Fun in the Mail This Week

So, instead of posting each measly little item I am sent in the mail each day by themselves, I have decided to post them weekly instead :) So, on Monday I received:

•  Dove Men+Care Body Wash Travel Size + $1 off coupon
• Dove Men+Care Deodorant Travel Size + $1 off coupon
• Celebrate Ham! Recipe Booklet
• Extra Dessert Delights Key Lime Pie Flavored Gum - 1 Pack

After all those, I didn't receive anything else until Thursday:

It was my only freebie in the mail, but it was better than any sample because it's a coupon for 1 completely free Glade Spring Collection Product up to $3.99. I requested this from Right@Home a while back, but I didn't know if I was one of the first 5000 or so to get it (they don't tell you when you sign up, they just thank you for applying). What a pleasant surprise!

Friday brought a sample of Jergens Ultra Healing Moisturizer and Overnight Repair Moisturizer samples that I requested a while back. Can't have too much lotion :)

What fun things have you gotten in the mail lately?

Planting the Love Fig

Three years ago when my husband got me to start my first garden, he bought me a small fig tree because I liked it. At the time, we were just dating and we constantly had a joke about the tree, saying that we had to keep it alive or our love would die with it (think How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days). So, we made sure to keep it well cared for on principal.

Recently, after changing its pot multiple times over the years, the fig has started to get some kind of brown spot illness and was looking too crowded in its latest pot. We knew it was time to plant it in the ground. But where to put it?

Nature gave us our answer when 3 weeks ago a freak storm caused by a nasty nor-easter brought a tornado to my in-laws' street and pretty much snapped all their big oak trees they planted over 20 years ago in half. So, as a gesture to replace what was lost in the storm and help the fig tree out at the same time, we asked if we could plant our little fig in Justin's parents' side pasture.

So, since we were going over to their house for Justin's sister's birthday anyway, we loaded up the fig and went a bit early to give our love fig a new home.

Our Love Fig :)

Doesn't Justin look so happy?

Gordo had to try and help out.

Now in it's new home :)

Justin and me with our fig.

So, now that our fig is in its permanent home, we can rest easy that it will have plenty of space and love. Not a bad nod for Earth Day this year ... we actually planted a tree!

Are You A L'Oréal Product Tester?

I signed up on a whim a while back to be a product tester for L'Oréal. It's been fairly simple. All I have to do is take the surveys when they email me to see if I am the demographic or skin type they need for their latest products. Sadly, I have never been what they needed :( I probably have taken at least 10 different surveys over the course of the last 5 months and I haven't made it into any studies.

So, why would I recommend this to you when I have never even made the cut? The perks. Even though I haven't actually done any testing for them, L'Oréal surprised me last week by sending this full sized product in the mail unexpectedly.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find this Vichy Aqualia Thermal Moisturizer with a letter thanking me for my participation in their surveys. I had never heard of this before and most of the box is in various Eastern European languages, but it is sold in the US also: Vichy US. This product sells for $29.95 and they gave it to me for not being what they need :) I have to say, it came just in time as my Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizer had just run out and I was having to shake it to get anything out each morning. I am completely in love with this product and I would probably buy it again when it runs out. 

Anyway, so the moral of this story is that you should always do your surveys! You never know what perks you may get in return and you are helping consumers around the world in the process. 

If you are interested in applying to be a L'Oréal Product Tester, just follow this link and fill out their questionnaire to see if you qualify. You won't regret that you did :)

Today's Collective Deals

So, I went to various stores throughout the day today, and instead of doing individual posts (snore), I decided to lump them all together :)

On my lunch break, I went to Publix to get a sandwich and had to take advantage of some deals while I was there.

