Are You In?

Starbucks is encouraging everyone to step up and take the Obama volunteer challenge, "Renew America Together". Pledge to donate five hours of your time throughout the year and Starbucks will give you a free Tall Coffee. Visit Starbucks, till January 25th, take the pledge, and the coffee is yours.

During President Barack Obama's inauguration, he asked every American to jump on the volunteer bandwagon. The nonprofit Hands on Network out of Atlanta has teamed up with Starbucks to help everyone find a project they are interested in volunteering in. You can use their search engine on the website, to find a project in your neighborhood.

I strongly believe all children should be encouraged to volunteer their time for projects they care about. When we lived in Gatlinburg, we had a lot of fun collecting garbage and rebuilding trails in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Now that we are in Central Florida, we need to find some new projects. First on our agenda will be serving dinner at the Interfaith Kitchen on February 2nd. We will start out cooking our share of the meal together at home, then we will take it to the kitchen to serve with friends from the Trinity United Methodist Church. It will give us a chance to spend some time together and help others that desperately need it.

What will you do to meet the challenge? Leave me a comment telling everyone how you plan to step up.

Penny Power at Office Max

Office Max is continuing their Back to School sales this week with more penny items. This week, you need to show a coupon to get 2 of their penny items.

Sharpie Mini Permanent Markers and Mini Highlighters are .01 each, with the coupon. The limit is 3 per customer. The coupon expires 8/21/08.

Check out these specials:
2 pocket folders - .01 - Limit 10
Wooden Rulers - .01 - Limit 3
Office Max Filler Paper - .15 - Limit 4
1" and 1.5" Poly Binders - .30 - Limit 10

They have lots of other buy one get one for a penny specials. Check them out here. This sale ends 8/16/08. Bring extra family members with you if you want expand the customer limit. It's a great way to teach small children a lessen in money.

Have you filled your back to school list? Consider using these items to Pay It Forward.

Free Flower Bouquets

Do you know someone who would like a free bouquet of flowers? How about decorating your table or night stand with something pretty? This is a perfect way to Pay It Forward.

FTD Florists are giving away free bouquets of flowers on September 3, 2008 to celebrate Good Neighbor Day. All you have to do is walk into a participating florist and ask for the bouquet.

"FTD florists have celebrated FTD® Good Neighbor Day® since 1994, encouraging all neighbors to help create a friendlier, more caring and compassionate world through the gift of flowers. That's why customers are encouraged to keep one flower for themselves and give the others away — brightening the day of many other people."

Check out the list of participating florists. There is a limited amount of places that are participating. I am going to call our local florist the day of the event to check to see if they are participating even though they aren't on the list. Who knows, maybe they will still give me a bouquets.

Pay It Forward Tuesday

It's Pay It Forward Tuesday time again. This is when we come together to challenge each other to do something nice for someone else. It's a way to give a little back to our world each week. With the hopes that we will make someone else's life a little sweeter.

How did you do last week? Did you donate food or school supplies? If you did, fantastic. If you didn't, its never to late to get started.

These week's challenge was inspired by an Internet friend. Kristy, if you are reading this, this is for you. One day last week, I was having a particularly bad day. Now you must understand, I am very pregnant, 34 weeks to be exact. We are in the home stretch. I was tired. I had been at the doctors all day. I had just found out that I would have to be on antibiotics for the rest of the pregnancy to fight an infection that won't go away until I am not pregnant anymore. I was pretty much feeling sorry for myself.

I decided to waddle, at this point that's all I do is waddle, myself out to the mailbox to get the mail. I found a mysterious package waiting for me. Since I always order lots of free samples, it is not too unusual to find a package in the mail. The intriguing part was that this mysterious envelope was from a coupon buddy and it was much bigger than a coupon envelope should be. I quickly waddled back to the house to open this surprise. My friend had sent me three beautiful baby outfits for the new little one. All I could do was sit there and smile. It turned my day completely around. I forgot about the yucky day I had. Insteadmy thoughts turned to how lucky I was to be pregnant and almost finished. Kristy's sweet gesture and thoughts meant more than she could realize.

Isn't this what Pay It Forward is all about? Doing something small to make someone else's day brighter? What can you do to make someone's day a little happier? Bring coffee or a danish to a co-worker who isn't expecting it. Take your mom's shopping list off her frig and go shopping for her. Leave a bouquet of flowers at your neighbor's door. Leave a pretty pen on your child's teacher's desk to find after everyone has gone home. Bake some cookies and leave them in the break room for everyone to find while they are relaxing. Put a small note in your husband's lunch bag or car seat letting him know how much you love him. Take your kids to the park for some playtime.

