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Friday, January 26, 2007 - 11:29:48
In Which I Geek Out Over Grocery-Shopping With Coupons
What? You don't? Well, you should. Seriously. Because doing otherwise is like not picking up free money off your doorstep because you don't feel like bending over.If you use a grocery-store-issued discount card, you can save a few dollars off the "shelf price" of certain items. If you use your store card carefully, shopping in bulk, when items are on sale (most stores regularly have "dollar sales" in the guise of 10/$10 or 5/$5 specials), you do a little better, and might wind up with a receipt like this one, from a trip to a local Kroger store last night:
Pretty good, huh? I mean, getting 25% off your grocery order is not too shabby, and if you buy in bulk when things are cheap and stock your pantry and freezer well, you can save a lot of money like this. BUT: When you apply this shopping philosophy and also factor in coupon-clipping, you come up with results more like THIS, from the same Kroger store, same time, last night:
THAT is more like it. $155.49 worth of groceries, for which I paid $56.16, including the tax (Hello, Governor Beebe!).
I am a recent convert to coupon-clipping, having studied at the virtual feet of Florida blogger Atilla the Mom, when she posted her primer on coupon-clipping last year. What I've learned from her, and from my experience locally, I'm going to share with you. Because I'm good like that, but also (read: mostly) because I can't shut up about it. I'll be taking mainly about Kroger in this post, simply because that's where I do most of my own grocery-shopping due to their coupon-doubling policy.
The first thing you need is the weekly sale flyer (spellcheck is trying to make me type "flier," but in this context, I can't seem to bring myself to do it) from the grocery store of your choice. Those usually come out in Wednesday's newspapers, although where I live, Kroger sends them in the mail. They're also usually available online, and Kroger's website has a feature that allows you to compile and print a shopping list directly from their online sale flyer. Around here, the sales run from Wednesday-toWednesday, which means that the optimum time to hit the stores to take advantage of coupon savings is Sunday evening.
You know about coupons. They come in those semi-glossy, annoying inserts in your Sunday newspaper, and if you're like most people, you probably throw them away. Stop that. As a matter of fact, not only do you want to save those inserts, you want to get extra ones, as well. There are lots of ways to do this. Buying extra newspapers is most obvious, but you can also pick up plenty for free if you just know where to look and who to ask. I won't go into detail on that, because you can figure it out on your own.
I do, however, have a specifically local tip: Subscribe to the Arkansas Leader newspaper. I mean, you should, anyway, for the writing, but for reasons specific to thrifty grocery-shopping as well, it's more than worth the subscription price (which is discounted regularly via a coupon on the back of the Knight's Grocery sale-circular). Not only does the Leader carry grocery circulars for some additional stores like Knight's and Price-Cutter, but it carries the exact same coupon inserts that come in the Sunday Democrat-Gazette...but the Leader's coupons are in its Saturday paper, which is available until Wednesday. Which, by way of an extra-special bonus, only costs 25 cents at the newsstand or paper-box, so you can painlessly pick up a couple of extra copies. Which, after relieving them of their coupons, you then donate to some newspaper-less place like your doctor's office.
The main mental shift you have to make to maximize your savings is to start thinking differently about bulk-shopping. You won't be picking up a box of Cheerios of a jar of Newman's Own spaghetti sauce or a bag of Green Giant frozen vegetables--you'll be picking up 6 boxes of cereal, 8 jars of sauce, and 10 bags of broccoli at a time. You'll learn to think differently about what you store in your freezer, so that you can buy more on sale (bread, cheese, milk, etc.). That results in a different look for your pantry and freezer, which will usually be stuffed. On one recent and famous (at least in my mind) occasion, I came home from Kroger with something like 80 individual servings of Mott's Organic no-sugar-added Applesauce. Admittedly, that's a lot of applesauce, even for a crazy person. But my daughter loves the stuff, I use it in cooking, and with my combined savings, it didn't cost me a thing. Anyway, the goal is to buy what's on sale, and buy as many of each item as you have coupons for. If your grocery store doubles coupons, even better.
This past weekend, there were three circulars: One from Valassis, one from Smart Source, and one from Proctor & Gamble. I had two sets from each of my delivered papers, and then picked up a couple more by purchasing extra copies of the Leader.
