Mommies With Cents Food Bank Drop Off

I love it when I get emails telling me that someone has made a delivery to their local food bank as part of Penny Experiment. It is the culmination of all the hard work of everyone who has decided to participate in this project, and it should be satisfying to all to see food getting to people that need it. Mommies With Cents took all the food she had purchased up to this point — dropping off 38.8 pounds of food valued at $101.67 which was purchased for only $19.73:

mommies with cents food bank donation

In just over 2 months we have gone from a single penny found on the ground to hundreds of dollars worth of food making its way into local food backs across the US. I can’t wait to see what the next two months bring.

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95 Wounds #95 Penny Postcard Art

95 Wounds — Tricia Pinkert-Branner

95 wounds

95 wounds back

Inspiration / About the Art: I wanted to add to a sutured heart painting that I had created a decade ago. The piece symbolizes the desire to find love despite heartache or loss and the determination to keep love alive.

Materials: Watercolor and oil pastels

Size: 5 inches x 7 inches

About the Artist: Tricia Pinkert-Branner was born in Albany, Oregon in 1978 and grew up in rural parts of Idaho. She currently lives in Kuna, Idaho with her husband and two children. She works in clay, watercolor, acrylic and graphite and under glaze paint. She is always working on some type of art project, either for a gift or charity event. She has never sold any piece of art for personal profit, probably because she’s too busy making things for other people.

Tricia’s entire family is artistic in some way, most of them paint, while some sing or play instruments, so she supposes that she’s genetically wired to love art. She has always enjoyed art and used to create miniature greeting cards and various drawings as a child to give as gifts to her family and friends. She studied pottery and drawing in high school and began painting her junior year in high school with under glaze paint in pottery class and using acrylics and oils in art class. She decided to take a watercolor class in college in 1996, because she wasn’t very good at it and was frustrated that she couldn’t figure it out.

Tricia fell in love with this new style of painting and would often get compliments from her peers on the projects she worked on. It was difficult style of painting for her to learn. She was used to working with acrylic paint and watercolor was so sensitive and unforgiving. She couldn’t quite figure out how much water to use, so she chose to figure out her own method of painting. She used a lot of paint and very little water, painting lighter tones over the darker colors, and her instructor would always remark, “You paint like an oil painter”. She still paints that way, though she has added light sketch marks in oil pastels to most of her paintings to make them look a little messier.

Tricia studied under Karen Donleavy for two years as a painter in her pottery studio, Karen Donleavy Designs in Caldwell, Idaho. She created designs for her pottery line that Karen still uses today. Karen’s artwork is sold worldwide and each piece is hand crafted and painted by trained artists and potters. You can visit her website and view all of her ready-made pieces or order personalized dinnerware or functional pottery pieces.

This year will be Tricia’s 7th year participating in the “Valentine for Aids” benefit at the Flying M Coffeehouse in Boise, Idaho. The silent art auction raises money for S.N.A.P., Safety Net for Aids Program, and offers financial assistance to individuals living with HIV and AIDS. Last year I had the highest bid of $600 for a watercolor piece featuring The Record Exchange, a downtown Boise landmark. The painting was exhibited in the Idaho Statesman alongside other contributing artists’ work. You can read about the auction here. She am currently working on her art piece which will be auctioned off in February 2010. You can find more information about the event at Flying Coffee.

Tricia have contributed handmade and hand painted soup bowls to the “Empty Bowls” benefit in Boise, Idaho. This yearly event features the work of hundreds of local artists who submit painted and glazed bowls for public sale. A bowl can be purchased for about $10 and includes a bowl of gourmet soup from a local restaurant. The proceeds of the art sale go to the Idaho Food Bank to purchase goods for the needy. The event is typically held each year before Thanksgiving.

Price: This piece is not currently for sale: There are great reasons to purchase Penny Experiment art. If you would like to purchase 95 Wounds #95 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.

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Another Shopping Run Nets 89% Savings

I ended up going on a second shopping run early this week to try and cash in on the Cereal King shopping trip I had done late last week. I had similar coupons and I went through the same motions of buying 4 packages of Fruit Roll Ups to get the coupon back. The new week had reset that offer and instead of getting a coupon back for $2.50 good for the next shopping, it was only worth $1.50 – still, when I went to buy the second round of items I had coupons for, I was able to get a 91% savings and the combined total came to $40.80 worth of food for $4.50 and an 89% savings:

penny experiment food bank food

grocery shopping receipt

91 percent savings

The purchase consisted of the following food:

8 Fruit Snack Boxes
1 Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal Box
2 Honey Nut Cheerios Cereal Boxes
1 Quaker Instant Oatmeal Box

One good point about this shopping trip is that I did get another $1.50 coupon good toward anything on my next purchase, so that puts me a little ahead of the game for the next Safeway shopping trip.

