Month: October 2022

October 2022: New Month, New Coupons!

Abby H.

file000786402730Here is your monthly reminder!  A new month means new printable and electronic coupons!

The printable coupon market is slowly coming to an end. Smartsource no longer offers printable coupons, and you may notice that there are fewer coupon inserts in your Sunday newspaper. This is in favor of more offers available on apps. But if you love printable coupons….

  • Coupons.com (printable coupons, e-coupons, and a cashback app)

Remember if clipping coupons isn’t your thing, but saving money is, check out my list of Smartphone apps that can save you the big bucks! New offers are added on the Smartphone Savings Apps all the time!

Here are a few of my favorite printable coupons:

Save $0.75 on any ONE (1) Café Bustelo® Coffee Product (excluding instant)
Save $0.75 on ONE (1) Waterloo Sparkling Water 8 pack or ONE (1) Waterloo Sparkling Water 12 pack
Save $1.00 on any ONE (1) Folgers® Coffee product (excluding instant)
Save $0.75 on THREE (3) Avocados From Mexico
Save $1.50 on any ONE (1) Primal Kitchen® Sauces or Ketchup
Save $1.00 on any TWO Kellogg’s® Cereals (Including Kellogg’s® JUMBO SNAX)
Save $5.00 on ONE (1) Voltaren Arthritis Pain Gel 150g or larger
Save $2.00 On any ONE (1) ARM & HAMMER™ CLUMP & SEAL™ Cat Litter

October is the beginning of The last three months of the year. And those months are packed full of holidays and entertaining possibilities. Sales, rebates, and cashback offers will most likely be for the types of food and beverages that are associated with entertaining.

  • Candy, nuts
  • Fall/Winter clothing
  • Fabric, Patterns, sewing machines (Halloween)

For a complete list of types of foods and items that will be on sale, check out this post on the cycle of sales.

Free Food Resources for October 2022(San Diego County)

Abby H.

Woo! A new month means a reminder about all of the free food options there is here in San Diego County.

Keep in mind there are still supply chain issues, so there may not be a lot of food at some distributions, especially those that serve a large portion of the community.

I recommend showing up a little early with a bottle of water and a book and waiting in line. Time passes quickly in these lines, and it’s a great time to learn from others about community food options. Remember to socially distance and follow local masking regulations.

You can find resources here for Central and East County, and Here for North County.

Our friends at Faith Chapel are super ahead of the game and sent out information regarding their 2022 food distributions early on in the year.

If you are located outside San Diego County, call 211. If you are not familiar with 211, here is their website and it can point you in the right direction.

San Diego Food Bank Distributions for October 2022 can be found here. Enter your address (or just your zip code) and the map will show you all of the distributions in your area or closest to you. You can filter by the days of the week to find food when you are available. If there is an income requirement/limit to participate, each location/listing will say such. You can learn more here about the Feeding San Diego Together Tour.

Neighbor distributions are intermixed with the San Diego Food Bank Distributions, however, they have no income requirements, and you come as you are. These Distributions are primarily fruits & veg, however, some locations may also distribute canned goods, dairy, and bread.

If you know of other resources, please leave a comment! And feel free to share this post with anyone you may know in need.

10/3/2022 Weekly Meal Plan

Abby H.

0a5e9dab796cea8a07eabe4eb4795b9e.jpgWoo! Halloween is in less than 30 days! Time to start planning and sewing my friends.

With the surprising increase in the price of gas over the past 10 or so days, I decided to inventory the pantry really well yesterday and plan meals based on what we already have, or that require not too many additional items.

For my lunches this week, I’m making a pasta salad using up marinated artichoke hearts, jarred roasted peppers, bow tie noodles, and some leftover veggies from the fridge. I may also add cubed cheese too.

I hit up the grocery store and picked up milk, bread, and a few veggies (onions and strawberries), and our meal plan for the week is ready to go.

No CSA box this week, we got a jumbo box last week and we are still munching through it.

