Freebies Of The Week Posts: How They Work Here

Our freebie posts follow a "green, yellow, red" system. Regardless of your skill level, rest assured that we will hold your hand and give you explicit instructions every step of the way. Take a look and decide what level you are most comfortable with!


Your green, or beginner, freebies will involve very minimal work, such as clipping or printing one coupon and heading to the store. Mere seconds of your time and VERY simple to follow and understand. Voila, free item(s)! These deals will always involve either a coupon from the Sunday paper coupon inserts or an easily accessed "print at home off the internet" coupon.

Your yellow, or intermediate, freebies will involve a little more work but are still fairly easy to follow. Some examples:
*You may need to cut out both a manufacturer's and store coupon for the same item
*You may need to spend money to get a printed coupon at the register (such as with Walgreen's Register Rewards program or CVS's Extra Care Bucks), to be used at a future time, rendering the item essentially 'free'
*You may need coupons from specialized sources to get these freebies, such as in-home mailings that some folks may have received or All You magazine (a great source for coupons each month!)
*you may need to bring in ads from competitor stores for a price match in order to get the item for free with coupons
These deals will, for the most part, still be fairly easy but will involve slightly more work and a little more understanding of the couponing world on your part.

Your red, or expert, freebies will involve more time and a stronger understanding of the couponing world. These are the deals that will involve things like:
*multiple transactions to get a great deal
*'rolling' of coupons / rewards (if you don't know what 'rolling' means, don't worry! we will explain exactly what you have to do when these deals pop up)
*rebates that you have to mail away for
*clearance deals that may only be available at select stores
*smartphone coupons
and more.

Even though we will make this as easy as possible, you can't take advantage of many of these great deals unless you are getting and saving your Sunday coupon fliers!! Keep them somewhere safe in date order; we will tell you exactly what and when to clip when it's time. 

Also, please note that we are located in the south suburbs of Chicago and that prices may vary from region to region, even at national stores. Be sure to double-check your sales ads and/or the price tags in the store(s) to be sure they match the deal before you head to the register! We do this to help people get great deals. We do not work for any of these stores or any companies affiliated with the coupons / products mentioned, and as such we have no motivation other than doing our best to help you save like we've been doing. Please use common sense while shopping, please remember we're human like you and thus not perfect, and PLEASE share your experiences (good and bad) with us and our readers! Together we can help each other prosper!

Lastly, as always, when you can - pay it forward. Please donate your extra freebies to your favorite local food pantry, shelter, or charity! Times are hard for everyone, and if you can help out by spending just a few minutes of your time, why not? :)

We wish great blessings and prosperity to you all!

Store List And Schedule

One of the first things we should lay out for our readers is which stores we are going to focus on each week so you'll know if our methods will be helpful to you or not!

Leslie and I are both living in Lansing, IL, a suburb south of Chicago. I think most of the stores we're going to focus on are national, but some are regional, and of course even on the national ones, prices will differ from location to location. Heck, we have three/four Targets within reasonable driving distance of our homes and the prices on products vary at each of those locations! So as with any deal on the internet, your mileage may vary. Overall though, these are the stores you're going to find us focusing on most frequently for deal-making purposes:

Target (typical sales week is Sun - Sat)
Walgreens (typical sales week is Sun - Sat)
CVS (typical sales week is Sun - Sat)

Jewel-Osco (typical sales week is Thurs - Wed)


Stores we may focus on from time to time, or as we get more demand for them:

Strack and Van Til (typical sales week is Thurs - Wed)
Ultra Foods (typical sales week is Thurs - Wed)
K-Mart (typical sales week is Sun - Sat)
Meijer's (typical sales week is Sun - Sat)
plus any assorted stores we happen to spot a deal at, of course!


Although we don't tend to make 'deals' at these stories because we've found that you generally get a better deal at the above stores, we will also occasionally compare prices (such as on staple items) to these stores:

Wal-Mart (typical sales week is Sun - Sat)
Sam's Club (generally doesn't run sales; bulk warehouse)
Aldi (typical sales week is Wed - Tues)

Plus it's always nice to know if you're beating the "we like to tell you you'll get great deals here!" stores. ;)

This post may be edited if we make changes to our lists of stores we focus on. If a store you love isn't on the list, please let us know! We will do our best to focus on deals at the stores our readers frequent!

So it is likely you'll see the most posts from us on Thursdays and Sundays, since those are the days the bulk of the stores start their sales! We'll try to keep an eye out for the best deals twice a week and post as quickly as possible so you have the maximum amount of time to snag the goodies!

Are You Too Busy To Coupon?

Are you fascinated by news stories featuring Extreme Couponing? Do you read newspaper articles with headlines like "Suburban Mom Saves $500 On Groceries Each Month Using Coupons!" and think things like 'I wish *I* could do that too, but I don't have the time! That must be ALL she does is clip coupons and shop!' Maybe you've even spent some time trying to get on board with the Extreme Couponing trend, gotten frustrated by the insider lingo and complicated deals and time-consuming learning process, and given up.

