Linda Spreng, IN
Tread into Spring “Get your running shoes and follow me to quite a journey of amazing deals this month. The free after rebates have been coming so quickly I have had to RUN to keep up!!!! The first fantastic deal was posted on Centsible Chat. I hurried over to my local Kroger and found the Ziploc freezer bags on an endcap that had been marked down to a $1 per box. Unfortunately there was also a sign stating ‘limit 1.’ Hmmm. I decided to ask a manager about this limit--boy, am I glad that I did! He said just to purchase as many as I wanted! “I went to 3 different Kroger stores, but it was well worth it! Did I mention that each box had the 55¢ coupon on it--this coupon also doubled. Yes, that is correct --free, free, free! I was able to get 52 boxes of the quart-size regular, quart-size freezer, gallon regular, and gallon-size freezer. What a find! “I passed out several to my family and my mother's church. The church was sending a group of 7 people to a mission field for a week. They were taking extra suitcases full of badly needed items. These items included shampoo, toothpaste, medicines, and many other items. Needless to say, the Ziploc bags came in very handy in insuring that these items were transported safely! I still have a wonderful supply to last me several months--possibly even years!!We all know how expensive these bags are at regular price--ouch! “Now don't take your running shoes off just yet! Here we go again with the Staples ad from the Sunday paper. Am I reading this correctly? ‘Free after rebate Fuji photo paper’ Off to Staples I go, this time with my father. I quickly located the table with the paper on it in the front of the store. There was also an additional sign LIMIT 1 of each. They had the 4 x 6 packs and the 8½ x 11. Well that will have to do for today. After I arrived back home, I noticed in the fine print on the rebate form that the limit was not 1 each but 10 total per household! I called the store to have them hold me an additional 8 packages. They said they only had 4 left. I said, ‘Great, I'll take them.’ “Then I received a call from my mother that there had been a death in the family. I was unable to get back to the store until 3 days later. I figured the paper was probably all out but decided to take a chance! Lo and behold they had gotten a truck in and restocked the photo paper!!! Yippee! I was able to get 8 more for myself and also 10 for my son! I do scrapbooking, so this was a wonderful addition to my supplies. What a great deal! I shared with my mom who wanted to print out new pictures of her latest new great-grandson! He lives in Sweden, so her pictures are very precious to her. She was thrilled! The regular price of the paper was $200. Now if they would just have printer ink cartridges free after rebate! You never know! “On to deal #3. Before Christmas, Circuit City had in their ad nice remote trucks regularly priced at $24.99 for free after rebate. We called the night before the sale and inquired what time they opened. We were told 10:00 am. We arrived at 9:30 anticipating a line only to discover they had opened at 8:00 a.m. All of the trucks were already gone! We asked a manager about this and he said they were taking rain checks. Well, this was great--they were pretty sure they would arrive in time for Christmas. As the holiday approached, still no trucks! Most of the country had a major snow and ice storm, so the semi did not arrive! We waited 2 months and then decided to give it up! We called the store one more time and they said we could order them on line and even though the rebate had ended, the store would rebate the money-wow, what a deal! We ended up with 4 of the trucks completely FREE!!! We help with games at an after school program at a church in our neighborhood and have used the trucks for races and obstacle courses and also remote control truck tag! What fun this has been! “Are you getting tired? I sure am, but we're not finished yet!!!! Of course, I had to get in on the Sears FAR craftsman tools. We carefully checked the ad and went to the store the night before to scout out the items. After careful consideration we decided to purchase the items at the off sale prices and asked a clerk if we could come in the day of the actual sale and get the price adjustments and rebates. He said, ‘Sure!’ My husband worked the next day, so after work we took our receipt in and got the rebate forms and adjustment! My husband was like a kid in a candy store! We were able to purchase 2 sets of everything! Our Sears sold out after 10 minutes! The clerks said we were really smart shoppers for buying the items early! Boy, were we glad we went the night before!!! They were authorized to take rain checks, so we did this for another set of tools. They had over 900 rain checks just in the first day of the sale!!! The sales clerk said he had never seen a free after rebate on craftsman tools for as long as he had been there! Now our heart rate is really up! “Did I mention that all of these deals have given me quite a workout!!! Who needs a gym? Now for the last deal of the month! Walgreens!!!! I was able to purchase several of the Oral-B power toothbrushes! The clerk just used one coupon and rang up all of them! What a savings! Oh, and not to forget the free Softsoap body wash with the coupon from the Sunday paper. Our Walgreens also had the Try Me Free bottles of Listerine mouth wash. This is of course in addition to all of the other Easy Saver FARs!! And let’s not forget our additional 10% by getting a gift card. “OOPS, forgot to mention another deal--Menards had double A and triple A batteries free after rebate--limit of three 8-packs per household. I purchased three for us and also three for my son in college! We can always use more batteries in our house! Well, I don't know about you, but I am exhausted–at least until the dawn of tomorrow with the ongoing awakening of more fantastic deals just waiting for us to put on our running shoes once again and snatch them up! I wonder what awaits us on the horizon? Anything goes! Seems like the sky is the limit!! “Just a note to all of the many wonderful refunders on this site--THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Without all of your wonderful help and fabulous shopping tips, days like this one would not be possible! All in all, this was a total savings of well in excess of $500!” Linda Spreng, Ft. Wayne, IN