Answer Rebate Update

I posted here (http://thriftysinglemama.blogspot.com/2010/11/answer-ovulation-test-rebate-form.html?zx=24269bfc4f36a11c) about the Answer ovulation test rebate.

My 7 dollar check came in the mail this weekend. It took 6 or so weeks but its in. If this is a kit you'll be needing anyway, you may still be able buy them and send it off since it doesn't expire till May.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Update

I went into the hospital Friday evening and therefore could not update. I was not able to do the Excedrin deal as planned and boy did that bother me. I thought about heading over for a quick trip after being released from the hospital but when you can't drive, have so much pain and are pretty much out of it, it's best not to try that!
We aren't completely sure what happened. I had face swelling which has gone down. I had weakness and numbness in my arm due to chest pain. Headaches. My gosh, it was just the worst. I'm 70% back to normal I think.
I'm not yet back to driving, my face is better, my arm is slowly getting back to itself and I can text and write. I'll probably be a bit slower on the deals while I recover mainly cause I'm depending on others to get everything done but I'm still here!
Most importantly, my baby is fine. A bit stubborn as he didn't like the monitors and refused to even stay still but he's great. Looks great and is healthy so no issues there. We're safely making it. 34 weeks today and I'm hoping for at least 4 more if I can't have a full 6.

Postpartum Stockpile: Pads

At Walgreens there is a great deal on 28 count and higher Stayfree Pads.

They have a coupon in their Sunday advertisement (ends this Saturday) for 3 dollars off per pack. The coupon will ring up for however many you buy so you only need one.

In this past Sundays SS (1/9) there is a BOGO coupon. The max value is 6.00. The pads are 6.79.

I only bought two. My deal looked like this:
Pick up 2- 28 or higher count Stayfree pads at 6.79 each.
Use 1 BOGO coupon to take off 6.00
Use 1 Walgreens 3 dollars off coupon which takes off 6.00.
You pay: 1.71 with tax.

My Walgreens wouldn't take the 1.00 off coupon that was in 11/7 RP. Your mileage may vary. Bring it with you anyway. Its worth a shot at additional savings.

These pads are for after he's here but not the first little bit. I'll be using Depends and such for the first few heavy weeks and then move to these. This has saved me upwards of 12/13 dollars. Hopefully it will work for you!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Postpartum Prep: food!

One thing that I have put off far too long is food for postpartum. I think its a combination of our limited freezer space and a lack of time that has me procrastinating. On top of that, I'm not quite sure how much to make.
There will be four adults in the house but probably only two of us who will be mainly taking care of Jett. My mother and myself. I'm not at all expecting her to but I know she will.

Since that will be the case, she'll be just as worn out as me and who wants to cook when they're worn out?
Early on in my pregnancy, I was advised to check out WIC which is a service that aims to educate new and soon to be moms on nutrition and breastfeeding along with giving them an allotted amount of food every month.

Being the person that I am (my sisters would say the cheap person that I am) my goal is to spend very little on getting food together but to still have enough ready for us. Combining my need for postpartum meals and the availability of WIC, I've made a list of foods that use what's given with what's affordable.

Here are my food choices:
Chicken, brown rice, veggie soup
Ham and cheese wraps (tortillas)
Broccoli, ham and cheese, brown rice
Broccoli, Cheese quiche (eggs)
Veggie quiche
Turkey and cheese wraps
Brown rice and meat burritos
Single serving veggies

Other options:
French toast (bread, milk, eggs)
Waffles
Biscuits
Corn bread muffins
Oatmeal
Yogurt
Baked apples
Banana bread
Apple muffins
 
I'll also keep bread around for the occasional sandwich and will have juice (also from WIC) and water from the Brita pitchers that I bought not too long ago.The ingredients call for a few outside items. The bold items are supplied by WIC while the rest are items that I'll pick up on my own using coupons when possible.
My goal is to get us through the first 8 or so weeks. I'll post each of these meals as I make them and will let you know how many portions each makes.

