It would figure that I went grocery shopping yesterday and today there are new coupons added at Cellfire! At least a few of them are things that I buy every single week. Have you checked to see what is in your area? Here are a few that caught my eye today:

• Betty Crocker Cake Mix and Frosting
• Yoplait Yogurt
• Cheerios
• Chex Mix
• Cinnamon Toast Crunch
• Gardetto’s Snack Mix
• Pillsbury Grands
• Totinos Pizza Rolls
• Totinos Party Pizza

Remember that most of the time you can combine the Cellfire coupons with other coupons such as the ones from Coupons.com.

Click here to get signed up for Cellfire and grab these great grocery coupons and more!

I just got back from grocery shopping and saved $7 using just a handful of coupons that I printed off from Coupons.com for items that I was going to be buying anyway. As a disclaimer, I am not a very good coupon clipper. I don’t even get a newspaper. But I do like Coupons.com because I can just check off all of the boxes for what I want and then print them out. Here’s what I ended up buying this week. I could have used more coupons if I had wanted to try some different brands, but it was just a restocking trip for me to buy things that I use every week:

• Yoplait Delights Multipack (Lemon!)
• Yoplait Fiber One Yogurt Multipack (Key Lime)
• Three cans of Progresso Soup
• Kraft 100 Calorie Packs Cheese Bites
• Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers
• Fiber One Chewy Bars
• Sargento Deli Style Sliced Cheese
• Six assorted Yoplait Yogurt cups
• Wanchaie Ferry Sweet and Sour Chicken Dinner Kit

As you can seen, the average value of each coupon was about .80. The average item price was about $2.25. So I saved essentially a third. And that was on top of a few of them already being on sale. Yes, my family eats a lot of yogurt! I use the Delights as a “dessert” in the afternoon so I usually eat two a day.

Are you a fan of Coupons.com? Which coupons did you use this week?

Red velvet cake is one of my biggest downfalls. Especially when it has the yummy cream cheese icing on it. I can literally eat it until I get sick. However, it’s not really conducive to my counting of points on Weight Watchers. So imagine how excited I was when I heard that Yoplait now has a Light, Fat Free Red Velvet Cake yogurt.

I immediately began looking for it and struck out at both Marsh and Target. Fortunately, I was able to get it at Kroger today. I came home and made myself a sandwich so that I could quickly get to “dessert”–my new Red Velvet Yogurt. I am a fan in general of the Yoplait Light yogurts, so my hopes were high.

Let me say first to be careful when you open the container. You know how sometimes they kind of  “explode” a little yogurt on you? This yogurt is kind of a dark red, and I now have a spot on my blue shirt. Hopefully it will come out.

Next, onto the tasting. The flavor is absolutely reminiscent of Red Velvet Cake, including the cream cheese icing. The consistency is a little bit thin, but it’s not supposed to be one of the thick yogurt varieties. I think the red coloring actually adds to the experience because it helps your mind *think* that you are eating red velvet cake.

I was prepared not to like it because I knew it wouldn’t taste exactly like my beloved cake. However, it was definitely good and I plan on getting more. It’s more of a “dessert” yogurt than a flavor like peach or vanilla. That’s perfect for me because I love my dessert! At only 100 calories and no fat, this is a dessert worth splurging on. If you want to save a little money on your yogurt, Coupons.com actually has a coupon for Yoplait this week.

One of my favorite times of the day is getting the mail. I know it’s crazy, but I often get some really good stuff. Because I belong to a number of different survey and free stuff sites, I can expect to get something cool at least twice a week. Whether it’s a sample to try out myself, a coupon for something I use anyway, or a set of sample to share with friends, I always get excited by the mail.

I’ve been a member of Vocal Point since they started and am always excited when I see something from them. They are owned by Procter & Gamble and are a legitimate survey/coupon site. You get email newsletters as well as coupons and samples via snail mail. Most of the time you are then given an opportunity to give feedback about their products–whether they are new or just improved. You’ll also find recipes and little household tips (like the many uses for fabric softener sheets).

If you like getting free samples and coupons and are not already a member, you should definitely give Vocal Point a try. It’s free and will definitely save you some money.

I’ve never been one to clip coupons, which is odd because I won’t shop online without a coupon. But it always seemed to me that sorting through coupons to find brands that I like and then save a quarter was a lot of work. My family of 4 would often spend $180 or more at the grocery each week between name brand items and all of the special stuff I would buy to help stay in my Weight Watchers points. But as the economy got worse and expenses got higher, I decided that one of the places I could cut back easily was at the grocery.

Over the last year, I started shopping almost exclusively at Kroger and using my Kroger Plus card. I started paying more attention to their sales and swapping out some of my name brand items for their store brands.

