THE PEOPLE MUST HAVE THEIR DAN MILLER

I’m not sure exactly how many trips I made to the store, but I did take a few days off (no trips to the store). Plus every physical trip to Meijer was at least 2 actual orders (curse them and their limit of 2 like doubling!)

Things I paid for:

62 Hamburger Helper ($14.00) - seems silly to *pay* for Helper when I have so much of it already plus I just got paid to take tons of it at Kroger a few weeks ago - but these were bought mostly for the boxtops deal.
16 Stage 3 Baby food ($8.83) - I liked it better when Joel was nursing
3 Gallons milk ($7.47)
24 Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks $4.48 - counted for the boxtops plus they were B2G2F and $1/2 printables made them free - paid for a few because I ran out of printables and had to use .50/2 blinkies.
8 Mamma Bella Garlic Bread $3.96 - 50/1 plus B1G1F
2 Kraft Shredded Cheese $3.34
2 Contact Lens Solution $3.33 - On sale for $3/10 plus rainchecks for 1/2 price
24 Kraft Handi-Snak Puddings $3.08 - $2/3 Kraft coupons plus B1G1F
1 Mozzarella Cheese 12 oz $2.59
1 Grapes 2.22 lb $1.95
1 Pepperoni $1.89
2 Bread loaf $1.78
2 Viva Paper Towels $1.78
1 Cooking Spray $1.67
1 Vegetable Oil $1.67
20 Nature Valley Granola Bars $1.50 - also B2G2 with $1/2 printables
1 Lettuce $0.99
1 Hot Dog Buns $0.98
1 Bananas 2.09 lb $0.92
2 Bisquick 40 oz $0.78
2 Mccain French Fries $0.69 - B1G1F plus $1/1 Meijer Gas

Stuff for free

18 Colgate MaxFresh Toothpaste $0.00 - even better I got $2 off Crest Catalinas on a few of these which I used to make money on Crest.
18 Lays Potato Stax $0.00 - 1/1 peelies
2 Pillsbury Dunkables $0.00
2 Act II Popcorn $0.00
1 Coke Zero 2-liter $0.00
8 Betty Crocker Cookie Mix $0.00
8 Betty Crocker Potatoes $0.00
10 Nexcare Bandages $0.00

Moneymakers

1 Ziploc Containers -$0.13 - I only found one .55/1 coupon, which coupled with the $1 OYNSO Catalina
1 Nail Clip -$0.51
3 Crest Toothpaste with Scope -$0.56 - It was $1.72 plus B2G1F and I had the $2 Catalians.
18 White Rain Conditioner -$0.72
26 White Rain Shampoo -$1.04
2 Tyson Chicken Nuggets -$1.12 - found some $1/1 Meat Winetags
30 Martha White Pizza Crust Mix -$1.20 - most of these just doubled to be free - some they punched in and so doubled the full amount
2 Betty Crocker Frosting -$1.50 - this was pour and frost - printables at www.boxtops4education.com
88 General Mills Cereal -$1.60 - lots of $1/1 peelies and $1/2 blinkies.
6 Ball Park Hot Dogs -$3.03 - meat winetags.
12 Krusteaz Muffin Mix -$6.00
28 Log Cabin Sugar Free Syrup -$6.74 - $1/1 hangtags plus B1G1F. Really I’m surprised I ever saw any of these since the deal and the coupons were RIGHT THERE, but even on Saturday there was plenty left.
16 Emery Boards -$12.38 -$1/1 peelies.

For the first time, I made it over the thousand dollar mark for the week - $1,014.09 in groceries (including $5.62 tax) for $36.77. Personally I’m disappointed I had to actually *pay* money :-), but most of the things I paid for I did for the boxtops. There was the deal where you buy 12 participating products (mostly general mills and betty crocker stuff) and get a coupon for 100 boxtops ($10 value). I got 16 of those coupons, so 1600 boxtops. Unfortunately they expire in Sep. 06, and Amy doesn’t start kindergarten till next year, so I guess it’s ebay and/or trading for them…

The first coupon for 100 sold on ebay for $9.75.

A delay once again in SDC recap, but I wanted to mention something that was said in one of the talks in church yesterday. The talk was on forgiveness and the lady giving the talk was bringing up the whole part in the New Testament where Peter is asking how many times should he forgive someone (”How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” - Matt. 18:21)

Of course Jesus replies back “I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” (Matt. 18:22)

In any case, she was saying that it reminded her of the scene from Austin Powers where Dr. Evil is extorting the world governments and asks for “One meeeeeelion dollars”. Her point was that Peter was talking to Jesus and in Mosaic Law you were supposed to forgive your neighbor, so Peter throws out seven times like it’s this outrageously huge number, just like Dr. Evil with the one million dollars (if you recall, this is 1960s Dr. Evil time transported to 2000, so he thinks a million is a lot). Anyways….. NOBODY LAUGHED! Well, I laughed and Carolyn said she laughed from the nursing lounge. I couldn’t believe it. Not only was it a completely valid reference and tied superbly in to the gospel topic, but she even put her pinky finger up to her mouth just like Dr. Evil.

