June 09 Debt

Consumer Debt:

Current Balance - $34,236
Original Balance - $50,547
Paid off since June 08 - $16,311
Percent Paid = 32%

Frugal Focus 5/25/09

If you like to make coffee at home, Coupons.com has some great coupons for top quality tea and coffee this week, including $1.50 off Seattle's Best, $1.50 off Tazo tea and $1.50 Starbucks. Match these with sales at your favorite grocery store, and you can save quite a bit.



This past weekend there were no coupon inserts in the Sunday paper, so it was a good chance to get caught up. I did receive, the All You magazine for June, which has quite a few good coupons in it. I exchanged some Northwest airlines miles for a subscription to this magazine last fall. It's definitely been worth it.

CVS 5/25/09

Today at CVS I spent $1.30 out of pocket, and received $13.99 in Extra Care Bucks.

Here's how:

Purchased 1 Revlon Nailpolish $3.99 - received $3.00 ECB
- $1.00 coupon from 4/26 Smartsource insert
Purchased 1 Colgate Total Advanced $2.99 - received $2.00 ECB
- $1.00 coupon from May All You magazine
1 Playtex 18 ct tampons $3.99 - received $3.00 ECB
- $1.00 from May All You magazine
1 Box Bandaids $2.99 - received $2.00 ECB
- $1.00 from 4/26 Redplum insert
1 Speed stick Men's Deoderant $3.99 - received $3.99 ECB

Total after coupons = 13.99
Used $13.00 ECB
Total with tax = $1.30

Frugal Focus 5/20/09

Today I received in the mail a $10 preloaded Mastercard debit card from sending in $20.00 in receipts for Swiffer refill products. These were purchased at CVS with extra care bucks and coupons, so I spent no money out of pocket. The rebate is still available here, items must be purchased by 5/15/09 and mailed in by 5/30/09.

I also did a couple of surveys through E-rewards, a site that I was referred to through my Borders Rewards card. This site gives generous rewards currency for surveys that you can exchange for rewards such as Borders gift certificate, Blockbuster rentals, magazine subscriptions and travel points. Today I got a certificate for two FREE previously viewed movies from Blockbuster. Last month I got $20 certificate for Borders.

Frugal Focus 5/19/09

I received a coupon booklet in the mail from ConAgra foods. They make brands such as Hunts, Reddi-whip, Orville Reddenbacher and Peter Pan peanut butter. The coupon book also has a rebate form. If you send in receipts for $25 in ConAgra purchases, they will send coupons worth $35.00.

I also completed $8.00 worth of surveys through Opinion Outpost. They pay out via check when your balance has reached just $5.00!
Sign up, here

We negotiated a small discount with Comcast, who has our cable, internet, home phone service. Our rates were scheduled to go up since our bundle rate was for one year. So, yay for no rate hike!

New printable coupons

Organic Valley has just released new coupons for eggs, milk, cheese and soy milk.

Also, sign up with Horizon to get $1.00/1 Horizon Organic milk.

May 2009 Debt Update

Start Debt: 50,547
Current Debt: 35,001
Paid: 15,546

We are down to 3 credit cards with balances. All of them are low interest, although we are looking at moving one balance to a 0% balance transfer card to be able to knock it out quicker.