WELCOME FROM eHow

Well if you are reading this you most likely discovered this blog from my eHow article. I have slowed down with my experiment and I am not posting to this blog so often anymore, but the proof is here. In this economy when you need to feed your family and make your dollar stretch turn you passion for food and writing into a great hobby. Please leave me comments if you like my blog and plan on trying it yourself.

I'M BACK!!!!

Well it has been a while since my last post. I was very sick and hospitalized for a while, but I am back and better than ever. I have just sent out my first wave of holiday greeting to my friends at the "contact us" links across the internet. Lets see what happens in the season of giving.....

Two Days of Fan Mail

Sorry I have been slacking the last few days. I have been exhausted from my so called "real" job and when I came home from work and checked the mail I just didn't have the energy to take pics and post. Well today I am showing my successes from the last two days. I did manage to get quite a bit of mail over the last few days and here is the breakdown:

Free Stuff:
Ziploc Bags, Glade Plug In Warmer, Saran Wrap x2, Haagen-Dazs, Breyers, Franks Hot Sauce, Butterball Deli Meat, Glade Wisp Refills x2, Skintimate, Cinnabon, Kelloggs, Lays x2, Maxwell House Coffee, A1 Steak Sauce, Ball Park Franks x2, Old Bay Seasoning

Money Off Coupons:
$2 Post Cereal, Two .75c Old Bay, $1.50 McCormic

Total Value: $82.54

Project Total $575.03!!!!

Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster

Well Today was a good day to say the least. Words can't describe how great it feels to go into the grocery store fill up your cart and end up with a total that is like you went shopping in the 1950's. Today I loaded my cart up with $181.67 worth of groceries, went up to the cashier, and then when I was given the total I said here are my coupons. Some thirty minutes later, my total dropped to $19.11. The only reason that the total was that much is because I upgraded the diapers to a larger pack with $10 off so I would get more for the money. This is my second time to the grocery store and let me tell you that it never gets old getting so much stuff for almost nothing. I got to say that I could not take all of my coupons today because I just don't have the room in my fridge, and closets for everything. It is a good feeling....

I have once again put pictures up of my shopping trip today.

23 LETTERS TODAY!!!

I was thinking earlier today that the mail has been kinda light over the last few days. I know you have seen my pics of the last weeks responses, but I am expecting quite a bit to come in. Well today was like Christmas in July for me. I went to the mailbox and low and behold there were 23 peieces of "fan mail" waiting for me. I could not wait to get inside and open it with my wife. Well we opened many letters and today's top company was SC Johnson Wax who sent me 6 letters today alone! It is funny that the ones I get from them now no longer have a letter inside, but rather just an envelope with a coupon in it. Well here is a breakdown of my second best haul ever:

Free Products:

2 Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Gel, Zip Loc Zip n' Steam Bags, Shout Stain Remover, Glade Plug-Ins Scented Oil kit, Edge Shave Gel, Pringles any size, Head & Shoulders any size, 2 Free Aunt Jemima Products, 2 Boxes of Nabisco Cookies, 2 DiGiorno 12" Pizza's, Any Size Folgers Coffee, Free Pillsbury Cinnabon, Totino's Snack Rolls, Vlasic Pickles, 3 Knorr Pasta Sides, Country Crock any size, Can't Believe it's Not Butter, Mega Box of Pampers, Guldens Mustard, and $10 Target Gift Card from Gummy Vites

Money Saving Coupons: .50c off Swiss Miss, $1 off Pillsbury, $1 off Totino's

Todays total of FREE stuff: $124.88

Project Total MTD: $492.49

Tomorrow marks 30 days of doing this and it would be sweet to cross the $500 mark tomorrow. Lets keep our fingers crossed.

I Felt The Love Today

Well I came home from work today and checked the mail, and to my surprise there was a nice pile of fan mail waiting for me. I would like to thank Huggies, Pampers, Crisco, Breyers, Frito Lay (2 Letters Today), and Gerber for making my day special. Well here is the usual breakdown:

FREE PRODUCT: 2 Any Crisco, Any Breyers, 2 Any Frito Lay, Jumbo Pack of Huggies, 2 Mega Packs of Pampers, and 4 Any Gerber Graduates Product

Discount Coupons: $3 off any Huggies, 2 $1 off any Huggies, and $1 off Frito Lay

Just as a quick note on the blog here. I do have to give it to Frito Lay. Since I have started the experiement they have donated 6 free products to the cause. A heartfelt "Thank You" to Frito Lay.

