Congrats Victoria, You Won the Yoplait Greek Yogurt and Spa Set!

Congrats to Victoria at A Few of My Favorite Things, you won the Yoplait Greek Yogurt and Spa Set!

Many thanks to everyone who entered, all of my followers and to Yoplait and My Blog Spark for helping me celebrate 1 year of blogging! Much appreciated :)

Yay!! It's a Give-away!!!

Congrats to Victoria! You won!

Have you heard about Yoplait's new Greek Style Yogurt yet? I was checking it out in the store and was quite tempted to grab it, but then Yoplait and My Blog Spark contacted me and offered to give me some to try for free!!

Happy day!!

Not only did they send me coupons to try 2 cups for free, I also got a very cute little spa style robe, (which I think will work out wonderfully as a swim suit cover-up) a gigantic pair of slippers (something for the DH), and some new bathtime accessories in which I can pamper myself with while I indulge in Yoplait's Greek yogurt:)

Ok folks, best part here! My Blog Spark and Yoplait are giving the Spa set and 2 coupons for free Yoplait Greek Yogurt to one of my lucky readers!

*This coupon offer for a free cup of Yoplait Greek yogurt is not valid in some states, including California, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Tennessee. Otherwise, is open to Residents of the USA only.

Bummer for my Idaho and California friends, but you can still get the cool bath goodies :) The coupons are valid until Febuary 2012 so just save them for a vacation in a state that doesn't prohibit free item coupons - who's idea was that anyway?

So, I am celebrating my 1 year blogging aniversary with this give-away and making it easy to get in on it! You know the drill, just leave a comment! Include your email address in this format: email at server dot com. If you have tried Yoplait Greek Yogurt, let us know what you think about it or what your favorite flavor is. If not, just say you want to win! That gets you one entry.

Get another by becoming a follower of La Vida Cheapo! All of my current followers automatically get this entry :) Please let me know that you are a new follower in the comments and then just make sure to check back on May 26, 2010 to see if you have won!

Good Luck everyone!!

Fred Meyer - 3/14 - 3/20

Make sure you go check out Tammilee's Tips to enter her $25.00 Fred Meyer Gift Card giveaway!

A few things noticeable at Fredy's this week :

Fred Meyer Butter, $1.67 each with in-ad coupon

Foster Farms Whole Fryer Chickens, .79 cent/lb.

Corned Beef Brisket (point), $1.59/lb.

T-Bone Steaks, $4.99/lb.

Large California Navel Oranges, .38 cents/lb.

Sunny Delight, 64 oz, $1.00 each
- .25 cents/1 PRINTABLE
= .75 cents each

Rice A Roni, $1.00 each
- $1.00/3 (1/3 RP, exp. 4/30)
= .67 cents each wyb 3

Ken's Steakhouse Salad Dressing, $2.00
- $1.00 (3/7 SS, exp. 4/30
= $1.00 each

Kraft Shredded Cheese, 7 - 8 oz., $1.67 each
Hot Coupon World is showing that there are 2 different Blinkies out there: a B1G1 Free or a $2.00/2. Please leave a comment if you find them :)

Mahatma Rice Free Coupon Winners are....

Many Thanks to all that entered my Mahatma (formerly known as S & W) Free coupons Rice Giveaway, and to BzzAgent for giving me the opportunity to host. There were 23 valid entries in all and the following 3 numbers were generated at Random.org

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:

15 18 12

Timestamp: 2010-02-20 21:59:05 UTC

#15 belongs to The Saved Quarter!

#18 belongs to Rona's Home Page!

#12 belongs to Ahorne!

Congratulations Ladies! Just Email me the mailing address where you want your coupons sent and they are on there way!

Menu Plan Monday

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day! Thanks for coming by and be sure to enter my Mahatma Rice Give-away HERE! There will be 3 winners chosen on 2/20!

