Donna's Coupons / Bargains Blog

The Real Rock Bottom Price
Shopping at warehouse stores, outlet malls, and slightly damaged sale bins can save you a lot of money, but with a little work you can often beat retailers' lowest prices by buying wholesale. Read more...

Related: Garage Sales - Turn Your Junk Into Cash

Finding coupons is not as hard as one may think. In fact, you can go ahead and put away the binoculars because the only tools you will need is a small pair of scissors. Once you know where to look, not collecting too many will be the hard part. Read more...

When I first began clipping coupons, I had a drawer in the kitchen where I just tossed the coupons and would sort through before heading to the store. About the only real advantage to having such a system (if you can call it that) was the little time I spent on keeping it in order. When I became serious about saving money with coupons I knew I needed a better way to organize everything, but still keep it sensibly simple. Read more...

There is good news for those of you who can't do without your Starbucks fix.

Reuters recently reported that Starbucks plans to continue developing more promotions and coupons for free products to help bring traffic to its troubled stores. Read more...

About 40 product coupons from some of the biggest manufacturers were released last week without the manufactures' knowledge or permission. The high-valued coupons were released by the San Jose marketing company Vryl Mkt during a marketing experiment that got out of control. Industry spokepersons say it could cost a million dollars by the time it is over. Read more...

One of the best ways to save on the family grocery budget is to wait for your favorites to go on sale and then purchase them in bulk. But for perishable items, that usually requires that you have a freezer large enough to safely store the items until they are used.

Is it worth purchasing a freezer to realize the savings that you will make by buying in bulk? Read more...

With the downturn in housing sales, the hike in the cost of raw materials and the general promotional atmosphere in retail stores, one might think that the struggling home-improvement stores would be aggressively discounting products, but that is not the case. Read more...

CVS Caremark Corp will be testing a new store concept of "prestige beauty" products normally only found at department stores. Women's Wear Daily (WWD) reported that the stores will be named Beauty 360 and will be built either along side of existing CVS pharmacies or set up as separate stores inside the stores. Read more...

I'm a cheapskate when it comes to buying almost everything I buy, but when it comes to food, the temptations out there (garlic stuffed olives) can ruin even the best intentions and somehow always seem to work their way into my shopping basket.

I write about cutting back on the cost of food every week. I share tips on how to maximize our spending power by using coupons, checking sale circulars and taking time to do careful meal planning. However, when the menus get too boring around here, we slip up and start splurging.

For example, we order home delivery at least once a week and the bill is usually around $30. With the following challenge I'm beginning this week, $30 will be half of the budget so ordering out, is definitely going to be out.

Cut the Grocery Bill Challenge

For the next month I am going to have a $60 a week goal to feed myself and my husband all of our main meals and snacks. Can I really just spend $30 each and still serve nutritional meals that taste good? For the next four weeks we're going find out, but I'm definitely up for the challenge and actually...I think it's going to be fun.

Week One's Menu Is Now Posted Read more...

Shopping for shoes? 6pm.com is running a pretty incredible sale. You can save up to 75 percent and more on top-brand shoes plus get free shipping on purchases of over $100. Sale styles include summer and fall active and dress shoes. Some basic boots are included.

This is also a good time to shop for shoes to pack away until next spring. Many of the styles are fashionable, but traditional and will easily work with next year's basic clothing styles.

• All Charles by Charles David shoes now $29.95. Ends 8/28
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• All Clarks Footwear now $29.95. Ends 8/28
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• All Easy Spirit Shoes now $19.95. Ends 8/28
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• All Anne Klein Shoes - Now $24.95. Ends 8/22
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• All Born Shoes - Now $29.95. Ends 8/22
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