Kraft shredded cheese (2 cups) is currently marked at $1.99 each or $9.95 for 5 packages. There currently is a Catalina coupon deal (these are the coupons that you get from the register after you pay) that is worth $5.00 toward anything on your next purchase:

So $9.95 – $5.00 = $4.95

In addition, in some stores there are Kraft shredded cheese packages that have $1.00 off 1 peelie coupons stuck on them:

Use 5 of these coupons (one for each bag) which takes off another $5.00 and the cheese is free.

The best part of this deal is that even if you choose to keep the free cheese for yourself, you will still be helping to feed the hungry. That is because for every 5 packages that you buy, Kraft is donating 5 meals to Feeding America:

I ended up buying 15 cheese packages (I always leave plent so others can do the deal as well):

For a total cost of $0.07 (I also bought 2 tomatoes which I will give to the food bank to make sure the transaction were positive), I was able to get $53.05 worth of food:

This cheese will be added to the growing Penny Experiment food purchased master list. With this latest food, Penny Experiment has purchased $13,777.44 worth of food for $576.06. This is another small step toward the ultimate goal of $1 million worth of food for food banks. There is now only $986,222.56 left to go…

While I had initially hoped that the coupon bloggers would be able to help me get to the final goal (they have done a fantastic job and have already done more than their fair share in helping this experiment along), the reality is that they are quite busy with their own blogging and there are a limited number of them out there so I needed to come up with a new strategy.

That new strategy is to teach anyone that wants to learn how to greatly reduce their grocery bill how I have been able to eat well on $1 a day. In doing that, they will end up getting some food for free which they may not need, and they can then pass this food onto their local food banks. Since there are far more people that want to learn how to reduce their shopping costs than coupon bloggers, I am hoping that over time we can find enough people to help out that will eventually get Penny Experiment to $1 million worth of food donated to food banks.

I do have a backlog of updates to get up (more penny art work, penny for your thought books and updates and food bank deliveries) and hopefully you will being seeing multiple posts going up beginning this weekend. I just wanted to send a quick shoutout to all that have helped thus far that all the little things have added up (over $13,000 worth of food donated!) and it has been greatly appreciated. I hope that we can do even more in the months to come.

Inspiration: The Fall of Man, Uncle Sam, America, Basketball

About the Art: Money, Man, America, Manmade Goods as Gods (It’s fairly self-explanatory)

Significance of the Number: My age at the time of the card’s creation matches the card number given to me. I placed my thumb print below the number to further emphasize this as well as ideas of manmade possessions and the ability to be tracked down and owned. Also, the number is applied to the character’s chest in a manner like a basketball jersey number, without the jersey though…the character’s action kind of resembles a basketball player, which happened by accident, but is very welcomed.

Materials: Thin cardboard, pens, markers, penny, glue, cutting blade. Sketched with pencil and used cutting blade for final drawing by peeling back a layer of cardboard on certain areas. The rubber stamp “Remove Before Use” was previously applied to the cardboard as it was once the backing used for packaging t-shirts and I worked around this to incorporate it in the art.

Size: 6 inches x 8 inches

About the Artist: Born to Missouri farmers during a late 1970s blizzard, DJG (aka: Danny J. Gibson, DJG Design, Dee Jay Gee or DJGKCMOUSA) is a critically acclaimed and prolific visual artist based in Kansas City, MO USA since 2002. Earliest influences include the apple on records by The Beatles, farming logos, sports team mascots, animals, movies, graffiti, handmade things, comic books, Jim Henson, ’80s culture and architecture. Mixing all that with a current state of context, DJG has been compared to in artistic dialogue, outlook and elusive (at times reclusive) work ethic, as well as feelings of personal kinship and spirit, to artists such as Ray Johnson, Henryk Tomaszewski, Ivan Chermayeff, Lester Beall, James Castle, Saul Steinberg, Edward Gorey, Seymour Chwast, Bill Traylor and Henry Darger…