I was out in my yard, the weather was beautiful around here yesterday so I thought I would get a bit of a jump start on some of those weeds that are ALREADY coming up in my Herb Garden and a BEE tried to get me! What the??? It's the middle of February! It's just so weird, last year we were literally buried under 60 inches of snow and this year, there are weeds and bees....

Anyway, since it looks like garden season is early this year some of my chores this week will be related to getting my garden spots ready (as the weather allows) and I think I might plant some lettuce and see what happens. It will be the first time I have ever planted something in February. If this keeps up, I am going to plant some Watermelon this year - another first since our growing season is usually too short for it. I am getting excited!

Here is what we are going to eat this week:

Breakfast will be Cereal, Orange slices and Toast. On Saturday and Sunday I try to make a big traditional breakfast (since my husband has the weekend off now) of Fried Eggs, Sausage or Bacon (sometimes both), Fried Potatoes and Pancakes or Toast.

Lunches will be Trout Salad (like Tuna but with Trout), Hot Dogs and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches for us at home, DH will get left overs for work.

Dinner Menu - Most of the main dishes are still being made from items out of the Pantry and Freezers.

Monday - Vacuum, dust, sort huge basket of clean socks and put away.
Tacos (making enough for 2 nights)
All the fixings

Tuesday - Mop, clean windows.
Smoked Sausage
Baked Beans
Corn bread muffins
Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Wednesday - Change beddings, wash.
Macaroni Taco Bake (from Org Junkies menu last week)
Green Salad
Cottage Cheese

Thursday - whatever is left around the house that needs to be done.
Pizza (of course!)
Snack Buffet
Green Salad (yes, again)

Friday - Clean off desk!
Baked Trout (the boys are fishing again so we need to start eating up what is already in the freezer)
Brown Rice Pilaf
Baked Squash

Saturday - Work and School laundry
Hamburgers w/all the fixings
More roasted Sweet Potatoes (use em or lose em)
Left over Baked Beans

Sunday - Get garbage out...try to get clothes put away - Im really bad about this part of the laundry process :(
Roasted Chicken (making 2 - we are having Chicken Enchiladas next week)
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Fresh Veg (what ever is on sale this week)

See more menus and recipes at the always awesome MPM event, hosted by Laura, the Organization Junkie!

Bzzzz....Meet Mahatma, Enter my give away for Free Mahatma Rice!

This Give-away is now closed :(


A few months ago, I became a BzzAgent after finding my blog listed on their site by another BzzAgent. That was a nice surprise! An even nicer one was the one I got in the mail yesterday, 2 full size bags of Mahatma Rice (formerly known as S&W Rice) for me to review and tell everyone what I think about it. So, here goes...

Well, it's rice and I myself am not a huge fan of plain rice, though my husband is (he will eat it with butter and Ketchup on it.) I cooked up a big batch of it last night to add to our Game day Leftovers and have extra to make some Rice Pudding and a Cheesy Sausage Rice Bake for later this week.

The Rice Pudding turned out very good. My dad - Mr. Smarty Pants - said he couldn't give me his opinion on it until he ate several more bowls. I actually liked it, and I am not usually into the custardy style desserts. In hind sight, I should have added Cinnamon, but I was worried that it would compete with the Almond and Orange flavors.

I followed a basic Baked Rice Pudding Recipe, primarily for the ingredient portions but I don't like cooked raisins so here is my recipe for Baked Cranberry Orange Rice Pudding.

4 Eggs
3 C. Milk
1/3 C. Sugar
2 tsp. Almond Extract
2 tsp. Orange Zest
2/3 C. Craisins
3 C. cooked Rice

Beat the Eggs, Milk and Sugar, add the Almond Extract and Orange Zest and mix well. Add the Rice and Craisins, stirring well. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 Casserole dish and place in a water bath. Bake at 350 for an hour, or until the eggs have set. Here is what it looked like before the boys got into it.