We’ve been trying a lot of new foods lately, thanks to the really great freebies from Social Nature lately too. It’s fun to try new foods. I received 5 coupons last week, and I need to hit up Sprouts this morning before work to redeem them.

For those of you that are new to meal planning, I’ve got an easy 101 style post here with super easy tips and steps. After you get that down, here is info about batch or freezer cooking.

I’ve gotten a pretty good inventory of the pantry, freezer, and fridge done (I try to update it after every shopping trip), so I’m able to plan meals and use up what we’ve got with little waste.

I only post our dinner plans for the week, because our other meals are usually the same each day.

Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 and 1/2  for me, and pancakes or something along those lines for the kids. They are also into fruit and bagels for breakfast. Lately, the big kid has been digging protein shakes in the morning. This is his favorite kind. 

Lunch: I have a plastic tote in the cupboard full of self-serve snacks. I buy treats and snacks in bulk and fill up snack-sized zip-top bags. This is really helpful for the summer when for some reason, kids are starving all the time.

Dinner: I’ve got a couple casseroles/freezer meals this week, and other than that we’re eating easy and quick stuff so I can spend time playing, coloring, building legos, and swimming, which is the plan for the week.

  • Monday: Protein shakes or smoothies (We’re going to a special advanced screening of Lyle Lyle Crocodile)

  • Tuesday: Chick’n nuggets, Buttered noodles, fruit, cheese & crackers

  • Wednesday: Dream Dinners Pesto Tortellini bake, green salad, garlic bread

  • Thursday:   Dream Dinners Lucky Dragon Pork Tenderloin with Jasmine Rice, stir-fried veggies

  • Friday: Takeout night!
  • Saturday:  Leftovers
  • Sunday:  Soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, fruit

Focus Group Connections: Kids11-17 Cell Phone Usage Project $50

Abby H.

Focus Group Connections is a research company located in Southern California. They conduct studies and surveys all over the US.

Focus Group Connection is looking for kids 11-17 to participate in a Focus Group on the topic of “Cellular Applications.”
This study requires the download of an informational app to your child’s cell phone for 9-days.

Focus Group Connection is doing a study to learn more about how pre-teens and teenagers use their mobile devices and how this usage may correlate with their health. To get this information, we would 11-to-17-year olds to answer a survey and download a study app onto their devices for 9 days. We expect it to take about 15 minutes to complete the survey. We expect it to take about 5-10 minutes to install and enroll into the study app, which then runs automatically in the background.

The study app, collects mobile device usage data from cellular devices. This app only tracks mobile device use in terms of whether the phone is on or off, which apps are running, and the time of day the apps are used. It does not collect personal information, phone contacts, the content of any texts or emails, what websites are visited, or other specifics such as which videos are watched on YouTube. For example, the app would know you used the Google Chrome app, but not what you searched for or what websites you visited.

 If you and your child are interested – they will send a short survey link for you (Parent) to complete. If you have a qualifying child, we will email the instructions for the app installation. If selected to participate, your child will receive $50 for their participation. 

If you would like to include your child in this study – Please click here to fill in a short pre-screen. Note it says “August/September”, but they are looking for candidates for October/November.

Sprouts Monthly Sampling Program is Ending!

Abby H.

That’s right, the Sprouts full-size sampling program has been canceled. Honestly, it was really hard to get them on the app or find them in the store, so I’m not at all surprised that this program is closing.

BUT- Never fear! With in-app coupons from the Sprouts app, as well as savings/cash back apps (find my favorites here), there are still tons of ways to save at Sprouts!

Q-insights- Grocery Shopping- It pays $175

Abby H.

QI-logoNOslogan.pngQ-insights is another company where I do research groups, focus groups, and online surveys to earn extra money.

They have a lot of stuff in South Orange County, and less often San Diego County. This study takes place virtually.

Q-insights is currently recruiting for an online focus group on the topic of grocery shopping.

The study will run from Oct 18th to the 24th.  It will pay $175.00 as a thank you for your time.

If you are interested in participating please fill out the pre-screener survey here.  If you pre-qualify Q-insights will call you to ask some additional qualifying questions.