I don't clip coupons for products I absolutely don't use, but I do clip for things I might use if the price is right--and if you play your cards right, the price can be ridiculously low, or even free. I become a super-dork on occasions that the perfect storm of a store special, a coupon, and a store's coupon-doubling policy result in my hauling stuff out of the store without paying for it--legally (see Famous Applesauce Incident, referenced above).
I also clip for things *I* might not need, but that I could possibly donate for use elsewhere, from food to toiletries. Toothpaste is one item that springs to mind that is frequently obtainable for free, for example, by way of 10/$10 sales on Colgate or Crest at Kroger. Kroger doubles coupons up to 65 cents in value, and if you clip coupons regularly, you will almost always have a handful of 50-cents-off coupons for both leading brands of toothpaste. Bingo, free toothpaste. You'll have more than you could ever use, and it's something that there's a need for at shelters. Charitable giving of food and toiletries only gets easier and more frequent as you begin paying less to feed and care for yourself--not to mention that you are getting more value for the things you're giving, and thus can give more.
There are also occasions, more than you might think, on which the redeemable value of combined sales/coupons/doubling exceeds the actual price of the item. I have seen receipts, posted on coupon-clippers' online forums (yes, we are SUPER-geeks), from shopping trips that resulted in the customer being GIVEN money (usually just a little, but still!) by the store they're shopping from. It's never happened to me, but I'm still relatively new at this, and don't have the advantage of extra "tricks" like the insanely popular Grocery Game (not yet available in most of Arkansas for anything but Walgreen's). Heck, I'm still inspired all to pieces by receipts like this.
A quick note about coupon organization, from Atilla to me to you: Forget those little "coupon organizer" thingies. You need a three-ring photo binder, the kind that holds snapshot-sized photos. How you order the coupons is up to you. Most people seem to group them by category/type of item, but that got overwhelming for me, and I now group them alphabetically. Not strict alphabetical order, but by letter, according to brand-name. Then when I'm reading the sale circulars, it's easy for me to find exactly the corresponding coupons that I need.
In a later post, I'll discuss big-box stores, like Wal-Mart, as well as that wonderful oddity that is the Walgreen's rebate system, which you can use to routinely obtain items for "less than free." Right now, I'm all geeked typed out, and I have groceries to put away.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 19:54:17
Dining Certificates 60% Off
If you're not familiar with restaurant.com, you need to be. While the list of participating Arkansas restaurants is somewhat smaller than that in large urban areas, more eateries sign on all the time (and you could increase participants by mentioning restaurant.com to the management of your favorite places when you're there).
What you're buying are certificates with face values usually of either $10 or $25 toward the cost of your meal. New certificates are added at the beginning of every month, and there are a finite supply, so the later in the month it gets, the cheaper the $25 and $10 certificates for local restaurants become, up to 70% off at times. For example, I recently bought a couple of $25 certificates for dinner at Ristorante Capeo, paying $3 each for them.
The flip-side of the deal is that, as the certificates sell out, they're gone until the first of the next month. Right now, for central Arkansas, Bene Vita, The Faded Rose, and some of the branches of Shorty Small's are already sold out. But it's worth a look-see if you have a few minutes to check it out, because the certificates are 60% off. So your $25 certificate will cost you $4, and the $10 certificates can be had for $1.50 At full price, the certificates cost $10 for $25, and $3 for $10 worth of food.
There are limitations, such as days of the week you can use your certificate (usually Monday thru Thursday, dine-in only), and the certificates do not cover alcohol purchases. The most common minimum I've seen for the $25 certificates dictates that you are purchasing at least $35 worth of food.
One last thing: Should you decide to take advantage of this service (and you should, because the more people who do, the more restaurants will sign on), PLEASE remember to tip your servers based on the TOTAL of your bill, BEFORE the discount is subtracted.
Some other central Arkansas restaurants who are commonly participating with Restaurant.com areLittle Rock/North Little Rock eateries Camp David, Juanita's, Lucchesi's Ravioli & Pasta, Markham Street Grill and Pub, Season's In The Heights, and The Bistro.
Every Shorty Small's in Arkansas appears to be represented, as well as other places from around the state: The Sandwich Shoppe in Clarendon, The Bistro in Bonnerdale, Dee's BBQ in Lexa, Don Quixote's in Calico Rock, L.J.'s Restaurant in Marion, and Piero's in Jonesboro.
When you check out, enter the discount code, SUPER, and then "recalculate total" to apply the 60%-off discount. Happy hunting, and good eatin'!
