IHOP stacks for donation

February 24th head to your local IHOP from 7am-10pm for a free stack of pancakes!

They do this yearly to raise donations for the Children’s Miracle Network. We rarely go out for breakfast, so when we went last year we all REALLY enjoyed our pancakes! The girls will be so excited to go again!

*As always with deals like these, call your local establishment to make sure they are participating.
Thanks to Denise at The Centsible Sawyer!

Printable Coupons vs. Newspaper Coupons

I've been finding that I use printable coupons a lot more than coupons from the newspaper these days. Why? Because the printable coupons are almost always higher value than the ones found in the newspaper. I usually redeem at least 5 printable coupons a week at my local grocery store. My favorite coupons are the ones that are $1/1, because my store doubles those on Wednesdays, taking $2 off the price of a product! I've been able to score many free or nearly free products with these valuable coupons, especially when paired with a sale.

So where do I find my precious printables? Coupons.com has a lot of good coupons on a rotating basis. You can click and print these right from my blog from the blue bar above (you'll have to click through to my blog if you are subscribed via email or reader). Some of my favorite coupons right now:

• $1/1 Reynolds Wrap foil (doubled this should make for some cheap or free foil!)
• $1/2 Yoplait Kids
• $1/1 Cascadian Farms product
  
• $1/1 Pert Plus (if you need shampoo, this would make it cheap!)
• BOGO Welch's AquaJuice
• $1/2 Tree Top Products (think juice boxes for summer picnics or school lunches!)
• $1/2 Atkins Advantage single bars (doubled should make them free)
• .60/2 Pillsbury Italian meal breads (pair these with a sale for $1 crescents or biscuits)
• $1/1 Del Monte refrigerated glass jar
• $1/2 Del Monte 8 oz fruit cups
• .75/1 Shout (combine with $1 rebate at Walgreens)
• .75/1 Chex
• $1/1 Quaker Oat Fiber Bars
  

Another source of internet printables is bricks coupons. I usually find out about them from other "shopping blogs" like Money Saving Mom, Freebies 4 Mom, or Deal Seeking Mom, who are all listed on my blogroll on the right side. I also just found a list of the current coupons here. Some coupons that caught my eye:

• FREE 2-liter or 20 oz bottle of Dr. Pepper!
• $1/1 Muir Glen
• $1/2 Juicy Juice products (more juice boxes! I can't wait until summer!)
• $1/1 Aquaphor (this works the best for chapped winter cheeks)

I've started something new for organzing my coupons. I take the ones I know I will use at my grocery store and sort them by expiration date. This way I won't let some of my valuable coupons expire before being able to double them at the store. And if I have room in a transaction to double another coupon, I can grab one from that pile. The rest of my coupons (like the ones from the Sunday paper) get filed in my coupon binder. I've been getting lazy, though, and my binder needs a SERIOUS overhaul!

What coupon tips do you have?
What organization system has been working for you?

Toothpaste Project Update

Would you like to use your couponing to reach out to others with the love of Christ?

I started collecting toothpaste and toothbrushes in January to send to women in Peru for an outreach project. Thanks to some friends, so far we've collected about 50 tubes of toothpaste and 50 toothbrushes! But as you can see, I still have room in the box for more! Do you have a tube of toothpaste you'd be willing to donate?

If you don't have any extra, would you be willing to go out and get a tube or two for better than free after ECBs this week at CVS? Colgate Total is $2.99 this week, and you get $2.99 in ECBs back. Use this printable $1/1 coupon, the $1/1 coupon from the 2/1 paper, or the $1.50/1 coupon in the March All You magazine to get a couple of tubes for better than free after ECBs. The limit stated in my paper for this deal was 2, but on my receipt it said limit of 3. If you'd like to donate toothbrushes, there was a round package of 6 toothbrushes for $1 in the dollar section of my CVS. Multi-packs of toothbrushes are fine, since Joan will be packaging a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a tract in a bag to give to the women.

*Please note that Joan (my missionary contact) prefers the 4 oz size, not the larger 6 oz size. Understandably, when she is carting 1500 of these (which is their goal), the weight will make a difference.*

If you'd prefer to send some directly to Joan, let me know and I'll give you her address. If you are unfamiliar with how the CVS ECBs work, let me know and I'll help you out! Thank you so much for your help!

Kids and Missionaries

Ted and I took a class last semester about Church History, from the time of Acts to the present day. It was extremely interesting to see how the church developed, learn more about some of the good things and bad things that have happened during The Church's History, and see how many of the denominations were formed. In another very interesting section of the class we learned about several missionaries.