I now have a pretty good amount of food to take to the food bank and I’m planning to make a trip sometime next week. These food items will all be added to the master list of all the food purchased for Penny Experiment. All the Penny Experiment couponers have now purchased $639.89 worth of food for $66.04. This is another small step toward our goal of $1 million worth of food for food banks. Only $999,360.11 left to go…

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Mommies With Cents Grabs 8 Cans of Campbell’s Soup for $2.60

Mommies with Cents took a trip down to Target this week to grab some can of Campbell’s soup. She purchased 8 cans which came to $8.32 worth of food for $2.80 — a solid 69% savings off of the regular retail price.

mommies with cents soup

The 8 cans of soup will be added to the master list of all the food purchased for Penny Experiment. Penny Experiment couponers have now purchased $599.09 worth of food for $61.54. This is another small step toward our goal of $1 million worth of food for food banks. Only $999,400.91 left to go…

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Feeding Four Picks Up Soup and More for Food Banks

Feeding Four made her second grocery shopping trip for Penny Experiment and picked up some soup and other items for her local food bank — $26.38 worth of food for $8.06 and a solid 69% savings.

feeding four food bank food

The purchase included the following items which will be added to the master list of all the food purchased for Penny Experiment:

1 box Ronzoni Smart Taste penne noodles
4 Campbell’s Select Harvest
4 Campbell’s tomato soup
1 V8 Fusion
3 Greek Yogurt
1 McCormick Oregano
1 Polaner All Fruit Spread

Adding this purchase to all the others, Penny Experiment couponers have now purchased $590.77 worth of food for $58.74. This is another small step toward our goal which now has $999,409.23 left to go…

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Change Is Coming #98 Penny Postcard Art

Change is ComingJanet Chui

change is coming

change is coming penny art back

Inspiration / About the Art: I love pennies for their colour, and my ideas for my piece (since I regard myself more an illustrator than artist) really wanted the penny to be integral to the story in the image. In the end I landed on the idea of two children on a mad adventure (perhaps in a dream) delivering the penny via pigeon post. In this way I wanted to capture both hope and a flight of the imagination! Originally I had planned on making a small pocket in the painting where the penny could be slipped into place under the boy’s arm, but as it turned out, my husband had given all our foreign coins away! (We used to live in the States, but are now in Singapore.) I could only paint a penny into the picture for the moment. (I’m happy to let Jeffrey attach a second-generation penny to the piece!) This painting was done by many layers of watercolour on Arches hotpress paper, and I’m sorry to say, I’m partial to groan-worthy titles.

Significance of the Number: I chose 98 because I like both 8 and 9 for their curvy shapes, and they’re also regarded as lucky numbers by the Chinese.

Materials: Watercolours on Arches hotpress

Size: 5 inches x 7 inches

About the Artist: Janet Chui enjoys painting, tinkering with websites, reading history, and designing books. She runs Two Cranes Press with husband Jason Erik Lundberg, and illustrated and co-edited The Field Guide to Surreal Botany, which earned her a place among the finalists for the 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Artist. She currently lives in Singapore, country of her birth, with Jason and newborn daughter Anya.

To learn more about Janet’s work at JanetChui.net and you can also follow her on twitter under the name @marrael

Price: This piece is not currently for sale: There are great reasons to purchase Penny Experiment art. If you would like to purchase Change is Coming #98 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.

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Free SoyJoy Bars From Coo Coo 4 Coupons

One area that I really need to study up on is the drug store loyalty programs when it comes to getting great deals using coupons. For example CVS Pharmacy has a loyalty program where you can get “Extra Bucks” back on your purchase which you can use toward your next one.

Coo Coo 4 Coupons (Another new couponer that will be helping out with Penny Experiment – be sure to visit her blog to see all the great deals she shares) sent me an email letting me know that she had purchased 4 boxes of SoyJoy bars which were $6 each, but she received $6 in Extra Bucks from CVS for each box she purchased. Since she already had $24 worth of Extra Bucks in her account from previous purchases, she didn’t pay a cent out of pocket and still had the same number of Extra Bucks in her account after the purchase. A pretty neat trick that I want to learn how to do.

soyjoy bar boxes

That means a $24.00 worth of food donation to her local food bank for $0.00 – kind of hard to beat shopping like that. This purchase will be added to our growing master list of food purchased for Penny Experiment. We are always interested in having more couponers participate and show their couponing skills. There are also plenty of others ways to help if couponing isn’t your thing.