Belinda also blogs from her home base on the internet, NINJA POODLES! Expect chaos. Email Belinda.
Monday, January 22, 2007 - 23:26:40
A Cautionary Tale
The Ordeal of the Ductwork - a photoset on Flickr which will be growing over the next couple of days as the garbage ductwork and heat/air system in my house is replaced with equipment that actually WORKS.
Read the whole pitiful story here.
Monday, January 15, 2007 - 23:05:39
I'm Hoping It Means She's Going To Be A Writer
An evening exchange between myself and my 4-year-old daughter:
"Oh, Honey--please shut the door, quickly! I'm shaving my legs."
(dramatic, heavy sigh) "But I want you to get owwwwwt now."
"I will, Sweetheart. I'm almost done."
"Mommy? (cue comically overdone 'ominous' voice) "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"I heard a monster. IN YOUR BATH."
"REALLY? I don't see anything unusual."
"He's hiding. There--I heard it again! He splashed."
"In this bathtub? There's not really much room to hide here."
"Well...he is very tiny."
"He is, huh? What will he do to me if I don't get out of the tub soon?"
"He will (ominous voice) drink all your BATH WATER."
(laughing) "Well, that doesn't sound too bad--not for ME, anyway. By the time he could drink all this water, I'll probably be done. I think I'll risk it."
"But, Mommy...after he drinks all the bath water, he will EAT YOU ALL UP!"
"I thought you said he was really small! If he's that tiny, how is he going to eat ME all up?"
(spoken as if to someone who is really quite daft) "He takes little bites, OK?"
"All right, all right, you've convinced me--I certainly do not want to be eaten all up by a tiny bathtub monster!" (stepping out of the tub, looking back in) "But you know what? I still don't see him in there anywhere."
"Did I mention he's invisible?"
Belinda also blogs from her home-base on the Internet, NINJA POODLES! Expect Chaos. Email Belinda
Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 21:33:49
Do What, Now?
Overheard at the Lonoke County Revenue Office today:"Well, we need to try to run your thumbprint, unfortunately. This thing hardly ever works right, and I hate to think what it's going to be like when they get the new system up. It's supposed to use facial recognition technology."
Uh...for real? Anyone heard of such? The fellow on the listening end of this exchange was just renewing his driver's license.
Monday, January 08, 2007 - 21:39:06
Actual Italian Food in Jacksonville
Just in case some of you Jacksonville/North-Pulaski-County/Cabot-area folks might be missing out on this little jewel, I thought I'd remind you about the area's only Italian restaurant, Roma, in Jacksonville. (501-982-8055, open Tuesday-Sunday)Located on John Harden Drive (the access road on the west side of 67-167 just north of Jacksonville proper), Roma Italian Restaurant bookends the Quicksilver Plaza, with another independently-owned ethnic endeavor, El Maguey Mexican Restaurant holding up the other end. Owned and run by the Morina family, Roma offers traditional Italian fare prepared by...well, a traditional Italian man. Depending on your mood, you can opt for a sufficiently sophisticated date-night meal, or get a lot of bang for your family-dining buck with the kids in tow.
This is, as evidenced here, our own four-year-old daughter's absolute most-desired place to eat out, currently even eclipsing her perennial favorite, the Dixie Cafe. Chef Morina once made her some not-on-the-menu fresh spinach manicotti, and she has begged for it nearly daily since then. This child is still shy of the 40-pound mark, and usually has to be coaxed to eat much at all, but at Roma, we are forced to eschew the "children's menu" altogether, and order her an adult-sized portion of pasta, lest she quickly finish her own dinner and start raiding ours.
In this family, Daddy prefers an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms, and the "Chef's Special" entree, a seafood-based pasta dish in a variant of alla ponna sauce with the distinct, but subtle, heat and smoke of roasted peppers. Mom waffles between a chicken and sausage pasta dish named after the chef, or something wholesome and uncomplicated like the Sampler Platter (a trio of lasagna, manicotti, and spinach ravioli, all for about $6). Littlun is an unfailing patron of the spinach ravioli, always and forever, amen.
At lunchtime, you can hardly beat the light, flavorful, made-to-order pizza. Coupled with a salad, Roma's individual-sized pizza is the perfect answer for when you have a hankering for pizza but are sick to death of the heavy, soggy, sauce-drowned offerings of the chain pizza places. If we HAD to compare it to another local pizza, we'd say it reminded us a bit of the pies from U.S. Pizza. But a little better. Did we mention the fresh herbed yeast rolls the size of your head? Because, yeah. Have some of those. They're complimentary anyway, and I'm pretty sure it's a major sin to waste good bread.
