Shortcut To All The Deals At Target

Go directly to the Current Promotions page, which gives you a summary of all the deals they currently have going on at Target, including: what's on sale, promo codes, which product purchases will net you a Target gift card, freebies, and more. This is useful because you can see all the fine print - what's restricted, when the deal expires, how much you need to get in order to get a gift card, etc.

Snowpiercer Is A Documentary

I kid, I kid. Snowpiercer is a totally fun, implausible, unrealistic sci-fi movie about a guy who needs to kill his way to the front of the train in order to take it over. There is social and class commentary, as well as some pretty surreal fight scenes. Chris Evans is in it, as is Tilda Swinton, who is barely recognizable as Prime Minister Mason and Octavia Spencer. The plot is full of holes, but I think it's pretty obvious that you're not meant to think too hard about it, and just enjoy the pretty and weird scenery. The movie is full of really lovingly rendered shots.

• Director Bong Joon Ho on the backstory for the more minor characters - gay relationships, who gets to go the front, etc. 
• Interview with costume designer Catherine George. 
• Hello, Tailor's review. 
• io9's interview with Bong Joon Ho. 

Epic Guide To Shopping At Target

I've been looking for ways to maximize savings at Target, a store I frequent for - well, just about everything. There are three Targets within a three-mile location of me, and I've found that I can often shave about 20-30% off the original prices. But I have to be pretty strategic about it, and I'm still working on getting my bills down even further!

My disclaimers: I am not paid by Target or any affiliates for these recommendations, and I tried to follow some coupon blogs like AllAboutTarget, but I found the constant coupon matchups and coupon recommendations kind of tedious and timewasting. (However, if you thrive on those, it's a very good blog for that kind of thing.) I have very specific tastes, and I try to keep the amount of junk food and extra stuff in our home down to a minimum - so many of the coupon recommendations don't really work for me.

Here's what has been working for me so far:

• The Target RedCard gives you 5% off everything both in-store and online. So that's a pretty easy thing to do. Other advantages include free shipping with no minimums and extended returns. 
• Bring as many reusable bags as possible for your shopping trip to get an additional nickel off every bag. Sometimes you have to remind the cashier to do it, and some are under the mistaken impression that no matter how many bags you bring, you still get just a nickel. Bug them. 
• Check for manufacturer coupons at sites like coupons.com or smartsource.com. The biggest pain about manufacturer coupon sites is that you have to inevitably install their software, because they try to limit the number of coupons you can print per computer. Other ways to get manufacturer coupons includes at your local grocery store at machines at select locations like the cereal aisle, or in the Sunday paper, or in inserts from magazines like Real Simple or Parents. For coupons on brand name organic products like Honest Tea or Alexia Frozen Products, go to MamboSprouts (which I actually discovered just yesterday). The one thing you want to factor in is how much time you want to invest in saving and searching for these coupons - if it's taking you more than an hour to do it, then is it really worth the pittance in savings and the paper you're printing them on?
• If you have specific brand products you like, check their Facebook or other social media pages to see whether they have coupons or not. For example, I joined the Honest Tea Facebook page because I love their tea, and their Facebook page just listed a coupon for $1.50 off 2 bottles of their newest flavor. I keep a separate Facebook account just for the stuff I "like" because I don't want it cluttering up my main feed, and I don't feel like telling my entire network of friends that I "liked" GoGo Squeez just to get a coupon. 
• You'll also get coupons from Target directly once you pay at the cash register. These coupons are known as "catalinas", and are often based upon what you usually buy. Save them to stack with the manufacturer coupons and sales. For example, if you buy General Mills cereals often, you'll often get a coupon for $1.50 off 3 boxes for your next purchase. 
• Print Target-specific coupons at coupons.target.com, which you can then stack with the manufacturer coupons and Target's weekly ad sales. You can only print each coupon once (I think) per computer, so if you have a coupon you want to use multiple times, try printing them from different computers.  
• Use the Cartwheel app to stack even more savings on top of the other coupons and sales. Check my post on how to use the Cartwheel app for further instructions. Regular items that appear on Cartwheel include Market Pantry milk, eggs, and the One Spot. Sometimes you can save up to 40% on particular items, so just check the app before you leave your house. The app is especially good on Target's house brand items, such as Market Pantry, Archer Farms, and up & up. 
• Get your prescriptions filled at Target, and get their Pharmacy Rewards card. After you get five prescriptions filled, you'll get a coupon for 5% off your next purchase, which you can stack with other savings. 
• Check the endcaps in the aisles. The endcaps, are the front and back of each aisle, which usually contain items on clearance. Most of the time they are junk, but I just got a nice, small Farberware cutting board for $3 to replace my beaten up Ikea cutting board. Clearance items start at 15% off and will slowly work their way up to 30% off, then 50% off, then if you're really lucky, 75% off. The best clearances happen right after big holidays like Christmas or back-to-school events.
• Use apps like Checkpoints and Shopkick to earn points towards Target gift cards. I've discussed Checkpoints several times before, and have only recently started using Shopkick. I've found it's faster to accumulate points on Shopkick, but I need to test it out further before I can make further recommendations. 
• Cross-check sales across grocery stores with the Favado app. Favado lets you check sales in stores like Target, Costco, Ralph's, and more, and lets you cross-reference the same items so you end up with the least expensive items on your shopping list. I only started using it, but I find it's pretty effective. If you spot a sale that's not in the app itself, you can take a picture and send it to Favado. 
• You can also price-match at Target. Their policy with price-matching Target and Target.com is a little weird - basically, if you bought it at Target.com first, they will not price-match that to the item at Target or other stores. However, if you are in a physical Target store, and you see that the item you want is cheaper on Target.com, you can go to customer service and get it price-matched there.