The possibilities are endless. Your goal is to make someone smile with an unexpected gesture. That can't be too hard. Right?

Leave a comment letting me know what you did and how it turned out. If you prefer to blog about it, post your link so we can visit ya!!!

Free Food With the Latest Issue of All You

Have you read "All You"? This magazine has become one of my favorite reads each month. I have only seen it on sale at Wal-Mart. It's full of helpful mom tips about everything. The August 29, 2008 issue has 38 coupons that total $35.35 in savings. You can receive two free issues by registering fror it at Wal-Mart.com.

Kraft has done it again. On page 159 of All You, there is 5 coupons for free Kraft products when you buy any 3 Kraft, Nabisco, or Oscar Mayer products. The coupons expire 9/30/2008.

The free products are:

• Nabisco Wheat Thins,
• 16 oz Kraft Dressing,
• Oscar Mayer Hot Dogs,
• Crystal Light,
• 12 oz package or Kraft Singles.

The cheapest product to buy is Kool-Aid packets. Since each packet makes a pitcher of Kool-Aid, it is not a single serve product. They are less then .20 each, so for less then .60 each, you can get each one of these listed products for free. That's a great deal.

If your family doesn't use one of these free products, consider buying it anyway, and donating it to your local food bank. They can use it. Check out the previous post on the latest Pay It Forward Grocery Challenge.

Before you run to Wal-Mart to use your coupons, stay tuned for my next blog to find out how you can use these coupons to get $30 in JCPenney gift cards.

Pay It Forward Grocery Challenge

How did you spend your $5 for the Charity Grocery Challenge? In my previous blog, I explained that one of this week's Pay It Forward Challenges was to try and spend $5 on as many groceries as possible and donate them to a local food bank.

I used some of the Moneysavingmom.com Wal-Mart Deals to make the most of my $5.

Here's what I did:

2 boxes of Live Active Cereal - $2.98 each - 2 $3 coupons = Free
2 boxes of Kashi Cereal - $1.98 each - 2 $2 coupons = Free
7 cans of Muri Glen Diced Tomatoes - $1.22 - 7 $1 coupons = $1.54
2 jars of Bertolli Premium Sauce - $1.78 - 2 $1 coupons = $1.56
3 boxes of GV spaghetti - .65 = 1.95

Total Out of Pocket Cash: $5.05

If you need a place to donate the food, you can always call a local church and ask them where to take it. They usually have a list of where to send church goers that are in need.

So what did you find? Let us know!!!

Pay It Foward for Students

The new Pay It Forward Challenge is for the disadvantaged students. How many school supplies can you get for $1, $2, or $5 and donate to your local elementary school?

Here's what I came up with, while shopping with my daughter:
Staples
20 2 pocket folders - Free with instant rebate
12 1 subject notebook in 6 packs - .30 x 2 = .60

Office Depot
10 Tug Pencil Sharpeners - .1 x 10 =.10
10 Office Depot Slider Pencil Boxes - .1 x 10 = .10
10 12" Wood Rulers - .1 x 10 = .10
10 16 pack Scholastic Crayons - .5 x 10 = .50
2 10 pack Papermate Pens - .25 x 2 =.50

Wal-Mart
Elmer's 2 pack glue sticks - .22 x 5 = 1.10

For $3.00, I will be donating 10 packages of school supplies to the local elementary school. What have you found? Post your deals and scenerios in the comments and inspire other shoppers to do the same.

Pay It Forward Tuesdays

Welcome to Pay It Forward Tuesdays. Every Tuesday, I will post a challenge for you to complete during the week. This will be our way of giving back, helping others, and just being nice. Whatever you call it, I hope it will inspire you to do something nice for someone. We all live in this crazy world together. If everybody tried to make it easier for just one person, imagine what a difference it would make.

Money is tight for everyone, so I will try to make these challenges as frugal as possible. This way everyone can participate no matter what their money situation is.

I have two challenges to get us started this week. The first is courtesy of becentsable.net. Every week they have a grocery challenge. This week they are challenging everyone to see how much they can get for $5 and donate the food to your local foodbank. Stop back to see how I spent my $5.

Our second challenge is for the kids. With all the kids getting ready to go back to school, the need for supplies is strong. There are some kids that will start without anything new. Here's are chance to help them. Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart have back to school supplies cheap. How much can you get for $1, $2, or even $5? Take the supplies to your local elementary school and they will find someone to use them. Get your kids involved in shopping. They will feel great knowing they helped a fellow student.

After you complete your challenge, return back here and let us know what you did. Maybe your idea will inspire someone else to Pay It Forward.