Frugal Friday: Saving on Gas, Big Lots and Sheetz

Big Lots is one of the stores that I shop at periodically but not on a weekly basis. It's kind of my store to go to when I have extra time just to see what they have. I've learned that if you find something you like there not to expect it will be there the next time you go back and also don't count on them having a particular item from your list. The items they get in do go quickly. Within a couple days, an item is usually gone. However, I don't mind because I usually come home with some exciting buys when I do go. They actually carry a lot of different organic items and the prices are just about unbeatable. The other negative would be that they don't accept coupons, but the prices are usually good enough to beat out even store sales combined with a coupon. I stopped the other evening and got several things, including Ragu organic spaghetti sauce for $1.35 a jar, a box of Quaker granola bars on clearance for $1, Eden organic sprouted grain tortilla chips for $1.50 a bag, and a couple DVDs for $5 each. Later, I discovered that the particular box of TownHouse crackers that I bought for $1.50 was marked with a special promotion by Keebler. Remember the free Toy Story piggy bank that I got earlier in the year? Well this brings me to the first way to save on gas... Now Keebler is doing a similar promotion for the movie Cars 2. Each specially marked Keebler item contains a code which can be collected entered online and redeemed for certain items. A $5 VISA gas card for only 4 points caught my eye, so I went back to Big Lots today (it's right in town, so it's doesn't require a special trip) and got 3 more boxes of the crackers, already entered them online and my $5 VISA gas card should be arriving within 90 days. So, it will only cost me $6 for the $5 VISA gas card and 4 boxes of crackers

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and, for the second way to save on gas... I've been meaning to post about the new "My Sheetz Cards". It is free and you can pick one up at Sheetz then register online. It automatically gives you $.03 off per gallon of gas when you scan your card. There are other ways to save when you buy food. And, as a bonus, they have been sending out an email for free items (last month was a Mountain Dew, this month is a King size Reese cup). (That's my free candy bar in the picture above>)