Toys R Us Coupons for July 10th and 11th

Babies R Us and Toys R Us is having something called "red hot bonus days" Friday and Saturday. Deals include a free $10 gift card if you buy 3 big boxes of Pampers, big packs of Charmin or Bounty, or big bottles of Dreft (you can buy toilet paper at Babies R Us? Who knew?); a $50 gift card if you buy a PS3 80 gig system, and here's a page of printable coupons too.
One of the products on sale is called Pacifier Wipes. I'm intrigued. Heading back into the valley of the shadow of infant mommyhood as I am, I dread all that picking up and rinsing off of pacis -- or that sinking feeling you get when you're somewhere where you CAN'T rinse it off and your kid is destroying the public peace and you absolutely must pop that now contaminated thing back in its little mouth. I'm assuming these wipes have some kind of mild santizer on them that won't hurt the baby or turn him off to the taste? Babies R Us, please send me some!

Free 1-Year Field and Stream Subscription

This is not exactly my kind of magazine, but I think my dad used to get it. Too bad it's too late for Father's Day. Still, if you have a sportsperson in your life, here's a free gift you can send them. It's from Mercury Magazines, which I have found to be a legitimate provider.

Grocery Deals -- 7/9-7/15 DOMINICK'S/SAFEWAY

Dominick's continues its trend of being very light on the bargains lately. You could get a free box of Cocoa Krispies on the weekend and a free cup of Starbucks ice cream, but that's about it.
Fri, Sat, Sun only
New York Strip steak $4.99/lb.
Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies 16.5 oz. 99 cents (use $1/1 from 6/7 RedPlum to get it FREE), limit 1
Super Coupons, all w/ $20 purchase required and limit 1:
Betty Crocker brownie mix 79 cents
Kraft Velveeta shells and cheese cup 88 cents (use bogo printable to get 2nd free, but with limi of 1 your mileage may vary)
Lucerne eggs 18-count 99 cents
Oatmeal Cream Pies and other Litle Debbie snack boxes 99 cents
Regular sales:
Rainier cherries $2.99/lb.
Rancher's Reserve boneless cross rib steak $1.99/lb.
Edy's ice cream 1.5-qauart $2.99
strawberries $2.50/lb.

Grocery Deals -- 7/9-715 JEWEL-OSCO

Good morning! It's my due date. Yet here I am, with an empty fridge and freezer that are finally working again, ready to shop.
General Mills cereals and Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks $1.88; buy 4 and get a free Redbox rental at checkout (those aren't that big a deal since you can usually find free codes online) (use $1/1 Honey Nut Cheerios printable, $1/2 printable, .75/1 printable, or $1/3 from recent inserts)
fresh pork chops $1.49/lb.
Jewel butter 1 lb. $1.99
Rainier cherries $3.49/lb.
Northwest cherries $1.99/lb.
organic cherries $4.99/lb.
Wild Harvest organic peanut butter $3.59/18 oz.
Vienna Beef jumbo beef franks 12 oz. $3.29
Oscar Meyer meat franks $1.67 (use $1/2 frm 6/7 SmartSource)
Mountain High Yogurt, 32 oz. $2.50
Phil's cage-free eggs $2.79/dozen
Natural Harvest wide pan bread, 24 oz. $2
Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce $2.79
blackberries 6 oz. Bogo @ $3.99
Philly gourmet beef patties, 32 oz. Bogo @ $8.99 ($2.25/lb.)
Perdue 93% lean turkey 16 oz. Bogo @ $3.99

KMart Comes Through! (Now It's Up to Catalina)

