Saturday, May 5, 2012

Walgreens Register Rewards- simple terms

For those wanna-be couponers out there who don't understand "walgreens register rewards".

In simple terms I have explained how you can save money use RR (register rewards). It took lots of trips and trial and error to understand fully these little slips of paper called RR's.


Walgreens Register Rewards

Abbreviation: RR
Ex. When you buy 2 tubes of Colgate toothpaste you receive a $2 Register Reward

Rules:
You can use coupons to buy the toothpaste.
You can only receive ONE RR for the Colgate promo per transaction. That means if you buy 4 tubes of toothpaste you will not receive 2 RR.
Your $2 RR will print out at the end of the transaction and it will say “compliments of Colgate” It is a manufacture coupon.    

How to use it:
Your $2 RR compliments of Colgate can NOT be used on the same promotion
It needs to be used on a separate transaction
It can only be used on a product $2.00 or more. $1.99 is not close enough.
It works as a manufacture coupon so you can not use other manufacture coupons on what you buy.

Ex. I will go to Walgreens before it expires 2 weeks after it printed and but Dr. Pepper. There are no manufacture coupons for Dr. Pepper but it is on sale for $4.50. I present the RR at the end of the transaction with my other coupons. My total for Dr. Pepper will be $2.50


Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Plant Fertilizer- that simple!


For fun and to hopefully to save a little money I planted a garden in March.

My husband found a home made recipe yesterday for plant fertilizer. Today I did more research and tried it.

Ingredients:
Epsom Salt
Water


Yes, it is that simple!!


The ratio that worked best is 2Tablespoon Epsom salt to 1 gallon water. I watered 4 sections of the garden with 4 different variables. The WARM water worked the best. It does the best at not shocking the roots. It also dissolved the Epsom salt the best.

So add 2 tablespoons Epsom salt to your watering can full of warm water. I stirred mine up with a long handle and watered immediately as to not let the salt settle.

I am going to be watering my garden with this home made fertilizer once a month per the gardeners advice.

Other tips I found:

·          
Use granules when planting or transplanting tomato and pepper plants. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon around each plant. This gives the young plant a small boost of magnesium and sulfur.
· 
Spray growing plants. Some growers believe tomatoes and peppers absorb the magnesium better through leaves and recommend spraying 1 tablespoon Epsom Salt per gallon of water at first planting, again when blossoms appear, and finally at fruit set. This may help prevent leaf yellowing later in the season. ( my bell peppers leaves are turning yellow so I am going to spray them 2 times a month and see if they improve. )



Monday, April 30, 2012

We are doing process of elimination with my daughter to figure out her food allergies. For the time being she has to be Gluten, Egg, Soy, Corn, Dairy free. I am allergic to Gluten and my husband is allergic to Peanuts. We also do not eat anything with food dyes in our home.These food restrictions have been quite difficult to come up with new meals.

I could not figure out what to do with my ground beef since my husband doesn't like spaghetti i couldn't put tacos in a corn or flour tortilla. I resorted to meatballs but quickly realized I couldn't make the recipe I use to make. I combined three recipes and my brain and came up with this. It was such a HIT!

DECSG FREE Meatballs
Dairy, egg, corn, soy, gluten FREE
Meatball ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 onion, diced                                    
1 glove garlic
¼ cup gluten free oats – I buy the Trader Joes brand because it is cheapest.
4  T. plain ricemilk
1.5 t. olive oil
1 1/2 t. salt
1 t. pepper


            Sauce Ingredients:

            8ox pureed tomatoes
            garlic salt
            1 T. honey or molasses or brown sugar  
            1 T. parsley

1.     Mix all meatball ingredients (except the ground beef) in bowl
2.     Add ground beef and kneed with hands
3.     Shape into balls
4.     Place in frying pan
5.     Add sauce ingredients to pan
6.     Place lid on
7.     Cook on high- I think it took about 15minuts

Serve with rice or brown rice and a vegetable!

*We are not saucey people in this house. So if you want sauce to cover your rice in double the sauce ingredients.

Bio

I have been into couponing to save our family money for about one year now. Over that year I have saved an average of about $300 a month. Recently I have made home made household products to also save on money. This past month I found out that my daughter has several food allergies. So now I am baking and cooking from scratch as well. 

The statement "There are no coupons for healthy or organic"- is not true. I am here to tell you it is possible. 


Here I will share my how to's, my successes, my failures and my recipes.