For two people, you could easily spend $50-75 on dinner, BUT you can just as easily feed those same two people very well on less than $20. Thumbs up from here.
Downside? Well, some of the dishes are practically begging for a nice grating of FRESH parmesan, which is, so far, not available (nudge, nudge). Also, I am no longer able to prepare pasta for my daughter at home because "THAT'S NOT HOW THEY MAKE IT AT THE RESTAURANT."
*DISCLAIMER: This blogger has absolutely no financial interest in this or any other restaurant mentioned in this space. However, this blogger is repeatedly mystified at Jacksonville's apparent inability to keep a good restaurant thriving, so I like to see locals supporting the availability of good food when we have it. Because this blogger likes her some good food.
Belinda also blogs from her home base on the internet, NINJA POODLES! Expect chaos. Email Belinda: ninjapoodles@gmail.com
Monday, January 01, 2007 - 19:06:13
In Which I Run Afoul of the Law for the Sake of Blogging
Hi! Look, I can post again! And comment! You're all thrilled beyond belief! Trust me, you're thrilled. I'm glad we got that out of the way. Now settle down, so I can tell you how I narrowly avoided a Homeland Security shakedown in the Jacksonville Wal-Mart parking lot.Ever since starting this blog about a year and a half ago, I have been more and more compelled to document incidental things I run across, or that happen to me, in my day-to-day life. Sometimes these things are interesting ONLY to me, but hey, it's my blog, right? Anyway, more and more I find myself with a little digital camera in my purse or car almost all the time. This allows for quick capture of things that I find interesting, odd, funny, outrageous, etc. My husband, bless his heart, has even taken to snapping things that he thinks I would appreciate with his cell-phone camera and emailing them to me.
I have documented all manner of things in my life, including my coupon-derived grocery savings, my first astronomically high electric bill (they got even higher later), the horror of my abdominal surgery and recovery, the time the co-op beheaded a dozen of my beautiful ornamental trees, the trimming of my Christmas tree, INNUMERABLE pictures and stories of the escapades of my daughter, and even the process of pouring warm water through my head and out my nose cleansing my sinuses with a neti pot...and let's not forget my favorite fried pickles. I take pictures of, and write about, my family. My pets. My church. My friends. Things in my yard. Things in my house. Things on my television. Things I read. Things around town. Just...random things. You get the idea.
Just a couple of recent examples, both captured on The Husband's cell-phone camera, would be the morning, just a couple weeks ago, when it was apparently unseasonably warm in Jacksonville:
And this very appealing food-product, which had us both reeling in the frozen-food aisle at the Cabot branch of Kroger:
And so it was that, on a pleasant enough overcast day the week before Christmas, I was leaving the Jacksonville Wal-Mart, just casually glancing around the parking lot on the way to my car, when I spotted this sticker on the rear window of a pickup truck.
That's "Hot & Nasty," if you can't make it out. I'm desperately hoping that this is a slogan, if an ill-advised one, for...well, something. Because if it isn't, then what is it? A pickup (no pun intended) line? Who responds to that?
Now, "Hot & Nasty" was not enough, in itself, to make me reach for a camera. Besides, I didn't have a camera on me at the moment, though there was one in my car. But as I walked on, I noticed that the vehicle next to that one was also sporting signage, as well as the one next to that, and so on, until and including my own vehicle. For some unknown reason, this fascinated me, and I decided I needed to snap some pictures on the fly on my way out. So I circled around to that aisle, began with "Hot & Nasty," and just snapped a shot out through my rolled down passenger window as I coasted on out of the lot, which explains some of the blurriness of the photos here. I was holding the camera up high, and the auto-flash was engaged.
The photos which follow honestly depict every vehicle on the same aisle as mine, one after another, ending with my own.
This being Jacksonville, there were, as you'd expect, many proud expressions of patriotism and support for our armed forces, including my own little "peace dove" magnets, one of which is pictured last here:
(The Peace Dove magnet is apparently no longer available, but there are other incarnations of this sentiment around the internet.)
The owner of this car has plenty of love to go around, and I like him or her already:
Some other things we love, judging by the adhesive-backed proclamations on our bumpers and rear windows:
Bass fishing.
