Some Deals!

Happy Easter!!!
I found some deals to share with you. You may have noticed that quite a few of the grocery stores have opted to end last week's flyer on Wed and the new flyer started yesterday. The Walmart deals I got you can get this week. The Alymer's Tomatoes were $1 each. There are coupons on them for $1 off when you buy 2. I had these from early purchases, so 2 cans for tomatoes for $1, or .50 each! The sandwich meat is Piller brand, which is a Checkout 51 offer this week. The ham/salami was $1.67-$1.50 from Checkout 51, makes it .17/package. The pizza meat was $3.77-.75 coupon-$1.50 Checkout 51=$1.52. An interesting aside is that the pizza pack of meat had HST on it, the small pack of ham meat had none. I asked the teller and she had no idea why that was. I went to customer service and they refunded the .45 tax charged! They had no idea why that happened, and I don't know if anything was done about it, so watch your receipts. It should not be taxed!
At Costco, the cream cheese is on for $5.99 for a 3 pack!!!
The romaine pack is $1.99! I don't know if these deals are just at our store, or if they are at all stores.

Our Costco has the 3 packs of chickens on until Sunday they are $6 off.  They seem to be around $30 ish dollars, so that makes them around $2.18/lb. Again, smaller is better with this deal.
At Superstore, the Tenderflake Pie Crusts are $2.47. There is the $1.50 off when you buy 2 coupon and Checkout 51 has $1. So, for 2 it was $2.44 or $1.22 each! There are 2 crusts inside so if you use them separately it means they cost .61 each!

Free Kindle Books

So, this morning I made some muffins. Blackberry ones. I think I even bought the blackberries from an organic source. Then I went one step further to making my muffins super healthy, I forgot the sugar! Well, after pouring honey all over our muffins, I started thinking of recipes and that lead me to remember I wanted to share this great website with you!
It's called Hundred Zeros and it's a gathering of free Kindle Books. (I don't have a Kindle, but use the app on my iPad)These are books that you'd find on Amazon if you knew where to look. I signed up for the emails and I get an email every time new books are available. This is just some of the recipe books available, but they have all sorts of categories to choose from. 

Look Lynn, a Kale recipe book! Won't your kids be happy!
Happy reading!

$5 for $10 Starbucks Card

Groupon has a $5 Starbucks card for $10. I have done this before, but they go fast. It says there is one day left on the groupon right now, Friday. There is a limit of one per person. I did it this morning and have already transferred it to my registered Starbucks card. It is super easy.Hope you can get one!


The fine print:

Expires Sep 30, 2013
Limit 1 per person. Valid within Canada only. Must redeem Groupon voucher at http://groupon.starbucks.com/ for a Starbucks Card eGift, which can be used in any participating Starbucks store. Must redeem by 9/30/13. Groupon will send amount paid in Starbucks Card eGift if not redeemed by 9/30/13 within 30 days



 

Checkout 51 Buys!

It's spring break here. We get 2 weeks, which is sooooo nice. I have finished my chores for the day, so I get to blog! I have really enjoyed Checkout 51 and combining deals and coupons with it! Here is a small sampling of what we have bought over the last 2 months. Lots of items are gone, as they have been eaten! Even so of the boxes you see here are empty!
 Everything in the picture should have cost $71.51, I  paid a total of $.70 to buy it.
A break down is as follows
I was paid to buy the smellies and the Finish. How? Well, the Finish I bought at Canadian Tire. It was $6.60(taxes in), I had a $2 off coupon and a $5 CT scratch card and Checkout 51 paid me $1.50, so I made $1.90.
The Glade smellies were on clearance for .25! Checkout 51 paid me $2 each, so after taxes I made $5.16.
The big Glade smelly was $5.60(taxes in) I had a $5 off coupon and Checkout 51 paid me $5 so I made $4.40!!!
Taco kits were $2 each, but they had a free snack at the movie on them. We used them at our night out, they were worth $5.49(small popcorn)and $4.50(regular candy). Total made on these $5.99.
Total made $17.45
How much I paid after Checkout 51 and coupons
The Hungry Man's were $1.24 each
Tostitos $1.30 each
Oikos yogurt .73
Bread $1.50
Kraft singles .97
Beans .65
Classico $1 each
Rice Krispies .44
Triscuits .49 each
Dad's $1.60
Toothpaste .24(tax)each
Valley Selections frozen vegetables $1.69

Why do I show this to you? Well, my hope is that you too can save/make money, by combining deals! 

Boston Cream Muffins

I am still spending way to much time on Pinterest! Here's the latest thing I found!
They are so easy and I will include all the shortcuts and longcuts, so you decide!
Boston Cream Muffins
Make a Vanilla Cake Mix. You can use a box and follow the directions, pouring it into muffin tins when you are done.The original recipe calls for mini muffin tins, I don't have those, so I used regular size. Or, you can make this scratch cake.
White Cake
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
Mix
1/2 cup oil
3 whole eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk
Combine wet and dry. Pour into 12 greased(or papered) muffin tins. Bake 350 15-20 minutes.
Let the muffins cool completely. I set them outside for a few minutes.
Cut the muffins in half. For the pudding you can use a package or even a couple of containers of the premade. The recipe calls for 1 cup of pudding, 1 tsp per muffin, we just added what looked tasty. Pudding running out the sides is okay with us. If you want to make your pudding from scratch I found this premade mix recipe here. (I didn't have vanilla beans, so I just added vanilla to the pot.)One note if you do make your pudding from scratch, allow several hours for it to cool.
The Chocolate Sauce is very easy too.
Sauce
1 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup whipping cream
Place in microwave for 30-60 secs until chocolate chips have melted. Mix. Pour over muffins. Put them in the fridge to harden.
My daughter and I made them together right before supper. She asked if we could hurry up and get supper over with so we could get down to dessert! :)
There are a few in my fridge and I am wondering...what time is an decent time to start eating them?

