GW Supermarket Edaname sale!

Another stockpile opportunity the lowest price I've ever seen for Edaname is $.75 a bag!  And its on sale at this price till Thursday!

Hmart deals 5lb potatoes on sale

Another stockpile opportunity for Potatoes a 5lb bag at Hmart is only $1.49 this week!!!!!  This is my all time lowest stockpile price for Potatoes!

Assi Plaza $1.69/lb Chicken Breast

It's a great week to stock pile at Assi Plaza Supermarket.  Full Weekly Ad

Broccoli at $.59/lb is awesome.  And Chicken breast for $1.69/lb is the lowest price ever so definately stockpile at this price if you have room in your freezer!

Curry Chicken Fried Rice

I had really been falling behind on cooking this past week, I was super annoyed with myself for having to run out and buy a bag of chips for an emergency lunch this week.  So I was really determined to have some easy lunches for work created hence why I've been making Fried Rice.  It's a frugal meal, super easy make a batch of and freeze and just so satisfying to my salty food cravings.  This Curry Fried rice if you know how to make Chinese Fried Rice is really just the same except you add Curry Powder too it.

Curry Chicken Fried Rice

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups White Rice (Dry)

1/2 Any Combo of leftover veggies (bell pepper, carrots, peas, brocolli)

1/4 lb Chicken Breast

1 small onion 

1 clove of garlic

2 Tablespoons of Curry Powder

1 Eggs

Cooking Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Cook your rice or use leftover rice (best option).

Chop onions, veggies and chicken to small bite size pieces.

Heat pan with oil.  If your using fresh chicken cook this first and put aside for later.  Then oil pan again and toss in your onions and garlic. Let basically fry for 3 minutes and stir to avoid garlic burning.  Then toss in the rest of your veggies.

Add a little more oil to recoat pan and add curry powder, then toss in your rice.  Stir frequently to break up the rice and coat rice.

Create a small space in middle of pan, coat with a little oil and crack your eggs in.

Use your spatula to mix egg while its cooking.  Add salt for egg.  Let it fully fry and break up cooked egg with spatula.  Then add in your chicken.

Stir for another 2 minutes in high heat and season to taste.

Then Serve!!!

** I can not emphasize enough how easy and convenient fried rice is for batch cooking. You just add a little more meat and veggies to prep with the other recipes your making that day.  And when you have 10 minutes of time to cook, maybe while your waiting for something on the stove or oven, and when your done you have  4 quick lunches to go.  I'm so lazy, I even did my Kimchi Fried rice in the same Wok !

Pathmark Sale great stock pile opportunity

Calling all bakers, its definately time to stock pile some SUGAR.  Pathmark has 4lbs of white sugar on sale for $1.98 !! That is definately a stockpile price along with the brown sugar.

Additionally, Nissin has this new product called BIG CUP NOODLES hence why there were coupons for once on Ramen!  If you goto your 2/3 Smart Source there's a $1 off if you buy 4 coupon.  Perfect for this weeks sale of 2 for $.98.  If you buy 4, with coupon its like getting 4 for $.96!!! $.24 each!!!!!  That's more than half off the sale price! It's definately a store at your desk in a pinch meal!

The main reason I'm heading to Pathmark is the Grits! You have to buy 10 of participating items to get the 10 for $8.88 deal.  And even at $.88 it's a definate stockpile price for Grits!  Even better is if you get All You Magazine, the DEC and JAN issues had a $1 off any 2 Quaker products perfect for this occasion!  And the 1/13 Smart Source has a $1 off 5 Chef Boyardee coupon as well!

My ideal scenario:

Buy 5 Quaker Grits

Buy 5 Chef Boyadee

use --- 2 ($1 off Quaker Coupons) and 1 ($1 off 5 Chef Boyardee coupon)

====================

Pay $5.88 for all 10 products! making it aout $.59 each!!!!

And also, if your not particular about the brand of OJ you drink $1.88 is also a definate stock pile price!

Kimchi Fried Rice

OMG Kimchi Fried Rice is so addictive and yummi and cheap and quick to make.  

Kimchi Fried Rice

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups White Rice (Dry)

1/2 Cup Kimchi (cabbage) old and fermented works best

1 small onion 

2 Tablespoons of Korean Red Pepper Paste

2 Eggs

Cooking Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Cook your rice or use leftover rice (best option).

Chop onions and put kimchi on plate preferably with paper towel to soak liquids up.

Heat pan with oil.  Toss in your onions and Kimchi (beware if too wet will splatter).  Let basically fry for 3-5 minutes and stir to avoid onions burning.

Add a little more oil to recoat pan and then toss in your rice and Red pepper paste.  Stir frequently to break up the rice and coat rice.