• 4 Packs of Alexia Frozen French Bread, $3.39 B1G1 - Used two $1 off Any Alexia Product Printable coupons = $1.39 For 2 Packs
• 2 Progresso Tuscany Stock, in clearance section 2 for $2.59 (I love this stuff)
• Two Pack of GE Energy Smart Light Bulbs, on sale $4.99 - Used $1 off any GE Light Bulb coupon from 4/17 newspaper and the Earth Day Exclusive printable Publix coupon for $1 off GE Energy Smart two pack and 1 free reusable bag :) = $2.99 For 2 Bulbs and Reusable Bag

I also received a cute little key chain with a mini reusable bag on it. One side has the Publix logo and the other side says, "Don't forget to bring your reusable bags!" - Too Cute :)

As if these deals weren't good enough, I spotted a highly coveted item on my way out...

 The General Mills $15 Spring Savings Coupon Booklet!

Ahhh, look at all that free money :)

Inside this lovely booklet are coupons for:

• $1 off 2 Cheerios Cereals
• $1 off 1 Box of Kix Cereal
• $1 off 2 Fiber One Cereals
• $1 off 2 GM Cereals
• $1 off 8 Yoplait Yogurts
• $1 off 2 Chex Mix
• $1 off 2 Nature Valley Granola Bars
• $1 off 2 Yoplait Trix Yogurt or Gogurt
• $1 off 2 Betty Crocker Brownie or Dessert Bar Mixes
• $1 off 1 Box Bisquick
• $1 off 3 Hamburger Helper
• $1 off 2 Suddenly Salad Mixes
• $1 off 3 Old El Paso Products
• $1 off 3 Pillsbury Refrigerated Baked Goods
• $1 off 2 Pillsbury Frozen Products

All in all, these are some very useful coupons and they don't expire until 6/12. So, be on the lookout for this booklet! (I picked mine up at the Publix in Port St. John)

After Publix, I went across the street to Walgreens to pick up these:

• 9 Rolls of Scotch Magic Tape, $1.99 each - Used 9 $1 off Scotch Magic Tape printable coupons and 3 Buy 1 at $1.99, Get 2 Free coupons from the weekly Walgreens ad (had to do this in 3 separate transactions) = 9 For Free + $3.03 Overage
• 6 Chocolate Covered Peeps (I let my dad have one before I took the picture), 2 for $1.50 - Used three $1 off Any 2 Peeps Products printable coupons (had to use 2 computers) = 6 For Free
• 6 Cadbury Carmel Eggs, 2 for $1.50 - Used 2 For $1 coupon in weekly Walgreens ad = $3.00

So, while the Cadbury Eggs covered my overage, I still had tax on all the items, so I used a $1 Register Reward from last week and I only paid $0.11 for everything pictured here :)

*I did have some issues at Walgreens, as usual (my local Walgreens has very unfriendly cashiers when it comes to coupons). Hopefully you won't have my luck there. 

Hurry and print your coupons to snag these deals tomorrow as Saturday is the last day for most of these deals!

Register To Win One of These 11 "It" Bags on Style Find

As a BzzAgent, I am always excited about great products and deals, but nothing gets me quite as giddy as a giveaway - and how can it get better than an awesome bag giveaway!

Head over to Style Find and register for your chance to win one of these bags that were voted the "it" bags of the season by stylists and readers.

Today is the last day to enter, so you'd better hurry! If anyone wins, I will be very jealous, but please post a comment to brag to the rest of us :)

While your there, check out everything that Style Find has to offer. You can search the latest fashions and even find where to buy them and for how much! How sweet is that? :)

Saving Money - Plant A Garden

I figured I would post this today in honor of Earth Day :)

I am a very avid gardener and have been for 3 years now. My husband (then boyfriend) started me on it and helped a girl with a black thumb produce tomatoes, eggplants, okra, black eyed peas, and many many herbs in my parent's back yard.

Fast forward to now, with 2 full garden plantings under my belt and various potted plants in between, we now have the best looking and most productive garden yet :)

 This is our vegetable garden :) We live in a small condo with a small back yard, so along the fence was the only place we could put it. It is 24 feet long and 2 feet deep, but in it we have as many plants as we could reasonably fit. The left starts with onions, then peppers and cherry tomatoes. The center bed is full of herbs (I am a big user of fresh herbs). The right bed is completely full of tomatoes. The pot at the right end is a camellia with juniper at the base.