First Tuesday of the Month Shopping

Shopping at Safeway for customer appreciation day was quite productive! As you can see there was lots of clearance! The grand total was $55.98. The breakdown is as follows.
Checkout 51 Purchases
Dad's cookies $4-$2 = $2 X 2
Valley Selection Vegetables $2.99-$1= $1.99
Free Product Coupons
Trop 50 $5.29-max $5.19=.10
ButterBall Turkey Bacon $4.29-$4.29=free
Clorox Stain Remover $4.39-max $3.29=$1.10
Safeway coupons
New at Safeway $2 off chicken lasagna
$6.99-$2.00=$4.99
Safeway email direct cheese for $4.99 X 4=$19.96
We played the cheese game of course and got sizes from .503-.526! Total of 2.06 kg of cheese.
Manufactures' coupons
$1 off WYB2 Dawn
2 Dawn $3.88-$1=$2.88
MIR
Lysol MIR$3.50 plus tax .42= $3.94 Max rebate =$4.29
3 Yogurt 50% off $3.73
Sour cream 50% off $1.37
2 1L Whipping Cream 50% off $4.82
2 Organic salsa 50% off $4.18
The salmon were B1G1 so 2 for $13.73
10% off $7.61
Why did I get $7.61 when I spent only $55.98 total you ask? Well, first of all it's very important to go through self checkout. The computer is set up so you scan all your items and when you are done it asks if you want 10% off or 10 X the air miles. Then it asks for your coupons! Some people have had success doing this with the cashiers at the regular tills, but I never have.
This is actually 2 different bills combined. I did one for just one pack of the Dad's(I need a separate receipt for Checkout 51) and 2 cheeses, (there is a limit of 2 per card). So one bill was $11.98 and I did not get 10% off. My other bill I ended up paying $44 out of pocket after Checkout 51 and MIR.

Superstore had this Maple Leaf bacon on clearance! Plus there were $1 off introductory coupons stuck on them! Plus, I had a $2 off coupon from Maple Leaf!
$5.27-$1.58-$1-$2=.69!!!
The other package was $2.69.

Costco still has the pork on this week! This one was $13.62-$5=$8.62
The Ecos laundry detergent is on for $9.49. My sister in law loves it so I thought we would try it.

Save On has buy 5 Kraft products get $5 off. The coupon is in this week's flyer.The salad dressings are $2.50 and the cream cheese is $3.50 so $14.50-$5=$9.50 for these 5 Kraft Products. The Country Harvest are Checkout 51 offers. They are $2.50 less .75 from Check out 51 making them $1.75 a loaf! I just learned that starting tomorrow Checkout 51 has $1 off Country Harvest 100% loaves, so you could get them for $1.50!

Walmart total spent $8.77.
Milk $4.36-$1 Lakeview Markets coupon=$3.36
Dad's cookies PM Safeway $4-$2 Checkout 51 =$2
Rice Krispie Squares $1.94-$1 coupon-.50 Checkout 51=.44
Flat Bread $3-$2 coupon=$1
Onions $1.97
Whew! That was a long one....go take a rest!

Pumpkin Scones!

I was spending some quality time on Pinterest when I came across these yummy pumpkin scones! The original recipe is by recipe girl and is here. I thought I would post the steps here, as I like to break recipes down a bit to convince myself that there aren't too much work! She forms her's into pie shaped pieces, I did fingers as I made a triple recipe to feed a bunch of people.

                              Pumpkin Scones

                            Preheat oven to 425.

The dry ingredients are
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt, cinnamon and nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves and ginger
Whisk all.

Using a pastry cutter or the food processor cut in 6 Tbsp cold butter.(you can see my book ...I was reading The Postmistress!)

The wet ingredients are
1 egg
3 Tbsp half and half(I used heavy cream substitute)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
Whisk together.
I learned from another pinterest post that you can make your own heavy cream! To make 3 Tbsp I used 2 Tbsp of milk  and 1 Tbsp of melted butter.

Fold the wet into the dry to form a ball.

Pat into a rectangle. Cut into the shape you desire.Use a wet or greased knife to separate them a bit.The original recipe post shows much nicer pictures!
Bake for 14-16 minutes.

Make the first glaze with 1/2 cup icing sugar and 1 Tbsp milk. Whisk together.

Brush the scones with the thin icing with a pastry brush. Let icing harden a bit. Just takes a few minutes.

Meanwhile make the second icing
3/4 cup icing sugar
1-2 Tbsp milk
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
a pinch of ground cloves and ginger
Whisk together.

Drizzle over top. Enjoy!
One recipe costs less than $3 to make.