Yesterday I was running out of get-stuff-done time, and clear out of patience, so I decided to email Kmart customer service about my Catalina problem instead of trying to call and explain the whole thing to some clueless phone agent.
A few hours later, I got an automatic email saying that my message had contained a 16-digit number and they had deleted it on the off chance I had sent them my credit card number, with which apparently they cannot be trusted. Haha, the long number was the receipt number of the Huggies transaction. I added a hyphen to the number and resent the email last night.
Today at 10:30 a.m., I get a voice mail message from the manager of the Forest Park, Ill. Kmart where I'd shopped. He apologized about the problem and said he could send me a mail-in form so I could get the two $14 coupons I'm owed. And when I checked my email, there it was: A very short form with instructions to include the qualifying receipts with SKUs highlighted, and mail it to Catalina Marketing.
Wow! I am VERY impressed by Kmart's speedy response on this. I'm definitely keeping this manager's contact info in case I have any future problems at that location. I should point out that I mentioned this blog in my original email, so they knew that their response would be public. I do this not in an attempt to blackmail businesses, but in order to give them fair warning that they're being watched by more than just one person. I would hope that any other customer would also get the speedy response I got, but of course I have no idea.
Finally, if any of you also need to request your Catalinas by mail, email me at carrie AT shopliftingwithpermission.com and I'll email you the PDF.
And by the way, today must be my lucky day when it comes to customer service, because the Maytag repairman actually showed up just 90 minutes into a four-hour window and fixed my fridge with a part he had on hand. We didn't even have to miss our whole session at the local drop-in childcare center (ok, we missed more than half of it, but I'm counting my blessings here).

Product Rewards Programs

In the past, I have collected frequent flyer miles but stopped short of joining other product rewards programs. It just seemed that there were too many different things to join, too much paperwork or typing in of coupons.
But lately it has occurred to me that I buy a lot of a few things, mainly diapers (Although we did switch to mostly cloth with our 2-year-old, we have shelved the cloth ones for the moment because she grew out of her diaper covers and the new baby is coming every day. I'm thinking that after the baby is born, I'll invest in some cloth training pants for the 2-year-old.). I also buy a few 12-packs of soda every few months.
So I decided to test drive the Pampers Gifts to Grow, Huggies Enjoy the Ride Rewards, The Caregivers Marketplace, My Coke Rewards and Pepsi Stuff.
Of course, all these programs ask you for your email address and want to send you newsletters, coupons, etc. If you haven't yet set up a separate email address just for signing up for promotional junk, this is a good time to do so.
The first thing I should let you know is that I gave up on Pepsi Stuff right away. When I typed in http://www.pepsistuff.com/, which was listed on my box top with the code, I got to a regular Pepsi Web site and didn't see anywhere to enter codes. After a few minutes, I said "eff it" and moved on.
Here's my impression of the other sites so far:
Pampers: Finding the codes to type in was easy once I looked at the diagram on the site -- you have to completely turn the bags inside out or look inside the inner lid of the wipes box. Unfortunately, the code on my wipes had partially rubbed off and I wasn't able to use it. The code on the Pampers bag I had lying around said it was past its date -- it said "end, March 09," but when I typed the code in, it still worked. Then I also entered the bonus codes I found on Money Saving Mom (only the 1-point ones are still valid), so I have 7 points.
What you can get: Kids books, Diapers.com gift certificates, stationery, Starbucks gift cards; all the cheapest rewards (like 40-80 pointes) are for Shutterfly.
What I like: They make it easy to enter multiple codes at one time, including cutting and pasting bonus codes from Web sites.
What I don't like: Why would they put the code where it can have contact with baby wipes and rub off?? Also, the site is pretty slow in getting back to you after submitting your code, and sometimes it asks you to log in multiple times.
Huggies: Apparently besides buying Huggies, you can also get points on this site by taking polls and watching commercials. However, it hardly seems worth the trouble since the points only get you entries to sweepstakes, not actual loot. There are so many free sweepstakes out there that I don't have time to enter, so why am I bothering with this site? I have a feeling I won't be. Which is too bad, because I buy more Huggies than Pampers. Hopefully, they will get some new loot soon.
What I like: Variety of ways to earn points.
What I don't like: The loot; the 3-part code entry process that makes it slower to paste bonus codes from online.
My Coke Rewards: I only had one box top around, which I entered for 10 points. They also gave me 10 points for joining. I must say, although the point numbers are arbitrary, that I now feel more accomplished in Coke Rewards than I do in Pampers where I only have a single-digit point total.
What you get: At first, I was excited to see there is a category for spending only 1-10 points. But then I saw that they're all sweepstakes. See above. The next tier up offers a bunch of promotional clothing, which they should pay me to wear, no?
At 24 points, things get better. You can get a coupon for a 20-ounce drink. I really like getting coupons for free products because I can use them to run up my total when doing Catalina deals at Jewel or using a coupon with a minimum purchase at CVS. The next level up is mostly magazine subscriptions, which is strange because those are so often available for free or really cheap. I think I will spend all my points on 20-oz. Coke or Minute Maid coupons.
What I like: Codes easy to find and easy to enter. Can be redeemed for product coupons.
What I don't like: Aside from the coupons, stuff you can get is kinda lame.
Caregivers Marketplace: This is not exactly a brand rewards program; it's actually some kind of rebate program that pays you real cash for Huggies diaper receipts (and Balmex diaper cream). I'm really not sure what their angle is -- the Web site says the manufacturers pay the rebates -- but I like getting real cash back.
Signing up on the Web site was quick enough, but I'm nervous about the requirement to send in actual paperwork. You download a PDF rebate request from the site, and send it in with receipts for five products, and in 4 to 6 weeks they send you a check. For Huggies, it's 75 cents per jumbo pack.