Cherry Tomatoes

Beef Steak Tomatoes

The Tomato Bed

Golden Summer Sweet Yellow Peppers

Oregano

Pomegranate

Midnight Butterfly Bush

Daisy Gardenia

So, there is a little highlight reel of my garden :) I just wanted to put this up here to show that you really can garden anywhere. We have very limited space, but we have 20 tomato plants (3 in pots), 12 pepper plants, 12 different herbs, two camellia trees, a fig tree, a dwarf pomegranate tree and several vines and bushes (confederate jasmine, winter blooming jasmine, midnight butterfly bush, daisy gardenia, amaryllis, gladiolas, freesia, and mosquito geranium. Even typing it, this sounds like I must have a lot of space, but really it is a very small yard.

The really neat thing about a garden are all the personal benefits, and I'm not just talking about all the green movement good things like eliminating carbon footprints and whatnot. While those are obviously good things, gardening also is rewarding in a way that very few things are. It is a great feeling to know that the only reason that these plants exist is because you put the there and took care of them. I honestly can't fully describe what makes gardening so great. It really is something you just have to experience for yourself.

Another little perk if you have kids: If you ever want to get your kids to eat a certain vegetable, there is no better way than to grow it with them and let them see the growing process. Just a side note :)

If you want a deal to get you started on gardening with your kids, take a look at this offer from Auntie Annie's. IF you buy two Annie's products, you can request a free kid's gardening gift pack.

Or if you would like to start a garden of your own, here is a nice offer from Burpee Seeds. Click this link and fill out your info for a Free Vegetable Gardening Guide. It's a digital download they send to your email and it's full of tips and advice for beginning and intermediate gardeners. 

Anyway, if you have any gardening questions, I would be happy to take a stab at answering them or helping you find the answer if I don't know it. Just ask and I will see what I can do :) I hope we all can do just a little bit, like starting our own home garden, to help make our world a little better for the following generations. I know it sounds hokey, but it really is important and we should do whatever we can to help. Just one small gesture, like gardening or recycling, if done by us all, we would fix so many of the problems we now face.

Please do your part to make the world a better place :)

Target Trip

Well, I have to say, I was a bit disappointed by tonight's Target trip. I had a whole list and all the coupons ready to get a lot more things for free, but they didn't have about half of the items I wanted :(

But, I still walked away with these:

• 3 Degree Men's Deodorant, $1.97 each - Used $1 off Degree Men's of Women's Manufacturer Coupon + $1 off Degree Men's of Women's Target coupon = $0.09 Overage
• Air Wick White Lily and Orchid Scent 2 Pack of Refills with Free Scented Oil Warmer, on clearance for $4.24 - Used $1 off Air Wick Refills coupon = $3.24 (I just really like this scent).
• KY Original - $5.12 - Used $2 coupon = $3.12
• Revlon Nail Clipper with Case, $2.24 - Used Target $2 off Any Revlon Beauty Tool = $0.24
• 2 PowerBar Iron Girl Energy Bars, $1.19 each - Used B1G1 Free printable coupon = $1.19 for both
• Sour Patch Kids, price cut to $1.50 - Used $0.50 off Sour Patch kids Target coupon = $1.00
• 2 Skittle Blenders, $0.69 each - Used $1 off 2 Skittle Blenders Target Coupon + $0.50 off 2 Skittles Products manufacturer coupon = Both For Free
• Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bliss Bars, on clearance for $0.68 each

My total for all 13 items was $11.53, but I had a $5 gift card from purchasing The King's Speech on Bluray earlier this week, so I only paid $6.53 for everything.

All in all, this wasn't a terrible trip, but I accidentally left a few coupons I needed at home and I still have more Nivea Body Wash coupons, but the store was out. Oh well, I will get me freebies next week, I guess :)

Late Night Walmart Trip

Ok, so I think by now everyone is aware that I'm slightly insane. If you didn't know that already, you will now. I had stayed up late last night trying to get my coupons in order after our ridiculous take from coupon hunting on Tuesday night. It's honestly daunting. I clipped and clipped so much the tip of my right ring finger went numb and it still hasn't recovered. After clipping for a few hours, I decided I needed to go use some of them to renew my vigor and, since I was still awake, decided to go to Walmart.

