Pros and Cons of Stickers!

    Kids love stickers. Mine certainly do, anyway. I know I did! The poor walls and furniture in my childhood bedroom were covered smartly decorated in all sorts of colorful, sticky-backed shapes and characters. My Mama loved our creativity. haha! Really, you can do so much with them. They are simple and cheap. Think about it. Here's a quick rundown of the pros and cons:

Sticker Pros

• Awesome
• Pretty
• Benefit Fine Motor Skills
• Available in a plethora of colors, shapes, characters, and things
• Cheaper than dirt
• Easy to use
• Super fun

Sticker Cons

• Sticky
• Sometimes difficult to remove
• May rip easily and break your kid's heart
• Possibly terrible for the environment
• Inedible

 All this basically means that stickers are a win. Here's a bunch of ideas for having fun with them:

- Potty Chart (Easy peasy: Write their name on a plain sheet of paper and put it up on the fridge where they can see it with a few magnets. Let them pick and place a sticker for every successful potty trip. Just explain how it works!)

-  Practicing Counting  or "Tracing" letters

  
- Practicing making lines from left to right

- Make pretty things to send to friends in the mail

- Decorate the plastic wipe box

- Decorate your face OR your baby sibling's face

- Decorate ugly-ish furniture

- Just fill up a blank book or page for the fun of it! (Keeps the littlest ones occupied for a while)


For more craft ideas from other awesome sites check out pinterest.

By the way, I almost always take a peak at the dollar section at the front of Target. That's where I found these little LeapFrog activity books AND a booklet of 405 stickers for $1 each!

What do you (err . . . and your kids too, I guess) like to do with stickers?

Awesome Action Figures - $2 Coupons at Target

      My kiddos have a healthy appreciation of certain comic super heroes and star wars. We love the Marvel Universe, Star Wars, and Transformers action figures that we've found at Target. Just before Christmas Hulk was on sale from $12 to $9.99. They had a B1G1 50% off deal. And, I had two coupons for $2 off. I'm not sure if the sale is still going. It will depend on each store but you can still get the coupons here for Transformers or Star Wars. You should be able to print each coupon twice. The kiddos have Spiderman, Ironman, Hulk, a Stormtrooper, and Anakin so far. Target also has a coupon for the Playskool Heroes. We have a growing collection of those, as well.

       Now, for your viewing pleasure. Here's a picture of the Hulk punching Anakin Skywalker in his smug, baby face.

Glade Winter Collection Deal!!

     I love the Glade candles. They are long lasting and smell amazing. I used plenty of their autumn scents and the winter collection has been out for a few weeks now. I was able to get the 4oz candles for under $2 each PLUS the $5 gift card.

Check your local Target ad to be sure but at mine there is a deal for buying 5 of the 2.99 glade winter collection products and getting a free $5 gift card.

Credit:Target.com

     To do the same . . . search the Target coupons for "Glade". There are a variety. Now go to Coupon Network and do the same thing! These are coupons for $1 off two. You can use the one for $1 off 2 "Winter collection" (doesn't specify spray, candles, wax melts) on any of the products and there are item specific coupons as well. When they print you will see the difference between Target and Manufacturer in a bold black block at the top of each one. Depending on which items you want you can save several dollars.

Apple Cinnamon Cheer + Sparkling Spruce

Doing Cartwheels

I'd probably die if I tried doing a cartwheel right now.

Actual physical cartwheels aren't the point of this post. The new Target Cartwheel app very much is in a "so speaking of coupons" kind of way . . . .

Like I said in the post before last I figured I'd probably need to run out before the two weeks between big grocery trips were up for a few more things. Shocker. I was right. I was doing my normal browsing for coupons on Target's website and saw a link for something called Cartwheel. OK. Creative name? I guess. I went about browsing other things until I finally let my curiosity get me.

(Note: all of this will be based on the regular browser site not the phone apps.)

It's a quick, simple sign up if you have facebook (which I do so that was that). There's a lot going on at first it seems. Observe this lovely screenshot:

  

You may able to see on this screenshot that it shows a little ticker for total saved: $1.38. That was yesterday. That's pretty quick.


So here's how it works:

#1 Sign up - It's simple enough if you are all ready on facebook. If not, I'm not seeing many other options. Someone can let me know if it works with Google+ or just a regular email account. I didn't need any invite or code to get on. I just clicked the sign up with facebook button and it did that little creepy info-grabbing thing apps do and I was done.