Let's hope I can get this all done at least by early February! Wish me luck!

Free Oatmeal from Target

*Be sure to check your prices! I was expecting a price of 2.24 as I had read but mine was 1.92 for both the small and the large quick Quaker oats!

I took off to Target to get a few little things this morning.
I got two packs of Halls cough drops for around 88 cents using both the Target printable for 50 cents off and the 1.00 off 2 from the 1/2 SS. They are on sale for 1.19 each which made a good deal.

The best deal though was the oatmeal! With the 1.00 off coupon from 1/2 RP and the 1.00 off Target printable, you have more than free oatmeal!

I got the largest size for the price. Not only so that I can learn to eat more oatmeal, but also because you can use oatmeal in the breast soothers that I'll post about, lactation cookies, hot packs.Good deal!

Postpartum Stockpile: Swiss Miss Cocoa

 I am stockpiling cocoa. My sisters tease me about this but I'm saving boxes of cocoa.
After my son is born next month, I imagine it will be nice to stay in bundled up drinking cocoa.
Its pretty chilly out as it usually is around this time of year so why not have cocoa ready when you want it?

A new Swiss Miss coupon is available here and it is a valuable one! 2.00 off any one box of Swiss Miss Cocoa. Last I checked, several stores including Target and Walmart have a variety of this cocoa marked down to a dollar. Head over there and print this coupon so you can have cocoa too!

Postpartum stockpile: Excedrin

My family prefers to use Excedrin when it comes to headaches and aches.
When I went in to CVS this morning, I found that they put up a new Excedrin PM tearpad that goes perfectly with the Excedrin deal that they have going this week. If you buy 20 dollars worth of Excedrin, you get 10 ECBs (extra care bucks) which can be used on anything in the store.

The coupon is for 2.50 off any one Excedrin PM product. It expires on 2/28/11. If you were lucky enough to have been able to get the free Excedrin product coupon from coupons.com (no longer available), this deal will be even sweeter since they count your total prior to any coupons.

If you don't have the free product coupon  then your best bet is to just head over to CVS to find this tearpad and save some money on this current Excedrin deal.

I'll try to figure out the cheapest way to make this deal work for you but keep in mind that my total will be different as I was able to get the other Excedrin coupons.

CVS Olive Oil deal update

 I mentioned yesterday about olive oil and its use during the birthing time making it an item to add to the birth prep list.
CVS is running a BOGO deal on Filippo Berio olive oil through Saturday of this week.
I went to check it out today. I had my 1.00 ECB from using my green tag, 1.50 worth of ECBs from my fall spending, and my 1.00 off Filippo Berio coupon.
The olive oil is 8.99 without the sale making it a little under 4.50 each. With my coupons and ECBs, I paid 5.49 making it just under 2.75 for each. That's far better than the original price for one.
The sale ends this Saturday. If you have a green tag and an extracare card, make sure to check if you have any bucks to sweeten this BOGO deal.

Birth Prep - Pads

Nope, not regular pads this time. Piddle pads, as I like to call them. They're also known as Chux pads or puppy trainers.
I figured the puppy ones would work just as well and I don't need so many so I abandoned my original plan of ordering online and decided to head to the pet store after reading a bit online. I saved some money by buying local, no shipping costs!
At Petsmart, this 10 count package is 4.32 counting the 33 cents of tax. The best thing about it is that it comes with a coupon in case you find that you need a larger count of pads.
The coupon is for 5 dollars off a 150 count package and it expires February 28th. That should make a large pack under 20 or so dollars.
I'm fine with 10. These are to make the bed which I am planning to do January 28th once I hit 36 weeks! That's in 24 days!
Just so you're prepared for that post, I'll be using these pads, old sheets, plastic sheeting in the form of table cloths (they didn't have the shower curtains like I wanted at the dollar store so I make do!) and lastly, large safety pins to keep it all in place.
Keep a look out for that one!