So, besides getting 2 free bags of Mahatma Rice for myself, BzzAgent sent me a bunch of coupons for FREE bags of Mahatma Rice to share! I already sent a couple over to Michele at Happy2bFrugal and we are going to have a Mahatma Rice Throw Down in a week or so. But, I still have a few more and I want to give them to you!

3 people will win 2 FREE ITEM coupons, 1 coupon for a totally FREE 2 lb. Package of Mahatma White Rice and 1 coupon for a totally FREE 28 oz. Package of Mahatma Brown Rice and there are 3 ways to win!

1. Leave a comment that says what your favorite Rice dish is, or your favorite Rice recipe. Don't forget to leave me a way to identify you (anonymous comments will be discarded if there isn't a name or email address included).

2. Become a Follower of my blog! (make sure you leave another comment so I know it's you).

3. Tweet or Post about my give-away on your blog (just leave another comment with the Tweet or Blog URL so we all can see it).

On Saturday, February 20, 2010, I will randomly select 3 of the entries and post the winners, who will have until Tuesday, February 23 to contact me to claim the prizes.

Good Luck Everyone! Can't wait to see some new Rice recipes!

The ACD is doing 12 days of Hot Give-aways!

The Alaska Coupon Diva is doing 12 days of Give Aways. Click here to enter the first one for a $50.00 Carrs/Safeway Gift Card! But, you better hurry if you want to get in on this because they will be picking a winner on Tuesday, November 17th at 7 AM PST.

While your there, check out the ACD's Fred Meyer Coupon Match-ups for this week, just remember to double check your local ad for the sale prices in your area.

Enter Tammilee's Nut Cluster Give Away!

Head over to Tammilee's Tips to enter her give-away for the Nature Valley Nut Clusters Gift Pack! 

This is the coolest little gift pack, I was lucky enough to get one and give one away myself, but we like it so much Im all over trying to get another one, and some more free Nut Clusters!  We love them :)

Did you enter into my Give-Away yet?

September 29, 2009

I will be picking the winner of my NV Nut clusters and cool stuff give away tommorrow, so if you have not yet entered there is no better time then now to get yourself into it. Click HERE to enter and good luck to everyone!

Playing with my blog

September 26, 2009

I was getting tired of my plain little blog skin so I decided to dress it up a bit. My friend Michele at Happy 2B Frugal recommended checking out Hot Bliggity Blog for some ideas (you should see what Michele did at Safeway last night) and I found something I think I can live with. A few months ago I had played around with new blog skins but didn't care for how "busy" it made things look and I got really frustrated so I decided to go with nothing but it was boring. I hope you like it :)

Thanks to everyone who has entered my Nature Valley Nut Clusters Gift Pack give away! If you haven't entered yet (what are you waiting for?) then click HERE and get your entries in. There are 3 ways to win! The lucky winner will be chosen Wednesday.

Nature Valley Nut Clusters Review and Give-away!!

September 23, 2009

Yay!! Another Give-away! I had so much fun with the last one and I told My Blog Spark that I couldn't wait to do another one so they sent me 4 bags of Nature Valley Nut Clusters to review (will get to that in a moment), and a cute little over the shoulder back pack, a nice stainless steel water bottle, a little pair of binoculars and an extraordinarily clever little flash light (its the little green thing in the photo). The flash light is one of those crank style ones, it doesn't require batteries and is extremely bright, its going into the camping gear immediately. So, not only did I get all this awesome booty, but one of my readers is going to get some too!!

How, you ask? Here's the deal:

This time, everyone in the US and Canada can get up to 3 entries to the Give-away!

1. Leave a comment and tell me your favorite Nut Clusters flavor.


2. Follow my blog :) Click on the Follow button over to the left side on the page and then leave another comment (just so I know its you)


3. Do you Twitter? I do! So tweet my give-away and leave a comment with a link to your tweet.
   
   Make sure you include your name or a way to contact you when you leave your comments. Comments with out some kind of contact information will, unfortunately, have to be discarded :(

Entry's will be accepted until 12:00 pm PST Wednesday, September 30, 2009 and then Random.org will pick the winner. Good luck to everyone!!

