Meet Crissy, The High Priestess Of Coupon Clippers [Coupons]

 

 

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Meet Crissy, The High Priestess Of Coupon Clippers [Coupons]

via Consumerist by Jay Slatkin on 5/16/08

Crissy Thompson (pictured left) is among the coupon clipping elite. 11Alive News followed her around one day to learn some of her secrets. At a local Publix, Crissy managed to get two-thirds off her grocery bill and at CVS picked up $140 worth of goods for $5. Often, she spends only $10 a week on groceries and that's with 3 kids and a husband. Check out some of her techniques and her favorite coupon web sites, inside...

Crissy's incredible results don't come without preparation. She usually spends an hour week getting prepared for her shopping trip which takes her 3 to 4 hours and includes 3 to 7 local stores.

Like any good soldier, Crissy starts by gathering her ammunition. She does this by buying 2 copies of the Sunday double paper which renders 4 sets of coupons. Next she hits her favorite web sites which include: gottadeal.com and hotcouponworld.com

Crissy decided to show the news crew a sampling of what she does and they proceeded to hit CVS and a Publix, two of her favorite stores.

At Publix, Crissy made good use of the buy 1 get 1 free coupons. Most grocery stores will also let you buy just one item and get 50% off. If you can then pair a coupon with that you can get the item for free or next to nothing.

Crissy also explained that when a coupon reads "1 coupon per purchase" you are not actually limited to using it only once. For example she took 2 boxes of cereal that were buy 1 get 1 free for $3.79 a box. Crissy also had 2, $3 off coupons to go with each of the boxes of cereal. Crissy made over $2 on the cereal. At checkout Crissy's total was $15.38, she saved $36.22.

Next they went to CVS. Crissy says the best deals there are coupons and Extra Care Bucks. Extra Care Bucks are given on specially marked items. You receive the bucks at checkout and use them on a following purchase. Most people would simply use these Extra Care Bucks the next time they came to the store, or forget about them altogether. However, Crissy uses them the same visit by splitting up her purchase into separate transactions.

They arrived at the checkout counter where Crissy proceeded to split her checkout into 5 transactions. She took the Extra Care Bucks from each transaction and applied it to each following transaction. Apparently, CVS has no problem doing this for Crissy. All said and done, Crissy bought approximately $140 worth of merchandise for under $5. Crazy, huh?

It looks like the Crissy-craze is catching on, she will even have her own website soon. What are your favorite little-known coupon tricks?

If I Didn't See It With my Own Eyes [11 Alive] (Thanks to Josh!)
(Photo: 11 Alive)

 

 

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Make Your Own Groceries [DIY]

 

 

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Make Your Own Groceries [DIY]

via Consumerist by Chris Walters on 5/16/08

Food's getting too expensive, leaving us with two choices: lose our lead on per capita obesity, or find new ways to save money. We're not the type of nation to give up a first place position on anything, so that leaves us with saving money, and one way to do this is to make your own stuff. We know, it's crazy! Apparently early settlers somehow created their own Cheetos and Frappuccinos, but we're not going to get that primitive. Instead, here's a quick rundown of some interesting Do It Yourself tutorials we found that might give you some ideas on how to cut costs the next time you go grocery shopping.

Make Your Own Baby Food
The process is pretty easy—puree the food and strain it. This post suggests you spoon individual servings into an ice tray, then cover it with plastic wrap and freeze it. "Then, put the frozen blocks of food into a freezer bag." The author doesn't go on to mention thawing out the food, which leaves us with images of her babies sucking toothlessly on foodsicles, but we assume you're supposed to reheat the food when you're ready to use it.

Of course, if you need advice on how to make your own baby, you can head over to our sister site Fleshbot.

Make Your Own Instant Oatmeal
Trent at The Simple Dollar makes his own instant oatmeal packets. Instant oatmeal is a simple recipe, which means even the kitchen-phobic can accomplish this without ruining anything. Trent writes that the initial batch actually comes out to slightly more per serving than prepackaged, if you factor in the purchase of one-time supplies like reusable baggies and salt. Batch #2 is the same price as pre-packaged, and batch #3 is where the real savings kick in.

While this is a great idea, we think you can go one better and forego the plastic bags entirely, which drops the cost per serving immediately. Baggies are good if you have to eat your breakfast in the break room at work, but otherwise the "recipe" is so simple that you can assemble it on the spot each morning in less than 30 seconds. If you follow Trent's advice to grind up some of the oatmeal to make the final product thicker, simply grind up a predetermined amount and keep it in a plastic container.

Make Your Own Ice Cream and Sorbet
Real ice cream requires cooking a custard first, and you'll have to purchase eggs, heavy cream, and milk, which are exactly the sort of ingredients that are going up in price. Since the point is to save money, you're better off buying in-season fruit and trying your hand at sorbets.

This is maybe the funniest/laziest sorbet recipe we can find: freeze a can of fruit, then puree it in a blender with a little liquor. (We're going to try this over the weekend.)

If you're too lazy to puree and blend, go even simpler and just make ice pops.

Make Your Own Hot Dogs
Just kidding.

The Big Question: Is This Really Worth My Time?
If you're asking yourself that, there's a good chance you already know the answer: you probably feel your time is better suited doing something more productive and/or entertaining.

However, Trent the Oatmeal Guy writes that he made his instant oatmeal packets while talking on the phone with his mother. We've discovered family phone calls are the perfect time to multitask with housework and kitchen activities, especially if you have a hands-free headset.

(Photo: Getty Images)

 

 

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Mistake-Proofing

could you see if this is at our library?

