Leahs Cafe

Stockpiling is an essential part of coupon shopping to save money, as you buy things when they are on sales, not when you are out of them. Instead of running out to the store to buy things at their normal price when running out, I shop out of my pantry and freezer.

The landlord provides us a 2-door refrigerator with the top freezer compartment. We somehow managed to “squeeze” a chest freezer and an upright freezer into our tiny apartment. The chest freezer was from a deal at our grocery store, yes, we got it almost free with coupons!

The outside and inside of the refrigerator.

The refrigerator is usually more packed than this, I am trying to “empty” it a bit before leaving for Malaysia in February. They are more yogurts in a plastic tub that I left them in what people here called the “Polish refrigerator” – the outside freezing cold weather.

The outside and inside of the chest freezer.

We use the chest freezer for meat. They are currently fill to the rim. The hams and turkeys that  are free with coupons before Christmas are taking too much space! I have the meat separated by paper bags, one bag for pork, one bag for seafood, one bag for chicken, one bag for turkey and one bag for beef. I still have a few 2lb bags of shrimps and 30-40 bags of Franks I got in March/April 2009 inside there.  The meat can last a long time in the deep freezer especially when they are vacuumed sealed.

Really glad I burned some Catalina coupons to get this vacuum sealer. It makes stockpiling perishable food and meal planning in advance much easier. With the ability to pick up fresh, seasonal fruits, vegetables when the stores are running deals or they are abundant of wine tags to get them for FREE. The vacuum-sealing allows me to use these foods when I choose, rather than rushing to use them up or waiting too long only to find they have gone bad!

The outside and inside of the upright freezer.

The upright freezer is currently filled with frozen vegetables, fruits, ice cream, breakfast food (waffles, strudels, breads) milk and pizza. The content varies from month to month as the deals differ. A couple of months ago, when milk was free with coupons, we have lots of of milk in the freezer, and didn’t have to buy milk for the last six months. Everything in this freezer is either FREE or they paid me to take home. What you see is a tip of the iceberg of what I actually bought at the store. When they paid me to bring home ice cream during a promotion in the summer,  I bought more than 180 tubs of ice cream but only brought home about 20 tubs, gave/donated most of them away. The ice cream craze got me $200+ in coupons to buy other groceries/necessities.

Purchased the air ticket today. I am going home for Chinese New Year! Flight leaves Chicago on 09 Feb and arrives KL on 11 Feb. I have been monitoring the price of air ticket for a couple of weeks, but couldn’t decide whether to go home this year. It’s kind of late, most of the non stop direct flights are sold out. I am going to have stop overs at LA and Seoul and the whole journey is going to be 30+ hours.  The return flight is better, only stop over at Seoul!

Liquor is relatively cheaper here in US compare to Malaysia. We don’t drink hard liquor, but like a glass of wine or a bottle of beer occasionally.  But I don’t buy the booze unless they are FREE! They are ways to get booze for free, I mainly look for rebates from liquor companies.

The beer companies have rebate forms out throughout the years, especially during special occasions like Superbowl and holiday seasons. You can get beer for free after the rebate, or even make a couple of bucks! For example, Coors had a rebate last month, you buy a 18 pack  beer and a  $100 gift card, get back $25 in rebate. I bought the gift card with coupons – so no cost, 18-pack beer is about $15 includes tax. I am paid $10 to bring home the beer!

Many people drink during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year when family and friends gather together. Most liquor department at the grocery stores count on the festive season to booze their sales. The retailers often have sales to bring people in. The manufacturers or liquor distributor often use coupons and rebate forms as marketing tools to promote their products. By taking advantage of all the promotions and stacking all the deals together, getting paid to bring home the booze during this time of the year is not a dream!

We have more than 50 bottles of booze right now, they are mostly wine, some sparkling wine (taste like champagne) and a few bottles of rum. Except for the plum wine from the Asian grocery store (I used it in cooking and marinade) which I paid real money for, the others are all FREE after coupons and rebates.

Some will come in handy as last minute gifts when we get invited to parties or family gatherings. The rest  is enough booze to last us for the next year. In fact, we had given away 5 bottles as Christmas and graduation gifts.