Now, as I mentioned earlier I was asked to review all 4 flavors of the Nature Valley Nut Clusters. I invited fellow Coupon Queens and blogging Buddy's Michele from Happy 2B Frugal and Tammilee from TamileeTips over for lunch. Unfortunately, Tammilee caught that wicked cold that is going around and couldn't make it (We hope you feel better soon Tammilee!) Anyway, I asked Michele to review the Nature Valley Nut Clusters with me (notice, the all ready opened bags) and these are our thoughts.

Up first, the Honey Roasted Peanut:

Michele: My favorite!
Leah: Me too!

Next, the Nut Lovers:

Michele: Really good, I can really taste the honey sweetness in this one.
Leah: I like the different nut textures and flavors.

The Roasted Almond:

Michele: Im not really an almond fan, but these are tasty.
Leah: A bit saltier then the others but still very good.

And last, the Roasted Cashew:

Michele: Hard to bite thru!
Leah: Agreed, these are a jaw work-out and not as flavorful as the other varieties.

Many Thanks to My Blog Spark and Nature Valley for the yummy snacks and cool stuff!

Hot Coupon, maybe a money maker if you hurry!

September 14, 2009

I Love My Blog Spark!!

Click HERE for a coupon for $1.60 off any Nature Valley Granola Clusters.

And, thru Tuesday, 9/15/09, they are on sale at Fred Meyer 2 for $5.00, so here is what you do:

Print 2 of Coupons (Its Brinks, so hit the back button 2 or 3 times until you see the computers talking to print the 2nd coupon)

Got your coupons? Good :) Next...

Log onto CELLFIRE and add the $1.00 NV Nut Cluster e-coupon to your Fred Meyers Reward Card (aka Kroger Card)

And...

Log onto SHORTCUTS and add the $1.00 NV Nut Clusters e-coupon to your Fred Meyers Reward Card (aka Kroger Card) as well.

Grab 2 bags of the NV Nut Clusters = $5.00

minus $1.60 x 2 = ($3.20) = $1.80

minus $1.00 CELLFIRE E-COUPON = .80 Cents

MINUS $1.00 SHORTCUTS E- COUPON = .20 Cents OVERAGE!

Since your already there, you might as well pick up your FREE yogurt :)

Yo-Plus = $1.99

Minus $1.00 PRINTABLE = .99 Cents

Minus $1.00 E-Coupon = .01 Cents OVERAGE

Yoplait Fiber One Yogurt = $1.99

Minus $1.25 PRINTABLE = .74 Cents or Minus $1.00 PRINTABLE = .99 Cents

Minus $1.00 E-Coupon = .26 Cents OVERAGE or .01 Cents OVERAGE.

(See this POST for more information on E-Coupons and Fred Meyer)

At this point, your going to be anywhere from .21 cents to .47 cents ahead, but I think that it is highly unlikely that they are going to hand over the change and let you walk out of there - even though they refuse to make their coupon policy public - so you are going to have to find something else for the overage to be applied toward.

So, get ready for this! My Blog Spark is sending me a "Snack Pack" that includes all 4 varieties of the Granola Nut Clusters along with a sling backpack, stainless steel water bottle, flash light and binoculars in exchange for my review of the Nut Clusters...AND, they are giving me another "Snack Pack" to give away!!! Once I get mine, I will start the give-away, so check back to find out how to get in on it!!

The Winner for the $30.00 Gift Card is....

August 22, 2009

Drum Roll Please....

Random.org choose #24 as the winner!!

jastone74!

You have until 6:00 pm pst Monday, August 24 to email me your name and address! I got your email so I will be contacting you shortly.

