My shopping trips

Healthy Couponing: It IS Possible!

by Alissa on January 12, 2012

I’m so excited to share the two deals I scored yesterday on cereal!

One of the most common misconceptions I hear about couponing is that there are no coupons for the “healthy stuff” I normally buy. I just wanted to share my experience that, while you may have to look a little harder sometimes, there are great deals to be had on healthy and even organic items.

So, if you’re in the PA area and have a Giant PA nearby, be sure to check out these two deals (good through Saturday):

Deal #1: Buy any four Kashi GoLean cereals and get $4 off a 64-oz. carton of Nature’s Promise Organic milk

Deal Scenario:
- Buy 2 boxes of Kashi GoLean (any variety) — $6.00
- Buy 2 boxes of Kashi GoLean Crisp – Cinnamon Crumble  – $6.00
- Buy 64-oz carton of Nature’s Promise organic milk (this was located in the organic section of my store, not near the regular milk) – $3.59
- Use (2) $1/1 box of any Kashi GoLean coupons
- Use (2) $1/1 box of Kashi GoLean Cinnamon Crumble coupons
- $4 off Nature’s Promise organic milk (comes off automatically at checkout)
TOTAL: $7.59 for FOUR boxes of Kashi and 1 64-oz Nature’s Promise milk

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Deal #2: Buy 4 boxes of participating General Mills cereals, get $4 off instantly at the register and a $4.50 coupon toward a gallon of milk (next visit).

Deal Scenario:
- Buy 4 boxes of Cascadian Farm granola (located in the organic section, not with the regular cereal) – $3.99 each
- Use TWO of the $1/2 Cascadian Farm granola coupons – peelies found on the boxes in the store
- Get $4 off instantly at checkout
TOTAL: $9.96 for 4 boxes of organic granola PLUS a $4.50 coupon for a gallon of milk on your next visit!

I did a combination of the above — and my cashier also had FOUR $1 doubler coupons as well — so my grand total was just $14.55 for the items in the photo above! I paid less than $15 for FOUR boxes of organic granola, FOUR boxes of Kashi and organic milk — plus I have a coupon for $4.50 off my next gallon of milk. So exciting — and the $1 doubler coupons were a surprise, so make sure you ask your cashier if he or she has any available!

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Don’t have a Giant PA near you? There’s also a good deal at Target this week on Kashi, using those Kashi coupons!

National Target deal:

Kashi GoLean is on sale for $2.75 each, so each box is just $1.75 with those $1 printable Kashi coupons. Remember you can hit the back button on your browser and print each one twice! Great deal for a very healthy, whole grain cereal.

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Shopping for Dog Treats #ILoveMyK9 #CBias

by Alissa on January 9, 2012

I recently was selected to shop for Milk-Bone® dog treats at Wal-mart.

I don’t know who was more excited… me or this guy.

"This IS my excited face."

OK, so I think I was a little more excited to do the actual shopping. He’ll be more excited to do the eating. Sounds about right.

Before I went on my solo mission (yay for an hour at the store by myself), I made a list of what I wanted to shop for. Not a very long list, but good to have the reminders anyway.

Then I did a quick online check to see if I could find any coupons. And there actually was a coupon on the Milk-Bone® site!

Unfortunately, after repeated attempts, I wasn’t able to get the coupon to print. :( My printer is still new, but has been working intermittently, so I’m guessing that may have been the problem. Either way, I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to take advantage of it on this trip.

Awesome high-value coupon

When I got to the store, I went straight to the pet section. I wanted to make sure they had everything I needed at that store before I did the rest of my shopping.

The pet section was well-marked and for the most part, the prices were easy to find.

And get this… there was even a coupon on one of the boxes of Milk-Bone® treats! Total score! Especially after I had trouble printing the one I found online. This was another high-value coupon: $2 off when you purchase the Milk-Bone treats and any Pup-Peroni treats or Milo’s Essentials treats.

We always try to find healthy treats for Luke, as much as possible. Especially when he was a young puppy and we were doing lots of training with him, it was especially important to us to find healthy alternatives. He was getting a LOT of those treats, so we wanted to make sure they were good for him. The more natural ingredients, the better. Now that he’s getting older (is he really almost 8 already? Amazing!), he’s already pretty well trained, so his treats are mostly that… occasional treats.

With these treats, though, we’re planning on working on him with a problem behavior or two. In general, he’s an awesome dog. He’s gentle with the kids, which is so very important to us.

But most days he thinks he’s a lap dog. A 50-pound lap dog. So we’re going to work with him a bit on respecting people’s personal space.

Lofty goals, I know.

Hey, Milk-Bone®, you ready?

Take a look at my entire shopping trip here:

How do you shop for your pets? Do you pay attention to ingredients?

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This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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After-Christmas Clearance Finds

by Alissa on December 28, 2011

I haven’t done a ton of after-Christmas clearance shopping, but I did hit a couple stores. Here’s what I found:

Target:

I didn’t pick up much at Target this year. I’m actually still pretty well-stocked on wrapping paper and gift bags, but we were in dire need of tissue paper, so I found some to pack away for next year. We may also keep one of the packs out for crafts throughout the year.

One of my favorite places to shop for clearance items post-Christmas is the stocking stuffer area (found in the Christmas section). I scored pretty big there this year – a couple Fisher-Price Zoo Talker animals (my daughter received the Little People Zoo Talkers set from Santa this year) and Webkinz reindeer for just $2.50 each! My kids both love Webkinz and frankly, would be happy with a reindeer all year-round.

Another thing I found was this 4 mini-loaf cake pan. Perfect for baking banana bread as gifts! It was only $5 and is made by Wilton, so I know it’ll be durable.

HomeGoods:

I actually didn’t expect to find much here, but I was on the lookout for an iPod speaker (no luck) and, of course, couldn’t help but browse the entire rest of the store.

After talking myself down from buying the most beautiful desk I’ve ever seen… I happened across these Cars 2 cakelet pans! And cookie cutters! Straight from Williams-Sonoma (still has the WS tags on them!). In fact, they’re still being sold over at Williams-Sonoma for $10 more than I paid for them. (Just search Cars 2 to see the cakelet pan and the cookie cutters.) The cakelet pan was marked for just $20 (reg. $40) and the cookie cutter set was $10 (reg. $20).

Every year I make the kids their birthday cakes, and this will be perfect for my son’s party this summer. I plan to use these on top of a flat cake, made to look like a racetrack. I can’t wait to see his face – and now this gives me some time to practice!

Have you found anything fun at the after-Christmas sales?

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