Guided by deft eyes and hands at the respected school of design at Southwest MO State University (aka: Missouri State), DJG left studies prematurely to gather steady attention in the independent music art community for many years. Currently taking a significant step aside from music graphics to combine the present day-to-day of where the heart makes it with the gut in a constant stream of personal projects and selected commission work, DJG is simply making things in a variety of ways and enjoyment in a cramped basement beneath the heartland of America. Aside from art and intertwined within, DJG has labored as a farmhand, house painter, groundskeeper, janitor, mental health and office servant and also known to travel a bit, read and write a lot, shoot tons of photographs and watch many movies…

Honored and fortunate, DJG has received prizes, recognition, publication and exhibition internationally (North America, Europe, Asia, Eurasia…) in the visual and graphic arts, typography, writing, sculpture, film making and photography. Such notables include: Type Directors Club, Print Magazine, Step Inside Design, AIGA, Creative Grab Bag, 1,000 Music Graphics, 1,000 Supreme CDs, The Typed Image, The Anatomy of Design, The Little Book of Creativity, Pitch’s Best Posters in Kansas City, University of California at Davis, Baton Rouge Art Gallery, Sacramento Fine Arts Center, Missouri State Fair, Missouri State Capital, National Public Radio, Frankfurt Germany Book Fair, Grafik Tasarim Turkey and DPI Taiwan…

To see and learn more about DJG’s artwork, you can explore his website DJD Design, view his Flickr page and follow him on twitter @DJGKCMOUSA. You can contact DJG at djg@djgdesign.com

Price: This piece is not currently for sale: There are great reasons to purchase Penny Experiment art. If you would like to purchase The Mall of Fan #31 or other artwork from this 100 Penny Postcard Art series, please email me and I will put you on my list to inform when this series is for sale.

This is the message that Roxane sent along with the notice of the launch:

My name is Roxane Knott and I am fifth generation Australian. I was brought up in the country, close to nature and taught to respect all living things; that everyone can make a difference, to never hold onto anything and to share what you have. I believe integrity and love is everything a person should be and this is reflected in my fortunate life.

I have swum with dolphins, sharks, stingrays and seals, slept under the outback stars mustering cattle on horseback for six months of the year. I have paddled on a surf ski for seven hours to an island just to prove that I could do it and I have watched the excited faces of desert dwellers seeing the ocean for the first time. I have been to places that still amaze me and met many incredible people. In truth, my life is inspired and unbelievable and I love to write.

This book is a reflection of Australia and the generous people that inhabit this continent. Every person has history, with every page of this book and on this website; you will be able to be a part of that history. If this inspires you, you might decide to be the person to own this book thus providing valuable resources to food banks.

If this does not suit you, find a cause close to your heart, no matter how small, and help anyway simply because you can. If you do decide to purchase this book, print out the Biographies to complete the book and its history thus giving what writers want – to make a difference and leave an honorable mark on this world. Enjoy the journey.

I can’t wait to see it in person and to share the entire book when it arrives…

The food was taken to Tri-Valley Haven Food Pantry. Most of the food was immediately taken to the front to be distributed (there was a long line of people out front waiting to get in and there always seems to be a shortage of cereal for food banks), but there was enough that it wouldn’t all fit up front and some got stored in the back room:

Most of this was food that I had already accounted for with grocery store runs in the past. Although there haven’t been very good coupon deals the last couple of weeks, there were a few items that I did buy for the food banks. This included 8 Oscar Mayer Deli Creations sandwiches which were free after coupon:

and 4 Oscar Mayer hardwood smoked turkey franks which were also free (I also picked up some laundry detergent for myself in the transaction and that was where the $0.50 comes from):

I also had another 4 packages of 4 Oscar Mayer hardwood smoked turkey franks that I donated from my Eating Well On $1 A Day Challenge that were free. In total I was able to purchase $44.64 for $0.00.

