$15 worth of coupons in Aquafina 24pk

Here at my house, we have yet to drop the water bottles in favor of a water filter. Just to reiterate, I started my Frugal Savings Journey only back in May. Old habits die hard and I am making progress. I hope to soon cut out cable tv, eating out, and our bottled water. It is just so darn convenient though!

So we ran out of water the other day and I went to the store just for water. I normally wait for Walgreens sales on their water which is usually around $2.39/24pk but I can't wait for the next sale so my options were $3.99/24pk Aquafina or $3/Nestle 24pk with coupon. I opted for the Aquafina and I will tell you why. The Aquafina case had $15 worth of misc. manufacturer coupons inside. I figured that as long as I use $1 worth of those coupons I made up for my choosing Aquafina over Nestle. Ideally I would always go for Dasani if it were cheaper due to it's enhanced taste! Alas, Dasani is never cheaper.

These are the things you need to keep an eye on. Most people would not even notice the "$15 In Coupons Inside" label and just get the $1 cheaper case. Reward for catching this was the following 12 coupons:

1. $1 off any 1 Starbucks Frappuccino Coffee Drink or Doubleshot 4-pk

2. $1 off 1 20-22 cnt Frito-Lay Multi-pak

3. $1 off any two 12 oz. can 12-pks or two 2-liter bottles of Lipton Brisk products

4. $1 off on any two 16.9 oz 12-pks, 1-gallon jugs or 1.5 liter bottles of Lipton Iced Tea products

5. $1 off any two 64oz Gatorade or G2 products

6. Buy any four Snack Pack Pudding 4-pks, get one FREE

7. $1 off any two 20 oz. Sobe Lifewater products

8. $1 off any two packages of Energizer MAX brand batteries

9. Buy any eight Chef Boyardee products, get two FREE

10. $2 off when you buy one 16 oz. 4-pk Rockstar Energy Drink product

11. $1.50 off any three Orville Redenbacher's products

12. $1 off when you buy any two 10-16 oz. bags of Rold Gold Brand Pretzels

Modern Bartering

Before currency everyday goods were bartered. Items that were not needed or wanted were traded for items that someone else had that you needed or wanted. Unfortunately the old method was not exact when it came to the actual value of the items.

www.listia.com is today's version of bartering.

List your stuff, earn credits, buy other stuff with credits. I have not used it yet myself but I thought it fit the whole saving/couponing theme.

New Apron Station Coupon

The Birds Eye Coupon at the Publix Apron Station has been replaced with the following coupon:

Found Publix Booklets

Ok so I went to the Merritt Island Publix today to check for some of those rumored coupon booklets and found the following:

1. Publix Pharmacy Booklet : August 2011 : Children’s Health

2. ConAgra College Care

I was not able to find the following though:

1. Kashi Do Right With Every Bite

2. Savings are Stocking Up at Publix

*To see what coupons each booklet contains head on over to:

http://www.iheartpublix.com/index.php/booklets/

New Publix Flyer Rumors

There have been a lot of new coupon flyer sightings at Publix lately. Personally I have not been so lucky to find them yet. Keep your eyes peeled and check out this link to know what you should be looking for:

http://www.iheartpublix.com/index.php/booklets/

Florida Sales Tax Holiday

Anyone see any good deals coming up for the State's Sales Tax Holiday? Any good match-ups to take advantage of during this tax free time?

Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday, August 12-14

List of tax-exempt and taxable items

2011 Sales Tax Holiday Tax Information Publication

Publix Pet Coupons

Here is a link to some printable Publix Pet Coupons that I just got in my email:

http://www.publixcampaigns.com/pet/2011_August/

Where to store your growing collection of circulars?

Ok so now you are starting to get quite adept at this couponing thing. You learned to print mass quantities of online coupons, you purchased a binder, you've established a source for multiple Sunday Newspapers, and you have created stacks of coupon circulars in the corner. What do you do with these hundreds of circulars? How do we organize them? Where do we even start? Of course everyone is different and what works for some may not work for others but I am going to show you what some have done in hopes of sparking some creativity in you.

Ever use milk crates as furniture back in college or when you got your first apartment?

The perfect square geometry of these handy dandy crates allows for stacking and excellent shelve making! Milk Crates stack very well and are fairly sturdy/stable and they obviously are perfect for carrying circulars from one room to another if needed. Here is an example of what is possible.

I keep my growing collection in my garage. I keep them sorted by date bottom to top and by circular brand (ss, rp, p&g) left to right.

Note: Industrial Milk Crate use by you may not be really legal in your state. By no means am I recommending that any of you run out and swipe these from behind your local grocer nor am I even suggesting that you use them in your storage needs. This is just an example of what someone may or may not have done to organize their circulars.

Getting Organized

Organizing Your Coupons

*In the beginning remember, you do not need a binder right away. Take a few weeks to assess your needs and shop around.

