In the meantime, if something is missing, lost or broken, feel free to shoot me an email or comment in case I don’t catch it in the clean up.  Off to work:)

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#1- What stores would you like to see added?

Your Requests:

Ralphs, would love to have it updated again.
Meijer
CVS
Smart & Final
Food 4 Less is probably the only one missing.
Walmart
Savemart SoCal
Savemart
giant, safeway

My Responses:

Ralphs is already listed in the deals widget:)

Meijer I just added for you all last night courtesy of Happy Homemaker Cindy!

CVS is already listed in the deals widget:)

Walmart I just added for you last night courtesy of Passion For Savings!

Savemart I post deals for when there are good ones of note.

Giant is a subsidiary of Stop And Shop which I just added to the deals widget courtesy of FrugalLivingAndHavingFun!

Smart & Final did not used to take manufacturer coupons.  Although they now do, their sizes on many things are so large, it makes it very hard to get deals.  The best deals can be found on their meat and produce.

Food 4 Less does not put out ads making it incredibly difficult to post deals.  I do not have one on my side of town which makes it even harder to get to to find prices etc:(

Safeway is the parent store that includes Vons which I post each week.  The deals should be the same with some differences is specific meat and produce deals depending on where you live.

I also added:

Kmart for you, since I have had requests for that in the past, courtesy of Bargain Brianna!

Tom Thumb- courtesy of MyDallasMommy

Market Street- courtesy of MyDallasMommy

If you are not familiar with how we do store deals around here:

Each week we post the lists of deals at Vons and Albertsons here in SoCal.  All other store deals can be found in the brown block in the right sidebar that says “Find Deals By Store” as pictured below.  When you click on the name of the store, you will be taken to all of the posts on deals for that store with the newest on top.  Scroll down to see all current deals.  Many of these are from other great bloggers that I partner with to bring you deals at the stores in your area.  Writing up lists takes a tremendous amount of time and effort and I just can not do them all on my own:)

#2- Posts you love!

The top 5 results were:

Store Deals

New Coupons

Free Samples

Online Shopping Deals & Codes

Rebates

My Response:

I will be beefing up my posts in some of these areas to meet your demand.  Please remember that while you may not be particularly interested in a specific deal or post, it may be just what someone else was looking for.  I have implemented the ~Click To Read More~ function on longer posts to keep them from overtaking the home page but still allowing readers who are interested to get the fill list of deals.  This post I left long to make sure that everyone got all the info.

#3- Seminar Days & Times

The overwhelming favorite was either a weekday night or Saturday morning with other times on Saturday following those.  We will be taking this into consideration in planning our open to the public seminars for the fall and winter. 

Thanks to all of you who took the time to fill out the surveys!  It was great to hear from you all and always important to me that I am spending my time on things that are valuable to you.  You as my readers are why I do this and I am so thankful to all of you for making this site what it is!

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I will honestly say that I was quite nervous about going to my first big blogger event.  I have been to a few things but this definitely tops them all.  When I first got the invitation, I was for sure that it was a mistake.  I even emailed them just to be sure I wasn’t confused:)  It was a totally crazy week last week with coming home from camp, having my article on the front page of the newspaper, having Channel 23 at my house, being on Channel 17’s morning show and then teaching a seminar on Friday.  When I woke up on Monday morning at 4:00am to get ready and get to my 6:00am flight, I really wondered if this was all going to be worth it and who I was to be doing all this craziness.

I have never gone anywhere alone and VERY rarely have been away from my family.  I flew from Bakersfield to Denver and then Denver to Minneapolis and then took a cab to the hotel about 25 minutes away, another first for me:)  When I arrived, I was tired and headed up to my room to unload and while I desperately wanted to climb into the fluffy bed, my hunger forced me down to the meeting room.  I was met by several other bloggers who had already arrived and we chatted and ate for a while before I ran up to my room to skype with my oldest, Marley, about her first day of first grade and then get myself refreshed. 

The 31 bloggers who attended, met in the lobby and we took a bus out to Lake Minnetonka where we were met by several General Mills employees for an amazing river boat cruise.  We had a yummy dinner and spent a lot of time talking, sharing, bouncing ideas off each other and getting to know each other more.  It was so cool to put faces with a few names I knew and get to know some fabulous other bloggers.  There were a few other frugal bloggers and the rest were food bloggers or just family/life bloggers. 

We went back to our hotel and I called to tell my girls good night and then crashed.  Tuesday morning, my worst fear came true when neither one of the alarms I set went off.  My husband takes such good care of me and that is one of the things he always does.  Thankfully I rolled over at about 7:15 and jumped in the shower, got ready and got down to the lobby by 7:45.  We were taken by bus again to the General Mills headquarters that was absolutely fascinating.  I almost died when I saw this sign in their lobby!  Do they know I am just a wife and mom who runs a blog? There were displays of products, their war efforts, their charitable work and even an outdoor display of huge carved out Cheerios that in the winter months when it snows, looks like Frosted Cheerios floating in a bowl of milk:)  They fed us a yummy breakfast and then told us about the history of the company.  We then broke up into 4 groups and rotated through 4 different baking stations set up in their test kitchens.  There was one for cookies, brownies, cakes and breakfasts and one of their test bakers at each.  They gave us the recipes and we actually got to bake the items right there in the Betty Crocker test kitchens.  Below is the pumpkin cake I frosted:)

I even got to make crepes for the first time, which I have always wanted to try.  We made these super yummy Cranberry Macadamia Nut bars with white chocolate on them.  I could have eaten the whole pan and I will definitely be posting the recipe!  We had lunch there as well and during they told us about some of their newest baking products and lines that will be out soon for the holidays.  They have developed some Gluten Free products that seem to be a great cost effective alternative to some of the lines in the health food stores.  There were several bloggers who swear by the Gluten Free Brownie Mix.  Right before we left, we got a quick tour of the photography studios and saw them baking food and doing photo shoots for their different publications.  On the way out, I spotted this little guy and just had to get a picture:)

After that, our amazing trip was over and we left in a shuttle back to the airport.  I am exhausted after the whirlwind adventure but it was soooo worth it!  We got to do some super cool stuff and I was able to meet 30 other bloggers and learn so much from them.  It was really nice to just ask questions and learn how other people do it and what is working and not working for them.  I am so thankful to General Mills and My Blog Spark for choosing me out of the thousands they could have chosen and paying for all my expenses.  It was amazing and I am honored to have had the opportunity.

*If you want to see more pictures of everyone who was there and what we did, you can check out the photographer’s website HERE.

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Several months ago, we stopped offering advertising space for small businesses on our sidebars.  It got to be so much to keep up with that we had to put it on hold for a while.  We have now totally redesigned our advertising program and we re-launch it starting September 1st.  Our ad space will be VERY limited and will be filled on a first come, first serve basis.  If you are interested, please send us an email at advertising @ saveathomemommy . com (spaces removed) and we will get you the information you need. 

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**We also have corporate ad space available on a limited basis as well.

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So for the first time, I wrote an article for our local Bakersfield Californian Newspaper!  My husband has been pushing me to do it for a while so while we were gone last week, I took the time to write about how to save on back to school shopping.  You can check it out HERE on their website or in today’s, Monday’s Tuesday’s newspaper.

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One of our readers, Katie, shared this video with me this week about her sister in law and friend in South Dakota.  They were interviewed by their local news for their great success in coupon usage.  Katie shared our site with them and they have done so well since then.  If you pay close attention, you can even see one of my Save At Home Mommy coupon binders   Great job ladies and keep up the good work!

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I have to say I almost fainted when I got the invitation to Baking With Betty in Minneapolis.  I have no idea why I was chosen but I am so very grateful for sure!  I am sure that when I get back, I will have tons to tell you all about.  I know we get to go on a riverboat cruise and then spend the next day at the Betty Crocker kitchens learning about all sorts of new products, recipes and more.  This is so up my ally and I am looking forward to the trip.  I will admit I am a little nervous to be away from my family and completely on my own since that pretty much never happens.  As nervous as I am, I am excited for a little time away doing something I will love.  I have no idea who else is going but I look forward to meeting some other great bloggers!

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I just wanted to remind you all about our Deals By Store widget over in the right sidebar.  You can see stores listed alphabetically and click on the store names to go to other sites covering that store.  If you scroll down, you will see all the posts made about that store including the weekly list of deals.  We also have our Ralphs Deals back for all you out here in California.  They are now brought to us by ChiefFamilyOfficer and we are thankful to have them on our site again. 

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Also if you hover over the Deals By Store on the red menu bar, you can click on those stores to see posts that we have made about those individual stores here on Save At Home Mommy.

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We really think that this will help all of you find great deals at all the stores you are looking for without us working 24 hours a day to bring them all to you.  I hope you all enjoy the change and being able to find quality deals at all your favorite stores.  It is a little bit of work behind the scenes to get it all organized so in the meantime, here are some links to great deals at the following stores for this week:

Walgreens

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Target

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Rite Aid

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I woke up with this song in my head and find it such encouragement that I thought I would share it with you.  I hope maybe it will comfort you today that there is someone who wash all the pain and sorrow that you may be feeling away in the waves of His mercy. 

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