Walgreens Lansinoh coupon

A name I always hear when it comes to nursing supplies is Lansinoh.
I've yet to use any of their products being a first time mom to be but this new Walgreens coupon may well come in handy.
In their January coupon booklet, they have a coupon for 2 dollars off any one Lansinoh nursing aid. It expires January 29th!

Pampers Gifts To Grow

Pampers Gifts to Grow is a rewards program that lets you earn points when you buy products. You sign up for membership, enter codes, get the points and then redeem those points for rewards.
You can read more about membership and sign up here.

The newest code is:
F9779Fyahfjrycn

I believe this code expires 1/5/11.

Birth Prep- olive oil

(Bad picture, sorry!)

Perennial massage is very important in helping your body to stretch during labor. I know, that's probably not the sentence you expected me to start with, but its true! Olive oil is just one of the oils that can be used during the massage.
At CVS, I noticed the Filippo Berio olive oil 16.9-17oz bottles is on a BOGO (buy one get one) sale. I wondered if they had coupons to sweeten the deal so with the help of google, I found out that they do indeed. If you have any ECBs mentioned in the last post, it could be a great sale!
When you click this link and sign up for their newsletter, they give you a complimentary coupon for one dollar off a product.
I will update to give you more information on the price at CVS, the expiration date of the coupon and to let you know how this works for me but this could very well be a good deal to add one to your kitchen and one to your birth kit!
With the recipes that come with the newsletter, I think I'll be using one of these bottles pretty soon.

* This deal applies to those with an ExtraCare card. Pick one up in stores today when you go to get your olive oil!

CVS Fall Extra Care Bucks

If you did a lot of shopping at CVS with your ExtraCare card this fall, now is a good time to go and see if you have any free ECBs (extra care bucks).
I went this morning, scanned my card at their machine and got 1.50 in ECBs. This is free money that can be used on anything in the store just like real money. These can also print out at the end of your receipt so watch out for that if you're making a purchase soon.
If you're not signed up for an extracare card, visit www.CVS.com for more information or head into a store today.

Gerber Goodstart Blinkies!

I didn't get a picture of the machine but if you use Gerber Goodstart formula, now is a good time head over to the baby isle in Krogers.
Here they have a blinkie (coupon machine) set up with coupons for 3.00 off any one 24oz or larger can of powder.
The coupons expire on January 30th!

Birth Prep - Pedialyte Deal

 

If you did not take advantage of the Pedialyte deal at Walgreens, you can head over to Krogers and take advantage of another deal.

My midwife suggests Pedialyte during births to keep up your electrolytes. I think its a very good idea to keep them on hand.
At Krogers, when you buy two regular Pedialyte bottles or the single serve boxes, you get a 1.50 off coupon to use on your next Kroger shopping trip.

With the 1.50 off coupon that was previously available on the Pedialyte website, you can get both for 6.72 with a coupon coming back to you which is almost like paying 5.22 total which is a little over the full price of one.

I'll be using this deal since I not only need Pedialyte but I could always 1.50 off of groceries.
This offer is good till the very end of January so don't too long to get on it!

Upcoming projects!

This blog does have a fair bit of couponing information and of course there will be more of that to come, but since making an easy nursing bra and tank by way of modifications, I seem to be caught up in finding other ways to make simple things to prep for Jett's arrival.

Wow! That was a long sentence!

Besides couponing, using your resources, and finding new uses for old things are also good ways to be thrifty. I'm all about being thrifty.

Before I crawled into bed tonight I made simple muslin wraps/blankets/swaddlers. I measured out material for a crib sheet, and made plans to make some prefolds. On top of that, I'm hoping to work on a carseat cover for an infant car seat. I'm hoping to share this information with you very soon so you can do the same if needed. So far no money has been spent and hopefully with these easy projects with items around the house, you'll be able to say the same!

I'll update soon enough!