#2 Take a second to get acclimated - There is quite a bit going on. Collections, badges, notifications, facebook settings, invitations, and all these clickable, shiny ad buttons that remind me of that brand guessing game that was popular for a bit.

#3 Settings - By clicking over your name at the top right of the screen you can get to settings. This is something you'll want to change first. Decide if you want your cumulative savings to be public and whether or not you want in-app notifications. There's another link on the bottom of this page to change facebook settings. 

#4 Browse through Collections - These are just categories for all the products Target carries that have an available discount. That is what you're seeing in the screenshot above. Here's an example of what you'll see when you click on a collection:

 Discounts range from 10-30% off all sorts of products. They even have discounts on mundane things that almost never have coupons like milk, cheese, fruit, and eggs. Yes. It's true.

Note: You're not limited to browsing through tons of collections. There's a search bar. You can type in brand names, generic items (cereal, cookies), specific items, or broad categories (baby, toys).

#5 See that fancy bar on top of the screen between browse and total saved. - This is your total available discounts. You do have a limit. You start with 10 just for joining and there are ways to earn more as you use the app. I'm up to 17 now and I just opened this for the first time yesterday.

#6 Look at your badges. - This is your gateway to increasing the limited number of discounts you can choose. Anything from inviting people (as long as they join in) to having your first cartwheel scanned adds up to more discounts.

#7 Notifications - The word pretty much sums it up. This just just a heads up of the latest goings on within your cartwheel. You can see the badges you've earned, friends who've started using the app, and all that boring stuff.

Here's essentially how it works:

You browse through the site. You're scrolling down and find a discount you want. Just click on the box and it'll flip itself around. (nifty!) On the back of the "card" you can choose to add, share (via facebook), or get details on that specific discount. Once you click add it's on your "my Cartwheel" list. That bar at the top keeps track of how many you've used so far. To see your compiled list click on the my Cartwheel tab. A discount "card" all ready in your cartwheel will have a white on red check in the upper right corner and one that is still available to be added will show a white on red star.

Like this:

The hose nozzle is in your cartwheel and the gardening accessories are NOT. 

As you browse, you can add or replace things as you see fit. If you're all ready at 10/10 (or 17/17 or whatever the case may be) items then you'll have to remove something from your list before adding another.

You could probably keep at this, browsing, choosing, comparing and searching for a while. Once you are done go back to the my Cartwheel page. Click on "redeem in store" to print out your list. There will be one barcode at the top for the Target team member to scan. 

JUST LIKE A REGULAR COUPON! It's so simple!

But wait, there's more! (imagining this statement in George Takei's voice would be optimal)

This is not an either-or situation. These discounts DO stack with target coupons and manufacturer coupons. They also work with the redcard discount. I'm told that you could potentially have a quintuple whammy: cartwheel + target coupon + manufacturer coupon + redcard discount + reusable bag discount. 

 Your printed list will also show the number of times a discount can be applied. For instance, I had the Market Pantry milk 5% discount on my list yesterday. The list noted up to four purchases with the discount. I got two gallons so I got 5% off EACH one.

If you don't buy something on your list or if you've used up some of them it's not a big deal. You can either get your list back from the team member after they scan it or have them toss it and you can print a new one. If you don't get the correct item, the discount is expired (the deals do expire like normal coupons), or you've all ready reached your purchase limit it simply won't take it off your total.

It's a brilliant app! I was hesitant about it at first wondering if it would be worthwhile. The team member that helped me was all ready up to speed and HAPPY to see I'd brought it along with my coupons (yeah, not put off or annoyed). It was just as easy as using regular coupons but she only had to scan the single code one time to apply multiple discounts. 

Hopefully this helps someone out. Go here and sign up online! It's totally worth the discounts just on the unusually discounted items in my opinion. Worst case, if you hate it then don't use it again!

Here is the app for Mac.

Here is the app for Android

<3

Couponing

     Well, first off, I want to say I'm super thrilled with my grocery shopping trip(s) this past Wednesday (one week ago yesterday). It wasn't anything near what you see on those crazy reality TV episodes but I managed to stay under $250 for our two weeks of buying.

Caveats/
We obviously all ready had some ingredients for meals in the house.

We're also in the process of potty training BOTH kids now so we don't go through nearly as many disposables as we normally would. It's not very consistent day to day . . . I'll say that.

It took me three hours of the afternoon to find and clip coupons and create my list. So, honestly, the reduction in spending feels more like I'm spending time instead of spending the money, if that makes sense. Thankfully, my time was worth a decent "wage" this time. ;)

I always find out afterwards that I could've done better. This deal here. That coupon there. Oh well. Better luck next time.

