Queen Mother Blog

Five...five dollar...five dollar magazine subscriptions! Ok, I love that Subway jingle way too much! I look for excuses to say five dollars!

I think magazine subscriptions make great Christmas gifts, especially for those on your list that are far away (no shipping on your part!). Hearst magazines is offering a holiday special for $5 subscriptions to these magazines:

• Cosmopolitan
• Country Living
• Esquire
• Food Network magazine
• Good Housekeeping
• Harper's Bazaar
• House Beautiful
• Marie Claire
• O, The Oprah Magazine
• Popular Mechanics
• Redbook
• Seventeen
• Smart Money
• Town & Country
• Veranda

You can learn more or sign up here. I think that's a really great deal. I found this offer on Money Saving Mom's site & thought it was too good not to pass along.

Love, Bay

For years I have heard people talk about Aldi, but I have never ventured into one. Recently, I found out that my friends Dylan & Stephanie really love Aldi. The fact that someone I know personally shopped there made me feel a little more open to trying it. After Dylan's whole-hearted endorsement, I finally went yesterday in the name of 'blog research'.

What is Aldi?
It is a discount grocery store that carries almost entirely generic products. They don't just take the 'no frills' attitude with the products, they are sparse with their features (no bakery, no deli, etc.) & even require you to put a quarter in the cart & bring your own bags. If no one told you to bring your own bags, ahem, you can buy them for a few cents each. I remember that paper bags were 6 cents each, because I thought I was buying three, but my cashier never charged for them. Oops!

Are the prices really that good?
Yes. The prices are very low! They aren't as low as combining a really good store sale with coupons, but they were very good everyday prices. For example, I always buy Berkeley & Jensen diapers (Bj's brand) that are 17 cents a diaper. That is my "cornerstone price" that I compare other deals and sales to. If a diaper sale doesn't work out to be cheaper than 17 cents a diaper, I don't bother, because I know that the everyday price at Bj's will beat the so-called deal. Here at Aldi's, their store brand diaper worked out to be 15 cents a diaper! There were a lot of other good prices for random things, like full-size frozen pepperoni pizzas for $2.49.

Am I going to give up Acme for Aldi?
Not at all. I think that I'll be sure to shop Aldi once and a while (especially for parties, there were tons of affordable chips, dips, cookies, frozen appetizers, etc. that beat what I could buy at Acme or Bj's any day--also staple items were very good prices), but I can usually do pretty well for my weekly trip going to Acme using my deals and coupons. For example, right now at Acme, boxes of Quaker instant oatmeal are on sale for $2.50 and I have a bunch of $1 off coupons. The price would be $1.50 for a box of Quaker oatmeal, and Aldi had their brand at $1.50 regular price. Now, you're saying, that's contradictory, why bother with the coupons in the first place? Well I get a lot of other great deals at Acme & I just can't stop shopping there for other stuff I regularly buy. While I was at Aldi I searched high and low for natural applesauce for the baby, and I couldn't find one variety that didn't contain high fructose corn syrup. I also only buy organic milk, it is just one of my preferences and even though Aldi's milk was awesomely cheap ($2.49 a gallon), I just couldn't buy it.

This is what I bought (and don't mind that it is super random) and the prices:
Diapers 40 pack - $5.99
3 frozen pizzas - $2.49 ea.
1 lb. frozen tilapia filets - $3.69
3 lbs. sweet potatoes - $1.29
2.5 lbs. bananas - $1.20
lunchmeat variety pack - $1.99
bacon - $2.29 (they actually had a ridiculous selection of bacon varieties, this one was a middle of the road choice)
1 lb. ground turkey - $2.49
instant oatmeal (to compare with Quaker, lol) - $1.49
stuffing mix - $0.79
2 cans mushrooms - $0.49 each
swiss cake rolls - $0.99
So just about $30 for all of that stuff.

Hopefully my review helped de-mystify the store for you if you never shopped there before. Aldi doesn't really deserve it's reputation as a "poor people's store" as the quality seems good and you could really do quite a bit of your regular shopping here and still not buy all processed foods. As a matter of fact, there is another blogger out there who calls herself The Aldi Queen, and she has a whole website devoted to menu plans using only ingredients found at Aldi's and her recipes look really good!

I stumbled upon this really great tutorial for how to recycle old magazines into homemade gift bows. This was perfect for me, because I had signed up for a free subscription to Elle Decor without realizing just how awful the magazine really is. I am not in the billionaire-NYC-decorator market, I guess. I even tried canceling the free subscription, because the heavy mag just lands right in the recycle pile, but no one really wants to take responsibility for the free subscription.

But this is a really cool use for recycling those pretty ads into something I can actually use for the holidays. So the ones in my picture look a little challenged, but I'm getting better. It's late! The big black one on the bottom was a Rolex ad, lol.


I just love wrapping gifts, so I have a feeling I'm going to be making a bunch of these for Christmas. Oh and they only cost about a penny for the paper fastener! A penny definitely works for me. Check out Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks in My Dryer!

My Christmas tree is up! (I will post a pic soon, because I know you want to see it, right?!) So now it really does seem like Christmas-time has started for me. I love everything about Christmas, especially giving (and wrapping, cause I'm a nerd) gifts. I am not so down with physically shopping for gifts. I just really can't stand going out and hunting for something, braving crowds, leaving my house. That kind of thing! A few of my girlfriends decided to stop swapping gifts years ago, because the whole, "I'm getting you a $25 gift, you get me a $25 gift, now let's swap" thing was getting old. Instead we vowed to get together for dinner or hang out in some way, since getting together is much more important. That has also fallen by the wayside and it's a shame!