Image From: http://oslersrazor.blogspot.com/

"I have a full time job outside the home; I don't have time to coupon."

"I'd rather spend time with my family than spend hours trying to figure out how to save a few bucks."

"I don't think it's worth it to spend extra hours and extra gas driving to a bunch of stores to cut a couple dollars off my grocery bill."

"It can't really be possible to save THAT MUCH money using coupons!"

"I'll just shop at Aldi or Wal-Mart; their prices are better anyway."

If you're here, chances are you've said or thought these things. I'll let you in on a little secret: WE USED TO FEEL THE EXACT SAME WAY. So what changed for us?

At the end of 2009, Leslie was stricken with a mysterious, debilitating and as-yet STILL undiagnosed illness. She has been unable to work since then and her family of three has been struggling to get by on one modest income, all while dealing with repeated hospital trips and mounting medical bills.

In September of 2009, Kristi's job was eliminated. Finding another job that would do more than just cover the costs of daycare for her two children in these economic times seemed an impossible task, and staying home to care for her family has always been a dream of hers. Unfortunately that dream is often hard to manage on one modest income these days, and with two kids, five pets, and the usual credit card bills and car/house payments, her family struggles to get by as well.

Leslie is unable to go back to work, and Kristi desperately wants to be able to stay home and take care of her family while pursuing her dreams of become a published author (and of maybe having another baby one day!). They would also like to get out of debt and occasionally be able to do fun things with their families. Both were fascinated by the above-mentioned news stories that pop up every now and again, and in the summer of 2010 were finally ready to try and tackle the world of Extreme Couponing. It took several months (and MANY hours of reading, researching, practicing, clipping, and even taking classes) of dipping in and out of the pool, trying to learn the rules and tricks, before they finally felt like they had a good handle on the world of couponing. Along the way they ran into MANY people who were fascinated by their journey but didn't feel they could do the 'couponing thing' themselves.

There are a lot of great coupon blogs out there, but not many of them truly cater to beginning couponers, or to busy folks who would like to save a few bucks but truly don't have a lot of time. Our goal is to be THE blog for the busy mom (or dad!) who would love to score some great cheap and free deals but simply can't devote the time to figuring out the deals or learning the lingo and tricks. We will do our best to make every post as easy as possible, with full instructions, giving you step-by-step instructions and even shopping lists so that you can just print and go!

We only need three things from you, and they're easy, trust me:

1) Follow our blog and read our posts! You won't get the deals if you don't read us!

2) Subscribe to the TWO COPIES of your local big-city Sunday paper and begin saving the coupon circulars from them. You can subscribe to more if you'd like, and/or you can beg your family and friends for THEIR copies of the coupon inserts. The more you have, the more deals you'll be able to take advantage of! If you want to make it as easy as possible though, we strongly recommend getting two copies delivered to your house. Get a box or filing cabinet and just start saving the coupon circulars in date order. Don't clip anything out, just save them. We'll tell you what to do with them later. You can't save money if you don't have the coupons!!

3) Please provide us feedback as we build up this blog! Tell us what works for you and what doesn't. Tell us if our instructions aren't clear enough. Tell us what other features you'd like to see from us. We have a lot of ideas already and we will slowly be building it, but getting feedback from you is invaluable to us.

That's it! Three simple things, and only one of them costs you a TEENSY bit of money. Follow us, start collecting weekly coupon inserts, and give us feedback. In return, we'll teach you everything you need to know to score some great deals with very little time investment.

You may never have the time to be the "Mom Who Saved $500 A Month Couponing!", but I promise you that you will easily see things like:

*free toothpaste
*free deodorant
*$0.04 a box Stove Top stuffing
*free beauty products
*free hot chocolate
*free candy
and so much more!

Our goals are to make your life a little easier and your wallet a little heavier. Thank you for joining us. May we all have a prosperous 2011 (and beyond)!

Kristi is a 30-something mother of two children, ages 6 and 4. She and her husband live in the south Chicago suburbs along with the children, two dogs, and three cats. Her family loves to travel and believes in living a life rich with experiences. As a result, they have way too much credit card debt. Her goals in being a "super shopper" are to pay off all their debt and begin living a financially prosperous life that still allows them to do many of the things they enjoy. She writes about her life at the blog Million Dream Mom.

Leslie is a 30-something mother of one child, age 4. She and her husband and daughter live in the south Chicago suburbs. Aside from wishing her doctors would figure out just what the heck is wrong with her so they could start fixing her problem instead of treating her symptoms, her goals include saving enough money to not only pay the bills but also to take her family on a very special trip to Disney World (because if you keep putting things off for "some day", "some day" may never come). She writes about her life and her savings adventures at the blog One Year To Disney.

OJ and Rob are the hard-working husbands to Kristi and Leslie, respectively. They both work full-time jobs to help their families as well as running a business providing tech support services on the side. If you are in the Chicago area and in need of technical help in ANY area, please visit Tech Husband for assistance.