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It’s the easiest food drive ever! This Saturday, May 14th, is the United States Post Office’s Stamp Out Hunger food drive. Just put out your non-perishable goods for your mail carrier, and they’ll go off to your local food bank. Get more information at the Stamp Out Hunger website, where you can also print out Campbell’s coupons.
Thank you for helping others with your frugal shopping!
LivingSocial is offering a special today where you spend $5 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross, and then they match the $5, for a doubled donation of $10. This is a great way to help the people of Japan. When you click over to LivingSocial, you’ll see the banner at the top of the page.
**This offer is only good through 1:00pm EST. on Friday.Looks like they’ve extended this!
This Saturday, May 8th, you can help Stamp Out Hunger with the National Association of Letter Carriers’ annual food drive. Just leave some non-perishable food items out at your mailbox, and your local mail carrier will pick them up. This is a great opportunity to have your kids get involved in helping others, and you don’t even have to leave the house.
Twins run in my family, at least fraternal twins do. When I had the ultrasound and found out I was having twins, I wasn’t completely surprised, but it did surprise us that we had identicals. That can happen to anyone; it was a fluke for us! The really funny part was that my son was 2 1/2 when our twins were born–the exact age I was when my sisters were born. I’m very sensitive to his position as a sibling of twins; I know how it feels to have them gang up on you, sit on top of you and tickle/hit you. And my sisters were thrilled to have twin nieces. They have a unique outlook to share with my girls as they grow up.
My sisters were born at 30 weeks, and they spent a long time in the NICU before coming home. One Saturday, as the story goes, my parents went to the hospital and brought back a baby sister. The following Saturday, they brought home the other one. The next weekend, I asked, “Are you going back to get another one?” Early babies like my sisters, and many twins and singletons around the country, are why my family does the March for Babies. You can get your family involved with an easy walk in a nice park, along with lunch and lots of fun kid activities. Check your local March of Dimes page to find an event near you on a weekend coming up.
I hope you’ll also consider donating a small amount ($5) to my family’s page. Thank you!
As we did last year, my family will be walking to raise money for the March of Dimes. If you’re in the NoVA area, please join us as we walk the March for Babies on Sunday, April 18th in Fairfax County. You can join my team, or just make a small donation. We’ll be donating the sales from our community yard sale that’s coming up, plus my son will have a refreshment stand (he raised over $70 last year!).
We had a great time at last year’s walk. My son loved running through the balloon arch, and lots of families were walking with their dogs, which the girls loved. There are lots of kid activities, like a bounce house and games, there’s a DJ and dancing, and they feed you lunch when you return. It’s a great family event and a low-key way to get your family involved in giving to others.
This year, my sister and brother-in-law are joining our team, and we’re trying to decide if the girls (just turned four) can walk it or if we need to borrow jogging strollers for them.
If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll join us on Sunday, April 18th, or register for a walk in your area.
No matter what your financial situation right now, I hope you’ll keep in mind that even a little bit helps–your $1 or $5 adds in with so many others to make a BIG difference. I’m sure you’ve already heard of the amazing amount ($8 million and counting!) raised for the Red Cross by social media through texting, Twittering, and Facebook. That BIG number comes from lots of little people donating small amounts. Please give what you can!
Jenny from Simply Delightful Designs has started the website Hope for Haiti, where bloggers and online companies are donating ad spots, website redesigns, gift certificates, and more in exchange for your donation. For each $1 raffle ticket, you earn a chance for the prize of your choice. You’ll have another chance to win a GC to Pretty Stinkin’ Green (if you didn’t win here last week), and you can win an ad spot on some of your favorite blogs like We Are That Family and A Soft Place to Land. The donation funds will go to the Red Cross and Compassion International.
If you’re a blogger looking for more exposure for your blog, I hope you’ll donate to my raffle–a 1-month ad spot here in the sidebar of Moneywise Moms. I currently have 50,000 page views per month with over 3,000 subscribers/followers and 1700 Twitter followers. Your ad will be seen! This is open to all businesses and personal blogs that are family-friendly. Go enter here.
By combining Safeway’s sale prices with coupons, I was able to purchase all of this to donate to my local food bank:
3 Mini Wheats Little Bites 7.47* (used three $1.00 off coupons)
5 Green Giant Canned Vegetables $1.95
4 Quaker Instant Oatmeal 6.00 (used two $1.25/2 coupons)
After coupons, I paid $9.92! *There was also a Catalina promo running for a FREE gallon of milk when you buy 3 Mini Wheats, so I kept that for our family. You can see the weekly Safeway (and partner store) matchups each Wednesday here at MoneywiseMoms.
I hope you’ll join me in my $10 Food Bank Challenge. What can you get for $10?
During Shoppers triple coupons last week, I purchased everything in this photo for just $10.18:
2 Ortega Taco Shells, .67 each
2 Cheerios, 1.34 each
5 Del Monte canned vegetables, .68/can
4 Campbell’s Gravy, .13 each
4 Mahatma Rice Mixes, FREE
3 Mahatma Brown Rice, .74 each
4 StarKist pouch tuna, FREE
I try to focus on healthy items to donate to the local food bank. Keep an eye out for coupons for rice, pasta, canned meat, and healthy cereal!
Here in the Northern Virginia area, many schools are currently holding food drives in their lobbies. I’ll be donating my food to ECHO in Springfield. You can also donate at your church, or look online for a food bank in your community.
Everyone who links up here or posts their results in the comments will be eligible for a special PRIZE from me. I will be choosing 5 random winners on Sunday, November 29th at midnight.
See an example of how to post your results. Thanks for joining in!
I mentioned this Wednesday in my Safeway write-up, but there’s a Catalina promo running through Saturday, October 10 that includes boxed Kleenex Tissues. Basically, when you buy three Kleenex at .99 each (look for the 110-ct for that price), you get a $3.00 Catalina coupon at checkout. That’s FREE!
You can turn this into a money-maker by using either the .50 off 3 coupon from the 10/4 newspaper or the $2.00 off 4 SuperCoupon in this week’s Safeway ad (you can pick it up in the store). You’ll need to buy four with that SuperCoupon, and remember that you need to make a minimum $20 purchase. Mine beeped but I pointed out that the Kleenex I purchased fit the criteria on the SuperCoupon (75-200 ct).
Go grab your FREE Kleenex, and pick up a few boxes to donate to your school; they’ll appreciate the savings!
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