During the summertime, I know alot of parents are looking for inexpensive activities to fill the days with fun. Alot of those activities are available in the great outdoors, but sometimes you might prefer a cooler way to beat the heat. There are alot of awesome programs for seeing great family movies with your munchkins this summer without going through lot of change! Here are a few summer movie deals I have found for the kiddos:
Carmike Cinemas have different promotions according to location. The one closest to me is offering a movie, drink and popcorn for just $4 total. You’ll have to look up your location for their times and promotions.
Regal Cinemas is not free, but they have $1 movies certain days during the summer at participating locations. Check the link for details, to see if your local Regal Cinema is participating, and what their specific schedule is.
Black Friday week savings are AMAZING at CVS!!! There are over 30 freebies, and I was able to score quite a few of them. It’s really easy compared to usual, since they’re mostly free even without any extra coupons. There are even more terrific deals than I’m sharing, if you want to do some research and scan ads, but this was what was simple for me to take advantage of with two less than patient planning and shopping companions. I riproaring tickled with my bounty as is! 🙂
I walked into CVS with $13 ECB leftover from a previous shopping trip. I paid $21.93 out of pocket, have $12 in Extra Care Bucks leftover, and still have a $12.99 rebate to send in. That being said, I am eventually going to be paid $3.06 for buying $135.40 worth of great stuff!! Can anybody give me a “WOOHOO!!!”?? LOL My four year old is not very cooperative with searching for sale items, so I had her hunting for things and toting a basket, all with the goal of earning a (free) pack of gum if she was helpful instead of acting up. Yes, she earned her gum. Yes, that is the part of the trip she bragged about the most. That and the fact that she believes we saved enough money in this shopping trip to buy her most desired gift for Christmas. 🙂
So, to break it down:
$13 Extra Care Bucks walking in
$21.93 paid out of pocket
4 Transactions (I put some of the higher priced items on the first two purchases to carry the ECB to the next)
$135.40 Value
$12 Extra Care Bucks and a $12.99 rebate leftover
PAID $3.06 for taking these goodies off of their hands!!!
Here is your list of things you can buy for free, nearly free or even be paid to take home! I printed my list off and gave myself a rough list on the back of the main items to put on my transactions (I planned on 3) so I wouldn’t pay a ton out of pocket…
99¢ ECB wyb Ricola Extra Strength, 4 ct 99¢ Limit 1 Final Price: FREE
99¢ ECB wyb CVS Training Pants 2 ct or CVS Ultra Soft Cleansing Cloths, 12 ct., 99¢ Limit 1 Final Price: FREE
$3 ECB wyb (2) Starbucks Refreshers or Doubleshots 2/$3 Limit 1 Final Price: FREE
$2.37 ECB wyb Children’s Advil 1 oz., $2.37 Limit 1 If you can find an Children’s Advil coupon, this is a moneymaker. Final Price: FREE/MONEYMAKER!
$2 ECB wyb Right Guard Total Defense Deodorant, $2.99 Limit 1 Use coupons you can print at Swagbucks earning points or at coupons.com without signing up or earning points, plus you can ear Saving Star money on this. Final Price: Around 50 cents after Saving Star payment.
$12.99 ECB wyb CVS True Result Blood glucose monitoring system $12.99 Limit 1 Mine had a rebate in it to get the complete price back. Final Price: FREE or a $12.99 moneymaker
Colgate Total 4-4.2 oz., $3 Use $2.50/1 Colgate Total CVS COUPON Printer and there are Colgate coupons in prior papers, if you have them. Final Price: FREE or 50 cents
I was also able to get some bags of Christmas Reeses candy for pretty much free after their deals and stacking grocery & in store coupons. Supreme protein bars for the hubby were only about $1 each, which is less than 1/3 of the price, after in store coupons, Extra care bucks and a printed coupon. Sodas are 69 cents apiece, so I just threw a couple of those in. I wanted toothbrushes as stocking stuffers for the kiddos, and the Clifford ones you see were extremely cheap after in store coupon and Extra Care Bucks. The coupons on the protein bars and Reeses candy coupons are available on coupons.com and Swagbucks, as well.
What are you most excited about getting for free?
If you want to join Swagbucks or Saving Star, check out my posts on those programs:
In honor and appreciation of all former and current military and their families on Veteran’s Day, I thought I’d share a few of the well deserved freebies & discounts available just for the vets in celebration of their sacrifice and service. Please note that most will require a military ID or proof of former military service in order to be given, so have it ready when you go to claim your goodies. Some will give it to anyone wearing their uniform. I’d suggest that you call your local restaurant or store to see what proof of service they need before going. Share with your friends & family in the military, even if you can’t benefit from these deals. They deserve it! 🙂
Food:
Chilis- November 11- Free meal from select menu on November 11.
