Archives for November 2010

Publix Tips & Tricks

11/09/2010 by Barbara

**This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small amount of compensation when you purchase from my links, which I"ll totally blow on waffle fries and sweet tea, y'all!**

Publix Tips and Tricks

Are you a Publix shopper? Remember these tricks to their BOGO* sales:

You do NOT have to buy two of the BOGO items; they cut the price in half for each item. This means that their BOGO sales will not result in free items, when matched with BOGO manufacture coupons.
If you DO buy 2, you are allowed to use 2 coupons — one for each item.
Don’t forget, Publix will double coupons up to 50 cents, which can make for GREAT deals!
Publix has two sets of store coupon circulars they run, about every 2-3 weeks. One is yellow and the other is green. Always check their store coupons, to STACK with manufacture coupons. Sometimes the BOGO items will match both a store coupon and a manufacture coupon.
Publix accepts competitor’s coupons. (Competitors will vary by location, so check with your store first to see which coupons they accept.) You may stack a competitor’s coupon with a manufacture coupon.
You may NOT, however, stack a Publix coupon with a competitor’s coupon.
Finally, their sales run Thursday through Wednesday**. Check out the Sunday Coupon Preview ahead of time to see if upcoming coupons can be used for that week’s sales!

*BOGO – Buy One, Get One [free]

** – In some areas, the sales run Wednesday through Tuesday — check with your local Publix if you’re not sure. It also specifies on the sales circulars in the papers.

Also, here is Publix’s coupon policy. I highly recommend you print this out, and keep with you when shopping there. Just in case. :o)

“Publix accepts manufacturers’ coupons (limit one per item), Publix coupons (originals only—no copies), valid Internet coupons, and coupons from nearby competitors identified by each Publix store. (Competitor names are posted at each Publix store.) We will accept coupons from competing pharmacies for prescriptions only. We will not accept percent-off-items or percent-off-total-order coupons. We will only accept coupons for identical merchandise we sell. Acceptance is subject to any restrictions on the coupon, and we reserve the right to limit quantities. Manager approval is needed for individual coupons above $5.00. For a buy-one-get-one free (BOGO) offer, each item is considered a separate sale. We will accept a manufacturer’s coupon and either a Publix or a competitor coupon on the same item. Dollars-off-total-order coupons will be limited to one Publix and one competitor coupon per order. The order total must be equal to or greater than the total purchase requirements indicated on the coupon(s) presented.” –obtained from Publix website 3-19-12

Keep on saving! :o)
–Barbara

**This post may contain affiliate links.**

Keep on saving! :o)
--Barbara
**Remember, y'all, this post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small amount of compensation when you purchase from my links, which I"ll totally blow on waffle fries and sweet tea, y'all!**

Filed Under: Coupons, Publix Tagged With: evergreen

Ditching the Sponge

11/09/2010 by Barbara

**This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small amount of compensation when you purchase from my links, which I"ll totally blow on waffle fries and sweet tea, y'all!**

This summer I accomplished something I once thought unthinkable: I gave up the sponge. It was a gripping addiction, harder to kick than a nasty nicotine habit. …a habit that had the ability to spark the silliest of arguments amongst even the best of roomies. Right, SwimBikeMom? 😛 But once again, I digress; that’s a blog-post for another day.

Perhaps a tad OCD, I was one of *those* people who had a sponge designated for various parts of the kitchen: one for the floor, one for the counters, and another one for dishes. I knew for quite some time that sponges were a breeding ground for all things disgusting; however, I was not keen on the idea of using paper towels, or other disposable products — I had to find a GREEN alternative to sponges.

After reading one of my many parenting magazines over the summer, I read an article featuring a great solution. Use washcloths instead of sponges, replacing them daily. The solution was so ridiculously simple, I felt like an idiot for not thinking about that sooner!!

Afer all, I was already daily replacing my daughter’s bibs, as well as a washcloth to clean her after meals. What was one more wash cloth to throw in to the load, right?

Ditching the Sponge - Mr. Clean reusable wipes

Thus, I set out to find some good, inexpensive washclothes. A trip to Big Lots was beckoning! (Who am I kidding, even the tiniest excuse will do for a trip to Big Lots!) There, I found a set of ten washclothes for $5.00, which seemed to be an okay deal. (Mind you, I didn’t care about the color, but wanted that waffle-y texture appropriate for kitchen towels and washcloths.) However, on a whim and for no particular reason, I browsed by the cleaning section and came upon two things that caught my eye, and changed my mind completely: Mr. Clean Reusable Wiping Cloths and a six-pack of Mr Clean Reusable Wipes. Each pack was a buck each — in true frugal, OCD fashion, I snagged about four packs of each, and ditched the wash cloths all together!

