How about a little more detail about my challenge ?

How am I planning to get free stuff anyway?

 - There are a couple ways I know of to get free products from the stores. One way is to find an item on sale in a store flier. For example: Walgreen's might have toothpaste on sale for 1.00 each. I look through my coupon stash and discover two coupons each for a dollar off any size of that brand of toothpaste. By combining a sale price with a coupon I can get the item free and only pay the sales tax. Then I have two tubes of toothpaste to add to my stash. Yippee, clean teeth for free!

Stacking coupons

 - Another way to end up with a freebie is by using a manufacturer's coupon and a store coupon. Using the scenario above, let's say I find that toothpaste on sale at Walgreen's for a dollar. I have a 50 cents off coupon from the manufacturer and a Walgreen's store coupon for .50 cents off.  By Combining the coupons I can get a dollar off the tube of toothpaste and  get that tube for free.


Double Coupons

 - Don't I wish we had double coupons. No such luck. I have heard terrific stories of sales where stores have coupon doubling policies and customers are able to walk off with a cartload of savings. Sadly, sniff, sniff, no coupon doubling in our area.

Money Making with coupons

- Actually getting the store to pay me for trying it's products is a new concept for me. Apparently, savvy shoppers are able to get money back plus free items by combining those coupons and sales.I have never been gutsy enough to give that a try at my local stores. Maybe I will have to get out my trench coat and glasses with the attached nose disguise and give it a try. Hmm...

Rebates

 - I have been successful with rebates. I usually send away for a couple a year. Usually there is a form to fill out and by including my cash register receipt, upc labels and promising my first born child; there is a rebate to be had. Often on the price paid for the product, not the tax.

In 2011, can I a turn a month's budget into a year's worth of deals?

I follow the pantry principal. This means keeping a good supply of the items my family regularly uses on hand at all times, rather than shopping for a specific meal or when we run out of something. In order to achieve my goal, I rotate which items I purchase each month. This helps me to keep a well stocked pantry, freezer and a good supply of personal care items and cleaning supplies. I reserve an amount of money each month just for this purpose.

A major goal I have for this year includes challenging myself to get more mileage from the deals I find. I want to take a month's budget for stocking up on food, personal care items and cleaning supplies and see if I can turn it into a year's worth of deals. I will use coupons, rebates, store rewards cards, store fliers, internet deals and anything else I can come up with in order to turn my meager month's budget into a substantial haul. I want to see if it is possible to really get something for nothing; in fact I am hoping to get a whole lot of something for nothing!

Coupons - I am not very good about coupons, in fact I kind of suck at coupons. Part of the reason I think I do so poorly with coupon use is that I tend to start with great plans for organizing and using of the darn things and then I forget what I have. Even worse, I forget to take them with me when I go to the store. My neatly filed coupon binder with it's nicely labeled headings does me no good if it sits on a shelf at home unused. I do not get a newspaper so I don't get the weekly coupon fliers on a regular basis. To me it has always seemed silly to buy a newspaper subscription for the sole purpose of those pesky coupons. I enjoy reading my news online, so subscribing to a delivered newspaper and then recycling it every week is a waste and a hassle. It makes me feel like I am paying for the coupons. Adding in the cost of the newspaper negates some of the savings that I'm trying to achieve. I plan to find many of my coupons online. I will also acquire coupons by looking in recycle bins or asking friends and relatives for any they aren't using. Oh man, who am I kidding? I doubt I will be pawing through any recycle bins looking for coupons. I am probably too lazy for that. Yeah, this might limit me somewhat...Oh sheesh, what have I gotten myself into by posting this?

BOGOF - Lots of times stores offer rebates for buying certain products or free items in buy one get one free scenarios which I will from now on refer to as BOGOF.
I frequently purchase pantry items with this strategy. There are also deals where you buy a given number of  say, cereal boxes and get something free, such as milk.

Peelies and Blinkies - I never even knew there were names for those self stick coupons on foods and those annoying blinking little red machines with coupons. I had noticed those stickered peelie coupons on products; usually while putting the item away in my fridge. Doh! I can see how it  can be worthwhile to peruse the shelf and choose the item with the tear off coupon.Note to self:  tear it off and use the blasted coupon while you are IN the store! Those blinkie machines with annoying flashing lights spit out coupons for a product stocked nearby. I vow to start paying attention to those red blinking lights instead of shading my eyes and grabbing blindly and quickly for the item on the shelf nearby and scuttling down the aisle as fast as my gimpy grocery cart wheels will go.

