Coupon Mail Train

I have been reading about a great way to get coupons and have found some friends and family to help me give this a try. Would love to get more people involved so if anyone reading this is interested please let me know.

Right now we are starting off with 4 people, Greta, Brenda, Gina and myself. That is our circle. The plan is that I will clip a bunch of coupons and put them in a business envelope and I will mail them to Greta, she will go through the coupons and take out any that she would like to keep. She will then add in some more.. about the same amount she took about. It is not important here that the Same amount are added.. we do not want to have to use more than one stamp so we want to keep it about the same or a little less. About 60 regular newspaper type coupons is about an ounce, which is one stamp.. anything over that and it is 64 cents up to 2 ounces.. over 2 ounces it changes to 84 cents. Then she will mail it to the next person on the list, Brenda, who will do the same and so on until it is mailed back to me.

If we always take out expired ones and we are always adding new ones it should cycle through and have new coupons each time it gets to each of us. We do need to be sure that we keep it moving... since the coupons do expire. I am hoping that each of the people involved with this will take a moment to post a comment here ( at the bottom of the page ) and let us know what type of coupons you are looking for, certain brands or items. That way we can all keep our eyes open for each other and this could work really well.

Since we are all new to this and there are no real rules.. please let me know if we need to change how anything works.. you can always get a hold of me on twitter, facebook. email, phone, or leave a comment here on the blog :) If you want in on this.. just get me your mailing address and I will add you into the circle.

*I have done some looking into sending expired coupons to the troops and have talked with a friend who is stationed in Germany and I am going to be sending all of them to them to use so no need to take out the expired ones.. I will take care of that when the envelope comes back around :)

Store Coupon Policy links

Out Sailing on the Water

Friday was a beautiful day, warm and windy.. perfect for sailing! We left early and picked up Dave's son and then down the street we picked up his parents. Off we headed to the water. Dave's dad loves to sail, has his own boat but it has not been in the water for a few years and needs a little TLC (which it will be getting over the winter) His dad is having some health issues and one thing we have learned over the years is that it is not a good idea to wait to do things you really want to do and to share them with people who you really love. We have been talking about going sailing with his dad and with john for years... the time was Friday.

The only sail boat I have ever really seen was Steve's ( Dave's dad) his is 25 feet and well.. to me.. it is a sail boat.. that is about all I know. When I booked the charter for Friday I booked it on a 33 foot sail boat.. I figured it would be huge.. like a yacht or something.. well I was totally clueless. It was a lot longer than Steve's.. but the sitting area was not any bigger.. in fact it is smaller.. was a bit of a crowded trip but we all like each other so that was ok.

We ended up powering up to Langley because it was too windy and the captain said we would all end up soaking wet and maybe sea sick.... well we ended up soaking wet anyway but it was still fun. We had a wonderful lunch in Langley at the Braeburn and I loved it. The food was wonderful, the service was great, the building was fun .. We will go back there for sure! There was a street fair going on right outside the windows so we were able to watch people and sit and visit while having lunch.. was a great time. On the way back we were able to sail.. I have to say.. getting the sails up and ready to go was a bit nerve wracking.. both sails were not really ready to go.. they were twisted and it was a bit of a mess.. twice the boom went flying almost knocking people off the boat.. but once they were up and we were on our way it was wonderful. Made some good time on the way back too.. 10.3 knots was the fastest we went.. ( on the way there we only went like 3.5) But it did not seem very fast.. the wind was with us and the water was beautiful, the sun was warm and it was so quiet.

On the way up to Langley Steve was in charge of the tiller (?) I have no clue.. I just know it is not called a wheel.. and in this case it really looks just like a stick so I am not sure. On the way back Dave and John did the raising ( not pulling ) of the sails and that sort of thing.. I am seriously going to have to learn a whole new language here. John and I had not been on a sail boat before and both of us are ready to be on one again ASAP.. we can't wait to get dads all fixed up and maybe even go out for a long weekend in it.

Not only was the sailing wonderful but the very best thing about Friday was the time spent with people I care so much about. So many smiles and hugs and happy memories. It will be a day I will never forget and that I will always treasure. I hope to have a lot more of these days to make memories like this with these people and with the rest of my family and friends too. It is important to remember that we never know what will happen tomorrow and we need to live each day to the fulliest and to share our love and smiles and to care for each other before we are gone.

This picture wraps up the whole day for me. Everyone smiling.. and in one picture! These guys almost never smile.