Many Thanks to everyone who left a comment for the $30.00 Kroger Gift Card. I wish I had a gift card for every one of you. There were 57 comments all together, and unfortunately there were 8 that had to be discarded because they either had been left by anonymous commentors that left no name information, were duplicate entries and in one case, my own comment. I would have loved to count it though.

Also, BIG SHOUT OUTS TO:

My Blog Spark, General Mills, Pepsi Co.

For giving me this opportunity

Jane4Girls800dollarAnnualBudget

For all her helpful advice and for Tweeting it for me

And

Frugal Chic Living

for pointing me toward Random.org and for posting it on her AWESOME BLOG this morning.

I had so much fun with this and reading all the comments as well. I hope you all come back again soon. I will be doing my shopping spree in the next few days so check back to see how I do.

Fred Meyer and E-coupons

August 22, 2009

There were a couple comments on my Give-Away Blog about using E-coupons with your Fred Meyer Shoppers Rewards Card and since I was going over there to do some recon for my gift card shopping trip I decided to test it out and see if it really works.

I received a coupon for $2.50 off 1 from Vocal Point a few days ago (OT here, but if the Frugal Chic hasn't already convinced you to sign up with Vocal Point then I will tell you it is well worth it and to get over there and do it, for free!)

Anyway, like I was saying, I had the $2.50 off coupon from Vocal Point, and loaded a $1.00 e-coupon from P&G E-Savers onto my Freddy's card.

Fred Meyer has the 4 month Bounce Dryer Bar for $4.99, after my $1.00 E-saver coupon and the $2.50 Vocal Point Coupon, I paid $1.92. I didn't really need it, I already have one in the Dryer and I love it, but I figured it would be worth it to test the E-Coupons on the Fred Meyer Card.

Here are websites you can load E-Coupons onto your Fred Meyer Card (aka, Kroger Card):

Cellfire - a bit tricky but do-able, you have to use a different mobile phone number then you did for your Safeway Card, and choose a zipcode where they have Kroger Stores and choose the Kroger Card to load to. I choose a zipcode in Texas. I read about this on the cellfire help pages, so Im ok with it.

Unilever - In order to load coupons from this site, you have to (again) pick a zipcode that has Kroger Stores and the Kroger Card.

P&G E-Savers - Again, load onto the Kroger Card.

Shortcuts - This is the easy one, just add your Kroger Card to your profile and pick your coupons.

One thing I did learn about the Fred Meyer Card is that you are limited to 50 E-coupon on it at a time, so don't get all silly like I did and try to load them all. If I had known that prior to loading the coupons on the card I would have been alot pickier about the ones I did choose.

Ok, Im so Happy today is here, because I will be picking the winner of my first give-away around 7:00 pm PST tonight. I cant wait to see who wins and I wish everyone who has entered a comment for the $30.00 Kroger Gift card the best of luck!! Hop on over to JANE4GIRLS800DOLLARANNUALBUDGET and check out her pile of bootie from her $30.00 challenge. I hope I can do as well!

North Side Deal Alert !! Free Clorox Stainfighter with Power Booster

August 21, 2009

Just received information from a fellow Northside Coupon Queen. Albertsons at Wandermere has a Clorox Stain Fighter with Color Booster display that has Hangtags for a "Try Me Free" offer on the bottles, up to $7.59 MIR!

Fill out the Hangtag form, send in the receipt and in 6 to 8 weeks you will get your moeny back!

Thanks Jody, and thanks for entering my $30.00 Fred Meyer Gift Card Give-away!

My First Give-Away is a $30.00 Gift Card for Krogers/Fred Meyer!!

August 26, 2009

I want to again Thank everyone who left a comment for the $30.00 Kroger Gift Card. Id feel aweful if some nasty spammer used my blog to create a mailing list, so I have removed comments that included email and/or mailing address information. Thanks again!

Leah

August 22, 2009 Update:

The Winner is:

jastone74!! Congrats!! Check your email for more information about how to get your $30.00 Gift Card!