Golden Corral- November 11 only from 4-9pm, free drink and buffet for anyone who has ever served in the military.
Longhorn- Free Texas Tonions and non-alcoholic beverages from November 11-14.
O’Charley’s- Free meal from the $9.99 menu on Veteran’s Day.
Olive Garden- Free meal on November 11.
Outback Steakhouse- Free bloomin’ onion on Veteran’s Day. Also, they are giving a 10% discount on total check from November 12 through December 31!
Red Lobster- Free appetizer with military ID (taxes not included). Good November 11-14.
Starbucks- Free tall brewed coffee to veterans, active military and spouses on Veterans Day. Please call ahead to make sure your local Starbucks is participating.
Non-Food:
David’s Bridal- 20% off of any dress for military brides or one marrying someone in the military through November 15. Make sure to see what proof you need if you are marrying a military man, since I doubt they just take your word for it.
Great Clips- Free haircut for veterans on veterans Day, or you can just stop in for your free haircut card to be used by December 31. A non-military person can pick up the card to be redeemed by a veteran later. They may be available on their Facebook page, as well.
Home Depot- 10% off up to a $500 purchase for veterans on Veterans Day.
JoAnn Fabric and Craft Store- 20% off November 10-15.
Lowes- 10% off for military and immediate family members on Veterans Day.
Meineke- Free oil changes for military and spouses on Veterans Day.
Red Roof Inn- During the month of November, a military ID will get you 15% off of your stay.
I would advise calling ahead to make sure your local restaurant or shop is participating in these specials, but most should honor them. If you are military, which freebie or discount is your favorite? If not, I’m again encouraging you to share this list with your friends and family who have served. It’s the least you can do!! 🙂
I just ordered a couple of the free photo bargains available right now, and thought I’d share the joy. I’m always looking for free or extremely cheap deals on getting my kiddos’ adorable pictures printed, and I’m sure it is the same for most of us who like snapshots of memories.
Walgreens has a free 8X10 photo collage you can order with the code BOOCOLLAGE. You can pick it up in your local Walgreens for free. I order these every time this deal is available, and they always turn out beautifully. This time I got one made of my two little ones in their costumes for a trunk or treat last night. The code expires 11-02-2013.
Shuttefly has 101 free prints, but you do have to pay shipping. I was able to use the code on 99 prints, which saved significantly on the shipping costs (they go up at 100 prints). It cost me $6.49, tax included, and they will be shipped right to my house. The code is SPOOKY. It expires 11-01-13, so hurry to get this great bargain!
If you miss the deadline on the 101 free prints, you can take advantage of the 50 free prints code 50FREEPRINTS. It doesn’t expire until 11-17-13. 🙂
I printed the photos I’ve illustrated this little share-a-thon with, among others. What will you use your codes to print? 🙂
Yesterday’s trip to CVS was a booming success. If you need diapers, sodas and/or dish soap, this is a great deal!
I bought three packs of Huggies diapers, three 12 packs of soda, two Palmolive dish detergents, a small mouthwash and a body mist.
Huggies and Palmolive were part of a deal where you get $10 Extra Care Bucks if you spend $30. I bought three packs of Huggies diapers at $9.49 each, used two coupons (if I had found the third that had fallen out in my purse, this deal would’ve been $2.00 better) and got two Palmolive dish soaps to complete the $30 minimum.
There is a coupon printing from the magic red machine for a travel size Colgate mouthwash, making it 50 cents.
I got a free body wash coupon for my birthday.
The 12 pack Coke products are three packs for $11, with $2 Extra Care Bucks for buying three packs.
I had $10 Extra Care Bucks left from a previous shopping trip a few weeks ago.
I also had a $5 off of $30 and $5 off of $15 coupons, one loaded on my card from an email and one a printed coupon, which both were able to ring on this transaction.
Total: $66.70
Cash Out of Pocket: $14.57
Extra Care Bucks for Later: $12.00
Savings Percentage: 78 (not counting the ECB to use later)
If I hadn’t had a 4 year old acting like a lunatic at the register, I’d planned to use the $10.00 Extra Care Bucks from the diapers and dish soap to pay for most of the drinks, which is what I’d suggest you do. In that case, you’d have only $14.47 out of pocket, or $12.47 if you can get the three Huggies coupons, unless you come in with the Extra Care Bucks like I did.
Want to take advantage of this deal? I’ll tell you where to get the Huggies coupons. Just make sure when you go in CVS to go to the red coupon printer for the in-store coupons. 🙂
If you want to earn points while printing these coupons, like I did, you can do so by joining Swagbucks and printing the coupons there. You can do so by following the link here:
If you don’t want to join the program and earn points toward gift cards or other great items just by printing coupons you are going to print either way, you can just follow the link below to simply print the Huggies coupons, although I am only seeing coupons for Slip-ons and Overnights, and I’d printed for regular ones on Swagbucks a few days ago:
The mask & cape were gifts purchased with Mommy’s rewards programs
This post has been updated to add some tricks I’ve learned since I originally posted this last year. I hope that you will enjoy Swagbucks as much as I do! Please follow my referral code at the end to join and reap the benefits of this awesome program!
