Cash Back for Caregivers

If you buy diapers, vitamins, or other personal care products for your loved ones, then you need to know about a free program called Caregiver’s Marketplace. This program is sponsored by care product manufacturers, and it offers consumers cash back on specific items purchased.

Categories for cash back include: Baby Products, Digestive Health, Bathing/Skincare, Denture, Footcare, Oral Health, Dietary Supplements, and Incontinence products. Some of the specific eligible brands include: Huggies, Pull-Ups, GoodNights, Ensure, Citracel, Depends, Poise, and Gold Bond. The cash back amount varies by product and ranges from $0.50 - $2.00 per item.

Currently, Caregiver’s Marketplace offers $0.75 back per package of Huggies purchased. The process for requesting cash back is simple: Fill out the request form, and mail it in to Caregiver’s Marketplace with your original cash register receipt(s) for at least 5 eligible products purchased. In a few weeks, you’ll receive a rebate check along with another request form for future use.

Check out the Caregiver’s Marketplace website for FAQs, a request form, participating product details.

Stockpile Organization 101

If you are a seasoned bargain hunter, then you are already familiar with the term “stockpile” – the bounty of non-perishable food, toiletries, cleaning products, etc. that often gets piled in any available nook and cranny throughout your house. As your purchases begin to accumulate, it’s easy to lose track of what you’ve even got on hand.

Here are some tips for savvy stockpiling:

Good organization and ample storage space are two key factors in keeping tabs on your bargain inventory.

Storage space – When I first began to bargain hunt, I would store bathroom items in the bathroom, kitchen items in the kitchen, etc. This worked for a bit, but soon the cabinets we used every day became jam-packed with excess.

Now I store everything in the basement. We have several racks in our basement storage room. Whenever they get too cluttered, I know it’s time to reorganize. By having everything in one place, it’s easy to know when you’ve got enough and when it’s time to donate the excess.

Organization – Whether it’s cleaning out the kitchen junk drawer or an entire storage room, the best way I’ve found to cut out the clutter is by unloading everything and editing what you put back. In terms of our junk drawer, I toss everything in a box and store the box elsewhere. Anything that I need during the course of a month goes back in the drawer. Everything else goes in the trash.

This past weekend, we used a similar approach to clean out our storage room. Here’s a picture of Baby D among the chaos of our unloaded room.

After sorting everything into “Keep”, “Donate”, and “Throw” piles, we loaded everything back neatly in the storage room. As you can see, we had several bags of donations:

Certain racks are reserved just for stockpile items, and everything is ordered neatly by item type. Here is our reorganized cereal/baking item shelf:

A well organized storage space not only makes it easier to find what you’ve got, but it also helps you know when you have enough. Determine what your family will use within the next year (or less if it’s something with a shorter shelf life) and don’t buy any more beyond that amount. Remember the Deal Diva motto: It’s not a deal unless you can use it within a short timeframe or pass it along to someone else who can use it.

Your Turn: How do you organize your stockpile? How do you know when enough is truly enough? Leave a comment to share your tips!

Vino on the Cheap

(Note: This post is from the Spin The Deals 2008 archives.)

There’s one thing that sets my normally economical mind into a tailspin, and that’s wine. I love wine. Red wines…white wines…Australian wines…domestic wines. I love them all. In fact, in our less thrifty days, Daddy Diva and I enjoyed several trips to California where we swirled, sniffed, and sipped our way from one end of the Sonoma Valley to the other. We bought several cases of wine along the way, some to drink, some to save, some to gift…and so began our wine collection. The only problem? We needed a special occasion to justify uncorking a bottle.

So how does one enjoy wine on a regular basis without spending a lot of money?

WiseBread contributor, Julie Rains, writes about the 10 things she won’t give up to save money. Included on her list are chocolate and wine.

Here are some ways to have your wine (and drink it too!) while on a budget:

1) Three Buck Chuck – If you have a Trader Joe’s in your area, race right over and pick up a case of Charles Shaw wine (a.k.a. “Three Buck Chuck”). This wine is surprisingly good (I prefer the Cabernet), goes great with a typical weeknight meal, and at $2.99 a bottle, you can enjoy a glass every night if you wish.

2) Volume Discounts – Most stores offer a volume discount if you buy wine by the case. You may not see this posted in the store, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask. In Minnesota, Cub Foods offers a 10% discount.