August 19, 2009

I am so excited about this I can barely breath!

My Blog Spark, General Mills and Pepsi Co. are giving ME a $30.00 gift card to Krogers and have challenged me to get the most loot that I can!

BUT, IT GETS BETTER!!

My Blog Spark, General Mills and Pepsi Co. are also offering another $30.00 Gift Card to one of my readers!! And, the gift card is valid at both Kroger Stores and Fred Meyers.

Here's the Deal for Kroger Shoppers:

Starting August 16, 2009 through September 2, 2009 there is a MEGA SAVINGS EVENT!

The Mega Savings Event is taking place at the Kroger Co., Family of Stores Aug. 16th thru Sept. 2nd – Click here to see a list of participating stores. If you are not familiar with this promotional offer, here is how it works: when you buy 10 participating brands (see list below) and use your Shopper Card at check out you instantly save $5. And there is no limit on the number of rewards per transaction! Look for the double yellow tags in-store .

Participating brands include: AMP Energy, Aquafina, Betty Crocker Baking Mixes, Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks, Cascadian Farms Cereals and Bars, Cap'n Crunch, Cheerios, Cheetos, Chex Mix, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Dole Juices and Juice Drinks, Fiber One, Fritos, Gatorade, Golden Grahams, Green Giant, Hamburger Helper, Life , Lipton Tea, Nature Valley, Old El Paso, Pepsi family of 2 Liters, Pillsbury, Progresso, Propel, Quaker Instant Oatmeal, Quaker Chewy Bars, Starbucks, Sobe Life Water, Totino’s, Trix, Tropicana, Yoplait and MORE!

For more information, and links to coupon-match-ups for the Kroger Mega-Event, you absolutely must go see JANE4GIRLS800DOLLARANNUALBUDGET (psss: she's giving away a $30.00 gift card too!)

Here's the Deal for Fred Meyer Shoppers:

Starting August 16, 2009 through August 29, 2009, purchase 10 of the qualifying items (see the list above) and earn 500 Bonus Reward Points on your Fred Meyer Rewards Card. Another way to figure out if the product is part of the Promotion is if it has one of the "Blue Participating Item" Tags. For every dollar you spend, you get 1 bonus point, and when you get $500.00 bonus points in a 13 week cycle, you will be mailed a Rewards Rebate to spend at your favorite Fred Meyers.

To get more bang for your buck, load up your Krogers and Fred Meyer's card with e-coupons from Cellfire and Shortcuts, and printing them out from Coupons.com, Smartsource, and Red Plum. Shortcuts is pretty strait forward about this, you just add a Krogers card to your account (even if its a Fred Meyer, choose Krogers as your new card). Cellfire is a bit trickier, you have to set up a new account with a different cell phone number, then enter a zipcode for an area that actually has Kroger stores (I used 77494), then you can download e-coupons on it from Krogers just like you do for Safeway.

Ok, here is the fun part. Like I said before, I am not only being given a $30.00 gift card for myself, but I get to give one away too!! Oh, I am so excited about this! So, if you want a chance at a $30.00 Gift Card that can be used at Kroger or Fred Meyer, leave me a comment with your name and city, and **if you want to, you can email me your full name and address info as well so that when the winner is chosen I can forward the info to My Blog Spark so that they can mail out the prize asap. I will use the Random Integer Generator (recommended by the Frugal Chic) to determine the winner on Sunday evening, August 22, 2009 and will post the winning number and name and either:

1. Forward the winner's info to My Blog Spark (if I already have it) or

2. Give the winner until 6:00 pm Monday, August 23, 2009 to email me their contact info. If the prize is unclaimed by that time, I will pick another winner.

Much love to My Blog Spark, General Mills, and Pepsi Co for giving me this opportunity to do this give-away, and to Erin for her helpful advice on how to do this right!

**I hate spam mail too, so all name, email and address information I receive for this give away will be deleted after the prize is awarded.