I want to share one of my very favorite points earning programs with y’all! Swagbucks is easy to use, and the points add up very quickly. I actually paid for most of my daughter’s 4th birthday presents using Amazon gift cards that I earned through Swagbucks and SavingStar by doing things that I would do with or without rewards programs!! I got over $35 worth of adorable gifts for my daughter from Amazon, with only $6 out of pocket expenses after using the gift cards I’d saved up from those two programs! Talk about doing the penny pinching mama dance!! 🙂 I’m already racking up points to use for some of my Christmas shopping in a few weeks. (There are other pay-outs, but the Amazon gift cards are my favorites.)
By now I’m sure you’re wondering how it works, right? Well, let me walk you through the basics…
450 points can be exchanged for a $5 Amazon gift card. There are other payouts, including Paypal payments, gas cards, gift cards to many other popular stores, travel expenses or items in their own Swagbucks store, but this is the only one I’ve used and a simple reference for the value of the points you’re earning through your activities. It is also the best value I have found.
You earn random points by using Swagbucks as your search engine instead of one of the conventional search engines like Yahoo or Google. Just today, I got 10 points for doing a search for photo coupon codes using their site. It pops up when you do the search if you got a code, then you just type it in and enter and it is added to your account balance toward your next payout. Easy peasy!
You can shop through their shopping link with many online retailers, and earn a designated amount of points for every dollar spent. The average points per dollar seems to be from 2 to 7 points, from my observation. This is great if you are doing online shopping already! I earned almost enough for a $5 giftcard just by clicking through their links to order ink for my printer a couple of months ago. I was going to order it, anyway, so that was free money to use for my daughter’s gifts later. 🙂
You will earn 10 points for every coupon that you print and redeem through their coupons link. These are pretty much the same coupons that you get from coupons.com, but you’re getting rewarded for using them. If you’re like me, and use alot of coupons to stretch your budget, this is an awesome way to rack up those rewards quickly! Sometimes you are also entered into sweepstakes for every coupon you print. The other day when I was printing coupons for diapers and groceries, I was also being entered into a sweepstakes for $250!
Swagbucks frequently releases “Swag Codes” that you can enter in a special box in the top of your screen for bonus points. These are usually only good for a short period of time. For example, today there was one that was only good until 5pm EST, and I earned 3 points just for entering “Wagbucks” into the little magic box up there. My favorite site for keeping up with the codes is .
You can also install a tool bar, which I have chosen not to do, since I’m not too fond of tool bars in general. Every day they havea “Daily Poll”, which pays 1 point just for choosing your answer. You are able to participate in surveys, which will pay you a varying amount of points per survey. They have different “tasks” you can do for extra points, such as completing certain searches and informing them of the top 3 sites that show up. If you choose to join various programs using their links, you’ll earn points for doing that. There are video advertisements available at times to watch in exchange for more points. I’ve not taken advantage of all of these opportunities, but there are alot of different ways to keep adding onto that points balance if you have the time and inclination, most of them without spending one red cent! 🙂
Birthday girl. She had a ninja turtle/princess party. 🙂
Another way that you can earn points is through referrals, of course. If you like the program, you share it with others. If they join through your link, you will earn some points from that. If you’re interested in joining Swagbucks after my honestly enthusiastic review here, I’d be tickled pink if you’d use my referral link below. 🙂
If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to try to answer. This really is a great program that I enjoy immensely, and I’m happy to be able to share about it with anyone who will listen! 🙂
*Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Three out of five members of our family have birthdays coming up in the next three weeks, and I’m already seeing some of the fun free stuff we are going to get in this year. There are alot of birthday freebies out there, and many of them have perks all year long. I’ve seen alot of them, but haven’t take advantage of them all. Some are not in my area, others I’m not interested in, some I just wouldn’t use. I’m only sharing a dozen of the birthday freebies I’ve actually signed up for, used myself and liked, so I can vouch for them. I’m aware of alot more, and plan to sign up for a few new ones I discovered while looking up these links to share with you, so I’ll probably update this list in the future to share some new favorites. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.
