Category: shopping sales

I love opening my mailbox daily and instead of seeing piles of bills, I get lots of free samples and coupons. It’s like getting a little present in my mail. I know it seems a little silly but getting free samples is a good way for me to try new products without having to purchase it first, some samples come with coupons, and I use some of them when I travel. I also like to put the small tubes of lotion in my purse and some samples (mainly the ones that come in tubes or small jars) can last me a few months esp lotions. It’s funny but I tend to use it sparingly compared to the huge bottles. I like the challenge of seeing how long I can make it last.

Another thing I like to do with some free samples is to keep them for gift bags. Every Christmas I get gift bags, baskets, and other ways to put many kinds of health and beauty products and fill them up. I make them decorative esp the the baskets but it’s fun putting big bottles along with small bottles of lotions, body washes, and shaving creams along with razors. My nieces (teenagers) love the bags full of goodies. My sister-in-law also loves them esp body washes and bubble bath. I usually spend less than $5 and they are always amazed at how many items are in the gifts. I’ll get into more detail with this on another post but I shop all year long and collect samples all year as well. I also donate samples along with full size products to my Church, local women’s shelter or the troops overseas. I like to send a care package at least twice a year to the soldiers. I also send one just for the females. You can pack a lot of stuff in those flat rate boxes.

Now I will share some sites that I regularly visit to get my samples. If you know of any sites that aren’t listed then please let me know in a comment. Thanks and I’m always looking for great sites.

Walmart

Big Big Forums

MyCoupons Just Freebies Shopping Board

Fat Wallet

Start Sampling (you must join as a member)

I love a great deal but I love freebies even more. I scour the sales papers each Sunday looking for good deals or ways for me to get the stuff we use anyway for free. Using coupons can stretch those savings more esp if you have store coupons and manufacturer coupons. CVS and Walgreens do allow both on a purchase. I LOVE CVS and it definitely pays to shop there if you have access to one or more. I also combine trips into one to save even more money but my Walgreens is across the intersection from CVS so it just makes sense to hit them both. I usually shop one day a week and do all the deals.

I printed out my $5/20 purchase coupon for Walgreens and bought the free after rebate items (toothbrush, kids mouthwash, and maxipads) and also bought the 3 boxes of TUFF kitchen trashbags that had the $4 rebate. So my total before coupon was $23.xx -$5 coupon for $18.xx and I’m getting back $15.97 in rebates! I spent $2.xx for all that stuff which was mainly sales tax.

Next I jumped over to CVS and bought the soft drinks on sale (yeah I know even cheaper if you don’t buy them but it’s a bad vice we have), 6 packs of the store brand toilet paper, and 2 toothbrushes. So total was about $45 with tax before my ECB’s (extra care bucks) & coupons and it was $15.xx after all my rewards and coupons. Plus I got $4 in new ECB’s so I was quite pleased. We have enough toilet paper stocked up for the rest of year. I also have lots of items stockpiled so we rarely ever run out of items. I get most of these items either FREE or almost FREE! I do take advantage of items that are completely free even if I don’t need it then I donate those items either to my church or the local women’s shelter. I can’t always afford to give charities/organizations cash but I can afford to give them stuff I get free or almost free. They seem to prefer the items over the cash so it’s a win/win for both of us. Anyway, I will try to post more about great deals I come across but all of these little things do add up to much bigger savings and allows us to help others. I feel like I’m saving us more money by not working since I have time to do all the shopping, search out the deals, and do the other programs to make money for the extras we enjoy.