Shopping July 1-7 -- No Fridge, No Point

For most of this week our refrigerator was still not working -- Maytag is backed up due to a product recall and we weren't able to accept the soonest appointment they could give us because we were going to the Cubs game that afternoon. So instead of bringing food into the house I spent most of the week throwing things away and cooking what we could salvage out of the freezer. Now that our freezer is empty of frozen goods, we're using it as a cool place to keep our milk, the cheese sticks that used to be frozen, and the four cans of whipped cream that miraculously didn't go bad.
I bought just a few things:
$10.35 at Jewel for a pineapple, 10 oz. of raspberries, a jar of pickles and a bag of whole wheat dinner rolls.
$3.65 at Aldi for 8 ears of corn, a pint of blueberries and a bag of brown sugar.

$8.89 at Target for bread, lemonade and fruit bars

So I spend around $23. Oh, I also ordered 6 months of organic coffee online, and I'll be deducting $3 from each week's grocery bill for awhile to pay for that. So out of $77 we had to spend, we have $54 to spend in future weeks. Which is good because we'll need to replace many discarded items from the fridge -- even the jelly and jam went bad -- and we'll probably be eating more convenience foods now that the kids are heading up to their grandparents' house and we're waiting for the new baby to show up. Do I feel much like cooking? I do not. Thanks for asking.
What we ate this past week -- pretty much what we could salvage from fridge or freezer:

Breakfasts were cereal, milk or yogurt, and berries
Wednesday: lunch = frozen Healthy Choice dinners; dinner = stroganoff with carrots over couscous
Thursday: lunch = mac and cheese with hot dogs; dinner = stroganoff with carrots over pasta
Friday: lunch = hot dogs, pizza and nachos at Wrigley Field; dinner = canned soup and cereal
Saturday: lunch = carrot sticks and hot dogs; dinner = turkey burgers with grated carrots and pineapple on whole wheat rolls, oven-fried potatoes
Sunday: lunch = leftovers and peanut butter sandwiches on rolls; dinner = canned soup and Ritz crackers, with Hunt's pudding and Sandies cookies for dessert
Monday: dinner = baked ziti using up last of the ground beef and shredded cheese from freezer, dessert = pudding cups with Sandies shortbread cookies
Tuesday: breakfast = peanut butter toast and fruit cups, lunch = ziti and peanut butter toast, snack = frozen whole fruit bars, dinner = kids ate cereal + Epu and I ate the last of the ziti
Oh, and for those who asked how yorgurt does when frozen and defrosted, mine came out kind of separated and runny once thawed. Not something I would repeat. In the future, if I freeze yogurt, I'll just use it frozen, in smoothies or whatever.