“Currently, telephone books account for 10 percent of all the waste in the landfills.  There is an even more eco-friendly option:  call your local phone company and ask to stop phone book delivery.  You can [...]]]> Today’s Tip from The Green Year: 365 Small Things You Can Do to Make a Big Difference: Recycle your telephone books

“Currently, telephone books account for 10 percent of all the waste in the landfills.  There is an even more eco-friendly option:  call your local phone company and ask to stop phone book delivery.  You can look up phone numbers online instead”

Our phone books never even make it into the house- they go directly into the recycle bin.  Does anyone actually still use a phone book these days?!

Be sure to check out all of the other posts in our Go Green series.

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Thanks, Heather!

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GOLEAN Crisp!™ Toasted Berry Crumble cereal

TLC® Dark Chocolate Coconut Fruit & Grain bar

GOLEAN Crunch!® Honey Almond Flax cereal

I’ll be honest, I chose the bar over the cereal, not only because it has CHOCOLATE (duh) but because I usually eat these free [...]]]> Select your choice from one of the following free Kashi samples from the Kashi website:

GOLEAN Crisp!™ Toasted Berry Crumble cereal

TLC® Dark Chocolate Coconut Fruit & Grain bar

GOLEAN Crunch!® Honey Almond Flax cereal

I’ll be honest, I chose the bar over the cereal, not only because it has CHOCOLATE (duh) but because I usually eat these free snacks on my way from my mailbox to my house- that way I don’t have to share with my kids- haha!

(Thanks Carrie!)

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Is couponing stealing? Understanding Marketing, Store Sales and Couponing

New couponers often make the statement that they feel guilty or that they are stealing from [...]]]> This is a guest post by Shelley of Savor the Savings.  Many new couponers feel guilty, immoral or like they are stealing.  Shelley wrote this article to help clear up some misconceptions.

Is couponing stealing? Understanding Marketing, Store Sales and Couponing

New couponers often make the statement that they feel guilty or that they are stealing from the stores. I can understand the moral confusion because I have never been guilty of stealing but if before couponing I walked out of the store without paying for an item I would have been waiting on the sirens and handcuffs and a walk of shame to the open door of a police cruiser….running to church the next day to repent.As long as you are not committing coupon fraud you have nothing to feel guilty about. Using coupons wisely is NOT stealing; you are not a thief, you are an educated consumer.

Companies provide incentives to the stores to promote their items. Once you start really watching the ads you will see that usually more than one store will have the same item on sale, sometimes it is the same week sometime it is within a week or so. The stores are offered reimbursement for ordering large quantities of a particular item or just for promoting the item in a sale, therefore they can lower the price to you and offer it in a sale. These manufacturers usually are also promoting their item with the offer of a coupon. This is why you often see sales and coupons running during the same time period. This is a win, win for the stores, the shoppers and the couponers. Prior to becoming a nurse or a blogger, for years I was a Territory Manager for a wholesale company. The manufacturer would sometimes offer an incentive to me for selling particular items. For example: I would get 50¢ or $1 for every box of a new candy bar or other items I sold to the retailer. You better believe I promoted those items to my retailers and discounted the cost to them to get those items in their store. The store would buy extras, lowering the price to the buyer, increasing their sales and adding $$ to my paycheck. It works and everyone wins!

Loss leaders are very low priced items that entice the buyer. These are products that the stores are willing to take a loss or a very marginal profit on just to get you in the store because they know that a majority of the time once a shopper is in the door they will pick up other items. They got you in the door for the BOGO sale but you also need eggs, milk and bread. They may have lost a little on the BOGO sale but they made a profit with your purchase of eggs, milk and bread. Many businesses do this, car dealers often advertise an auto a low cost, but when you get there you may find one you like much better making them a higher profit.

Stores are reimbursed the price on the coupon plus a handling fee so they are not loosing at all from your coupon use. Stores that offer double couponing are still getting reimbursed for the face value of the coupon plus a handling fee, they will loose the portion that they double…but this goes back to the loss leader way of thinking, it is an ongoing promotion that gets you, the buyer; in the door, once there you will probably buy other items that you need and probably not on sale.

Walmart will match sale prices at other stores but they will not match BOGO sales and double coupons. These sale strategies are the grocery stores upperhand in competing with the retail giant, Walmart. For instance, yesterday I went to Publix for some couponing and got some really great deals that included BOGO and double couponing ( my total bill would have been; $150, using coupons matched to the sales I saved $90, paid a few cents over $61) but I didn’t buy just items that were on sale. There were other things that I had to have. Was I willing to make another trip to a different store just for those items? No, I bought them while I was there, I did have coupons on most of the other items but I needed them and they were not on sale. So the store strategy of BOGO and doubling got me in the door and I bought other items as well, the store got other sales and I saved lots of money.

