Given how popular flowers are and that you may be considering buying some for that someone special on Valentine’s Day, I’ve put together these 5 tips on how you can save on Valentine’s Day flowers in 2012.

1. Plan your budget and shopping ahead of time. The worst thing you could do for your budget is wait until February 14th to go out and find flowers at the last minute. By that time, all the good flowers–and prices–will likely be gone. Or those that are still to be had, well, you won’t be able to track them down in your last-minute frenzy.
2. Shop in offbeat places for good deals on flowers. I remember when I was selling my home and had to keep buying fresh flowers for open houses and showings that I quickly learned that I could get the best prices on fresh flowers at my local warehouse club. Check out Costco, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Sam’s Club to see what they’re charging for flowers. Are there still farmer’s markets or roadside stands where you live? They may offer a deal on flowers, too.
3. Use gift cards to offset spending. Andrea Woroch, a spokesperson for the website GiftCardGranny, suggests checking out gift cards sites to see about buying store gift cards at a discount. I’ve never bought a gift card secondhand so can’t vouch how that works but I am good at stockpiling gift cards I’ve received for holidays and birthdays. If you have a gift card wallet full of gift cards you haven’t yet used, see if they can help you with your flower purchases.
4. Shop at supermarkets. In addition to wholesale clubs, sometimes supermarkets have good prices on flowers. Right off the bat they’ll save you money on delivery, because they don’t deliver. Even supermarkets that are seemingly pricey can save you money on flowers. Right now, according to the Cities on the Cheap website, Whole Foods has a deal on roses–you can get two dozen roses for $19.99. According to Josh Elledge of Savings Angel, two dozen long stemmed roses from a traditional florist can cost almost 10 times that amount!
5. Look for online deals, coupons, and offer codes. If you’re placing your order online, always Google “coupon code” first to see if you can track down a code that will save you money on Valentine’s Day flowers. If you like Groupon, be sure to take advantage of the Groupon FTD deal I posted about, where you can spend $20 and get $40 worth of flowers. You can earn cash back on your Valentine’s Day flower purchase by shopping through a cash-back portal, such as Ebates. Right now at least two florists on Ebates are offering 20% back on any floral purchase.

Photo Credit: scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s a well-known fact that flowers are usually quite pricey around Valentine’s Day, so that’s why I was so excited to hear about this Groupon for Valentine’s Day flowers. Right now Groupon is offering $20 for $40 worth of flowers from FTD.

While you need to buy this Groupon ASAP–the close date is Friday but it could sell out sooner–the best part is that you have until April 9th to use it. So you could cash in this Groupon for Valentine’s Day or use it for Easter, which is April 8th this year! Unfortunately, it won’t help you for Mother’s Day (May 13), the other big flower-giving holiday.

@suddenlyfrugal has some tips for savvy shoppers on Valentine’s Day. Tune it at 11:30 to check it out! twitter.com/The10Show/stat…

— 10! SHOW (@The10Show) February 7, 2012

Visit Vaseline Lip Therapy on 2/14 @ 1 p.m. to enter to win one of these beauties!

So many people have emailed, asking for details on where they can buy, order, or get the products that I’d highlighted in yesterday’s 10! Show segment on frugal Valentine’s Day gift ideas. So I figured I’d write up a blog post that recaps that TV segment and provides the links that people seem to want.

Americans are expected to spend close to $18 billion for Valentine’s Day 2012, with the average person shelling out about $125. You don’t have to spend nearly that much if you take a frugal approach to Valentine’s Day dinners and gifts. Here are 3 areas where you can find big savings and still show that special someone how much you care.

Frugal Food
One of the cheapest ways to enjoy Valentine’s Day is to have dinner at home. (If you normally do the cooking, suggest that your significant other take over the kitchen that night.) Since February is also American Health Month, here is an idea on how you can make an inexpensive dinner that good’s for your wallet and your heart–a pasta dinner for two that costs less than $5. Choose heart-healthy pasta, such as Barilla Plus (my kids can’t taste the difference with regular spaghetti), and heart-healthy pasta sauce. My choice this Valentine’s Day is Francesco Rinaldi To Be Healthy pasta sauce–our favorite is tomato basil–which is a healthy choice because it is lower in sodium and sugar, and includes Omega 3s.

Another frugal gift that’s healthy, especially for the athlete in your life–a heart-shaped tin from Balance Bar, filled with, what else, Balance Bars. These are the perfect gift for an athlete who might enjoy receiving chocolate but doesn’t want to blow his or her training routine. Hurry–these limited-edition Valetine’s Day tins must be ordered from the Balance Bar website by Friday, February 10th if you want to receive them in time for the 14th. The tin comes with 8 Balance Bars and costs $11.99, not including shipping.

Gifts That Don’t Take Themselves Too Seriously
Surprise your kids with heart-shaped Jell-O Jigglers at the breakfast table. Jigglers cost about $.20 per serving–way frugal. I made a big batch of heart-shaped Jigglers this past weekend–and then had to make more before my 10! Show segment because my kids ate my props! I even made a batch using sugar-free strawberry Jell-O that I’d picked up at the supermarket, and they worked just as well as the regular Jell-O. Good to know if you want to make a sweet, frugal treat that’s lower in calories. You can find all kinds of Jigglers recipes on Kraftrecipes.com.