I am happy to say that last week my bill was only $88!! It was a combination of the coupon that they had in the paper, the Kroger Plus deals, and swapping out brands. That would be a savings of over $5000 for my family over a year!

One of the things that is really helping is that by using my Kroger Plus card, they know what I buy and can send me targeted coupons. Today I received coupons in the mail for apple juice, pudding, cheese, Edy’s ice cream, Oscar Mayer wieners, and Oscar Mayer deli meat. Not only are these the products that I like, but the EXACT brands that I buy. $6.50 in coupons for things that I would be buying for sure in the next two weeks anyway. There’s also a notice of their 10 Item Mega Event coming up, and I always stock up on name brands when I have that.

So the moral of the story is that even us “non-coupon-clipping” girls can save a lot of money at Kroger just by being smart and making the most of our Kroger Plus cards.

I’m one of those people who loves to try new products before they hit the shelves or as soon as I see them advertised. I’m all about the newest makeup, floor cleaner, or hairspray. Lucky for me, there are ways to get free samples of a lot of those things just for giving my opinion about them. The best part? All of the companies I am going to mention are completely legitimate! My favorites:

NFO/MySurvey.com I’ve written about this one before, but it is worth mentioning again. Often their surveys are just your opinion about products that are already out in the marketplace. But sometimes you get lucky and if your demographics are right, you get to test a new product and then give your feedback. I don’t mind telling them when the product is crappy either. For example, I got a makeup sample recently and I hated it! I would have done the test of the product and given feedback even if they hadn’t given me “points” for it. I just wanted to try the product. I ended up not liking it at all and told them exactly why. I haven’t seen the product being sold yet, so hopefully they are fixing it! I’ve accumulated enough points to even cash out for a couple of $20 checks from them. Not much, but it’s really the product reviews that I do it for anyway.

SheSpeaks.com This is one that I don’t see many people talking about yet, but I love it! You don’t get any kind of points for doing the product tests, but you do get some great products to try. You usually get a nice packet of information about the product along with some coupons to give to your friends when you try out the products. I currently have a nice sized sample of Bliss Best of Skintentions and have had things like Oral B toothbrushes for my kids and OPI Nic’s Sticks. Geared toward women, I love the types of campaigns that they offer.

BzzAgent This is kind of a combination of both of the above. You take surveys about products in addition to getting to try them out and spreading the word about them. You do accumulate some “points” that you can cash out as well for gift cards. BzzAgent campaigns are not primarily geared toward women, but those are the ones that I get most. I’ve tried makeup, window cleaners, and even a toothbrush sanitizer. You have to kind of work your way up the ladder there to get the best campaigns. One cool thing is that it integrates with your Facebook account. The site is a little more convoluted than the other two, but if you really get into it, you can get some cool product opportunities.

Taking all three of these together, I probably end up with at least 2 new products a month to test. And I’m not so heavily into it that I visit the sites daily…or even weekly. I pretty much wait for them to email me with opportunities. But I’ve had great luck with all three and hope that you will, too!

Not surprisingly, KFC has realized that selling all fried chicken does not fit with the way that most Americans are eating these days (or at least WANT  to be eating). As a result, they have released Kentucky Grilled Chicken.

I was lucky enough to live in one of the test markets for the new Kentucky Grilled Chicken and have had it several times. Except for those every-now-and-again times when I just completely crave fried chicken, I was quite satisfied with the grilled chicken. It definitely has the KFC seasoning/flavor. I’m really picky about fast food chicken. I won’t even eat the so-called grilled chicken breasts at places like Wendy’s and McDonald’s. They just taste like rubber to me. But the new KFC is different. It’s almost more like I made it at home. Or the kind that you would find in the deli at your grocery store. And then you get to choose from all of those yummy KFC side dishes.

The downside is that it isn’t cheap. Healthy rarely is. So be sure to sign up for the KFC coupons on their site. It’s definitely worth it to sign up!

(Edited: Looking for the Free Grilled KFC deal mentioned on Oprah? It expires on May 6 but you can click here!)

I’m a big fan of Restaurant.com for a couple of reasons. First, I save money on eating out, which I love to do. But more importantly, I learn about new restaurants that I might not otherwise try. I’m always eating at the same places. When I see a sale at Restaurant.com, I tend to find different restaurants than usual and try them out. One such restaurant (Mudsocks in Fishers, Indiana) became a family favorite!

Restaurant.com almost always has various specials. Today I just saw an 80% off special. It’s good through the end of the month: 80% Off + Free $25 Certificate with /a min. $11 purchase on $25 Gift Certificates. $2 with code CELEBRATE.12/26/08 thru 12/31/08.

If you’ve never tried out Restaurant.com, now is a great time!