Coinstar started their promotion on Thursday. Go to a Coinstar machine and pour in $40 in coins. Select the merchant you want to get a gift card from, I chose Amazon, and when the reciept prints out you get a $10 bonus. You can also select Lowes, Borders, iTunes or Regal Cinemas. I got a jar that counts the money you put in a few xmas's ago and every week I drop in my coins. It's not as much as in the past because I pay for most things with discounted gift cards or my credit card. Anyways it showed I had $43+ so I took the coins to King Soopers to get counted. The took $43.52 in coins. So the receipt showed my Amazon Gift card code at the top and then at the bottom was another code for the $10 bonus. If I hadn't had enough in coins, I would have just gone to the bank and bought some rolls of coins. This is a pretty good deal give someone $40 and they give you $50 back. Of course you have to spend the $50 at thier store, but I can live with that

This is much better than last year. Last year I had to take the receipt and mail it in to get the bonus, which came sometime in January. This year you just go to the Coinstar website and choose your parner, input the bonus code and they e-mail you the $10 bonus card code.

I went to Amazon and bought the last xmas present I need this year. I like musicals and often had my nieces over to watch when they were younger. I don't think the youngest one cares for them that much but the oldest really likes them too and has gradually been getting several for her own. She was borrowing them for awhile and showing them to all her friends. Most of them are so old it's hard to find them in stores. Plus my movies are all VHS so most people don't have player either anymore.

I got her Bugsy Malone DVD. It's an older movie and was expensive I thought - $21.49. I picked out a $7 book for me to make the cost over $25 and get free shipping and then applied the bonus code. It took off $10 like a charm. I got the book free, free shipping and $3 off the DVD. Spent $18.49 total. And since I bought a DVD Amazon sent me a code for $5 off their video on demand service. I will spend the rest of the $40 (about $21) on groceries I think. Things that I can't get really cheap at the grocery store, like olive oil.

I went to Safeway because they had walnuts on sale, which are a favorite snack of mine. I like to put them in salads and on oatmeal too, but they are a little pricey most of the year. $8.99/lb. They had them for $4.99/lb and I had coupons for $1/lb. I got 4 pounds for $15.96. I keep one bag open and freeze the rest until needed. I also got 2 boxes of Lean Cusine pockets for .50/each. They were on sale for $1.50 and I had 2 .50 coupons that doubled.

I went to King Soopers to do one more Mega Deal. Buy 10 items get $5 off.

10.40 - 5 Marie Callendar frozen dinners
-2.50 - Mega Deal discount
-2.00 - KS customer q $2/$10 frozen foods
-3.00 - $3 catalina from buying Pepperidge farm bread
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2.90 or .58/each

2.98 - 2 boxes Krusteaz snickerdoodle cookie mix
-1.00 - Mega deal discount
-2.00 - 2 $1 q's
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.02 profit - these go to the food pantry

2.97 - 3 Bumbleebee tuna
-1.50 - Mega deal discount
-1.65 - 3 .55 q's
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.18 profit - these go to the food pantry

1.69 - 1 bag shredded coleslaw
-.40 - King Soopers q on their brand of coleslaw
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1.29

1.76 - 2 potatoes

The cost was $14.70 before coupons. After coupons it was $4.65 and I paid using my RX redemption coupon. I picked up a prescription before getting groceries and since I was out of the $25 King Soopers prescription coupons I used a Target $10 coupon. They match coupons from other stores so they added $10 to my rewards. I have $76 still in pharmacy rewards. I have 3 more prescriptions to fill this month, hope I find some more coupons The prescription cost .80

I am always trying to find ways to stretch my dollars just a little bit more. Even if it's only by paying with discounted gift cards or a 1% cash back credit card. However, this week I got my car renewal notice from the state. $122.18. I actually had to spend money to pay the bill - .44 for a stamp and .05 for the check

I finished reading my book The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall by Anne McCaffrey. Sci/Fi - pretty good.