Store fliers - Grocery and drug store fliers sometimes have coupons within their pages and often have special incentives going to entice us into their stores.The store fliers come free in my mailbox each week. Free movie tickets, cookware or other food products are some of the deals I have seen in the past.

Check out coupons - When paying at the grocery store the checker often hands me a streaming banner full of coupons along with the receipt. Sometimes these coupon streamers are so long that I feel like when I reach my car in the parking lot, it is still trailing out the automatic doors. I sometimes look at them,but usually they end up in the trash can.
The receipts sometimes have deals printed along the bottom edge or on the back in advertising. I don't even "see those" things anymore. No longer .Hand held aloft with the three finger salute as I recite... "On my honor, I will try" to pay attention to every coupon that passes my way .Can you tell I was a Girl Scout eons ago?

Month's budget - I need to come up with an amount of money I plan to spend in January. I am kicking around the idea of either$30 or $50. This figure has to not only include the cost of the item, but any sales tax. I will keep a running total of this in my posts. This ought to be interesting. I am not the greatest accountant and in the past have often forgotten to mail in a rebate form or not read the directions through and bought a wrong item.

I don't have all the details worked out yet and am still muddling through the particulars of how to best do this challenge. Can I do it this for even a month? Who knows, stay tuned and I will keep you posted on how it is going.
Wish me luck!
The Freebie Maven

Drive In Movies are such a great deal!

Tonight we will be heading off to the drive in to see Legend of the Guardians; the Owls of Ga Hoole and Despicable Me. Adult admission is $6.75, kids aged 5-11 are $1.00 and children under 5 are free.
We load up the car with tons of comfy blankets and pillows.Once we arrive at the movie theater, we fold down the middle seat of the Expedition and let the girls all pile into the back. We usually do this a couple times a year. It is not free, but it is less expensive than all of us going to a movie theater with seats at the local mall.Bringing our own snacks and drinks makes it less expensive too.
I love the fact that the girls can ask questions, snuggle in our laps or fall asleep and we know they are safe.Usually the girls take turns sitting in my lap while watching the movie. Priceless!
 

Free Trees!

When we first moved to our current home several years ago, there were about six dead or dying pine trees between us and the railroad tracks. I liked the trees where they were as they provided some privacy for us from the train passengers and for all the foot traffic that use the tracks as a short cut. We had a bad storm about a year after we moved in and one of the trees blew over towards the tracks. Hubby contacted the railroad about the tree and in doing so discovered that we had an option to purchase the surplus land that lies between us and the railroad. We did this. I believe one of the reasons the railroad was so eager for the transaction to take place was that they would no longer be responsible for the trees! Shortly after the land purchase, we had the dead pine trees cut down. I was not thrilled about losing our privacy, but the trees were a fire hazard and also could have taken out our fence or part of our home if they had fallen the wrong way during a storm.
I wasn't paying that much attention to our new lot as I was busy with my three young children. One day I noticed that there was a lot of greenery below the fence line and thought I ought to check it out. I walked over and discovered several small oak trees growing there! One of our neighbors has a large oak tree on their property and thanks to the wind or maybe some squirrels, we now had a small grove of trees growing for free!

Fast forward several more years and we now have privacy again! There are now oak trees about twenty feet high along our fence line and providing privacy. I love looking out my bedroom windows into the sea of green leaves. It almost feels like being in a tree house. An added bonus is that the trees shade the South West portion of our house and provide cooling on hot summer days. When we finally get around to fencing in the lot and actually landscaping it a bit, we may need to move some of the trees. In the meantime our free trees are a wonderful addition to our home.

The Friends of the Library Book Sale

Our local library is one of my favorite places. I love that I can get online to request new materials and have a message sent to my in box telling me when to come and pick them up. My local librarians are well informed and easy to work with and make going to the library an enjoyable process.One of the very best things about my library are the regular used book sales that are sponsored by our Friends of the Library group. Books, dvds, videos and music cds are culled from the shelves. Added to these materials are all the donated books that arrive on a daily basis at our library desk. To give you some idea of the magnitude of the sale, the one held this weekend contained over 40,000 books!