And, of course, it's nearly inevitable that sometime in the next two weeks I'll be out buying more milk, bread, eggs, and/or some forgotten ingredient.
 /end caveats

 Like I said, the afternoon of my shopping trip I spent a good three hours googling for coupons, scouring the Krazy Coupon Lady website. I do NOT do the kind of couponing you hear about on these reality TV shows. I have no spare space for a super pantry and we don't even have a deep freezer (although I have my eye on a small one because I'd love to buy some meat on the cheap and pre-make some healthier "freezer meals"). I make my list of what we want or need FIRST then do all my searching and clipping based on that. I usually have to rack my brain and check the cabinets because occasionally I do "over buy" things like peanut butter, oatmeal, and pasta. You know, the sustenance staples that you really can't have too much of (unless your home is starting to look like the inside of a walmart, that's a bit much).

   I also try with all my might to avoid walmart. It's another post for another day but the low price place is not that great and I'd rather my $$$ make noise elsewhere in the economy if you get my drift. I don't have a lot of choices up here in walmartville. What I'd give for a good Publix, Trader Joe's, Kroger, Earth Fare or Whole Foods.

Oh well.

I try very hard to keep our household a healthy one. I buy a lot of frozen vegetables and avoid canne although I prefer fresh from the farmer's market. (One day I'll have my own garden, dang it!)

 Here are a few of the awesome couponing sites I've found:

coupons (but even better: join swagbucks and get the SAME coupons + swagbucks a few weeks after the coupons have been processed)

krazycouponlady (she even lays out the best deals for you on her site. hover over "find my store" and select the location of your choice for the latest.)

lozo (if you just like the occasional good clip you'll like this. it's customizable and coupons are emailed to you.)

smartsource (these are going to be similar to the coupons that are in many Sunday papers.)

You can also find some really good coupons on retail websites or facebook. Usually a good $1-2 coupon is as simple as liking a brand page. Most retailers have their own listing of coupons on their website. Some even have store coupon cards that you can download coupons onto and swipe at the store (making it ridiculously easy).

    We also have a Walgreens Balance Rewards card. We've only had it for a couple months. We use them for our prescriptions but they will also occasionally have some great deals on things we'd buy anyway (like diapers, sunscreen, medicine, or even food) so we'll make a trip there (and it's not out of our way at all). You get points for what you spend and for buying certain items. We're almost to 5000 points which translates to $5. (10,000 is $10, 18,000 is $20, and so on). I've seen a new program advertised where you can earn more points for running, doing weigh-ins, or participating in community projects.

In the end:

$37 at walgreens for 3 packages of pull ups and swim diapers.
   -3t/4t huggies pull ups (50 count)
   -size 4 huggies little movers slip-on diapers (23 count)
   - size medium huggies little swimmers (11 count)
I saved $7 with coupons and we earned 390 points as well.
Darn the 9% sales tax applying to diapers.

$44 at Aldi
 We filled our buggy. This included 2 bacon wrapped filet mignon, cow milk, kefir, eggs, cheese, plenty of fruit (nectarines, kiwi, bananas), a few veggies (bell pepper, carrots), cereal, two loaves of bread, cinnamon rolls (totally unnecessary!), nut butters, syrup, and snacks (graham crackers, peanut butter crackers, etc).

If we'd bought these things at walmart it would've been no less than $60. If I had the funds I'd go do a same day duplicate trip sometime to show the difference.

$120 at Target.
 This included a few more food items that I had specific coupons for that made it even CHEAPER than Aldi like yogurt, apple sauce pouches, frozen veggies, frozen pizza, and pudding. I got really good deals (I think) on almond milk, frozen chicken, and the glade plug-in refills. I even splurged on a few clothes for the kids (less than $2 a piece), got E a new toothbrush, and household misc (handsoap, paper towels, toilet paper, all-purpose cleaner).



I spent another $25 at Target two days ago to get some more bread, milk, cookies, and junk food for the girls and myself. They even had lalaloopsy coloring books in the $1 bin so I let the kiddos get those and pick a $0.99 pack of crayons.

37 + 44 + 120 + 25 = 226

We'll need (want?) more milk, cereal, and eggs for sure right before the second week is up but that shouldn't be a big deal.

Hopefully I can do even better for the next trip! 


    

Yay Target!

These were $1 a piece at Target!