Create a small space in middle of pan, coat with a little oil and crack your eggs in.

Use your spatula to mix egg while its cooking.  Add salt for egg.  And then mix everything when egg is half cooked.

Stir for another 2 minutes in high heat and season to taste.

Then Serve!!!

Note: its easiest to do this in a wok on high heat cooking will take about 10 minutes max.

This is really a leftovers kind of recipe, so you really can add whatever you want.  But traditionally Kimchi fried rice, doesn't use a fried egg like Chinese Fried Rice which is why I incorporate it into rice.  You can even add any left over chicken breast or some people use Bacon to grease the pan!

I love this recipe because it let me use up left over homemade kimchi I had that had gone really fermented.  And I always have frozen prechopped Onions in my freezer.  And white rice is so so cheap!  Anyways, recipe creates about 4 normal size servings and the rest I packed up for WORK lunches!!!!  And fried rice freezes great as well so if you want to batch cook this it's so quick and easy to just increase your ingredients.

Rite Aid Look Ahead starting Feb 17

This is your opportunity to Grab some Ragu Pasta Sauce for $1 each after UPs.  The best part is that it also counts toward your 50th Anniversary tally!!!!! Also that week and counting as part of your tally is Vaseline Lotion basically $.99 each after Up Rewards!!!!

Kotex Tampons $1.50 on sale at Rite Aid starting Feb 10

This is even better than the Playtex going on for $1.99 with coupons.  Kotex also counts toward you 50th Anniversary tally and if you go to the Load to Card site you can load the Natural Balance Tampon coupons on the site to your card.  Making this $1.50 each!!!!!

Money Saving Tip: Credit Cards for Gift Card Savings

One of the easiest, low effort ways to save MONEY is to use your credit cards effectively.

Hopefully everyone that has a credit card has Cash Back Rewards.  It is the easiest way to save money if you disciplined enough to have a credit card.  To start most cards give you 1% back on all your purchases.  And Capital One even gives you a 50% bonus on all the rewards you earn at the end of the year so basically 1.5% back!

Chase Freedom card is making a come back by offering quarterly rewards on Categories where you can earn 5% back.  This first quarter of the year is Starbucks, Drugstores and Gas Stations.   And thanks to a poster on Slick Deals, I found a genius no effort way to discounted gift cards.  

At Drug Stores like Rite Aid, there a ton of No Fee gift cards like the Home Improvement Card, Macy's, and other retailers.  Buy buying your gift card at Rite Aid you'll get 5% back!! So in a sense it's an easy 5% discount on Gift Cards.  Near the end of the promo, I even plan on getting a Rite Aid gift card to help me save even further!

Discover Card does the quarterly rewards special as well.  And it would be a great time to get gift cards to restaurant gift cards not at your local drug store. Hint: even McDonalds!  The reason Discover remains my favorite is they offer discounted gift cards as part of their Rewards Redemption as well, so you really can stretch you savings with them.  And not to mention if you Shop Discover some retailers like Groupon allow you to get 15% back!

Ultimately, my strategy this year is to charge all my non special things like utility bills on my Capital One Card for their effective 1.5% back on everything.  And rotate my special purchases like Movies to the appropriate Cash Back Bonus program and to save ahead with Gift Cards!

Money Saving Tip: Always ask for the Doggie Bag

My second most favorite thing about eating out is the DOGGIE BAG.  I remember advice once I was at a wedding given to me by my cousin she said "don't waste your time eating the cheap food and appetizers and save room for the Entree." Since then I've totally changed my perspective on eating out frugally.  When being served all the starter courses I totally fill myself up so mainly I don't waste food but also because then I no doubt will not be able to finish my main course!  Which means I can ask for a DOGGIE BAG !!!!! And also have room for dessert which you typically can't ask nor want to be mixed in with your Entree Doggie Bag.

I don't care how nice the restaurant, I ask for it and its literally some of the best meals I've ever had.  And this is a tradition of mine since college to make meals out of my doggie bags.  Since then my doggie bag food has been focused on stretching as many meals as possible.  

So basically my left overs included steak and mushrooms and an ONION garnish.  

The proper meat serving size is actually a deck of cards so I took some of the steak, a couple mushrooms, some chinese broccoli and scallion I had in my fridge and cut it up.  Then I sent about making my Ramen and added an egg to it.  When the Ramen was about cooked, I added all my chopped ingredients.

And the final product a super YUMMI Steak and Eggs Ramen!

And the best part is I still have some steak, onions, and mushrooms left to make even more meals!