The majority of shoppers are not so coupon savvy, (think back to before you learned how to really shop with coupons) they may use one, two or a few coupons per shopping trip or even forgot and left the coupons at home. Regardless, the ad got shoppers in the store.

Manufacturers offer high dollar coupons with the purpose of influencing you to buy and try their product in hopes that if you like it you will be a loyal buyer in the future. If the coupon says any size are you doing wrong by getting a trial size cheap or even free with it? No, they are still meeting their goal of getting you to try the product, the store is reimbursed the full price of the coupon plus a handling fee, another win, win for all. So if the trial size is 97¢ and the coupon is for $1 the store gets reimbursed the $1 plus a handling fee!

The percentage of people that really use coupons is limited. Your coupon use is not stealing, not immoral or wrong and in most cases it is a benefit to all involved. You are just a strategic shopper that is aware of the potential savings and willing to put forth the effort to get more for your buck. So don’t feel bad when you walk out the store with FREE STUFF !!!

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When you are pregnant, picking out the baby’s name is supposed to be a fun experience.  For my hubby and I, it became very frustrating.  We couldn’t agree on anything.  I had visions of our child sitting nameless in a little hospital bassinet.  Somehow we came up for one name for a girl and one [...]]]>

When you are pregnant, picking out the baby’s name is supposed to be a fun experience.  For my hubby and I, it became very frustrating.  We couldn’t agree on anything.  I had visions of our child sitting nameless in a little hospital bassinet.  Somehow we came up for one name for a girl and one name for a boy (I won’t even go into the SPELLING of the names) Our first born was a boy, our second a girl.  Now that I am pregnant with our third I figured we’d be struggling to come up with names again.  Thanks to the Most Baby Names application for the iPhone we already have some options whether it’s a boy or a girl- and I’m only 11 weeks!  Instead of arguing over names, we’ve moved on to discussing whether or not to find out the gender of the baby- but that’s a whole another story.

Most Baby Names app is really cool.  Just for fun, you can select boy or girl, then click ‘Surprise me!’.  A random list of names are selected and displayed.  One of the coolest features is the baby names by topic.  My hubby is a sports fan so the list of names from college football stadiums and Major League baseball fields was neat to search through.  By accident, we named our first two children names of past presidents- Jackson and McKinley.  So the list of presidential names was interesting to us.  I’m not saying what our choices are but I will say that one of them is from this list!  3 out of 4 (first and middle names) we found using the Most Baby Names app. That’s pretty impressive considering we searched through books for months with my first two pregnancies and came up empty handed time after time.

More info about the app from Most Baby Names:

Why Most Baby Names?

* It’s fun, exciting, colorful and interactive! Hear babies giggling and ducks quacking or shake the rattle for a rockin’ good time!

* Most Baby Names features 103,000 names – competitive baby name apps don’t come close!  (Did you know the closest app has 6 times less names than we do?)

* Look up baby name definitions by clicking on the blue arrow in your lists or choose the * “Surprise Me” option for a combination of unique names.  (Who knows, we may have found you a winner!)

* Browse by individual letter or customize it to search for a specific first and last letter

* Add names to your Favorites List to look at later!

Types of Names

Use our simple list scroll to find various baby names under exciting topics such as:

* Celebrity names (i.e. Maddox, Phinnaeus and Beckett)

* Under the Radar Names (i.e. Bianca, Piper, Georgia)

* Name Alternatives, Most Popular in a particular year, Classic names and even College Football Stadium names!

Enter to win a code for a free download of the Most Baby Names app by filling out the form below.  Also, be sure to check out all of our other giveaways here.

A complimentary product/service was provided for this review however all opinions expressed are our own. We were not compensated in any other way for this review. See Mommies with Cents disclosure policy for more details.

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Go here for a free 2-pack Huggies Snug-N-Dry sample. It’s offered by Costco, but no membership number is required.

Thanks, Good Deal Mama!

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Need some good news on a Friday to help push you through the final hours of the work week? Ask and ye shall receive! Free Cone Day in the US will be on March 23rd this year! So mark your [...]]]> Free ice cream on March 23rd according to Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop Facebook Fan page:

Need some good news on a Friday to help push you through the final hours of the work week? Ask and ye shall receive! Free Cone Day in the US will be on March 23rd this year! So mark your calendars and make sure to check that your local Scoop Shop is participating. Get in line as many times as you like. It’s our way of saying “thank you” to you!

Find your local store and if they will be participating in this event here.

Thanks to Janel for the heads up on this great freebie!  We will remind you again once the date approaches.