The class included quizzes every week, which prompted us to study and actually remember the things we were learning. (What a concept!) When we were learning about the missionaries, there were so many names and countries and we knew we would have to keep them all straight. We went to our church's children's library and found a treasure trove of materials!

We've enjoyed checking out books about different missionaries and reading them to the kids, and we've also discovered an animated series of DVD's called The Torchlighters: Heroes of the Faith. So far there are 6 DVD's:

• William Tyndale, the man who risked his life to translate the Bible and make it available for all people
  
• John Bunyan, a pastor from England who was arrested and wrote "Pilgrim's Progress" while in prison
• Jim Elliot, a missionary to the Aucas who was killed by the people he was trying to reach with the gospel
• Eric Liddell, the Olympic runner who was featured in Chariots of Fire and was also a missionary to China (I never knew that!)
  
• Gladys Aylward, a missionary to China who led over 100 orphans to safety on foot, by herself, through a war!
• Richard Wurmbrand, a pastor in Romania during WWII who stood firm in his faith in the face of great persecution

They are currently working on the stories of Perpetua, a third century martyr, and Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India. These are wonderfully done, 30 minute animated videos summarizing the stories of these heroes of the Christian faith. Our family has thoroughly enjoyed watching them, and our kids ask to watch them over and over. I love that it is exposing them to missions and shows them how REAL people have stood firm in their faith. Through these missionary stories, our kids are seeing that being a Christian doesn't just mean calling yourself a Christian and going to church on Sundays.

Filing your Taxes for cheaper

Some of you may be on the ball and have already filed your taxes. If so, GOOD FOR YOU!! :-) Give yourself a pat on the back! For the rest of us who haven't quite gotten that far yet, I thought I would pass along some cheaper alternatives for doing your taxes.

I suppose the most frugal way to file your taxes is to do them by hand and mail them in. However, some of us aren't good at that or don't like to do it that way, and prefer some help or at least some software to walk us through it. But do you have to spend $50 to buy TurboTax or TaxCut software? Isn't there a better way?

For years, we bought the TaxCut software. We would watch the sales ads for weeks, waiting for the best price. A few years ago, we found a more frugal alternative. For the past few years we have used TaxACT online. It walks you through questions, just like TaxCut does, so it is easy to do. You can e-file your federal taxes for FREE! There are no restrictions based on age or income. You can also do your state taxes, which is $13.95 and includes the cost of e-filing.

Another option I've heard about, but haven't used personally, is TaxSlayer. It looks like you can choose a $9.95 or $14.95 option, which includes federal and state e-filing.

If you have any questions, or if you have used either of these or another cheap alternative, leave a comment! Good luck on your taxes!

Doodle 4 Google Contest

Google is hosting a Doodle 4 Google competition for kids in grades K-12 to play around with the Google logo for big prizes! Their theme this year is "What I wish for the world" and they are encouraging kids to think big and dream big!

Kids can only enter through their school, and you can do a search for the schools that are registered in your area here. If your school isn't registered, bring it to their attention! Only 6 entries are allowed per school.

HOWEVER, homeschoolers are eligible to participate, too! (Yay, Google!) Just go here to register your homeschool. 2 entries are allowed per homeschool (one per child).

What are the big prizes? The National Winner will win a $15K college scholarship, a trip to Google New York, a $25K grant towards the establishment/improvement of a computer lab for their current school, a laptop computer, and a t-shirt with their Google Doodle printed on it. Their doodle will also be displayed on the google home page for one day. How cool is that? The finalists will all win a laptop, a trip to Google New York, and a t-shirt with their Google Doodle.

Hurry, registration ends March 17th, so get doodling! Thanks so much to Annabell for sharing about the contest!

Free Redbox Codes

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ted and I went out to eat at a new restaurant ALONE today! It was so nice not to have to cut up anyone's food, clean up spilled drinks, or be interrupted every two minutes. And we actually got to eat our food while it was still HOT! Ahhh. . . the good life!

What did you do for Valentine's Day?

If you didn't get a chance to go out (or even if you did), how about a cheap date night IN? Or even better, how about you make it FREE? Go to your local Redbox and use these codes for a free rental:

BREAKROOM or DVDONME.

According to to Deal Seeking Mom these are ongoing codes that can be used once per credit/debit card, so you don't have to use them tonight, you can use them anytime you want a free movie. Thanks Tara!