No Sugar Cheese Cake

Added a few extra berries here... it is my favorite part :)


I made this last Thursday.. super easy and simple and it taste great. I made a half recipe and put it in a pie pan with a thin graham cracker crust. I did not have any fruit in the cheese cake itself.. just fresh berries on top. I also did not add the butter to the cheese cake but used a little with the cracker crumbs. Cut it in 8 pieces and figured out the math so that each piece (minus berries on top) was about 150 calories. The full recipe says it makes 12 servings.

Cheese cake recipe from HCG liquid diet Phase three recipe (lots more recipes at the link too)

• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups Plain Yogurt Plain Greek yogurt is good!
• 1 tablespoon Stevia
• 16 ounces cream cheese Softened
• 2 tablespoons butter melted

Directions

In a large bowl, blend together eggs, vanilla, sour cream and stevia. Slowly add butter and cream cheese. Spoon about 1/2c mix into another bowl and add raspberry flavoring (sugar free, any flavor) Mix well. Spoon remaining mix into a 10 inch spring release pan or 12 ramekins.(see photo) Add dollops of raspberry batter on top and swirl thru. If desired, you can make a crust from 1 1.2 cups ground almonds, 1/4 cup splenda and 1/4 butter. Mix all together like you would graham cracker crust and line pan or ramekins. (calculations do not include crust) Bake in 350 degree oven for 20-25 min if cooking ramekins, 35-40 min for spring pan. This will not look done, but will firm up when refrigerated. Place ramekins in a water bath or place a shallow pan with water in overn below the pan or ramekins. Garnish with fresh raspberries and whipped cream if desired (not included in counts) This can be frozen. Number of Servings: 12

I let it cool a bit then put it in the fridge.. I got busy and forgot to cover it and it sinked down and cracked a bit.. next time I will cover right away.. and eat the next day.. we ended up not eating it until Saturday night.. it had dried out a bit too much.. but was still good :)

Price Matching and Coupons

Yesterday I went grocery shopping and ventured into the land of price matching. It went really well.. I saved about $5 on produce. I also had some coupons I wanted to use and I ended up saving about $7 dollars with those. It was a nice time to give this all a try, the store was pretty quiet and empty.. no lines for checkers :) I did learn.. do not go to the line that sells tobacco. Even though it is not a quick check lane.. It is the only lane that sells tobacco and even though it went ok I am thinking if there had been people in the store it could have been stressful. My checker acted a little put out.. well she started with clueless and then went to put out... but I just kept smiling at her and pretending like I knew what I was doing.. and she got the job done.

I made my grocery list, on two different pages ... all the produce on one page, since we get a lot of that and I knew I would be price matching what I could there. Then everything else on another page. I put little stars next to items with coupons and ones that I price matched. Next time I will give coupon items a star and then items I price matched I will circle. As I got to the item on my list I would pull out the coupon and decide if I wanted to use it. I refuse to buy a brand name because I have a coupon if I can get the store brand cheaper. I only used about half the coupons I had hoped to use. I did however score $1.50 off coupon for the cat food, there was a pile of them sitting next to the food so I grabbed a couple. I did end up having to buy a huge bag of cat food and bag of liter not because of the coupons but because the store was out of the smaller bags.. I now have about a 6 month supply.

All in all it was a good experience, I like the price matching at Walmart.. super easy to do.. I just gathered up all the adds locally and went through pricing things on my list.. anything on sale for a good deal I made a note of... then when I was shopping at Walmart I checked to see if the other ads were cheaper.. some of them were a LOT cheaper, Walmart cauliflower was $1.89 and my local store had it for .79 cents I grabbed a couple of those.. onions were about half the price and apples were 30 cents cheaper a lb. I made sure and kept all the price matched items in the front of the cart and when I got to the check stand I told her right away I wanted to price match those items and pulled out the flyers... she sort of rolled her eyes but she did it :)

My Giveaway Wins

I read today someone posted about how much they had won in the last year and I have been signing up like crazy and have already won one item. I decided to start a list of things I win and how I win them.. giveaway, or contest or however it is, and their value. That way I can come back in a year and see how I have done :) This will be an ongoing list.. much easier here online then I do not lose the paper I write it all on.

Date ~ Item won ~ How it was won ~ Value

9/7/11 ~ HCG Kit ~ Twitter RT contest ~ $97

9/20/11 ~ HCG Strength Training for Phase 3 ~ Survey ~ $20

9/21/11 ~ Envelope full of coupons ~ Giveaway at Mommy Likes Deals ~ Value depends

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Coupons for Free stuff, ones I sign up for on the web and they mail me.

Two ( one for me and one for Dave ) free Hershey chocolate bars

Free gallon of ice cream

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Free stuff, samples, they mail to me.

Granola bar from kashi

Dove body mist from Walmart

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