It's almost the end of July and I thought I would get another Blog post off before it clicks over.  This will be a bit more frenetic than usual but it's mostly just links to other pages that I think you will like.

Have you seen the United Dairymen of Idaho's win milk for a year contest?  MILK FOR A YEAR!!  You may enter once per month: http://dairyforayear.com/

There are TWO Box Tops for Education sweepstakes right now.  One is an enter daily for a huge sum of box tops at http://www.boxtops4education.com/ and the other is a fun new sub-site they just created with General Mills: http://generalmills.promo.eprize.com/buildingwithboxtops/:b=ie7/?affiliate_id=1d.  There is one "instant win" on the playground and you can enter twice per day for the sweepstakes (once for signing in and the other for answering Box Top trivia in the library).  Thus far I have won 5 Box Tops.  Okay, I know, .50 cents isn't enough to write up a whole Blog entry about but COME ON!!!  I spent two minutes clicking and one minute winning for Whitney!

School supplies are at their lowest price yet.  Here is how to get the very best deal.  Collect all of the ads with the best prices, for example, Fred Meyer has crayons for .25 cents still and you can buy up to 4 boxes of crayons.  Make sure you do not have to have a customer loyalty card to get the discount listed in the ad (this step is important to make the next step work.)  So, you do not want the ad to say, crayons .24 cents with Grand Central Happy Go Lucky Shopper Card.  Next, take your ads to TARGET or WALMART.  Pick up your supplies and take them to the register ask them to price match.  At Walmart they may do it at the register at Target they will do it at customer service.  It has been my experience that Target is more than happy to do this and you can pick up school supplies at a great savings. 

Happy last 24 days of summer vacation!!

Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent

Whitney Community Center Carnival TONIGHT

I popped over to the Whitney Community Center to check on the new raised beds.  Talking to Chris Kranz, community center supervisor, he mentioned there is a FREE carnival at the Whitney Community Center TONIGHT from 6-8pm. 

The activities are hosted by the BSU TRIO Upward Bound.  All activities, prizes and candy are free.  Did I mention the games, prizes, cotton candy and snow cones for all ages?  Did I mention it's all free?

If you need more information, you can call Chris Kranz at 854-6625.
http://www.cityofboise.org/Departments/Parks/Activities/YouthServices/page44712.aspx

It's Tuesday once again.  Did you know that McDonald's offers half price Happy Meals on Tuesday nights between 5 and 7pm?  I hear the naysayers loud and clear.  However, for a cheap thrill you can get chicken nuggets (45 calories each), milk and sliced apples.  See, not so bad.

Tuesday is also the day to order your veggies and fruits from Bountiful Baskets:
http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/

Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent

And the British Are Here....

Whew, so my "Britas Are Coming, Britas Are Coming" post timing worked out.  The British Royal Couple some of us have been waiting for longingly, have finally arrived in California.  I've been waiting for this for months, just like something else that FINALLY happened this week.  Yes, more spectacular than the shuttle Atlantis lift off today it's the official Back To School Shopping Season!

It is now time to throw caution to the wind and head back to the stores to stock up.  However, be wary, prices for all items are NOT at their lowest yet.  Here is what you can buy right now:

Fred Meyer
Crayola Crayons: $.25 Limit 4
Glue (orange top/Elmer's): $.25 Limit 3 (From https://savingstar.com/ if you use the $.75 off two it's a  potential money maker; just follow the Saving Star rules)
Spiral Notebooks: $.15 Limit 10 (this price will probably go lower to $.11 or $.10)
Composition books: $.25 (I use these for work and I don't remember them being on sale last year)
3x5 cards: $.33 (I didn't see a limit)
Erasers: $.33
Folders: $.15
Colored Pencils: $.99 (I think these will get down to $.89)

WAIT for lower prices on these:

Rulers
Pencil cases
Pencils
MARKERS (WAIT FOR THESE TO BE $.99 at least!!)
Scissors

ShopKo is usually the price leader on all of this stuff so I was surprised when Fred's came out first.  Following their Free Admission Discovery Center of Idaho Fridays, they have upped their ante in what they give to local education initiatives.  Coming out as the first to do back to school sales at these prices is a sure sign of their overall commitment to education.

If you are able to, participate in a little S.O.S.  In my world, that means buy up to your limit (every time you enter the store) and then dump an enormous pile of Crayola Crayons on Principal Lovelace's desk.

Welcome to the USA Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!

Simply Frugal

I love reading with my kids.  Sometimes when they struggle with a word I show them a word within a word.  In the word "Simply" is imply.  My behavior is Simply Frugal these days, this may imply to some that I am cheap.  Maybe, but I like to think I do more with less so that I can do more later.  After all, I have big plans for my kids as I am sure you do too!