Rite Aid starting Feb 3, Revlon Money Maker deal

I can't believe I almost didn't see the Revlon beauty tools coupon is this weeks Smart Source.  Fortunately, I grabbed 8 circulars to do this MONEY Maker deal at Rite Aid! I wished I grabbed more it would have been epic because Sneaky Rite Aid, didn't put the symbol for the Revlon Beauty tools on their sale ad, but if you look at the booklet this should count toward the Anniversary tally, so this truly is a double dip deal.

This week at Rite Aid, All Revlon Beauty Tools are BUY 1 get 2nd at 50% off, and additional $4 UP reward when you buy $10 worth.  In NYC, the cheapest tool is the emory boards at $1.69 and the next cheapest is the Individual Design ones at $2.29.  The ideal scenario is below:

BUY 8 of the small emory boards at $1.69 and use 8 ($1 off coupons)

EVEN with NYC's hefty tax its a $1 money maker after the $4 UP reward!!!!

But the other main reason I would do this deal even if I didn't need the Emory Boards is that your total cost before coupons $10.12 in the above scenario counts toward the $100 you need to get your first $20 UP for the Anniversary Rewards deal.  If you were to pro-rate it the $10 added to your tally, counts for $2 in UPs (making this a double dip deal) aka $3 money maker !

Rite Aid Haul: Power of Couponing, Couponing is it worth it?

I have to say the above Haul from Rite Aid demonstrates the Power of Couponing and Shopping Sales.  I'd been a while since I'd tracked penny for penny my transactions cash wise, so when I started at a clean slate at the end of December it was the opportunity I needed to track my Rite Aid efficiency.  Something people who don't coupon say all the time is I don't have the time or its not worth it to coupon, but I honestly have to say the number ONE thing effective way to save MONEY is couponing and shopping sales. And the effort is worth it!!

Everything in my Haul with the exception of the Sharpies and  Cover Girl stuff, would have been thing's I would have bought any ways.  If were just to shop sales and wait for the right deal.... below are the competitive sales prices I would have hypothetically waited to purchase the items in my haul at.

I would have probably needed to wait months for the right prices to come up, and spent $249.90 on these essentials or $270 with sales tax included.  I'm not even measuring the RETAIL prices which is MUCH more.

Guess how much I spent just buy shopping at Rite Aid timing the rebates, sales and deals and coupons?

My TOTAL Out of Pocket dollars cash spent is currently at $84.89!!  The is deducting the $40 in cash rebates I have submitted for.  And not counting the I charge everything, for an additional 1% back on my rewards credit card.  If I count the $10 in UP Rewards I still hold and plan to use my total true cost would be $74.89 including sales tax which is 8.75% in NYC.

On my personal shopping scale and price targets, that is a savings of $175.01 !!  Or $195 if I estimate with sales tax.  That's a lot saved for just ONE month of shopping.  And it is totally validates why I continue to shop frugally via Rite Aid.

Think of this when you earn a paycheck and get taxes deducted, that final amount you keep is further drained by Sales Tax.  Almost every dollar you earn gets double taxed when you shop.  For me to truly evaluate if Couponing is worth it, I have to ask myself considering in a month I saved myself $195, how many hours would I have to slave away at my day job to be able to purchase $195 worth of stuff?? Estimating that most of us are getting dinged with at least 25% in payroll taxes, would need to earn $244 in pre tax income to spend $195 on taxable goods.  If the average middle class person makes $17/hour, that would mean you would have to work over 14 HOURS to make up for the savings of NOT couponing and shopping sales!!!!!  That's close to 2 days WORK!!!!  That would be the cost to me of not couponing. That's essentially a part time job!! So YES its totally worth it for me to continue couponing! 

AGAIN, that's my own personal evaluation of my shopping at Rite Aid in a Month.  I would suggest to evaluate your own scenario to decide.  Keep track of a month of your own sales shopping and then truthfully estimate what you would have spent to calculate your savings.  And then based on your own salary estimate how many HOURS of work you would need work to make up for not couponing.  Feel free to post and let me know! I personally was very shocked.

A lot of Personal Finance books, will say work more or find a side job/business to earn funds.. While that is sage advice...  right now in this economy its really not that realistic that your job is looking to give you overtime or a higher paying promotion .. or that there will be tons of people with extra income to feed your side business plans...so for now this is the most effective way I SAVE money (a penny saved is a penny earned)

Pathmark Gift Card deals Sephora and Lord and Taylor

Just in time for Valentines day!!!! If you buy $50 worth of select Gift Cards, you get a coupon off for $10 off your next Shopping Order at Pathmark!!!! I can only distinguish Itunes, Lord & Taylor and Sephora from the ad.  But this is like getting 20% off your gift card if you actually shop at Pathmark!!!  I'd say even if your not a serious bargain shopper getting anything back on Gift Cards are a slick deal for sure!