Last night Carolyn and I were talking last night about how when she was preparing her talk she probably put that in there expecting some laughs and I bet it would be annoying that nobody laughed. So I just wanted to say hey Ann Rabe if you are ever reading this then *I* thought it was funny and well-played.

(iykwim).

I’m finished finally with the super double coupons for the week. I will post a final report within a day or so. Let us just say that the stores were white, ready for harvest, and lo, I did thrust in my sickle with all my might, mind and strength. again, iykwim.

And if you don’t know what iykwim means, then lo I shall not explain it. Let us just say that google is your friend. (iykwim)

I did want to post one annoying thing that happened to me a few days ago at Meijer. I had a raincheck for a gallon of milk for $1.67 I think (reg. price $2.49) and the cashier gets to it and is like hold on a second. So she goes and I guess talks to some head dude, and then after forever comes back and says something to the effect of “yeah I can’t take this because we’re never out of milk so we don’t give rainchecks for milk”. And i’m like “BUT I ALREADY HAD THE RAINCHECK!!” and she said it wasn’t signed by a Meijer “team member” and I’m thinking so you think that I stole it? Anyway that was very annoying but I had to get the milk anyways because we were out, and the worst part of it was that they KEPT MY RAINCHECK. Oooh that really stuck in my craw.

Okay then. 2 updates in 2 days. Control yourselves people. I won’t give a full rundown on Super Double coupons just yet, but I have been twice so far and lo, it has been good. I didn’t think it would be that lucrative since it’s only been 5 weeks since the last one and I haven’t built up a good stock worth of coupons and rainchecks and such. But it’s going well.

One of the better deals is a deal where when you buy 12 participating products, you get 100 Box Tops for Education. For those of you that don’t know what that is, they are little labels that appear on Betty Crocker / General Mills products, and the participating products are all those brands. You can rip them off when you’re done with the box and turn it into your school. Each label is worth 10 cents to the school, which they use for education stuff I suppose. I’m sure if you follow the link you’ll learn everything you ever wanted to know and then some.

Anyway each of those certificates (for 100 box tops) has a value of $10 (100 * 10 cents). They sell pretty well on eBay - with some going for over face value. So some folks at work and I have been calculating the best way to buy the 12 products for the minimum price. The cheapest product is Hamburger Helper which is on sale for $1. So even without coupons or anything, you could buy 12 Helpers for $12 and get the box tops certificate which is worth $10, so in a sense it would be like paying $2 for 12 helpers (or 17 cents a box). Of course, paying for groceries is for suckers :-). So far I’ve gotten 4 of these certificates and plan to get several more before the week is up.

I do want to mention one thing that happened to me yesterday while buying stuff at Meijer. This week they have certain GM cereal on sale for $2, and it’s one of the participating products. So on one of my orders, I got 8 boxes of cereal. The problem was that either they had it wrong in their database, or I got a slightly wrong size, as half of the cereal rang up at $4.08 (instead of $2). I also had a raincheck for buy 1 get 1 free, so the cashier put it in as 8 cereals at $4.08 ($32.64) and then a 50% discount ($16.32) - making me pay $16.32 before coupons. I was going to have him correct that, but he was already being snippy with me, and then I realized too that if I didn’t buy those $4.08 cereals I wouldn’t have my 12 participating products so my box tops voucher wouldn’t print out. So I decided to just take it up with Customer Service. Of course then my voucher didn’t print out anyway, and also my cashier wouldn’t let me use 2 emery board coupons because he said I only bought 1 when clearly I bought 2.

Anyway, went up to CS. Was there forever…. I was just talking to Carolyn on Sunday when I saw the ad that I bet this promo wouldn’t work right - they never seem to… It was annoying because nobody there really has any control over the Catalina machine. At first they were going to just have me come back later to see if it had been fixed by then, but then the lady got the idea to just scan one of the cereals 12 times, and that worked and so I got my vouchers. Upon further review, I believe we have figured out that it’s the cookie mix that is not counting correctly, so I avoided that today and got my vouchers with no problems.

But in any case, then she went to fix my cereal problem, and she price adjusted the 8 $4.08 cereals to 8 $2.00 cereals, and so gave me $16.64 back. Normally when they give me too much money back, I try to tell them and have them correct it but at this point I had been there so long and I knew it was going to be a hassle trying to explain this. Or maybe that was me just justifying it… Of course then when I got back I found that he had missed one of my $1/1 cereal coupons and my $1 for buying 4 GM cereal (also in the ad) didn’t come out, so that evens out. All in all, they gave me back about $5 more than I otherwise would have if everything had been working correctly.

