3 Gallons of Milk FREE and delivered to my door! May 7, 2011

This morning, for the first time in my life, the milkman knocked on my door. With him he brought three gallons of Marva Maid milk, one gallon of skim (for mommy) and two gallons of whole (for my toddler). I was so excited, and so was husband! I know you’re wondering how I scored three gallons of milk absolutely FREE, and here is how I did it.

One of the things that I do a lot is to write, call or email the manufacturers of my favorite products. I tell them why I buy their products and I always ask if they have any coupons. I know that coupons for milk are very rare, so I emailed my favorite local dairy, Marva Maid and asked them if they have any coupons. I did tell them that a huge chunk of our weekly grocery bill goes toward buying milk.

People get so upset about gas prices at $4/gallon, but I am more outraged about milk being $4/gallon. Since Marva Maid is local their prices are usually lower, too, since they don’t have to pay as much in distribution costs. Anyway, I emailed the company just to tell them how happy I am with their products; the quality is great, the price point is good, I love how they don’t use artificial growth hormones for their cows and I love that they are local. Within hours I had an email response from their customer service department saying that they didn’t have any coupons they could give me, but that they would love to bring me 3 gallons of FREE milk to my home! What great customer service! Thank you, Marva Maid Dairy, I am now a customer for life!

As a side note, if there is a product that you are a big fan of, I encourage you to email the company and make sure you ask for coupons! Recently I emailed Delmonte and their email response was that they couldn’t send me any coupons, but within a week I got a surprise of several high value Delmonte coupons in my mailbox! I was so excited, as most Delmonte coupons, if you can find them, are very low-value. The coupons I received were each for $0.50 off any one DelMonte item. With doubling that means I can get FREE ketchup and with a sale that means I get FREE cans of vegetables! How awesome is that?!

I must add here that I only compliment the companies that I really and truly like. I figure that I am buying their products anyway, so I might as well tell them how much a coupon would help me buy even more of their products! That said, if I have a problem with a product I do use the 800 number printed on the packaging to tell them that I had an issue. Recently I found a fly in a sealed package of food. If it had been opened I would have figured it got in there after I had opened it, but it was in there when I broke the seal on the bag. The next morning I called the manufacturer and they were very apologetic and helpful. Within a few weeks I had 4 coupons for FREE items from that company. So not only did they replace my item, but they actually gave me 3 other items totally FREE! Wow, now that is customer service!

Even if you don’t have Marva Maid milk in your area, I encourage you to email or call your favorite manufacturers and tell them you love their products and you’d REALLY love coupons!

Have any of you received coupons or promotions for complimenting a company’s products? If so, I would love to hear about it!

Harris Teeter 05/06: $1.60 May 6, 2011

Ran out to HT this morning to grab milk and a couple of freebies. The weekly eVIC items sale prices started today, which makes for FREE BBQ sauce. Unfortunately there are no unadvertised eVIC specials this week. 😦 Here is how my trip went down:

• 2 KC Masterpiece 18 oz. BBQ sauces ($0.99 – eVIC only, limit 2)

Used 2 $0.50/1 KC Masterpiece BBQ sauces from the SS last month

Both doubled to $0.99

Final Cost: FREE!

• 1 Quart of 2% Milk: $1.50
• 3 Boxes of Maruchan Yakisoba Noodles ($1 each)

Used 3 $0.50/1 Maruchan Yakisoba noodles

Doubled to $1.50 off

Final Cost: FREE!

Grand Total: $1.60 (includes tax)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commissary Find: Almost Free Mr. Clean Magic Erasers! May 3, 2011

Yesterday I ran out to the Commissary and found one thing I just had to tell you about! If you got the paper on Sunday there was a great coupon for $1.50/1 Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Twin Pack. Well, I found that the Commissary has the 2-packs of Magic Erasers priced very reasonably. When I say very, I mean that it’s a ridiculously good price. It’s not free, but it will only cost you some change. (Unfortunately, DOD reglations being what they are I cannot tell you the exact price, but with this coupon it’s very good.) Even better is that the boxes I picked up were marked as having $3 worth of coupons in them! Woo Hoo!

Here are the coupons that were included in my box:

• $1/1 Bounty Towels 6-pack or larger OR 2 Bounty Towels (any size)
• $0.50/1 Magic Eraser
• $0.50/1 Mr. Clean Product
• $1/1 Febreeze Fabric Refresher

What a great bargain here! I love these Magic Erasers and my husband loves them for cleaning on the ship, so what a great deal!

I’m baaaaaack! :-) Let the savings begin! May 2, 2011

So, you may have noticed that I have been uncharacteristically silent the past week. Well, that was because my family and I took our very first vacation together! The best part, though, was that we paid for it using our savings from couponing for just 2 months! Honestly, I never thought I’d get to a point where I would save $100 each week at the grocery store, so the thought of us even going on vacation wasn’t realistic for a while. Now that I have started using the coupons like my life depended on it, I can’t believe the savings. Over the past 6 months we estimate that I have saved my family about $3,000 in coupons!

While I was gone I didn’t coupon as much as usual, but I did run in to Rite Aid and grabbed a few items on Sunday along with the Sunday paper. Other than that I just enjoyed being with my little family for a week. It was great.

Just because we saved all of this money didn’t mean that I didn’t want to save money on our vacation, though. Here are a few tips and discounts I want to tell you about if you are going to be visiting the Philadelphia area.

• Do not buy tickets for Independence Hall online. If you buy online there is a service fee of $1.50 per ticket. The Independence Hall visitor’s center opens at 8:30 and you can get tickets there for FREE, but they are on a first-come, first-serve basis. We got there about 9am, got tickets immediately, walked down the block to Independence Hall and waited 10 minutes before our tour started. We saved $4.50 just by being early birds. 🙂
• If you are visiting Philadelphia’s “Please Touch Museum” (Children’s Museum) and you are active duty military or a dependent, make sure you flash your ID card, because all military and their dependents get in FREE! This was awesome for us because tickets are $15 per person, including children. Also, if you park in the museum’s parking lot the cost is $8. However, if you park in one of the many parking spaces on the street it’s FREE! By parking on the street and showing our military ID we saved $53 just in one visit to the museum!
• We also went to Sesame Place, which is owned by Sea World Parks. If you are an active duty member of the military, you and 3 dependents get into a Sea World park FREE once during the year! This was a big saver for us because tickets were $56 each. By using this pass we saved $112 just in one day!
• Remember that if you are staying in a hotel that has room service there is an 18% convenience fee and a $2 delivery charge every time you order room service. There was one night that we were just too tired to go out, so we ordered room service, but went downstairs to get it ourselves. That saved us about $10 when you include tip. Since room service is wicked-expensive (but oh-so-fun!) this is the way we usually operate.

I hope that you all had a great Easter; we sure did. We made lots of memories and now we are trying to recover from all of the fun we had. Thanks for your patience and I’ll be posting my deals again soon!