What my kids frequently see are the "bad parent nights" and "woohoo Groupon $5 for $10 worth of SnoCone" nights.  In fact, I frequently bump into certain PTO other mothers while being frugal.  My "bad parent" night is taking the kids to McDonald's on Tuesday nights for half priced Happy Meals and then we go to the Library! for a huge stack of books.  Cheap, not healthy but tons of fun for around $5.91. 

A few weeks ago in a group PTO brainstorm email, I suggested we find an EXTREME couponer in the Whitney School family and start a pantry.  Principal Lovelace is looking into it.  Meanwhile, I have been keeping up with my Simply Frugal mode and collecting free and nearly free toothpaste and toothbrushes with my own coupons.

I'm not an extreme couponer but I value the coupons as if they were actual cash.  I began thinking about the pantry idea and thought, what if we kept the items at the store and just taught the practice of couponing and being Simply Frugal to the rest of the school community?  We are not talking about everybody in the school wiping out the shelves every week but just taking what we all need.

So what happens when you have 25 tubes of toothpaste and no mustard?  We trade.  There will be weeks when I am out of town for work and will not be able to take advantage of a sale.  Those weeks I may not be able to stock up on what my family needs and I will need to make a trade.  Let's face it, everybody has been hit by this recession but if we work together we can further our individual goals.

Our own Blue Star and Gold Star families have shouldered an incredible burden during this recession.  Food prices have gone up, wages have gone down and when we asked our service men and women to go to the front lines for us, they did, often leaving behind a tremendous financial burden.  If we can relieve that burden by helping one another out, why should we not find everyway possible to accomplish this.

One way to help military personnel overseas is to collect all of your EXPIRED coupons and send them to bases overseas.  That's right, expired coupons.  Military bases overseas can use the coupons for up to 6 months after their expiration date!  As soon as school starts up you can bet I will have an efficient method for collecting expired coupons if you're interested.

As a community, we should look beyond all of our differences and find ways to shoulder our burdens together.  In the coming months and in the first PTO meeting, I want to find a way we can get together as a community of Simply Frugal people and cut down our grocery spending so that we can do more with less. 

What are YOUR ideas?  Monthly coupon club where we can share ideas and maybe trade some of our cache of freebies in exchange for something we really need?

In the meantime you will find a few additions to this blog, some of which are links to printable coupons and others are great resources for teaching you how to coupon and be Simply Frugal.  The links for the coupon sites DO GENERATE money and in all of the great Nikki blogs with link ideas, everytime you click on a coupon link on this blog, it will hopefully send you to a site that will give us a few cents back for Whitney's PTO.

I will also spend some time trying to direct you to bargains to get your kids back to school like the savvy shopper I know you are.

Simply Frugally Yours,
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent

The Britas are Coming! The Britas are Coming!

I got a coupon for a Brita water bottle a few months ago and have been on the hunt for it ever since.  http://www.brita.com/products/filtering-bottle/brita-bottle/?gclid=CO63mPT56qkCFcFo4AodzmodWA

If you take the "pledge" to use fewer bottles of bottled water at http://www.filterforgood.com/ you can get a $5.00 coupon towards the $9.99 Brita bottle.  I will add a code to our page as well.



I just found the bottle itself for sale at a local Fred Meyer for $9.99.  That is the suggested retail price from Brita and anything lower is a pounce worthy deal.

So, why am I mentioning it here on the Whitney Blog?  Brita products carry Box Tops for Education on them! 

Yes, it might be summer but our Whitney community is in PRIME Box Top collection time.  A very good friend of mine handed me 21 Box Tops the other day (lots of Juicy Juice is being had right now).  That's another $2.10 we can put towards our kids and their dreams for the future.

We can always put those dollars to good use at the school but what do YOU see for Whitney? 

For example:

• Should we set up a scholarship for Whitney elementary graduates to help them with application fees for college? Just getting an application into Harvard can be cost prohibitive for some families; it is not free! 
• Should we work toward putting electronic response systems in every classroom?  (You know, those clickers that let the shy kid in the back of the room try their hand at answering a question without the risk of raising their hand.)
• Should we raise money to get the LEGO STEM curriculum in every classroom?

What are YOUR ideas?  What do YOU want for YOUR kids.

Keep clipping those Box Tops over the summer and when school starts up, join the PTO.  You do not need to become the PTO President or even a regular meeting attender.  Join the email distribution, come to meetings when you can and find your niche.  Even if you can never come to a meeting, the most important thing about the PTO is the community of thinkers and resources we have pooled.

A word about Britas:  You can recycle your filter by going to Brita's website.  I'm currently trying to talk TerraCycle into taking these as well. http://www.brita.com/your-brita/recycle-your-filter/

Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent