Do you know about Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program?  It is a really great way to save money on items you’re always using like diapers, wipes, toilet paper, face wash, snacks, etc.  This program is on many, if not all, of their grocery store items sold at Amazon.

The program works like this: search for your products, and look to see if it’s in the Subscribe and Save program.  This information should be right under all of the pricing information.  It’s usually in a box that tells you how you can save 15% more and get free shipping when you sign up.  Then you can choose how often you want to receive it.  And, you can cancel at any time.

I currently have a subscription for wipes and my favorite brand of facewash.  I save quite a few bucks by purchasing this way.  I’m thinking about buying our diapers throught the Subscribe and Save program too.  I love that the item comes straight to my door, with free shipping!  

If you’re worried that you’d run out of your product before the next shipment arrives, never fear!  When I notice that we only have a couple of packages of wipes left I just check my subscription to see when the next one is coming.  You can make your next order ship immediately, and my orders have always arrived in a couple of days. Amazon always sends an email when they’re about to ship your item too.  So if you’re not ready for it when they send the email, just go to your subscription page and skip the next shipment.

I really like this program, and since we live in a small town, many of the items on the Subscribe and Save are not available here.  I love that I can buy them through this with an additional savings and free shipping!  It’s great for us!

I have an unusual disdain for grocery carts. When you think about all of the gross things people can touch out of the grocery store and inside the grocery store and then they put their hand on that cart and push it around. I mean, YUCK!! I probably need to use my vinegar spray on the grocery carts!! To top all of this grossness off, I have a story about grocery carts.

One day my mom went grocery shopping. As she pushed her cart around the store she kept noticing a rather peculiar odor.  A really stinky one.  She kept wondering to herself, “what is that smell, and where is it coming from?”  She finally decided to smell her hands.  Hmm,  poop.  Oh, yeah, there was poop ALL OVER the cart handle.  Needless to say, she left that cart right where it was, and went straight to the bathroom to wash her hands and start all over again with a fresh cart.

After I had kids, the thought of them touching a grocery cart and then putting their hands in their mouth, was just too gross.  So I bought a Clean Shopper cart cover.  I take it with me every time I go shopping and put it on the cart before I even touch the cart myself.  My routines goes as follows: arrive at store and park, get out and find a cart, put cover on, go back to car and get kids into the cart.  I thought you might like to know what I do, because it’s really not that inconvenient to put on the cart cover.

I love this PureCart System idea. I’m not sure it would actually wash poop off of a cart, but that is probably hopefully a rare occurrence.  The PureCart System is a cart purification system. The sanitizing solution it uses has a 99%+ kill rate on common bacteria. Sounds good to me.  I would totally use this every time I went to the grocery store if it were available!

Got any cart horror stories?  I’d love to hear ‘em.  They’re usually pretty funny.  Do you use a cart cover?  There are tons on the market now.  Or, have you gotten to try out the PureCart System?  I’d love to know about that experience!  Have fun grocery shopping this week.  Hope you get a clean cart.

OK, so everybody likes a good deal, right?  Well, I get uber excited about them!  My last online shopping venture at The Children’s Place would have cost me over $200 and my total was $130!  I want to share with you some of my good deal, money saving tips.

Almost two years ago we found Ebates.  This is a really cool site!  You just sign up, and then anytime you shop online, you just go through them first.  Search for the store you’ll be shopping at, follow the link, and then do all of your shopping on the page that opens up for you.  Or, if you forget to go through Ebates first, you can go later, and follow your store’s link.  Just make sure that your final checkout is through the new page that opens up through Ebates.  We have gotten many checks from Ebates, I believe they send them quarterly.  It’s always nice to get FREE money!!

On top of your Ebates savings, you always need to search for coupon codes before your final checkout as well!  Some of my favorites are RetailMeNot and MomsView.  At Retail Me Not, you enter the site you’re looking for at the top of the page and then a list of coupon codes will come up.  The codes are rated by how many people have had success using them.  At MomsView, the stores are listed on the left hand side of the page.  Find the one you want and see if they have any current coupon codes.  I usually just copy and paste coupon codes into the promo/coupon code box on my checkout page.

My last favorite method for saving money is to shop off-season!  I’ve started watching for The Children’s Place Monster Sales through Baby Cheapskate.  I bought all of my big guy’s clothes for this fall and winter, at the end of last winter.  And, I’ve already got next summer’s clothes too.  These are GREAT prices!  Plus, you can usually find a coupon code too!  The Children’s Place is not available through Ebates, but at these prices, it doesn’t matter.  I’ve gotten several pairs of shoes for $4-6 dollars!  These are great shoes too!  Even at Payless you can pay $18+ for kids shoes.  You can do this at any store; I even do it for myself.  But currently, The Children’s Place is my fave for the kids.

If you find some great deals using these tips, don’t forget to let me know by leaving a comment.