Queen Mother Blog

It's a little late (seeing as we already ate our Monday night meal, lol) & not too exciting, but I wanted to go ahead and get a MPM post up this week, since I am determined to be back on track this week :D

Monday- Grilled chicken teriyaki

Tuesday- Bringing a freezer meal to my sister's place (remember, she just had a baby!) - We'll eat it together

Wednesday- My old stand-by, Springtime Pasta (here is the link to an old MPM where I list this, the easiest recipe ever)

Thursday- Pork Chops with apple stuffing (I can't find this online to link up, it's in the Pillsbury Pot Pies & Casseroles book that is in stores now)

Friday- Beef enchilada stack (also in the Pillsbury book; if these recipes are worthwhile I'll take pics and blog about them)

Saturday- Out!

Sunday- Burgers/dogs on the grill

Check out the other menu plans over at Menu Plan Monday!

I love TGIFriday's Buy one meal get one free coupons! Here's another one, this one is good through September 7th. Click here to print it

It was like I got paid $14.62 to take home the groceries you see in the picture!

It has been ages & ages since I put up a Works for me Wednesday post. Seriously, at least 6 months if not longer. In that time WFMW moved itself on over to a different blog, but still has all the awesome tips you know and love. I still read a lot of them and every week I think "what could I put for WFMW this week?" and apparently nothing works for me anymore and time slips on.

This was one of my first ever WFMW topics, but I just had to mention it again because it is blowing up and working for me like crazy in the last couple of weeks: Paperback Swap!

You join Paperback Swap and list ten books that you don't mind getting rid of. Just for listing your books, they will give you two credits, so you can choose any two books in the system that you want. The person who has the book you want, ships it to you, it costs you a credit. When someone requests one of your books, you ship it to them, you earn a credit. So yes, there is postage involved, but everything else is free.

Since I've joined, I still pretty much never buy books. I've gotten cookbooks, biographies, best-sellers, etc. It is not just for paperbacks, either, I like to request hardcovers whenever I can.

I also signed up for their sister sites, Swap-a-dvd & Swap-a-cd, because you can transfer the credits between them. I have since gotten rid of a bunch of dvds that were collecting dust, and transferred those credits to PBS to get more books. The reason why it has been "blowing up" for me the last couple of weeks is tons of books that I had been wishing for were suddenly coming up ready for me to request. Today I just got Love is a Mix Tape, which I've been wanting to read for a while, and The Biggest Loser cookbook (which I so need) is on its way to me now.

Another way to earn credits is to refer friends. So if you want to check out Paperback Swap, here is a button. And if you would like to put me as your referrer, my user id is rms33--& I know it will work for you too! :D

First, if you are new to working deals at Acme, please read the background info on this post. This will explain how the coupons double & how to print two copies of the printable coupons.

First, if you are new to working deals at Acme, please read the background info on this post. This will explain how the coupons double & how to print two copies of the printable coupons.

Wow! I actually have an Acme post this week :D And can you believe that I'm actually not complaining about the deals this week? It seems like there's going to be some great sales on the horizon for back to school, which makes me very happy!

First, I caught on Moms Need to Know this post about a really great deal that Kraft is doing in conjunction with Acme (pretty much $25 of free groceries!), so check the list of participating items here and try to hold off on buying those until this deal starts on Friday.

Ok--here's the best deal scenario of them all, and the best thing is that you can do this really well with just printable coupons. So send this post to your non-coupon-clipping friends and they can do it too!

There's a Catalina promo for Unilever and General Mills products where you buy $30 of participating products and you will get a $15 Catalina (register) coupon for your next shopping order. Take note that you can only earn one of these $15 Catalinas per transaction, so if you are interested in doing this deal more than once you will need to do more than one transaction. Also, the best part about these deals is that the $30 you need to spend is before coupons, so you will really spend much less and still get the $15 coupon! :)

Check the pullout page for the complete list of participating products, but tons of these items have both circular coupons and printable coupons available on Coupons.com and Smartsource.com right now. Here is one example scenario for you with coupons all currently available on Coupons.com:

• Buy one bag of regular Chex mix and one bag of chocolate Chex mix at $1.66 each. Use one of each $0.50 off printable - there is one for regular and one for chocolate ($0.50 off will double to $1 off). Total credit toward $30 = $3.32 - Total price after coupons = $1.32
• Buy three boxes of Hamburger, Tuna or Asian helper at $1.50 each. Use one of the $0.75 off 3 boxes printable (coupon will double to $1.50 off). Total credit toward $30 = $4.50 - Total price after coupons = $3
• Buy one Macaroni Grill dinner kit. Use the $1.10 off one printable. Total credit = $3.99 - Total price after coupon = $2.89
• Buy two Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters. Use the $1 off coupon. Total credit = $2.50 - Total price after coupon = $1.50
• Buy two boxes of Kix cereal and print two of the $0.75 off one coupons ($0.75 coupon will double to $1.50 off). Total credit = $4 - Total price after coupons = $1
• Buy two boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and print two of the $0.55 off one coupons (will double to $1.10 each). Total credit = $4 - Total price after coupons = $1.80
• Buy two boxes of Betty Crocker fruit snacks and print two of the $0.40 off coupons (will double to $0.80 each). Total credit = $4 - Total price after coupons = $2.40
• Buy two boxes of Betty Crocker shaped fruit snacks and print the $0.50 off two coupon (will double to $1 off). Total credit = $4 - Total price after coupon = $3
• Buy one BC cake mix at $1 and one can of BC frosting at $1.50. There is a coupon that requires you to buy both and take $0.50 off (will double to $1 off). Total credit = $2.50 - Total price after coupon = $1.50
• Buy one box of Fiber One snack bars at $2.50 and print the $0.40 off one coupon (will double to $0.80 off). Total credit = $2.50 - Total price after coupon = $1.70

In my scenario here, you will have met the $30 purchase quota ($31.31) and the final price you really pay after coupons is $17.41. Then at the end of the transaction, the $15 Catalina coupon will print out, pretty much making it $2.41 for all of those groceries! Of course you can modify this deal based on what you need or use and the final total may vary a little bit. But especially if you do this deal before your weekly shopping (if you have that kind of time, lol) you can head right back into the store and use the $15 coupon for the rest of your groceries and really lower how much you spend out of pocket on one day.

The other deals for the week:

There is another Catalina deal where you purchase $20 in Proctor & Gamble products get a $5 Catalina coupon for your next purchase. Check the circular for all of the participating products (Charmin, Bounty, Puffs, etc.), but there are coupons available in the P&G Brandsaver insert from Sunday's paper.

Kellogg's Pop-Tarts 8 ct. are on sale 5 for $5 (must buy five!). There was a Kellogg coupon insert in Sunday's paper that had two coupons to use here, one for $1 on any 2 Pop-Tarts and a $1 on any 2 Blueberry muffin or Chocolate banana split. Use them both and get 5 boxes of Pop-Tarts for $3. That's only $0.60 each!

Eggo Waffles 10 ct. are buy one get one free at around $3.59 each. There is a $1 off 2 coupon in the Kellogg insert making two boxes $1.30 each.

Finally, there's a bunch of buy one get one free deals throughout the circular and on the back page. These include Tyson Chicken strips, Herr's Tortilla chips, Oscar Meyer bacon, Hatfield deli ham, and more.

Find any awesome deals or have a question? Leave it in the comments!