artofthecoupon.com

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’m excited.  Every two weeks, we go to this Butcher in this little local market in the city.  We’ve developed a relationship with him because I buy a lot of my puppies meat from him, and we get all our ground beef from him ($1.29/lb for the good stuff, all the time!).  He called me and told me that his supplier sent him an extra box of beef rips and that he needs to get rid of them, so he’s selling them for .59 lb.  Beef is the item that we have the hardest time finding for our puppies, but it is very important as a part of their diet.  So, needless to say I am thrilled and planning on buying 40-60 pounds of it!

So, it pays to develop relationships with local stores, and to shop outside of your standard “Grocery Store” environment.  Not only is it cheaper on a regular basis, but it also allows you great little perks that come from actually getting to know your store owner.  How many people can say that Mr. Safeway has their interests at heart and would give them a call if a good deal came??  Just some food for thought…

I’ve written a few posts that are designed to help you save money on groceries, so I thought I would provide a very brief and basic summary: (more…)

Lately, the deals at CVS haven’t been quite as good, so I have been expanding to Walgreens and Rite-Aid.  These stores, too, offer a wealth of great deals.  But, they can be confusing for newbies to the Drug Store game.  This confusion is compounded by the fact that there are different rules for Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and CVS.  Here, I provide a guide to newbies who want to take advantage of the deals that Walgreens has to offer. (more…)

Extrabucks, the free “cash” you get for buying certain products at CVS, have a 1 month expiration date.  So, there are a few different ways people handle these.  Some people (no one reading frugal websites I hope!) forget about them and let them go to waste.  Others turn around and spend them on the first thing they need from the drugstore.  Still others will refuse to spend extracare bucks on anything that doesn’t net them more than they spend, so they end up with a glut of expiring extracare bucks and managing cards begins to feel more like a job than a fun and frugal activity.   (more…)

For those who aren’t familiar with the Extracare program, let me give you a brief summary of how CVS-ing turned into a verb, and why there are a select few of us who frequent the store 3, 4, 5, even upwards of 6 times a week. (more…)

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I feel a need to shop. The thrill of going out into the world, finding shiny new items and making them mine is just sometimes too much to tame. And I know I’m not alone here. I’m convinced that this Urge to Shop which many woman (and even some men) seem to possess stems from our natural hardwired tendency to hunt and gather. We no longer need to go and track food, or to forage for berries so we fulfill this same internal drive by heading to a strip mall and hunting down the latest and greatest in whatever items catch our fancy.
(more…)