Ace Hardware. My husband is always needing something from the hardware store, so a $5 off of a $20 purchase coupon is more than welcome around his birthday. This is also a rewards program. http://www.acehardware.com/acerewards/index.jsp
Captain Ds. I’ve got everyone in my family signed up for this one. Free meals on our birthdays? Yeahhhh, buddy!! http://captainds.com/join-ds-club/
Dairy Queen. I love this one, because you get a buy one get one free coupon for a Blizzard on your birthday and other coupons throughout the year. http://www.dairyqueen.com/Blizzard-Fan-Club/
Firehouse Subs. No link needed on this one. Just show up on your birthday with your photo ID, and they’ll give you a delectably free medium sub. My husband is partial to this one, being a firefighter and looooooving their subs. 🙂
Red Lobster. This is one of our favorite places to go for our rare dates, so it was a given that I’d sign right up for their club. The birthday surprise is usually a dessert or something like that, but the coupons throughout the year are even better. http://www.redlobster.com/club/
Toys R Us. Another one for the kiddos. Free gift card, and you can sign up for a phone call from Geoffrey Giraffe and can get even more goodies if you show up in store. https://geoffreysbirthdayclub.com/
Which birthday freebie are you most excited about getting for your birthday or someone in your family? For free clothes, check out Schoola Discount Clothing
There are some great coupons available for printing right now if you have any diapered bottoms in your house! I’ve already taken advantage of using these with some sales last week, but didn’t do a post about it in time for y’all to take advantage of that bargain. I was very sick for a couple of weeks there, and neglected almost everything other than my children & husband, unfortunately. The coupons are good for awhile, and regardless of where you shop, they’ll rack up savings quickly. The best coupons are on Huggies diapers & wipes and Pampers diapers, but there are other baby coupons, as well.
If you want to earn points while printing coupons you’re going to use with or without the points earnings, please see this post and sign up for this awesome program and print your coupons there:
How many of y’all out there are night owls and love movies? If that fits you as well as it does alot of my kinfolks (hello, my night lurking relatives! 😉 ), then this is a deal that I’m super duper excited to share with you!!
At select AMC theaters this summer, they are hosting special 10pm showings with tickets for only $3!! Even better, the proceeds go toward causes that benefit autism! These are not just lame-o boring movies, either. The next two movies are The Amazing Spiderman and The Hunger Games, both of which I gather were very popular at their first showings. 🙂
If you’re like the hubby and I, you’d be too sleepy to enjoy these movies, although we are seriously overdue for a date without munchkins. However, alot of our relatives, especially mine, have schedules almost more vampire than human, so I’m sure some of them would love to go to one of these movies! 🙂 How many of y’all are nightowls who would love a good movie on the cheap? Which of these movies would you be most interested in seeing?
Now for the magic link with the schedules, movies and other pertinent details…
If you have munchkins who are still diaper bottoms, this is a great deal for you! I’m surprised to have deals this great so close together! Also, if you’ve not yet done the Kimberly Clark Rebate, this is a great opportunity to take advantage of that. (See my previous post about it here: https://pennypinchingpeach.com/2013/05/24/fantastic-diaper-deal-rebate-and-more/ ) You could get diapers and wipes for nearly nothing after rebate if you buy three packs of Huggies and $5 worth of Huggies wipes and haven’t done the rebate yet! 🙂
I did two transactions during a quick trip to CVS today. My main purposes for going in there was to take advantage of the diaper deal I’d put together and to get some ibuprofen we needed. There was also a good sale on Pepsi products. I went in with no Extra Care Bucks to spend. I spent $21.49 out of pocket and saved $36.60, with a less-than-impressive savings percentage of 63%. I don’t feel bad about that, though, because I had to get the Ibuprofen since we’d actually ran out, for once, and I bought a couple of extra sodas just to be able to use my Extra Care Bucks from the diapers so I wouldn’t have to use my money.
Pay attention here! :)The deal I’d recommend you going to get before the stores close Saturday is the one on Huggies diapers. I had a couple of coupons from Sunday papers for $1.50 off and printed one for $3.00 off (which you can find for at least $2.00 off on my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pennypinchingpeachpage , where I sometimes share “bonus deals” that I don’t write entire blog posts about). CVS is running a deal where you get $10 in Extra Care Bucks when you buy $30 in select items. Huggies and Pull-ups are two of those items, and they are $10 a pack. They also have a coupon printing off for alot of people at the magical coupon machine in the store for $5 off a $25 baby purchase. After my coupons and the ECB, they only cost me $3 a pack!! Now, that is a diapering deal to dance about, y’all! 🙂
CVS shopping tip: When you scan your card at those lovely red coupon machines in the stores, don’t just do it once. Keep scanning it again until it tells you there are no more coupons available, which is usually after two or three scans. That makes you more likely to get all of their current special coupons, but it’s not something they’re going to tell you. Try it! You’ll see. It keeps printing new coupons for at least two scans! 🙂
Which items do you search for bargains on? For me, it’s obviously diapers and wipes, but also grocery items that we use consistently.
Penny Pinching Peach 