This is a great gift that literally tells someone you love them– plates and mugs featuring the Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture, like in LOVE Park in Philadelphia. They are under $50, and you can get them on the Wayfair.com website–a cool site I just discovered with fun stuff for the home. (It’s also where I got heart-shaped silicon molds to make my aforementioned heart-shaped Jell-O Jigglers.)

Also from Wayfair.com–a toilet tattoo that tells her Happy Valentine’s Day. This peel-and-stick tattoo goes on the toilet seat cover, and is a great way to tell her that you’ll give her the gift of promising to put the seat down this year. Laundry on the floor? That’s still up for discussion. This toilet tattoo costs under $10.

Makeup on the Cheap
Rather than splurging on new makeup for Valentine’s Day, you can turn to Vaseline Lip Therapy for multiple beauty uses. You can tuck one in your purse–it’s about the size of two postage stamps, and costs under $2–and use it to keep your lips moist throughout the day. Another great use: you can mix it with your favorite lipstick to make a new lip-gloss. On Valentine’s Day you can log onto the Vaseline Lip Therapy Facebook page at 1 p.m. Eastern to enter to win one of 100 Swarovski crystal-covered cases worth $62. (I am working with Vaseline Lip Therapy this Valentine’s Day.)

View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.

How did I do it? Well, I was able to stack free shipping, coupons, and rewards points onto a single transaction that brought my purchase down to barely nothing. I almost didn’t save this much, though, so let me back up a bit and explain how I was able to target my savings and save 98% on office supplies.

As you know one of my goals for 2012 is to educate myself more on extreme couponing so that I can save as much money as possible across the board. In addition, one of my business goals is to get all of my magazine clips–that’s nearly 20 years’ worth of articles I’ve written for national magazines–out of the multiple file cabinets I have in my home office, and get digital versions saved onto an external hard drive. The scanner I currently own doesn’t do a great job of handling multiple page PDFs scans, so a few weeks ago I started researching scanners. It didn’t take long to identify the make and model I wanted.

Once I knew what I wanted, I need to find the best price. After searching various electronics’ sites, I ended up on Staples.com. The price that Staples was offering–$99–was no better or no worse than what I’d seen elsewhere. However, when I was on the Staples site, I noticed something about Staples Rewards. Well, I’ve had a Staples Rewards card for years, and I have the cashier scan it every time I’m in the store. But I got to wondering: had I ever synched my Staples.com account with my Staples Rewards account?

Turns out I hadn’t, and that’s how I discovered that I had $72 in Staples Rewards. You see, Staples used to mail rewards checks on a monthly basis, and I’d bring those rewards checks into the store to apply against any purchase. But I guess somewhere along the way Staples decided to post those rewards online only–I missed that announcement–and I’m so glad that I thought to check my account online, or I never would have discovered that I had so much money waiting for me to spend.

Add to that the fact that I’d recently received a coupon in the mail from Staples that I could get $25 off any purchase of $75 or more. And, on the Staples.com site, if you spend over $45, you get free shipping.

So taken together I was able to apply $72 in awards to my purchase, knock $25 off the purchase price by using that coupon, qualify for free shipping, and in the end only have to pay a small amount plus tax on my purchase–or $2.64.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been able to extreme coupon at Staples:

• This past summer I’d earned Staples Rewards from paper purchases–you got a free ream of paper–as well as back to school supplies
• During December Staples was offering 100% rewards back when you bought batteries–I’d included this deal in a Freebie Friday roundup, because, in essence, the batteries ended up being free. So I spent $25.98 on two packages of batteries and got that much in rewards.

What do I hope is your takeaway message from this post? Simple: if you have a rewards card at Staples or any other store where you buy office supplies, make sure you are getting the full value of any rewards you’ve earned. If you used to get checks and don’t anymore, log on and see if those rewards are available online. Then redeem them for any office supplies you need, and hopefully you can save 98% like I did on my new scanner.

Every weekday in February, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., you can stop in to your local CVS location for $100 worth of health screenings done for free–no appointment necessary. Those health screenings include:

• blood pressure check
• cholesterol screening
• BMI assessment
• osteoporosis screening
• free consultation with health professionals

Since not every CVS location can offer all of these tests, visit the CVS website to ensure that the location near you is participating. (Unfortunately, the CVS near me isn’t participating. That’s why it’s important to check first!)

In the meantime, I thought you’d enjoy having the following coupons for dollars off a handful of movies out on Blu-Ray; I’m bringing these to you via one of my affiliate networks, and I hope it helps you not only to save money but to have fun enjoying a movie night in sometime soon.

Please scroll down to access all the coupons!

$4.00 off Date Night on Blu-ray™

$3.00 off Ever After on Blu-ray™

$4.00 off Knight and Day on Blu-ray™

$3.00 off Legally Blonde on Blu-ray™

$4.00 off Just Wright on Blu-ray™

$3.00 off Romeo and Juliet on Blu-ray™

$3.00 off Moulin Rouge on Blu-ray™

$3.00 off When Harry Met Sally on Blu-ray™

(We love “When Harry Met Sally.” It pretty much describes my husband and my friendship, dating history together, and courtship.)

Might I recommend you add the P.F. Chang’s lettuce wraps to your order? They are my favorite!

So how did I find out about this deal? From P.F. Chang’s own Twitter feed @PFChangs