3) Join a Wine Club – We are members of Bacchus, a Minnesota wine club that entitles us to 10% off regular-priced bottles of wine and 5% off sale-priced bottles of wine. In addition, we receive invitations to free or discount wine tasting events in our area.

4) Winery Membership – If you are fortunate enough to live near wine country, consider a winery membership to one or more of your favorite wineries. Winery members are entitled to discount wines, special reserve tastings, and limited edition wines.

5) Annual Sales – Some wine shops hold annual sales, such as “Buy 1 Get 1 for a Nickel” or “Half-Priced Bottles.” Find out when the sale is held each year and wait until then to stock up on everyday wines at a great discount.

6) Wine Tags/Rebates – Finally, to really “Spin the Deal” and get the most bang for your buck, look for wine tags or rebate forms when shopping for wine. Wine tags are the little hanging tags on a bottle of wine that can save you additional money off your purchase. Some are in the form of instant coupons and some are mail-in rebates.


To combine several deals, I look for rebate offers on the wines I buy during the annual “Half-Priced” sale. A $12 bottle of wine would be on sale for $6 and if you purchase a case there may be a rebate for $2 off per bottle, making the end cost $4 for a $12 regular-priced bottle.

Your Turn: What's your guilty pleasure that you wouldn't give up to save money?

Walgreens Register Rewards FAQ

Every week, Walgreens offers bonus savings on select items that can be used on future purchases. When you purchase these select items, along with your receipt, you will receive a coupon called a Register Reward. The Register Reward (RR) is a manufacturer coupon, and it is good for a certain dollar amount off of your next shopping order at Walgreens.



Here’s an example: Walgreens ran a promotion recently where you purchase one package of Huggies diapers, and you receive a $2 Register Reward off a future purchase. The next time I make a purchase at Walgreens, I can simply hand my Register Reward to the cashier, and it will scan just like a coupon and deduct $2 off my total purchase.

Here are a few FAQs:

Q: Are there limitations to the number of Register Rewards per purchase?
A: Register Rewards are limited to one reward per purchase per offer. For instance, using the Huggies offer example, if I buy one package of Huggies, I will receive one $2 Register Reward. If I purchase more than one package, I will still only receive one $2 reward total.

Q: What if I want to earn several Register Rewards?
A: You can only earn one Register Reward per purchase per offer. If you would like to stock up on an item with a Register Reward offer, you will need to make individual, separate purchases of the offer item. Using the Huggies example, if I wanted to stock up on Huggies and earn Register Rewards for each package, I would have to do separate transactions for each package. If I bought 4 packages of Huggies over the course of 4 transactions, I would receive a total of 4 Register Rewards each good for $2 off a future purchase.

Q: Can I purchase items for different offers in one transaction?
A: Yes. To expand upon my Huggies example, let’s say there was another offer for $5 in Register Rewards when you buy one Revlon product. I could purchase a Revlon product and a package of Huggies in one transaction, and I would receive one $5 Register Reward from Revlon and one $2 Register Reward from Huggies.

Q: When I redeem the Register Reward, are there any restrictions on what I can use it for?
A: Generally, no. You do not have to use it to buy more of the same product from the original offer. With the exception of a few items (gift cards, tobacco, lottery tickets, dairy), you can use it on almost anything Walgreens sells.

Q: How long is a Register Reward valid?
A: Register Rewards expire two weeks from the date they are issued. Keep them handy, and use them up to purchase advertised deals the following week or EasySaver rebate items.

Q: Can I use Register Rewards from a previous purchase to purchase the same items on a future purchase?
A: Yes, but I would not recommend it. Let’s say I wanted to buy two Revlon items in two transactions to generate two $5 Register Rewards. I could use the $5 Register Reward received from the first transaction to pay for the Revlon item in my second transaction; however, I will not get another Register Reward at the end of the second transaction. So, if you are making multiple purchases to stock up on an item, do not use Register Rewards from the prior purchase of that particular item.

You can, however, use Register Rewards from previous offers to pay for your items.
Here’s one last example to illustrate this. Assuming in my first transaction, I purchased Huggies and Revlon and received a $2 Huggies RR and a $5 Revlon RR. In my second transaction, I just purchase a Revlon item. I can use the $2 Huggies RR towards the Revlon item, and at the end of the transaction, I will still receive a $5 Revlon RR for the second transaction.