Adding this purchase to all the others, we have now purchased $564.39 worth of food for $50.68. Another baby step toward our goal and $999,437.61 left to go…

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Just Call Me A Cereal Coupon King

I have the utmost respect for the couponers who have decided to participate in Penny Experiment because I still don’t know how they do it. I have been taking a crash course on “super couponing” since beginning this blog and all I seem to be able to buy at a good discount is cereal — get into any other area and I’m still completely lost.

That being said, I have learned that getting boxes of cereal for $0.50 a box isn’t nearly as difficult as one would imagine and on lucky occasions you can get it for as little as $0.25. All the people that know that I’m doing this have started to call me the “cereal king” because all I ever come back with is cereal.

This week I managed to get get $45.48 worth of food (of course, almost all cereal) for $3.50 and if you have a Safeway (or Safeway affiliated) grocery store near you, I will show you exactly how to do it.

This week Safeway is offering Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-Ups for $1.00 each if you use your Safeway club card and you buy 4 of them.

safeway buy 4

You can print two “Save $1.00 when you buy TWO BOXES any flavor Betty Crocker Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups” You should be able to print two from your computer although it only let me print one from my second computer. You need two of these coupons.

Go into Safeway and buy 4 boxes of the whatever fruit boxes most appeal to you with your card and the two coupons:

Fruit Roll-Ups

They will ring up your purchase and it will come to $2.00 for a savings of 83%:

fruit roll-ups receipt

It gets better. With your receipt you will also get a register receipt $2.50 coupon off your next purchase. Walk out to your car and put the Fruit Snacks in the back seat and then grab the following coupons that you have also printed out:

Save $1.00 when you buy One box of Honeynut Cheerios. You should be able to print this coupon 2 times on your computer and since I have two computers, I had 4 coupons.

If you use Internet Explorer — Save $1.00 when you buy One box of Quaker Instant Oatmeal or Oats
If you use FireFox — Save $1.00 when you buy One box of Quaker Instant Oatmeal or Oats. You should be able to print out 2 coupons on each computer (for some reason, I could only print out one coupon on one of my computers, so I only had three — I was lucky and found a $1 off one box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch which is also part of the buy 4 deal).

Walk back into the store and you’ll end up with this:

Cereal and oats

Since all these items are on sale for $1.50 each when you buy 4, and you have $1 off each coupon, that reduces the price for the 8 items to $0.50 each, or $4.00. In addition, you use that $2.50 off your next purchase coupon that you just got for buying the Fruit Snacks making your total bill for the 8 items $1.50 — a 96% savings:

cereal and oats receipt

What you end up with is $45.48 worth of food for $3.50 out of pocket and a 92% savings:

food bank purchase

Seriously folks, if I can do this, anyone can. This deal is available until Tuesday 1/26 at Safeway so you still have time to get it. Use the food to fill your pantry and give a box or two of cereal to your local food bank. I guarantee you’ll walk out of the store with a smile on your face on the deal you got.

Adding this purchase to all the others, we have now purchased $540.39 worth of food for $50.68. Another baby step toward our goal and $999,459.61 left to go…

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En Masse #66 Penny Postcard Art

En Masse — Matthew Logan

En Masse

En Masse back

Materials: Oil on illustration board.

Size: 3 inches x 8 inches

About the Artist: Matthew Logan is a figurative painter working in and around Chicago, IL.

Price: This piece is not currently for sale: There are great reasons to purchase Penny Experiment art. If you would like to purchase En Masse #66 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.

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Feeding Four Joins Penny Experiment

It’s fantastic to welcome yet another couponer that has decided to participate in Penny Experiment. Keli who writes the Feeding Four blog made her first shopping trip and purchased $27.02 worth of food for $1.00. That’s an eye popping 96% savings and doesn’t even include the 2 first aide kits ($1.98 retail) which she also purchased and will give to a local homeless shelter. Visit her blog to see all the ways that she is able to feed her family of four on $50 a week:

feeding four food bank

The purchase consisted of 3 boxes of 6 Soy Joy bars which will be added to our ever growing master list of food purchased for Penny Experiment. We are always interested in having more couponers participate and show their couponing skills. There are also plenty of others ways to help if couponing isn’t your thing.

Adding this purchase to all the others, we have now purchased $494.91 worth of food for $47.18. Another baby step toward our goal and $999,505.09 left to go…

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