Today's Total $71.98!

Project Total $439.59!

Maybe with Monday's mail I can cross the $500 mark.

It's Freeday oh I mean Friday

Why should today be any different than any other day. The mailman brought letters from Kelloggs (2), Heinz, Pepsi, Turkey Hill, and Lipton. Here is a breakdown of the goodies:

Free Coupons: Kelloggs (up to $7), Pepsi 12pk ($5), Lipton x2 ($5.50/ea), Turkey Hill 1.5qt ($5)

$ Off Coupons: Kelloggs $3, Turkey Hill $4.75, Heinz $1


Todays Total Value $36.69

Experiment Running Total $367.61!

What came today.....

Well today I got 5 responses back in the mail. I want to thank Ben & Jerry's, Kelloggs, Hood, Nissin, and General Mills for the presents in the mail today. Here is today's breakdown:

Free Stuff
Two Free Pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Two Free Heluva Good dips, One Free General Mills Cereal

Discount Coupons
One .55c Ben & Jerry's Coupon, Three .25c Ramen Noodle Coupons, One .75c Heluva Good Coupon, and One $1 Off General Mills Cereal.

Today's Total Haul: $33.55
Project Total: $336.42

WTF?

I tried to see what a company would do if you emailed them about a product they no longer make. Well take a look at the response I received about Toilet Duck (yea remember that..):

Thank you for letting us know how much you like Toilet Duck® Toilet Bowl Cleaner. While I'm pleased to hear this product worked so well at removing rust stains from your toilet, I would like to let you know we stopped producing Toilet Duck® Toilet Bowl Cleaner in 1999. I will be sure to share your interest in this product, along with your wonderful comments, with our brand team. Since we do appreciate your business, I am sending a complimentary coupon for our Scrubbing Bubbles® Toilet Cleaning Gel to your home address. We hope you enjoy trying it! Have a lovely day, Marlena


OK so I told you I liked a product that was discontinued 10 years ago and you send me something free..Now that's incredible. I used Duck cleaner in the past but since it is gone I had to figure out getting rid of those pesky urine stains on the toilet seat. You may want to check out this article I found that changed everything for me, because the easy tips they give on how to clean a toilet seat with urine stains made them easy to get rid of. I have found that the information they provide at Toilet Seat Planet makes life so much easier. Check out their website: https://toiletseatplanet.com/ you will thank me later.

Can you say Discount?

Well today was the day to stick it to "the man". I took only my free coupons and went to the local A&P Supermarket to cash in my free coupons. I got four pictures on this post because seeing is believing when it comes to anything online so here you go. I purchased 43 items from the supermarket and used 43 coupons. The total came to $165.24 and that is when I handed this pile of goodness to the cashier. She had a sense of humor and just laughed looking at the pile saying out loud to herself and co-workers "these are all legit coupons. Where did you get all of these". I told her that I tell every company if they did a good job or bad and they send me free stuff no matter what. She told me congrats on all the coupons and went to work. Some 15-20min later she had finished matching up every item to every coupon and writing in the actual price to figure out the difference in cost. The computer tallied up $158.36 in coupons, the difference of $6.88 which I had to pay $4.12 in tax plus $2.76 in overage. This is not too bad of a price to pay for all this stuff. Now you can see with my posts that the coupons do work and my cabinets are now filled with good stuff!!!!!

Record Setting 1 Day Haul!!!!!!!

Well today being July 6th I expected maybe a few extra letters in the mail today from my corporate fans who always take care of their #1 Critic, but let me tell you I was taken by how many responses came today. I had 12 letters and 1 bubble envelope (Which contained the latest issue of Durex Monthly..lol). Take a look at the picture, and let me tell you that this is no bull$hit. Crest not only sent me free stuff but jammed each one of their 3 letters to me today with $8 of coupons plus the free coupon. All I can say is "Thank You" to "The Man" for sending me stuff on your own free will. Remember folks I NEVER ASK FOR ANYTHING. They just can't control themselves I guess.

Let me just list the haul of free stuff: two Free 1/2 gal soy milk, Free Perdue, Free Hershey Product, Two Free Wise Products, Free Klondike Bars, Free Wishbone Product, Free Gatoraide, Free Oral-B Toothbrush, Free Oral-B Power Toothbrush, Free Lloyds BBQ Pork Tub, Free Hillshire Farms Meat Product, Two Free San Gorgio Pasta, Free Del Monte Fruit Cup, Free Speed Stick, Free Crest Toothpaste, Free Colgate Toothpaste, Two Free Palmolive Dish Liquids, Free Durex Magazine with $25 in coupons.

