No Insert Reminder & 2 Red Plums!

Just another reminder that there are no coupon inserts in the RJ Sunday paper 12/21/08 & 12/28/08. I guess Red Plum made up for their 2 weeks of no inserts. I got my junk mail today and lo and behold...2 Red Plum inserts! Actually my sister called and scooped me that she had just got 2 inserts in her mail. Now I'm wondering (& hoping) for 2 SmartSource inserts sometime soon. Guess we'll have to see about that. Even just one insert in the paper will be fine with me...I'm so ready to have inserts again! Be sure to check the Grocery Smarts lists tomorrow for the new store lists.

Walgreens Trip

I ran to Walgreens this morning and scored this awesome deal.

I spent $3.17 for these 7 items which works out to $0.45 each! Now I can stay home, do some baking with the kids, and get ready for Christmas. I probably won't post much for the rest of the week so I can just enjoy Christmas time with my family. I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and wonderful Holiday.

Food 4 Less...Who Knew?

Wow! I had no idea of the deals to be had at Food 4 Less. I went with my Grocery Smarts list but NO COUPONS and still had a great shopping trip. Here's what I got:
10 lbs russet potatoes $2.48, half ham for $0.87lb, 2lbs apples for $0.98, celery $0.68, then various odds & ends that I needed and I knew were a good price. My total bill was $28.59 for 18 items!! Not too bad. You just have to spend $20.00 to get the ham for $0.87. That's why I got the 2lbs of beef stew meat. It was $5.43 and I needed it for a meal I'm making on Christmas Eve. This trip totally made up for my trip to CVS that was a bust because they were out of all the things I went to get. Just remember on Grocery Smarts the Food 4 Less list is under the "other lists" and it's definitely worth a look.

No Coupon Inserts Today

Just a reminder that there were no coupon inserts in the paper today and there will be no insert next Sunday as well as no Red Plum in the junk mail last week and we won't get one this week either. Two weeks with no new coupons! Hopefully SmartSource will be good to us on 1/04/09 and give us 2 separate inserts (which they do occasionally) or General Mills or Campbell's will throw one in. One good thing from today's paper was the CVS ad. I'm excited about their ECB offers for Sunday 12/21 & Monday 12/22. I hope to get to CVS tomorrow to check out some of those deals.

Albertsons & Smiths Deals

So so sorry for the non-posting all week. I had to finish up my Christmas shopping, attend parties, dinners, a Parent Teacher Conference, Doctor's appointment, get Christmas cards sent and enjoy the RARE snowfall here. I have done (with the help of my hubby--part of the reason why there are no pics of the items) a little bit of Albertsons shopping too. Now's the time to shop if you need a ham for your Holiday Dinner. I also used my in-ad store coupon for the Diet Coke and as if I didn't have enough cereal the Kellogg's deals were great and we stocked up on the Powerade too.
My next trip will be to Smiths for: 5lb bag of Russet potatoes $1.29, Philadelphia cream cheese 8oz $1.00, Kroger frozen pie shells 2 pack $1.00.
I will probably hit either Albertsons or Smiths again for another ham so I'll have an extra in the freezer.

What's In Your Pantry?

I thought it might be fun to share recipes that use products I (and a lot of you) have in my pantry after shopping the sales and stocking up. A few months ago I signed up for the Betty Crocker email newsletter and pretty soon I started getting emails from them full of great recipes using many of the products I had purchased at various sales. Recently, I went back to their website and found that you can search for recipes by products. (click HERE to see) So fun! I found a great recipe using their chocolate chip cookie mix.
Here's what I made:
These are the Luscious Layer Bars. Click HERE for recipe.
The ingredients I used from my pantry:
1 pkg Betty Crocker Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix $0.75 - Albertsons current sale
1 cup Nestle Butterscotch Morsels (bag)$1.25 - Vons sale 11/10/08
1 cup Hershey's Milk Chocolate Chips (bag)$0.70 - Albertsons sale 10/08
1 Egg -$0.99 (dozen) - Smiths sale 12/08/08
1 can sweetened condensed milk $1.05 - Smiths sale 11/09/08
1 cup flaked coconut (bag) $? - unknown sale - already had in pantry
(I didn't use walnuts)
Not only did I use things I had on hand, I was able to make a delicious treat for around $3.25. How great is that during Holiday Baking time?

Have You Been to Vons?

Last night I made a mad dash (literally...we only had 20 minutes) to Vons with my friend Dyanne. She wanted to add Frosted Flakes to her mega cereal stash-- currently around 30 boxes. We quickly checked the Grocery Smarts list, grabbed our coupons, went to Vons, shopped, checked out and came back home with time to spare. I spent $5.01 and saved $24.38. That works out to 82% savings!!!
Grocery Smarts has Vons on the "other stores" list. Check out the Kellogg's promotion to see how to get Frosted Flakes for $0.29 and apples for $0.79 lb. If you aren't sure how to use the Grocery Smarts website, you can schedule a FREE class for you & your friends where I'll teach you how. Just call or email me for more info.