Now, understand, normally I avoid Walmart at all costs for many reasons. I'm really just not a fan of them in general, on principal and on price. Walmart advertises that their prices are the lowest, ok technically if you count that Target sells something for $2.99 and Walmart sells it for $2.98, then ok, sure. Personally I don't show so much for regular priced items, I follow the sales, which Walmart doesn't really have like other stores do. I prefer places that do Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sales, etc. Oh, and don't ever buy milk at Walmart! They have almost the most expensive milk around at any given time.

Anyway, tangent. The only reason I decided to go to Walmart was that it was 1:30 in the morning. No other stores are open then and it would be almost completely devoid of other customers, leaving me as much space as I wanted to do my shopping.

So, what deals could lure me out at 1:30 am? These could:

The only thing in this picture that wasn't free or cheaper than free was the Operation Game. I paid $2 for that after my printable coupon for $3 off any Operation game. Well, the game (which was the last one on the shelf) was on sale for $5, making it cost me $2 after the coupon. What about everything else?

• 2 Nivea For Men Cool Body Washes - $3 each at Walmart + 2 coupons in 4/17 newspaper for $3 off Any Nivea Men Body Wash = 2 For Free
• 4 Nivea Women's Body Wash - 3 Touch of Smoothness and 1 Touch of Sparkle - $3 each at Walmart + 4 coupons in 4/17 newspaper for $3 off Any Nivea Women's Body Wash = 4 For Free
• 2 Black Flag 4 packs of Fly Paper - $0.98 each + 2 coupons in 4/10 newspaper for $1 off Any Black Flag Product = $0.04 Overage
• 1 Reach Floss - $0.88 + printable coupon for $1 off Any Reach Floss = $0.12 Overage
• 1 Single Load Tide Detergent (from travel section) - $0.97 + $1 off Any Tide coupon from P&G coupon booklet = $0.03 Overage

So, if we add it all together, my total was $1.81, so I paid $1.92 for all 11 items shown :) I'd say that's worth a little late night trip to a store I don't like, wouldn't you? :)

*What makes this purchase even better is that Hasbro has a mail in rebate to receive a Free Tombstone Pizza for any game purchased through 4/30 and you can redeem up to 5 games. This will be my 4th game I've submitted, so this whole purchase will have included a Tombstone Pizza (up to $7.01 value) in the long run :)

Fantabulous Food! Megan's Excellent Grilled Cheese

I LOVE to cook and bake, so periodically there will be posts called Fantabulous Food to share recipes to entice you :) I figured I would start these off with my favorite lunch:

Megan's #1 Grilled Cheese
My husband is a huge fan of grilled cheese, so whenever we can't decide what to eat, usually that's what he suggests. As you can imagine, after having grilled cheese so many times, one begins to wish for something a bit different; thus, I toyed around with the traditional 2-pieces-of-buttered-bread-with-a-slice-of-cheese and came up with what is now my favorite thing to have for lunch (or anytime I don't feel like cooking dinner).

Ingredients:
2 Slices Pepperidge Farm Farmhouse Soft Sourdough Bread
Light Miracle Whip
1 Wedge of Laughing Cow Light French Onion Cheese
1 Slice of Turkey
1 or 2 Slices of American Cheese Singles

Obviously, this is just my A-Team of ingredients, but you could make this sandwich with different bread or with no meat, or sometimes I add a slice of ham... it doesn't really matter. The most important part of the recipe is the French Onion Cheese and the Miracle Whip.

1. Spread desired amount of Miracle Whip on one slice of bread.

2. Spread a little over half of the French Onion Cheese Wedge on the other slice of bread.

3. Evenly distribute cheese slice around one piece of bread. I like to tear the cheese and fill in the slice of bread to make sure I get a good amount of cheese in each bite. Place slice of turkey on the other piece of bread. Put bread together so cheese and meat are touching (this may seem ridiculous, but you never know who may be reading).