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Jeffrey Strain was inspired by a penny he found on the sidewalk on November 24th, 2009. He pondered the questions “What is a penny really worth? What can one achieve when starting with only a penny?” He decided to see if he could turn that one penny into $1,000,000 worth of food for local food [...]]]>

Jeffrey Strain was inspired by a penny he found on the sidewalk on November 24th, 2009. He pondered the questions “What is a penny really worth? What can one achieve when starting with only a penny?” He decided to see if he could turn that one penny into $1,000,000 worth of food for local food banks and The Penny Experiment was born. Jeffrey can’t do it alone but his own inspiration is inspiring others, like me, to help him achieve his goal. There are lots of ways to help- many take only seconds and none of them cost a penny with the exclusion of one. Jeffery has asked artists to donate one of a kind works of art that include found money (like the penny from the sidewalk). 100% of the proceeds from the sale of these pieces are used to purchase food with coupons to donate to local food banks.

I have committed to setting aside some time when I can to scout out the deals, coupon match and shop for food bank donations. I will be blogging about each trip as well.

Here’s what I got this week:

20 cans of Old Orchard frozen juice
15 boxes of Betty Crocker fruit snacks
3 cans of Manwich Sloppy Joe Sauce
2 4-packs of Dan-Active drinkable yogurt
5 4-packs of Danon Activa Yogurt
4 4-packs of Danon Danimals Yogurt
1 pack of Dan-0-nino yogurt

Total retail value: $123.10

I forgot to take a picture of the coupons I used but I had help this week.  The founder of The Penny Experiment Project sent me a packet of coupons to use for Albertson’s current promotions.  I added in 3 twice value coupons and a couple of other coupons I had on hand and was able to come away with a lot of food for very little cost!  Since the promos are still running, I will show you how I got all of this food for only $12.01 plus got coupons back for $13.50 off my next purchase!

First I bought 10 Old Orchard frozen juices on sale for $.99 each and 5 boxes of Betty Crocker Fruit snacks.  The juice is part of the “Chill promo” where you purchase 10 participating items and receive a $10 catalina.  I used 2 $1/4 juice coupons:

• $1.00 off 4 coupon here
• $1 off 4 Old Orchard Juice coupon

The fruit snacks are part of another catalina promo:

Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks good til 3/21

• Buy 3, get back a $1.50 catalina
• Buy 4, get back a  $2.50 catalina
• Buy 5 or more, get  back a $3.50 catalina

Use 2 $.50/2 printables from here, here or here.  I paid $11.90 including tax but got back catalina coupons totalling $13.50.

My second transaction I purchased five more boxes of fruit snacks, all of the yogurt items and the 3 cans of sloppy joe sauce.These items were part of another promo where you spend $25 on participating Conagra products and get a $10 catalina:

Dannon Activa, Dan Active, Light & Fit Yogurt, 4 packs $2.00
Use the $.75/1 Dan Active 4 pack from 2/7, 2/28
Use the $1/1 Activa from 1/10
$1.00/2 – Dannon Light and Fit 4 packs

Dannon Crush Cups, Collisions or Dan-O-Nino $2.00
Use the $1/1 Coolision from 2/7
Use the $1/1 Dan-o-nino from 2/7, 2/28
Use the $1/1 Crush Cup from 2/28

Manwich Sloppy Joe Sauce $1.00
$1.00/3 – Manwich products

I used a variety of coupons, 3 doublers and the catalinas I earned from the previous transaction.  I paid $1.71 plus I got back a $10 catalina and a $3.50 catalina!

For my third transaction I just repeated the first.  I paid with the $13.50 in catalinas from the previous transaction and Albertson’s actually PAID me a $1.60 cash refund plus another $10 and another $3.50 catalina!

After all was said and done, I walked out with $123.10 worth of food for $12.01 out of pocket for and still have $13.50 in catalinas to spend on my next trip!

Total after coupons: $12.01

To date: $263.01 worth of food for the food bank for only $34.74 plus $13.50 towards my next purchase!!  I will be making a drop off to my local food bank sometime this week.

I am honored to be a part of the Penny Experiment Project. If you are a coupon blogger and would like to take part, please check out this post for more information. Again, it won’t cost you a penny- just your valuable time and your couponing experience to get the most food as possible for as little as possible (which you will be reimbursed for).I encourage each and every one of you to take a few seconds to spread the word about this project. Let’s help feed those less fortunate than ourselves.

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Plus, get 2% cash back with Ebates.

If you do any of your shopping online, you should be shopping through Ebates to earn [...]]]>
TAKE $25 OFF when you spend $50 or more at Coldwater Creek. Offer valid 1 week only, through Thursday 3/11/10 at midnight (ET). Use Offer Code FB2550 online, in stores or by phone.

Plus, get 2% cash back with Ebates.

If you do any of your shopping online, you should be shopping through Ebates to earn cash back on your purchases with over 1000 merchants! You can even earn 3% cash back on winning bids on Ebay! You will also find discount codes, coupons and special sales easily right on the Ebates website. To find out more about Ebates – Coupons, Rebates, and Cash Back and get $5 just for signing up, go to www.ebates.com

(Thanks, SmartCouponing!)

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(Thanks Money Saving Mom!)

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