In addition, I recruited my dad (it is dangerous to live in my family) to do some cereal shopping a couple of weeks ago. He purchased 31 boxes of Corn Flakes, 9 boxes of Raisin Bran and 9 boxes of Rice a Roni which had a retail value of $157.60 for $6.50:

Both my and my dad’s purchases will be added to the growing Penny Experiment food purchased master list. With this latest food, Penny Experiment has purchased $13,724.39 worth of food for $575.99. This is another small step toward the ultimate goal of $1 million worth of food for food banks. There is now only $986,275.61 left to go…

Since I have a bunch of catalina coupons still left over from other purchases that I will need to use up in the coming weeks, I decided to use some of them to buy Kashi cereal (something that even my sister would approve of). I had $1 off 1 peelie coupons for Kashi cereal that I found on the boxes and with last week’s cereal sale, that made them $1 per box. Then using the extra catalina coupons, they ended up being free. I ended up getting 4 boxes of Corn Flakes and 16 boxes of Kashi cereal with a retail value of $88.28 worth of food for $0.00:

I still have a huge pile of cereal to take to the local food banks, but am currently house sitting, so I probably won’t get to delivering it until sometime late next week.

I will add this cereal to the ever growing Penny Experiment food purchased master list. Adding this latest food, Penny Experiment has purchased $13,522.15 worth of food for $569.49. This is another small step toward the ultimate goal of $1 million worth of food for food banks. There is now only $986,477.85 left to go…

and I was able to buy the following items:

275 boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes: $959.75
50 boxes of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran: $199.50
45 bags of Padrinos tortilla chips: $143.55
8 boxes of Rice A Roni: $12.00
1 Lunchables sandwich: $2.29

Grand Total retail value: $1317.09
Grand Total spent: $14.46

In addition, I also donated 27 boxes of Corn Flakes from my Eating Well on $1 A Day Challenge, bringing the retail value of the food donations to $1411.32. I ended up taking the stuff to both the Milpitas Food pantry and the Tri-Valley Food pantry in several loads as I was in the area. The first load went to the Milpitas Food pantry:

load two went to Tri-Valley Haven Food Pantry:

Car load three also went to Tri-Valley Haven Food Pantry:

And there is still a large pile of cereal in my room that needs to be taken…

While the entire process of buying the food was exhausting, when we delivered the load of food to the Tri-Valley Haven food pantry, there was a long line of people waiting outside to pick up food. Tri-Valley had run out of cereal and so the boxes were taken up front and began to fly out the door. Seeing that the food was immediately going to people that needed made all the effort all the more worthwhile.

This will all be added to the Penny Experiment food purchased master list. Couponers have now purchased $13,433.87 worth of food for $569.49. This is one more tiny step toward the Penny Experiment goal of $1 million worth of food for food banks. There is now only $986,566.13 left to go…

The CapriSun Sunrise boxes were on sale for $1.49 each when you bought 5 of them (this deal is still going on through Tues 5/11). With the coupon it brought each down to $0.49 and then I used the $0.75 off coupons to bring the price down even further. I was able to get all 35 (a regular retail value of $94.15) for $0.98:

There is a student lunch program that Open Heart Kitchen runs that sends meals home with low income students over the weekend and these would work well with those, so I had my dad take them with him when he stopped by the other day since there offices are near his home:

I also was able to get Sunchips and six 10 packs of tortillas for $0.09 using a scrubbing bubbles money making deal. I kept the Sunchips and 1 bag of tortillas, so donated the other 5. That was $11.95 worth of food for $0.09 that I ended up delivering with all the cereal last week.

I have also started a challenge for May where I am trying to eat well on $1 a day. As part of that challenge, I have been donating the excess food to the food banks. That includes the following:

1 can of Pork & Beans (free)
5 boxes of cereal ($0.20)
50 packs of Philadelphia Cream Cheese Minis (free)
4 boxes (small) of Wheat Thins (free)

That was $155.39 worth of food for $0.20 which has also already been delivered. All three of these added together means that $261.49 worth of food was purchased for $2.08for a 99% savings.

All this food will be added to the Penny Experiment food purchased master list. Couponers have now purchased $12,022.55 worth of food for $555.03. This is another small step toward the goal of $1 million worth of food for food banks, and means that there is only $987,977.45 left to go…

If I can can spare some food from my meager resources this month, I am sure that you can spare at least a couple of cans of food from your cupboard as well. I hope that you consider donating tomorrow and passing this along to others.

Video sent in by Robin