 4. Warm a pan on the stove on med-low and spray with olive oil (I prefer to use that instead of butter to cut down the calories, and it really is good). I use a Mister Misto Sprayer. It's a very useful item :)

 5. Put your sandwich in the pan on the side with the cheese. This way, the cheese gets nice and melted. Cook until cheese is melted and bread is slightly browned. Turn over and brown the other side of the bread.

6. Serve and enjoy :) I like to get a few tortilla chips to use up my remaining French Onion Cheese.

...mmMMMmmm... Look at that melty goodness :) So, there you go. A nice simple recipe to try out that you will not regret. Personally my favorite method is on a panini press, but I showed it on the stove since most folks probably don't have one of those lying around - thank you wedding gifts :)

Hopefully this isn't too ridiculous that I would put up a recipe for grilled cheese. I promise there will be much more impressive ones to come later, so just enjoy this in the meantime.

Sweet Groupon Deal!

Ok, so I know I am very behind on my blogging, but in my defense, it was my 2 year wedding anniversary :) So, I will be posting several catch-up blogs tomorrow :)

Anyway, I had to post this quick since it's only good for today. Head over to Groupon and select Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota to get this big box of General Mills items shipped to your door for $20. When you divide it all out, that makes each item $1.66, which is good, but the best part is that it says it comes with a "Coupon book for extra savings," so this could turn into a very profitable deal indeed :) 


The box comes with: 

• 12.8 ounce Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal
• 13 ounce Reese's Puffs cereal
• 12 ounce Kix cereal
• 12.8 ounce Cascadian Farms Organic cereal
• 5.8 ounce Fiber One 90-Calorie Chewy Bars
• 5.8 ounce Hamburger Helper
• 11 ounce Green Giant Corn Niblets
• 9.5 ounce Old El Paso Tortilla Stuffers
• 5 ounce Fruit Roll-Ups
• 10.5 ounce Chex Mix Muddy Buddies snack mix
• 17.5 ounce Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie mix
• 13.7 ounce Wanchai Ferry Orange Chicken dinner kit

If you aren't familiar with Groupon, you should definitely check it out. Every day, they list different deals in your area. Most are for local businesses and restaurants, but every now and then, they list some for websites or national chains, like the General Mills deal. I've bought groupons for Redbox, Blockbuster, Barnes and Noble, and Blurb, just to name a few. You don't have to stick to your city either. You can search all other cities around the US and see who has the online deals :)


So, if you like General Mills products and want a sweet deal delivered to your door, sign up for Groupon and make it happen! 

Publix Freebie

Well, my Publix finally had this in stock for me to take advantage of the deal:

Publix had an instore coupon that if you buy any Right Guard Deodorant, you get any Right Guard Body Wash Free! I've been checking the store every time I go grocery shopping, but they're been out of stock on the body wash until today. This was very lucky as the coupon expired on 4/22.

Just a little something to add to my storage :)

CVS Freebies

So, this week's Sunday-Tuesday ECB deal was one I couldn't pass up. I mean, why not get it when it's free, right?

The ECBs are given back to the full price of select items each week, but only for a few days. So, I bought PAAS Easter Egg Decorating Kit and Easter Grass and received ECBs for the full value back, $1.98 and $0.99.

Also, in honor of Earth Day, the Leaf Tags for reusable bags will give you your money back in ECBs, but only on 2 tags. So, you pay $0.99 each and get $0.99 ECB back. These tags absolutely pay for themselves though, as every 4th time you use a reusable bag in CVS and have your leaf tag scanned, you will get $1 in ECBs back. So, depending on how often you go to the store, you could really end up with some decent money with this one :) I only bought my first bag tag a week ago and I already got my first $1 ECB from it!

Designer Whey Giveaway

I just figured I would share the info that Designer Whey will be having a giveaway for their Faceboook fans on Wednesday, April 20 at 4pm Eastern Time. Now, you will only be eligible if you are a fan already at the time of the giveaway, so I suggest heading to their Faceboook page now and just click "like" in the upper bar.

I got one of their giveaways once before and they sent me a free protein bar with a coupon! Also, check out this link for a sweet coupon!

Good luck!