More details later in the week….

Well it’s been a long hiatus for TPMHTDM, but I thought I’d brief you with a quick run-down on what’s up. In truly exciting news, we were over at my MILs house on Saturday when (because she is one of the lucky few with a Saturday Door Store) I got a heads up on a bonus Super Double coupon week at Meijer. I wasn’t really able to plan for it all that better than I would have had I found out regularly on Sunday but hey it was exciting! It’s only been 5 weeks since the last one, so maybe they’re moving it up (from every 10 weeks which was how often they had been doing it). I realize that reading this paragraph makes me sound like a complete loser and I can’t entirely dispute that accusation.

Anyways, I went today but I will recap that later in a separate post. This post will be about the past few weeks as I’ve been negligent on the postage recently.

One thing that we have been doing at work is our Recycle Challenge. One of the things we do at Luxottica is a charitable foundation called “Give the Gift of Sight“. The gist of it is that folks donate their used glasses at Lenscrafters stores (and I assume Pearle Visions now too). These glasses go through a process and eventually make their ways to a 3rd world country where we partner with the Lions Club to give them out to people that can’t afford glasses.

One of the parts of that process takes place in what we call the “Recycle Center” downstairs at where I work. When the glasses are donated, the folks at the stores clean them up and write the prescriptions on them and then send them to us. We take the prescriptions and put them into our computer system that we have written for this, and then when we go on the international missions, we take that computer system, and when a person’s prescription is measured, the computer tells the person dispensing where they can find the right eyewear. It’s pretty neat.

Anyways, each department here has a 4 week “challenge” where they are responsible for manning the recycle center. IT’s turn is now (last week, this week and the 2 upcoming weeks). I’m a captain so I’ve been spending some time organizing stuff for that. Our theme is football, and we’re divided up into 6 teams representing the individual IT departments. We each have 3 days that are “ours” and whoever recycles the most glasses on their days wins some sort of prize. We won last year and aim to win again this year. Our goal is 130,000 pairs recycled in our 4 weeks, which works out to 6500 per day which, if you can’t visualize how many that is, is a lot.

I got back on the saddle, so to speak, last night, riding my bike for the first time in quite awhile. I decided to take a different route yesterday, eschewing Madeira and riding down to the Little Miami Bike Trail. The total ride was about 11.8 miles, which was kind of long, and I finished in a little over an hour. The route was kind of a big circle. Indian “Hill” lived up to its name - lots of hills as I rode through there (for out of towners, this is to the east of where I live). There was one hill that I knew was going to be a big one, so I arranged the route to go down this hill instead of up it :-). I had a hard enough time going up the backside of it. Still, going down was a bit scary, just because you’re going down SO fast, that anything that busted out at you could mess you up. Luckily there are no stopsigns or anything at the bottom, and it’s a pretty un-populated area. To give you an idea of the hill, I looked on TopoZone, and it goes from about 820 feet above sea level to about 570 in the space of not very long at all. It took about 22 minutes to get down to the bike trail (at Cunningham Rd), which is about mile marker 2.0.

Rode about 2.7 miles on the trail, northbound, which took about 15 minutes. The nice thing about this bike trail is that because it’s an old railroad bed, it’s fairly flat. There was a grade to it (I think probably the whole time was uphill) but it was a flat uphill, if that makes sense. The downside is that because it’s an old railroad and right next to the river, there’s lots of industrial areas nearby, which doesn’t do much for the smell. Not to mention the river itself isn’t exactly a springtime breeze, iykwim.

I knew as I flew down the aforementioned big hill into Camp Dennison that at some point I’d have to come back up, and the trek back to my house on Loveland-Madeira road. It was maybe 4 miles or so and essentially completely uphill. The grades weren’t that bad (for the most part) but it was very tiring. As usual, the worst hills were the ones coming back to my house - had to walk it again. It’s not that those hills are THAT long or THAT steep, but they are kind of steep and they come right at the end of the journey when I’m very tired…

We watched some of our Seinfeld DVDs last night - good times. We watched “The Handicap spot” and “The Implant“, the latter of which we watched with the writer’s commentary on. It was interesting (though at times confusing trying to follow everything at once). I did not realize that “double dipping” was originated by Seinfeld - this particular writer was mentioning that he had only written a few eps, but was listing off all of the pop culture phrases that he had essentially invented. Double dipping, yada yada yada (though that might predate Seinfeld), anti-dentite, etc. It’s crazy to think of all the phrases that seem like they’ve been around forever but have really only been around for 10-15 years.