Things that are worth your time and money at Target:

• Archer Farms products are pretty good, especially the chips and nuts and snacks. The fresh bread is pretty good, too.
• The One Spot, where there are often seasonal items available for $1-3, is a great place to snag useful and cheap organizational tools, educational items, and baby stuff. Wait for The One Spot to appear in Cartwheel before buying anything, so you can save a little extra. 
• Up & up lotions, cleansers, and wipes, are generally cheaper and comparable to their brand name counterparts. 
• Threshold furniture seems to hold up pretty well as long as you are not too harsh on them. Be sure to read the reviews before you buy anything. 
• Designer collaborations, especially if it's one you like, are worth getting. Because, let's face it - how often are you going to be able to afford Peter Pilotto? Keep in mind, though, that sometimes the collaborations fall through, and you can often end up purchasing the items on clearance a few weeks later after the initial rush. 
• I've found that milk and eggs are consistently cheaper at Target, especially since they are frequently in Cartwheel. 

Things that are not worth your time or money at Target:

• Up & up diapers are the worst. I bought them because they were really cheap compared to Pampers or Huggies, but they fell apart on my kid pretty quickly, and they barely absorbed anything. If you are going to use them, don't use them at night. 
• Produce and perishable items are not often available at a great price, and they are often limited in stock (unless there's a SuperTarget around). You'll get better and cheaper produce at your local grocery store. 

Good Advice

I love finding good advice, but it has to be from reliable sources.

• Safest ways to stop pain. 
• Use flaxseed oil to season your cast-iron skillet.
• Replace regular purchases with one-time purchases.  
• Store your batteries properly.
• Protect your skin from drying out.
• The skinny on electronic trade-in programs.
• Retailers that let you stack coupons.  

Greening The Mail Part 2

Apparently buying a new house means somehow EVERYONE finds out where you live and starts sending you coupons and catalogs.

Now that I'm (mostly) unpacked, it's time to start getting rid of the junk mail.

• redplum - Unsubscribe here. Takes 5-6 weeks to go into effect. What's nice is that you don't actually have to give them your email address for confirmation.
• Valpak - Unsubscribe here. Giving your email address is not required but you can provide it for confirmation. May be 2-3 months before complete removal.
• Pennysavers - Unsubscribe here. Email address required. Unsubscribing is not permanent in California and Florida, and will resume after 12 months.
• Smart Saver Magazine - Local to Southern California, planned expansion to the Bay Area. Unsubscribe here. 
• YellowPagesOptOut - Registration required to stop delivery.
• PaperKarma - Web app for getting your name off junk mail. Free and available on iOS and Android. 

