Now AMC Theaters is offering this terrific deal where you can save 30% on AMC movie tickets, through Goldstar, one of my affiliate programs. You buy the tickets now–you can purchase up to 8 of these movie bundles–and Goldstar will ship them to you starting on February 1st.

For $24 you’ll get:

• two drink vouchers
• two popcorn vouchers
• two Gold Experience movie tickets

On a normal night the movie tickets alone will cost you upwards of $20, so add in the food, and this is truly a great deal. You can use these tickets at AMC theatres, AMC Loews, AMC Showplace, Cineplex Odeon, Magic Johnson and Star theatres, but not Canadian theaters (sorry readers who are my neighbors to the north!). Also, the tickets do not expire. Even though these are discounted tickets, you can use Gold Experience movie tickets at all showings, even special engagements (so says the AMC site.)

I realize that suggesting you buy M&Ms may not fit with New Year’s Resolutions to lose weight, but I will tell you that these pretzel M&Ms are the lowest calorie and fat per serving of all M&Ms. They are a favorite in our house, to be sure. And at $1 off–well, that couldn’t be any sweeter!

For tips on how to save money on a Superbowl party, please check out my story on Home Goes Strong.

$1.00 off one bag of M&M’S Pretzel

Free Stuff

• Vistaprint has a great Valentine’s Day freebie. You can order 10 Free Note Cards from Vistaprint, which, when you get them, can cut into 3s, making them 30 Free personalized Valentines, if you’d like. In addition to the free Valentine’s Day notecards from Vistaprint, you can upload a personalized photo for free and create an original message to appear on the notecards. All you have to pay for is shipping and processing, which starts at $4.50. Hurry: This Vistaprint Valentine’s Day freebie, which came through one of my affiliate networks, is expires today, Friday, 1/27 at midnight CT!
• Clearing out clutter as part of your New Year’s Resolutions? Well, if you’ve got kids stuff you’re looking to get rid off, you may be interested in the free Thred-Up site. The thredUP community is where moms swap kids clothes and toys. Signing up is free.
• Get a 7 Day Free Gym Membership Pass for 24Hour Fitness; Click Here to access that pass, which will entitle you to enjoy all the free exercise classes you want, and you can workout at any of their club locations. Note: you may have to go through as many as 3 steps/click-throughs to get this freebie. Be patient; it’s worth it.
• Right now you can get your Federal Tax Return completed via Turbo Tax for free. This is a deal that came through my affiliate networks.

Free Food

• Get free ribs at BJs through February 8th. Here’s how. When you purchase any four different items from a select group of big game favorites in one purchase, you’ll get a free 43-ounce package of ribs. Look for a coupon for this freebie in the front of your local BJs location.
• Reserve your free Corner Bakery Cafe panini today and pick it up sometime in the next week. You can reserve a “coupon” for a free Power Panini Thin by heading to the Corner Bakery website to select the date and location when you’ll pick up your free panini. As of yesterday Corner Bakery was still taking reservations for those free paninis.
  
• Sign up for P.F. Chang’s Warrior Rewards program, and you’ll get a coupon for free lettuce wraps. Yum! Lettuce wraps are my favorite item on the P.F. Chang’s menu! Free makes me love them even more!
• This printable coupon entitles you to a free medium fries at McDonald’s when you purchase a beverage, through 2/4/12.
• As part of its commitment not to raise prices in 2012, Steak ‘n Shake announced that Kids Eat Free on the weekends. That is for Dine-In only, and you’ll get a free kids meal for every $8 you spend.

While these New Year’s resolutions to get more exercise and eat better were swirling in my head, some people I know–also freelance writers–started talking about building standing desks or walking desks. (These newfangled workstations are also called exercise desks, treadmill offices, workstation treadmill, and more.) The notion was that if you could create a work arrangement that allowed you to get off your butt–or even better to walk while working–you would likely have less lower back pain and maybe lose a few pounds. In fact, one office that installed walking desks or treadmill desks discovered that its employees lost a whopping 150 pounds without changing anything else about their lifestyle.

My treadmill/walking desk.