Deer hunting, and...well, either baring one's buttocks or partaking of homemade pure grain alcohol, or both. Probably not in that order.
Nascar. (And another vote for deer-hunting.)
Some of the stickers had me wondering, "Why?"
While others had me wondering, "What...??"
I mean, what is this symbol? It's almost like the Swiss cross, but with a confederate flag built in? I'd never seen that before.
There were two things that were so universally represented that I only photographed them once each. If I let you, you'd probably guess, but I will tell you that they're both represented in one form or another on my own vehicle:
So there you have the fairly unremarkable "One Parking Aisle at Wal-Mart" photo series. The whole thing took less than one minute on my way out, and that was the end of that, and I went merrily on my way, across the interstate to Sonic for a big, fat soon-to-be-denied-by-my-own-New-Year's-Resolution Cherry Coke.
Except.
As I pulled out of the Sonic parking lot, a Jacksonville police patrol car came up behind me, and turned on its flashers, giving one good "whooop" of its siren. I wasn't doing anything wrong, and my tags and taillights were all in order, so I just assumed that the officer was needing to get around me and through the intersection. I noticed another patrol car waiting in the left-turn lane ahead, so I scooted on up to the red light as quickly as I could, to allow the officer behind me clearance to get around me to the left. I even waved and smiled politely at him in my side-mirror.
Except.
He did not go around, but pulled right up on my rear bumper, and gave another short, "whoop" blast of his siren. He wanted ME. What? What the?!? I have received exactly one traffic violation in my life, for speeding, and that was 22 years ago. When I learn a lesson, I learn it good. The nearest place I could get out of traffic was the Lowe's parking lot, so that's where I headed. The officer followed me, and he was followed by the officer I'd observed in the left-turn lane back at the intersection. I rolled my window down, not at all worried, but curious as all get-out about what on earth the po-pos could possibly want with ME.
The officers, both of them, could NOT have been more pleasant, and in fact did not stop smiling and laughing throughout the entire incident. This is part of the reason that I felt so at ease despite being pulled over, the other parts being that I have a pretty great fondness and respect for the Jacksonville Police Department--they do a great job, and if the low crime rate in Jacksonville doesn't convince you of that, then just drop into town on one of the air-show days at the Little Rock Air Force Base, which event would seem to me a major deterrent to any applicant to the JPD--and the other part being that I hadn't broken any laws.
It seems that, as the first officer explained to my surprise, some upstanding citizen who'd been in the Wal-Mart parking lot at the same time I was, had PHONED IN A COMPLAINT of a "suspicious person taking pictures of license plates" in the lot. Hee. This made me nearly gleeful, although I did feel bad that I'd worried some poor paranoid person to the extent that they called the POLICE. I smilingly offered up my digital camera, without being asked, and showed him the pictures I'd taken in the parking lot. Explaining "why" was a bit tougher, but he accepted my explanation with good-natured aplomb and a warm-sounding laugh, while the other officer informed me of how "hinky" people were acting "these days."
I complimented the officers on the rapidity of my apprehension (seriously, it was, perhaps, 5 minutes' time between my leaving the parking lot and pulling out of the Sonic drive-thru), we all had a good laugh, and we went our separate ways.
I drove on home, suddenly even more mindful of speed limits and traffic signals, and began to wonder about the person who "reported" me. Let's suppose, for just a minute, that I WAS "photographing license plates." (And for the record, let me just say that I was very careful about eliminating overtly identifying information from these pictures, just out of common courtesy.) What of it? I mean, you drive around all the time with your license plate on public display, in plain sight. Isn't that rather the POINT of a license plate? What would be the particular threat of someone "photographing" plates? Really, I'm looking for theories, here. I could just as easily have taken the pictures with my cell-phone camera, to avoid detection, or I could have been driving around town all day writing down license-plate numbers. Couldn't anyone?
Ah, well. I guess I'll never know. In any case, if you were unnerved by the sight of a 40-ish mom in a white Tahoe snapping pictures through her passenger window at Wal-Mart...well, fear not. Here they are. Also, I apologize for giving you reason to fear (and would LOVE to know just what scared you). And thank you for not taking it a step further and alerting Homeland Security. I'm not sure what kind of internet access they have at Gitmo.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!
I'm glad to be back.
I'm glad to be back.
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