Great Deal on a Wii!

If your kids are clammoring for a Wii, and you are one of the four people (including myself) who don't already own one, you can get a great deal on the black one at Best Buy right now, and if you go through Ebates you can make the deal even sweeter cause you will automatically be qualified for the $10 gift card offer that is going on through 12/31/11. The bundle includes the Wii console, the new Super Mario game, and a CD! Here's how to score on this deal:

• Go and sign up for Ebates (it literally takes 15 seconds)
• Search for Best Buy
• Click on Shop Now
• On the BestBuy.com website, search Nintendo Wii Mario Bros
• The first item to come up in the search should be the Wii bundle, click on it to open it in the window
• Look for the line item “FREE $20 Gift Card: Find Out How” under the price of the game; click on it
• Add both the system and the $20 gift card to your cart
• Select in store pick up or ship it to your home (the gift card will automatically be shipped)
• Your grand total is around $162 including tax (since we live in CA). You will get $1.62 in cash back plus a $20 gift card. And if you are new to Ebates, you'll get the $10 gift card for signing up!

If You're in the Market for New Foundation...

I always have to get new foundation in the Winter, because that is about the time my sun kissed glow wears off and I go back to being the pasty pale girl that God intended for me to be.

So yesterday I went into Walgreens, and as I was walking in I noticed they had a little Christmas catalogue over by where they keep the ads, and it said that there were $25 of coupons inside. So I grabbed one, naturally, and looked over all of the coupons which are mainly for cosmetics and hygiene products.

I noticed there were several neon orange clearance tags all over the cosmetics department, so I went over to browse around for some good deals. I was shocked to see Almay's Clear Complexion Make-Up for $3.29 (down from $13!). What really made my day though was the fact that there was a $1 off any Almay product coupon in the back of the Walgreens coupon book I had just picked up!

So I grabbed two bottles (the Walgreen's coupons will automatically take $1 off for each one that you buy, even if you just use one coupon!) and got each one for $2.29. Imagine if you found an Almay manufacturer coupon to stack on the Walgreen's one, we could be talking $1.29 for a bottle of $13 foundation!

I found this sale available at both the Milpitas Walgreen's (on Calaveras) and the Sunnyvale Walgreen's (at El Camino and Sunnyvale). You may want to move fast before they're all gone!

Don't Make Me Call Santa!

One of my favorite things about December is that my kids only need to be reminded once that "Santa is watching!" to whip them into shape real quick any time their behavior is less than desireable. I can't tell you how many times I have texted one of my brothers a heads up that "Santa" was about to get a phone call to report bad behavior. Two minutes later their phone would ring and they would know to answer, "North Pole, Santa speaking" in their jolliest old man voice...Right now there are some free Santa communications available that you can use to get your kids in the Good Behavior Spirit:

• Go Here to download your free letters to and from Santa
• Go Here to send a free call from Santa to your phone (you can send three calls a day, and you can choose from three different messages. My favorite is: "You better watch out!")
• This site lets you upload a picture of your little angel and then it creates a free video to show your child where Santa lets them know whether they've made the Naughty or Nice list this year!
• And Here is another free video builder

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas, and a month of well behaved children!

Great Toilet Paper Deal on Amazon!

I know this is super random, but my household goes through toilet paper like it's water, so I am always looking for a great deal on some high quality TP!

Right now on Amazon there is a great deal on 24 MegaRolls of Charmin Ultra Strong (which is the equivalent of 96 regular rolls!) for $21.80 when you clip the 25c coupon on the page and select Subscribe and Save at checkout. That works out to about $0.23 per regular roll which is a great price!

New to Subscribe and Save? Amazon often offers discounts if you sign up to receive auto shipments (which can be canceled at anytime). I often select that I want to receive the item every 6 months and once I receive it, I go to “My Account” and click on “Manage Subscribe and Save” to cancel it. Don’t forget!

Great Starbucks Deal Going on NOW!

Right now if you order four gift cards from Starbucks and pay with a Visa card, you get a $5 Starbucks gift card free! So buy four $5 gift cards and get a free $5 gift card! These are good to give as gifts to coworkers, or if you're anything like me, spend to feed your own coffee addiction!

Don't have a Visa? Sign up for an AccountNow and get a prepaid one with no credit check! I have used AccountNow for years and can't say enough great things about them!

Got My Free Target Gift Card From Ebates Today!

Now through December 31st, if you sign up for Ebates (it literally takes 15 seconds) and spend $25 through one of their participating stores you can get a free $10 gift card to the store of your choice! You just have to sign up by December 31st, and as long as you spend the $25 by February 2012 you get the gift card!

I was a little skeptical at first, but I needed to get some Christmas gifts for my coworkers at the Body Shop anyway, so I went through Ebates to the Body Shop website and bought my gifts just like I would have if I had gone to the stores site directly. Not only did the purchase qualify me for the gift card offer, but I also got 10% of my purchase back and free shipping when I used a free shipping code I found on the Ebates website.

That was all I needed to do, easy as that, and today I got my $10 Target gift card in the mail! I'm going to hang onto the card until January when just about everything in the store is on clearance...

Let's Coupon Together in 2012

Since the Christmas season is pretty hectic I've been giving a lot of thought to the best time frame to start posting coupon deals for all of you to use.

When I first started to familiarize myself with couponing, through the use of the millions of blogs that are dedicated to the topic, it was frustrating because in the beginning so many of the deals that they mentioned involved using coupons that I didn't have because they were distributed prior to me starting to collect them. I think that deters a lot of people from trying it because they don't know where to jump in and start.

I know there are lots of people in the Bay Area interested in utilizing coupons as a means of saving money, and I know from first hand experience that when you're first starting out you need to start with baby steps until you get more familiar and comfortable with the process. Since lots of you may not have a coupon stash on hand, I want us all to be able to start on the same page so that all of us can get in on the hundreds of deals available every month without anybody feeling left out.

So I decided that my "Weekly Deals" section will begin the first weekend of January 2012 and will only involve deals that use coupons that become available that week and then going forward all you have to do is keep up with the coupons as they are released.

I hope you'll all join me in making 2012 a year of penny pinching! In the mean time, here are some things that you can do to prepare:

• Sign up for Sunday Delivery with the Mercury News by calling: 1-800-870-6397 (for whatever reason I can't seem to find a way to do it online) - OR - Familiarize yourself with the stores around you that sell them (Walgreens sells them at a discount)
• If you don't already have one, get yourself a cheap printer to print coupons on (they have Deskjets at Walmart for less than $40 that come with the ink)
• Download any of the coupon printing software that you will need in order to be able to print any online coupons that I mention
• Keep checking this site weekly, and make room in your house for the stockpile you're on your way to building!

I don't know about you, but I for one am excited! I guess I will mark this down as New Years Resolution #1 of about 500 that I make for myself every year!