Just recently a few of my old co-workers decided that in lieu of a lunch-time Christmas gift swap (where they're watching the clock and I'm half-paying attention, trying to feed Rayna) we are going to go out for a leisurely dinner! We are still swapping gifts, since these girls are shoppers ;) but I am really looking forward to the actual get-together. While gifts are great, make time to see your friends this Christmas.

I saw this video on the blog Like Merchant Ships and I thought it was really good. Now, I'm not anti-gift giving in any way, but I think it does have a pretty good message to keep the holiday in perspective:

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

There are sooo few deals, yet again. Here is what I see:

Non-coupon deals:
Simply Orange juice- 59 oz. carafes are on sale for $3. The family size carafe is 89 oz. on sale for $4.99. Get whichever size you want, it is pretty much the same price per ounce (it is $0.05 per ounce for the smaller size and $0.056 per ounce for the larger size.)
Red Baron 12" frozen pizzas are on sale for $4 each
41-50 ct. Acme Shrimp Ring is on sale for $4.99
3 lb. bag of Florida Tangerines are on sale for $2.99
3 lb. or larger packs of Boneless Chicken Breast are $1.88 lb.

Deals using printable coupons and regular coupons:
Quaker Instant Oatmeal is on sale for $2.50 each. There are $1 off coupons here, here and here that make them $1.50 each.

Progresso Traditional and Rich & Hearty Soups are on sale 4 for $6 (must buy 4!). Use the $2 off 4 cans coupon here to get them for $1 each.

Get a FREE 12-pack of Nestea Iced Tea 16.9 oz. bottles when you buy any 3 12-pack cans of Coca-Cola products. Use the coupon on page 6 of the circular to get the free 12 pack of Nestea. If you participate in My Coke Rewards you can also redeem 35 points for a "$1 off a 12-pack" coupon. It will generate a URL that you can print and hit the back button a few times to print again. (If that doesn't work for you, copy and paste the URL into a different browser). Redeem 70 points, print a total of 4 coupons, and save one for later.

Get a FREE 12-pack of 7-Up, A&W, Sunkist or Canada Dry cans when you buy any 3 12-packs for $3.33. That is four 12-packs of soda for $9.99. Use the coupon on page 6 of the circular.

This might be the only decent deal, if you really need some of these items:

Spend $20 in participating Proctor & Gamble products and receive a $5 off coupon for your next shopping order. You also will receive 5 free redbox movie rentals (which are right in the Acme). The P&G Brand saver coupon insert was just in this Sunday's paper, so there are a ton of coupons available for these items. There are too many participating items to mention here, but check the last page of your store circular, enter your zip code & view it online here.

One example scenario would be: (all coupons from the P&G insert in Sunday's paper)

• Buy One 8 pack of Duracell AA batteries at $5.99 (get an additional free 6.4 oz. Crest toothpaste, too, using the coupon at the bottom of the page!) use the $1.50 off coupon.
• Buy one DayQuil or NyQuil at $4.99, use the $1.50 off coupon.
• Buy one Gillette body wash at $4, use the $2 off coupon.
• Buy one Herbal Essences hair product at $2.99, use the $1 off coupon.
• Buy two 6.4 oz. Crest Toothpastes at 2 for $3, use the $1 off one coupon.

You will get credit for $21.97 worth of participating P&G products, pay only $14.97 out of pocket, and get your $5 off coupon to use on your next transaction. So it is like you are getting all of that for $9.97. Of course you can change that for whatever items you need.

Hope you do well this week!

So this weekend Marc & I went on a little getaway with my brother and sister-in-law. We went to NYC to see comedian Jim Gaffigan, and ending up seeing some sites and eating some really great food!

Now we are home, of course, and I have a bit to catch up on. I will post the Acme deals today asap. I don't see any super fabulous Cyber Monday deals, but check out my post below about Mypoints, I think you'll like it!!

Love, Bay

I am a member of about a million different kinds of websites, and I find that people do enjoy hearing about sites I use & checking them out for themselves. One website I think you may be interested in joining is Mypoints.

This is not some kind of program I barely use and am just hoping to earn some kind of referral credit. I have been a Mypoints member for 10 years! I couldn’t believe it when I got an “anniversary” email from them a few months ago, but it’s true because Mypoints has been good to me over the years. Some people dog it because it can be slow going, but I have been able to earn quite a few gift cards. I have their credit card, which automatically gives you a point per dollar. But, there are plenty of easy ways to earn points quickly. The first is they send quite a few emails, and when you click through the link you get 5 points instantly. Generally there is some type of offer to be had, like “click the link and get 5 points, join Netflix and get 2,000 points”, etc. There isn’t any obligation to join or buy anything, you can just score an easy five points.

When you do shop online, you can click through Mypoints and get several points per dollar. Sometimes there will be an order code, such as Overstock.com loves to offer Mypoints members points per dollar on a purchase as well as free shipping. Other times, you can click through the Mypoints site and use your own coupon codes, to “stack” the offers to your advantage. Example: Recently I ordered a gift from Victoria’s Secret.com. I clicked through Mypoints’ link, but then used my own coupon codes to get a discount & I was still credited 3 points per dollar on my Mypoints account.

They are constantly adding new participating merchants, like this week they added StubHub; earn 3 points per dollar spent at StubHub.

Once you have earned yourself points, you can redeem them for various rewards, mostly gift cards. One final thing that they’ve started recently was offering their own printable coupons (the same that you find on coupons.com), but they will give you 10 points for every coupon printed and redeemed, plus a 25 point bonus every month you redeem 5 or more coupons. If you’re going to use them anyway, you might as well get a little something extra for it.

You can check them out at www.mypoints.com. If you would like to have me send you a referral email so you can sign up and I get credit, just leave me your email in a comment or send me an email and I’ll send it to you!