This is the cheapest I've ever seen these and Dominicks still accepts expired coupons! Yea for me!