 

 

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Mistake-Proofing

via Cool Tools on 5/15/08

Mistakes are NOT inevitable, but the logical consequences of remediable design. As such, it's so much easier to avoid them than to correct them, especially if each one becomes a link in a chain of events that go off the rails as a result. If I'd continued in academia, perhaps eventually chairing a department, I'd buy as many copies of this book as there were members of my department -- faculty, residents, nurse anesthetists, medical students. It's slim (72 pages) and easy to understand -- no formal process(es) to follow. Instead, the book provides several seemingly simplistic but very useful rules of thumb anyone can adopt. As Chase & Stewart write: "You don't need a Ph.D. in statistics to apply it. In reality, mistake-proofing is more like a structured form of common sense." For example: "The key to creating mistake-proofing devices and procedures is not to do too much at once. Instead, concentrate on clever, inexpensive methods to check for only one mistake at a time. If you have two possible mistakes, develop two separate devices or procedures to catch them." Right on!

-- Joseph Stirt

Mistake-Proofing: Designing Errors Out
Richard B. Chase & Douglas M. Stewart
2007, 72 pages
$16 - print
$10 - download
Available from Lulu

Sample Excerpts

*
The best way to ensure the detection of a mistake is to make sure that something in the environment makes it very obvious that one has been made. A good example of an environmental cue is the inevitable "extra" parts that remain after a do-it-yourself repair project. These parts make it very clear that you have not reassembled the item correctly.

*
Machine mistakes, being generally mechanical in nature, are better understand than human mistakes. They are, therefore, more predictable and easier to control. If we look closely at the different types of machine mistakes, we see that they fall into two categories: those mistakes we can see coming and those that catch us unaware.

*
Employees experience a continuous stream of encounters - one defect is a low failure rate. Customers experience a single defect as a 100% failure rate.

*
Toyota, which is very experienced at mistake-proofing, averages about twelve devices for each machine.

*
Go/No-Go gauges are not limited to the shop floor. Customers often use such gauges to detect and prevent mistakes. Some amusement park rides require riders to be above a certain height (so they do not slip through the safety restraints) or below a certain height (to keep larger people off of rides meant only for small children). Parks do not want customers to discover they are too small or large after waiting in a potentially very long line. By placing a gauge at he front of the line, customers can tell if they are tall enough (or short enough) to go on the ride without waiting in line.

*
Mistakes are random events and therefore we must continuously watch for them. Sampling is not good enough. It looks at only a small proportion of the outputs in a process.

*
Most importantly, mistake-proofing is the only method we know that includes customers' actions in the quality control system. The importance of this is emphasized by one study that estimates that customers of services are responsible for one-third of the problems they complain about.

*
Remember that the goal is to develop clever, simple and inexpensive devices. Don't immediately opt for the high-tech solution.

Related items previously reviewed on Cool Tools:

Serious Play

Peopleware

Slack

 

 

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12 Stores' Deals For Cashing Your Rebate Check [Deals]

 

 

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12 Stores' Deals For Cashing Your Rebate Check [Deals]

via Consumerist by Ben Popken on 5/13/08

Dealnews has a roundup of twelve different retailers that give shoppers discounts for cashing and spending their tax stimulus checks in-store. There's deals by Kroger, Safeway, ShopRite, SuperValu, Meijer, RadioShack, Sam's Club, Sears/Kmart, Staples.com, Wal-Mart, Rosenau Powersports, and Zonder.com. Dealnews breaks down what the specific deals are, as well as going into the fine print and limitations. Personally, we're spending our stimulus check at the bank but if you're already going to spend a big chunk at one of these stores, it might not be a bad idea to take advantage of some of the offers.

Make the most of your stimulus check: Stores that offer stimulus check bonuses [Dealnews]

 

 

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Michael Pollan Speaks In Defense Of Food [Food]

as if reading his book weren't enough...

 

 

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Michael Pollan Speaks In Defense Of Food [Food]

via LH -mac -news -roundup -sponsors on 5/11/08

Author of In Defense of Food Michael Pollan explained his "eater's manifesto" at Google last month. Watch the video to hear Pollan discuss his seven-word philosophy ("Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.")—or download the hour-long clip to your iPod to watch later.

Michael Pollan Speaks In Defense Of Food [Building a Better Geek]

 

 

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Windows XP SP3 Creating Havoc

maybe we should wait on this "upgrade"

 

 

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Windows XP SP3 Creating Havoc

via Slashdot by kdawson on 5/9/08

ozmanjusri writes "According to Information Week, within hours of its wide availability Windows XP SP3 had drawn hundreds of complaints from users who claim the update is wreaking havoc on their computers. One user said in a Microsoft newsgroup: 'I downloaded and installed [the SP3] package for IT Professionals and Developers on one of my computers. Now I can't get the computer to boot. I don't think Microsoft should have made this a critical update.' Other sites including IT Wire are also reporting problems, which include include random reboots or the inability to boot at all." Note that XP3 won't install on systems running beta IE8; and after a successful SP3 install users will no longer be able to downgrade from IE7 to IE6.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

 

 

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Determine If Your ISP is Throttling Your BitTorrent Traffic [BitTorrent]

interesting. even if we're not BTing much these days.

 

 

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Determine If Your ISP is Throttling Your BitTorrent Traffic [BitTorrent]

via LH -mac -news -roundup -sponsors on 5/7/08

Web application Glasnost simulates BitTorrent downloads on your computer to determine whether or not your internet service provider (ISP) is throttling your BitTorrent transfers. It does so by measuring the difference between your regular download speed and your BitTorrent download speed, testing against different ports and other variables to get a better idea of what exactly is being throttled. The tool is aggregating the results of the test, which the site is publishing to encourage greater transparency among ISPs. If your ISP turns out to be throttling your BitTorrent traffic, you can still avoid the throttling if you know the right tricks.

Glasnost [via TorrentFreak]

 

 

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