On Integrity

• Interview with James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame. Those kids — No. 1, they’re so young. No. 2, they’re under such an intense microscope. And there’s a lot more money to be made off of them than there was when I was famous. I mean, I don’t know. I just don’t judge. It’s very easy. People love to judge. People love to be self-righteous. They get a lot of energy from that. Listen: Fame is not hard. Right? Being a soldier is hard, digging ditches is hard, coal mining is hard. But it’s tricky. It’s not something you can ever get any sympathy for, nor should you, and it’s not something you can really explain to someone who hasn’t gone through it. But it’s tricky because ... you’re the same. You feel generally like the same person, but the behavior of everyone around you starts to change. I remember we did season one of Dawson’s Creek in complete obscurity. Then when we were shooting season two [which was shot after everyone was famous], my trailer door had a latch that stuck, so the only way to get it closed was to slam it. And I said something to one of the producers, but it kept on breaking, whatever. But within a week, I had all the producers in my trailer for a very serious sit-down, because they had heard that I was slamming my trailer door. That never would have happened in season one.
• Prada, suicide and sexual harassment: A whistle-blower speaks out: Oh my god. I wanted to commit suicide. It was horrible. For two weeks, I couldn’t go out from my apartment. How could this be possible, that they openly admitted everything, and it was acceptable? … [I was in the] private office of the female judge, with my four lawyers, and she screamed at me … She said, “If you don’t settle the case, I am going to make you lose, and you are going to have huge trouble financially and socially, because  you have created so many problems in society.” … I said, “I can’t settle the case. I need a ruling. Society needs a ruling.” My lawyer said, “Yeah, she didn’t have to wait for three years if she was going to settle the case …”
• Rina Bovrisse on suing Prada: What I did for this case was what many in the US consider “educated common sense.” My parents instilled in me to have integrity and pride for life. My family comes from a Samurai background and they have pride for living with faith and morals. My mother died of a heart attack a few years ago while I was on a business trip.  She always told me to have faith in what I have my passion in, no matter how long it takes, the fighter is the winner.

More Environmentally Friendly Grocery Shopping With Bulk App

I constantly go back and forth on committing to being more environmentally friendly in my daily life, because while it's absolutely the right thing to do, it's also kind of time-consuming and infuriating at times. We recycle, reduce, and reuse as much as possible. Yesterday we cleaned out the garage and took out a whole bunch of cardboard to a recycling center; I took some dead batteries to the local Home Depot, which was one of the only places I was aware of that would accept non-rechargeable batteries for recycling. 

Did you know that the air packaging that comes in Amazon.com boxes cannot just be tossed into the curbside recycling bin? You actually have to take it to a grocery store with a recycling bin specifically for plastic bags. I dropped it off at the local Ralph's, but I felt a bit uneasy about it since it was shoved to the side, behind a sign, overflowing, with little text about what it does and doesn't accept. 

It's one of the reasons why I am conflicted about being more environmentally friendly. If retailers and lawmakers don't actually make it easier to recycle things, then things don't get recycled. I mean, how many people are actually going to read the packaging labels on various Honest Tea pouches that say you have to go set up a separate box in your kids' classrooms for recycling that you then have to package off and ship, when most of your recycling could just go into the bin at home or at school that gets picked up by the city? Almost none. 

Enough about that. Anyway, I just started using Bulk, an app created by Zero Waste Home, which is a blog dedicated to going even further than "reduce, reuse, recycle", and has as its mantra "refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, rot". In this app, they have created a community resource that lists any stores that provide bulk bins, and allows users to submit stores, indicate what bulk goods they sell, and whether they accept reusable containers, as opposed to just using the flimsy plastic produce bags in the store (which I confess I still do, but it's probably time to make a change). 

The app is very attractive looking, and very basic at this point. I registered in order to add new stores, rate items, and bookmark locations. 

For the bulk selections, you can rate the stores on the various offerings, and what sort of items they have on sale such as baking supplies, alcohol, grains, etc. In this screenshot, I rated our local Sprouts, which offers quite a variety of bulk goods the last time I checked. I actually think as a result of checking out the bulk bin more thoroughly, I'm going to drop a few things from our Target list, such as sugar, brown sugar, flour, etc, since ounce for ounce, it will be cheaper getting it from Sprouts. One of the things that I didn't capture in the screenshot was that it asks whether the store accepts reusable containers or not. Some stores do, other stores don't. I think a great thing to add would be to ask whether the store also provides a discount for using reusable bags/containers. Sprouts will give you a five cent discount for every reusable bag you bring. 

I added a Ralph's location to the app, since it wasn't listed, and it was pretty easy to do. The only part where I messed up was when I left off a period for the Ralph's website, but then again, it was also pretty easy to send an email indicating I erred.