Ditching the Sponge - Mr. Clean Wiping Cloth

Yes, their names are almost identical, but the thickness of wiping cloths seem to act more like a sponge, while the reusable wipes have the feel of a paper towel, but (almost) the durability of a washcloth. The wipes were also rather large (21″ x 11″), so I snipped each of them in half, and happily doubled my supply of them. I’ve put both through the washing machine, but not the dryer, and they both seemed to fair well so far. Neither retained their original shape, but I didn’t really expect them to.

It’s been a long journey in giving up The Sponge. Admittedly, I still have one in the “sponge drawer” of the kitchen, but I only use it for the floor. I’ve graduated away from a Counter Sponge and a Dish Sponge. So far, so good. While I don’t toss and wash daily, I do replace at least a few times a week, and the results have been good so far. As I mentioned earlier, I already have bibs and wash clothes thanks to The Toddler, so tossing in these reusable wipes has really been small potatoes.

Do I miss My Sponges? Nope. Not even the stinky smell they started emitting after sitting around for a while. Do my new reusable, machine-washable cloths work just as well? You bet! Are you a sponge-a-holic? I challenge you to find a green way to replace them! If you’re interested, I encourage you to try out the Mr. Clean wipes — I’ve still spotted them at Big Lots. If, however, you are not blessed with a Big Lots near by, or if B.L. simply isn’t your cup of tea, I’ve also seen them available on Amazon.

If you are a reformed Sponge User, or would like to be one, I’d love to hear about it. Please also feel free to share any other green household tips you’ve acquired over the years. :o)

Filed Under: frugal living Tagged With: evergreen

My Wish List

11/05/2010 by Barbara

**This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small amount of compensation when you purchase from my links, which I"ll totally blow on waffle fries and sweet tea, y'all!**

Is it sad that the TurbieTwist is the top item on my rather meager Xmas list?

…aside, of course, from a laptop. But that belongs on a different list. You know, the one that includes a pony, that *winning* lottery ticket, a butler, a maid, a poolboy (pool optional), a summer home in Hawaii, and perhaps a unicorn (but that might be pushing it).

P.S. The Turbie Twist is available at CVS for $4.99; a double pack is $7.99! 😉

**This post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click/purchase/sign up for this offer, I may receive a small amount of compensation for it.**

Filed Under: CVS, random ramblings

Printer Paper AND Saving Your Printer’s Ink

11/02/2010 by Barbara

**This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small amount of compensation when you purchase from my links, which I"ll totally blow on waffle fries and sweet tea, y'all!**

Okay, so the following is no secret, at all, but here are some things I’ve been doing for YEARS to save printer paper and ink! (Ink being rather expensive to purchase!!)

Printer Paper
You know all junk mail you get in snail mail? Flip it over. If it’s blank on the back, throw it in your printer’s paper tray! I keep a box for one-sided 8.5″x11″ papers. It’s filled with one-sided junk mail, as well as hundreds of miscellaneous other pieces of paper, only used once.

Think about it: for whom are you most likely printing? If the answer is yourself, or someone else in your household, then does it matter if there’s something unrelated on the back? Most likely not. You’ll have to play with your printer to see how to feed the paper in, as it may not work exactly the same as mine. For me, I place the paper in blank side down, and it rolls up and prints on the blank side.

Ink & Ink Cartridges
Oh, how I wish I had heard Clark Howard’s podcast discussing the evils of printers, their ink cartridges, and his solution!! Kodak printers: you pay more up front for the printer, but the cartridges are extremely inexpensive, compared to other brands…

I digress. Like many of us, you, too, may have been suckered in to buying the “cheap” printer, only to discover how it guzzles those expensive ink cartridges; thus, making your deal quite a dud. Did you know you can change the default settings on your printer, so that you use significantly less ink each time. Here’s how:

If you don’t wish to make these your printer’s default settings, you can elect to do “grayscale” and “fast draft” when you know you’re printing something that doesn’t need to be polished, if you will. The steps are the same as above, except you select “printing preferences” from the main print command screen that will come up when you wish to print. (Does that make a lick of sense???)

One more trick for saving your ink: smaller font size. Yep. You may have read about this as a tactic for universities to save thousands of dollars each year. It’s true! I’ve been doing this for years. (And doing the opposite to stretch those papers in college, but that’s a blog for another day…) The same is applicable for wider and longer margins: it’ll save you paper, particularly if you only have one or two lines on another page. Try it!

Finally, along those same lines, if you’re printing from a website, try highlighting the text you wish to print, and when you go to print, look for the “selection” or “selected text only” option.

P.S. Once you have empty ink cartridges, consider recycling them. There are tons of programs that offer incentives to recycle your empty cartridges; Office Depot, for example, will give you $3 towards your rewards when you turn in your empties.

Readers: do you have additional tips and tricks to add to this collection? I’d love to hear about them! :o)