Option 1:

Some people may decide not to go to the "Extreme" when it comes to couponing and may not need a huge binder. These people may settle for a simple coupon "pouch" organizer. The organizers may come with pre-printed tabs to help get you started or they may come with blank ones. In a small pouch like this it may help to make more generalized categories such as: Produce, Dairy, Meats, Food, Drinks, Snacks, Personal Care, and Cleaning.

Option 2:

Others decide they want to save more money and start stocking up. This requires mass coupon clipping/printing. This is when you need to determine a storage method for your coupons. Once you start collecting mass amounts of coupons, you will notice VERY QUICKLY how they pile up and become very cumbersome. A little old coupon pouch just will not cut it anymore. Most "Extreme Couponers" opt for a 3 ring binder. There are different size rings out there and it just depends on how "Extreme" you are going to be. Some binders are cheaper than others and thus in the beginning I just got one of the cheapest so that way if my needs changed I could upgrade without losing too much money. If you watch TLC's tv show Extreme Couponing then you may have noticed almost everyone on the show has a Case-It Binder. These seem to be the best and the price reflects that. I have not personally purchased one of these binders yet. I emphasize yet!

Unfortunately unlike the smaller coupon organizers the 3 ring binders will not come with pre-printed tabs or pages/files. You will need to purchase coupon storage pages and tabs separately. Tabs can be found at most any store that sells office supplies. As for the coupon storage pages, I have found that most people including myself have turned to Vinyl Trading Card Pages. Obviously you would be able to find these at any baseball card store but they may be heavily marked up in price there. The best deals can be found online via Google Shopper!

When deciding on Categories for your tabs a lot of people/sites will tell you what they think is best but I say do what works for you. You can keep it simple like I mentioned above for the small pouch organizer or you can get more detailed and have more categories. It really depends on who you are, how you work, and your personality. As of right now my needs and my personality helped me determine that I wanted to keep things simple and I have limited categories. In fact my specific categories are the exact ones that I mentioned above for the pouch organizer. Everyone is different!

When you start printing out mass quantities of coupons you want to print out any and every coupon that you not only need now but think you could need or use some time in the future. That is what the binders are for. Store all of these coupons that could come in handy at a later time into your binders and then when in search for future coupons for stuff you need or for match-ups always check your binders in addition to searching online. Online printables don't last forever so you want to grab 'em as soon as you see them and store them in the binders.

No grocery photos for this past week

No photos of this week's take due to no grocery shopping this past week. The wife was not feeling well this week and was not up to cooking. Since I do not cook we ate out a bit and still have a full fridge. Don't get me wrong, I can cook......I just choose not to. You can not give me any grief on this ladies because I do the grocery shopping and that should count for something! :)

Oh and it was my birthday today so of course we ate out again! :) This upcoming week looks like it may be a good one so hopefully I will have some good numbers and cool photos to share.

When to throw out your Sunday Coupons

One thing that seems to keep people from jumping on the bandwagon and learning how to really coupon is the belief that the Sunday coupons are only good for that one week or that one month. This is completely wrong and in fact these coupons can be valid for many months. The question then is when do we throw them away?

Over at IheartPublix.com there was a post referencing the following link: http://www.couponcleanout.com/

You can register here for free and supposedly use this site as a tool to tell you when and what coupon circulars to trash.

Couponing Tip #7

Tip#7: When buying OTC medicines that have different strengths and are all the same price buy the strongest. You can always cut them in half or in quarters depending on the type of medicine. For example: I had a combination of coupons that enabled me to obtain multiple packs of Zantac medicine all for free. Normally I only buy Zantac 75 strength but the Zantac 150 was the same price. I took all of the Zantac 150's off the shelf and now I just cut the pills in half. This allows me to have double the amount of pills that I would have had if I had only purchased the Zantac 75's.

Kashi Coupon Sheet

There was a post over at IheartPublix.com about a new Kashi Coupon Sheet being distributed by Kashi reps at Publix locations. There are some good coupons on it however, according to the the following site they will no longer be distributing them at Publix Stores. Check out the the itinerary here: http://www.terracycle.net/do-right-with-every-bite

Unfortunately I was unable to get any of these. If any of you have any extras and want to trade then let me know. Thanks!

Space Coast Forum?

Hello everyone and happy Monday! I started Space Coast Couponing initially to document my couponing trek and to determine a need if any for a "space coast couponing" forum. We are getting some regular visitors here already and so I am wondering if any of you would be interested in a forum specifically for us in this geographic area? If you are interested, please vote at the poll on the right hand side of the page. Thanks!

Publix "Buy Theirs, Get Ours Free" Deal

Publix is running a promotion called "Buy Theirs and Get Ours Free". Supposedly they run these promos on select products every now and then. Basically you buy a National Brand of any of these select products and you get the Publix version of that product free.

Select Items for this current Promo:

1. Crystal Light Canister

2. Sandies Pecan ShortBread by Keebler

3. Lipton Onion Dip