It takes a lot of volunteers to organize the two sales held each year. Books are sorted and at the sale, they are organized by genre with clear pricing available on standing signs at each table. There are always volunteers available to help you look for specific items, offer you a bag or box for your finds and even help you transport your books to your vehicle on a wheeled cart. Scores more smiling and helpful volunteers total your selections and make change.

It is interesting to see they types of people attending the sale; scores of retirees, families with children of all ages, couples,singles and even a few groups of teenagers spending a Friday night choosing new reading material together. In this economy, a book sale is a good use of time. It is a source of reasonably priced entertainment, funds more materials for our library and keeps items out of a landfill. A library book sale is a good thing!

Our town

I just got back from a trip downtown with one of my daughters. She rode her bike and I walked and we stopped to look at all the gorgeous plants in flower along the way.
Yesterday, all three girls and I walked to our local Farmer's Market for fresh produce. The day before, the girls and I walked to our tiny local museum and then on to get an ice cream cone. There are a lot of perks to living downtown. I love that we are supporting local businesses, not using the car, getting exercise and enjoying each other on these walks. It's a good thing...

Why wash baggies?

I just folded about a dozen washed and dried baggies of various sizes. I don't really enjoy washing baggies or care for looking at them drying on my kitchen island, but that doesn't matter. I doubt I save any great amount of money by washing baggies. I wash them anyway.

My girls are quite used to seeing drying baggies in our kitchen. In fact they often hand over a used baggie to me after taking the last of something out of it.For much of my food storage I use glass storage containers.
I use baggies for craft projects with my girls, storage of small items and of course food.
By rewashing my baggies and using them as many times as I can; I don't buy as many baggies and don't contribute as much to the landfill.

Why am I the freebie maven?

I was raised by very frugal parents that were children of the Depression. My parents did many projects themselves around the home and garden; remodeling projects, painting, growing a garden, landscaping. Mom had cooking skills that were a bit more unusual for the late 60's and early 70's era of convenience foods;  she canned fruits and jam, made bread, cooked our meals from scratch.Among his long list of accomplishments, Dad refinished antiques found by scouring a local flea market, rebuilt a player piano, re did the rotted caned seat of an antique rocker and built a grandfather clock from a kit. Dad also worked on our cars himself, changing oil and making minor repairs. Mom could often be found in the garden or yard working and it was a normal scene in my childhood to come home from school and find my Mom repainting a room in our home.  My Dad worked long hours as veterinarian and Mom kept the house running smoothly. My brother and I were expected to help out with chores around the house to earn our allowances. Nothing was wasted and I saw how doing things yourself provided you with a rich sense of accomplishment and a better lifestyle.

You might think that with these parents as an example, I would have chosen a frugal lifestyle myself. You would be wrong. I rebelled as teenagers often do and although I earned money babysitting and later with regular part time employment; my money seemed to slip through my fingers almost as fast as it landed there.
I bought lots of clothes, albums, books and who knows what else with my hard earned funds. I was offered a credit card and I took it and felt very grown up. I also bought the gas for the family car I was allowed to drive to school. When I went to college, I was surrounded by children of families with great wealth and I started to want to be like them.On the first days of school, I remember being offered a credit card in the campus quad. Of course I signed up, I felt so grown up! I continued to work through college and while I would like to say my funds went towards my education, I instead financed yet more clothing and my very busy social life. I took out student loans,continued to work part time on campus and my parents provided much of the money towards the expensive private school  tuition costs.

After college I got a job as a teacher earning much less than many of my fellow graduates. I wanted my freedom and moved out of my parent's home and into an apartment with a room mate and later into a place of my own. I was miserable. I was growing in debt from credit cards, spending most of my money on rent, utilities, my student loan payments and on occasional graduate school classes. I had very little money left over at the end of the month, wanted more professional clothing and to enjoy a social life and so I added more debt to my credit cars and thus began the vicious cycle of paying minimum balances on the dratted things.

Eventually I came to my senses, gave up the lease on my apartment, put my stuff into a paid storage unit and moved home to my parent's house. I paid them a nominal rent and began making headway on three goals: pay down my student loans, pay down my credit card debt and make my expenses...more to come

Hey there everyone!

Welcome to Freebie Maven, an online account of how I am squeezing every last dollar in the budget to the max.
I am a busy Mom of three wonderful girls. My twins are nine years old and my baby is seven. Hubby and our sweet dog round out the family.