Now, I could have gone out and purchased a walking workstation, which Steelcase makes. But their walking desk costs almost $4,800! Clearly, that does not work for my frugal budget. Luckily, I have a handy husband who, when I asked, “Can you build me a walking desk?” was able to respond within a day by doing so.

This setup is so easy that even if you’re not DIY inclined, you could make a treadmill desk, too.

Basically, what we did was created a work surface above our existing treadmill. We accomplished this by taking a board that is 16 inches deep and 32.5 inches wide, and clamping it to the handles of the treadmill. We used two Crafstman Bar Clamps, which lock in place. (I do test them everyday, just to make sure they are still secure.)

The board is wide enough for me to fit my laptop, external mouse/trackball, and a pad of paper and pen for taking notes while working and walking. It’s like being able to spread out on a regular desk, albeit one that is suspended above the treadmill on which I am walking.

Speaking of walking some people are amazed that I can do both simultaneously. Understand that when I’m working at my treadmill desk, I’m walking at a leisurely 1.5 miles per hour. That’s like a pace you would use when strolling through the mall. Honestly, walking and working at the laptop is easier than you might think–and I’m pretty klutzy. What is sometimes challenging, however, is hand writing anything, which is why I tend to stick with the computer work.

Close up of treadmill desk work area

Since installing the treadmill desk at the end of December, I’ve been working and walking, on average, 60 extra minutes a day. There are some days that I end up walking for two hours, though I have to do that in two bursts. That’s because I’ve discovered that a treadmill cannot go over 100 minutes–it simply shuts off after 99 minutes because the display isn’t wide enough to handle three digits. On days when I keep walking, I’ll walk the initial 100 minutes, and then restart the treadmill and go for another 20 minutes or so.

Now it’s not like I’m standing on my treadmill desk for 120 minutes continuously. I’ll hop off for a bathroom break, to refill my water bottle, or to answer the phone. But all together I am getting significantly more exercise in my day. And my lower back does hurt a lot less than it used to.

Buffy snoozing on the treadmill desk!

As far as the getting more exercise and losing weight part of those New Year’s resolutions and my treadmill desk, I can tell you that my weight is heading in the right direction, and I’ve already noticed that my pants are feeling looser around the legs.

Here’s another benefit of setting up the treadmill desk–our treadmill was originally in our family room/play room/rumpus room, along with our other exercise equipment. This room happens to be a Southern facing, relatively large room on the first floor of our house. My office, on the other hand, is a teeny tiny space in a Northern facing, back corner of the house. Sure, it’s my office but I hate it. Now that I’m spending hours working downstairs on the treadmill anyway, we’ve decided to move my office to this bigger, sunnier space. Yeah, that’s a win-win for me. Plus, the dog seems to like the new set up as well–he has taken to snoozing on the treadmill desk when I’m done walking–guess it’s warm and comfortable for him.

In addition to the free Valentine’s Day notecards from Vistaprint, you can upload a personalized photo for free and create an original message to appear on the notecards. All you have to pay for is shipping and processing, which starts at $4.50.

Hurry: This Vistaprint Valentine’s Day freebie, which came through one of my affiliate networks, is good through Friday, 1/27 only–it expires at midnight CT on January 27th!

Coupons from paper towel package and Nutrigrain bar boxes

How many times have you purchased an items at the supermarket because it promised to have coupons inside the package, only to have you forget about that offer and you threw those coupons away? I know that, unfortunately, I’ve fallen prey to this coupon marketing strategy of enticing shoppers with the promise of free coupons, and then I didn’t follow through on the freebie by remembering to cut out the coupons before discarding the package.

I’m sure the extreme couponers on the TLC show “Extreme Couponing” never have this happen to them, but they’re probably not reading my tips anyway. You are, and I want to help you, my Suddenly Frugal readers, to avoid making the same mistakes that I’ve made with coupons in packages.

One of the reasons that this topic is top of mind for me right now is that, currently, in my pantry, I have two packages that I a) purchased with a coupon, on sale, and because they had free coupons inside the package and b) I haven’t yet cut out/filed those free coupons, and the packages are getting close to empty–meaning I risk recycling the box or throwing away the plastic wrapping without saving the coupons inside. I’m not going to let that happen to me, and I don’t want it to happen to you!

For starters, if you come home from the supermarket with these packages with coupons in them, I would recommend pointing out to everyone in your family that certain items that are in the pantry have coupons in them/on the box, and they are not to be recycled or thrown away without checking with you first. I did this with my kids when I brought home the Bounty towels package, with $28 worth of P&G coupons inside, and the three Nutrigrain bars boxes, with $5 in breakfast coupons on the back, but I forgot to tell my husband. Thankfully, I caught him last night before he recycled an empty Nutrigrain box!

If you think that people will be forgetful about the coupons in the box–and with our busy lives, that is always possible–then you need to “rescue” those coupons as soon as you get home from the grocery store and not wait until later to clip the coupons.

• Unwrap that multi pack of paper towels right away instead of tossing the whole package on the floor of the garage.
• Take that box of Nutrigrain bars, and “dump” the bars right into a drawer in your kitchen. (All the bars are individually wrapped so this dumping is less awful than it sounds.)
• Empty a box of cereal or dog treats into a mason jar or Rubbermaid container, and serve out of the container.

Doing so will give you instant access to any coupons printed on the inside of the box.

At the same time, you should create a designated coupon “space” in your house–and inform your family where it is–so that if they come across loose coupons, they know where to put them. Not only does this cut down on coupon clutter around the house, it helps you avoid losing coupons in a mess.

So, for example, while I take a binder with me to the supermarket, that has my coupons organized in clear plastic sleeves, we keep everything coupon-related at home in a hanging file in a desk–including that binder. On any given day, if you glanced in that hanging file folder, you might see those SmartSource, RedPlum, and other coupon inserts that come in the Sunday paper. Why? Because I don’t always have time on Sundays to cut out all the coupons but I don’t want them to end up in recycling with the Sunday paper. Additionally, each week’s supermarket circular goes in that hanging file so that, when I’m preparing for my shopping trip, I can compare the sales at the supermarket with the coupons I have on hand. And most recently a flattened Nutrigrain box was added to the hanging folder of coupons for safe keeping. I’ll be sure to cut the coupons out off the box before my next trip to the supermarket.

Let me know how you handle those coupons that you find in the packages that you buy.

• TurboTax Federal Free Edition
• FREE preparation, FREE printing, FREE efiling for your simple tax return (when referring to TurboTax Federal Free Edition)
• Free Audit Support Center and live online help
• Guides you like a GPS through your simple tax return(when referring to TurboTax Federal Free Edition)

While I use an accountant to do my taxes every year–being self employed makes for complicated taxes–I know plenty of people who use and swear by Turbo Tax every year.

There are Corner Bakery Cafe locations in 13 states plus Washington, D.C., participating in this freebie. They are:

• Arizona
• California
• Colorado
• Georgia
• Illinois
• Maryland
• Mississippi
• New Jersey
• New York
• Pennsylvania
• Texas
• Utah
• Virginia
• Washington, D.C.

From what I can see, starting on Friday, January 27th you can visit Corner Bakery to pick up your free panini, as long as you’ve made a reservation in advance at one of the participating locations. Hopefully, you live near to one of the participating locations! The closest one to me is about 45 minutes away!

FYI, when you reserve your panini, you will be signed up for the Corner Bakery email updates.

Thanks to Houston on the Cheap for a heads up on this freebie!

Head over to this Subway website to see if you live in the qualifying areas, and if you do, sign up to get a free flatbread breakfast sandwich and coffee at Subway. Yum, wish Pennsylvania was included in this freebie!

Thanks to Julie at Kansas City on the Cheap for a heads up on this freebie!

Friendly’s restaurants are giving away free Fribbles tomorrow, Saturday, January 21st.

While the Friendly’s nearest to me was one of hundreds that Friendly’s shut down during bankruptcy, there are still Friendly’s open for business in 16 states with nearly 400 locations. I hope that you live near enough to one of them and can take advantage of this freebie on Saturday.

FYI, you can get Fribble shakes in four flavors–chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and coffee–and only one free Fribble per customer is allowed. Enjoy!