Today's Record Setting ONE DAY Haul: $143.81!!!

Total for the last 13 Days since I started: $302.87!!!

Which means I am averaging $23.29/Day in Free Stuff.

GOD BLESS AMERICIA!!

WELCOME TO PROJECT MAYHEM!!!

I wanted to personally thank someone who I spoke with today and I told about my experiment. He felt that this was a great way to stick it to the man. He told me I was the Tyler Durden of the coupon world, and this was my Project Mayhem (If you haven't seen Fight Club you should rent it). I have to agree with him that this WAS a one man project mayhem, but just like in Fight Club it all starts with one and then grows. So what I am saying is that I have recruited my first member of Project Mayhem and his name is Turok. Welcome to Project Mayhem Turok.

Icing, Dogs, and Hats oh my.....

Well lets see what we were given yesterday in the mail. I got 2 free Betty Crocker Decorating Products ($4/ea), Any Reckitt Benckiser Product ($5.50), Free Kraft BBQ Sauce ($2.19), Free Kraft Shake and Bake ($3.69), Butterball Voucher ($5), Free Ballpark Franks ($4.99), Free Ziploc Vacuum Pump Starter Kit ($4). I also got a hat from Budweiser which is in the top of the pic. It is not that special but what the hell it's free!!! The total for todays free stuff is $33.28 and my 10 day total is now up to $159.06!!!

6 Successes Today!!

The mailman came today and guess what...MORE FREE STUFF! Today I recieved letters from Kraft, Heinz, Pepsi, Lawry's, Tetley, White Wave Foods. It is becoming a fun tradition in my house for Melissa and I to open them up and compare what we got. There is something very refreshing about looking in the mailbox and the free stuff outnumbers the bills about 5-1. I will take that any day of the week. Well I have also put a pic up of todays goodies.

Anyway today's free products were: free TGI Fridays frozen appetizer, Ritz Crackers, 1/2 Gal Soy Milk, 12pk Pepsi.

Today's coupons were: three .75c TGI Fridays appetizer, two .75c Lawry's seasoning, one .50c Tetley, one .75c Ritz coupon

So since I have been doing this since last Tuesday the running total is $79.18 in free stuff, $46.60 in coupons for a total of $125.78!!!

Beware Of The Unmarked Brown Box

Well today I came home from work to find a generic brown box with only my name and address on it. Well first I listened for ticking then I brought it in to open it up. Well when I opened it up I definately got a chuckle and so did my wife. She looked over and asked me "what did you get?", and with that I reached in the box and took out the Vibrating Ring Duo and Fingertip Massager compliments of Trojan. Now all I did was tell them something ridiculous (which I will keep to myself but trust me it was funny...) and like magic good vibrations came my way...lol

Coupon of the week

I would like to give a special Thank You to SC Johnson Wax for their very generous coupon. Not only does it look cool and fancy with holograms, but it is worth $10! Let's see what the mail will bring this week but for now Glade you are the first recipient of my Coupon of the Week Award.

The power of the "Contact Us" Hyperlink

Well last Monday after I spent a ton of time looking at job websites (that is a long story) I needed a break but what to do. I happened to see a empty bottle of Heinz ketchup and for some reason I saw the runny remains at the bottom and the light bulb came on. I said let me tell Heinz that the ketchup was great but they should try to stop liquid separation. So I went to google and typed Heinz ketchup and like magic I was there. Google made it easier for me because the link for Heinz also had a streamlined contact link for me to click from google, so I did just that. I told them "I love your Heinz ketchup and I bought the 48oz bottle, but I wish you could do a better job stopping liquid from seperating in the bottle.". Now that is all I wrote, and they sent me within an hour an email telling me why that happens and to check my mail in 3-5 days for a free bottle. I said wow that was too easy. I make a small comment and get a free bottle of ketchup? This is too good to be true I thought so I grabbed a half used box of shake and bake by Kraft. I told them "The garlic shake and bake was great but my chicken didn't seem to have as much bredding as the picture on the package.", and guess what happened. I got an email saying thanks for feedback check your mail in 3-5 days for free shake and bake replacement coupons. I said to myself holy $hit in less than 5 minutes I scored a free big ketchup and a box of shake and bake.
Now with the wheels spinning in my head I started cabinet by cabinet sending feedback to EVERYONE I could find. I got 1/2 way through my kitchen when I stopped for the day. By the end of the night I heard back from almost everyone and just about everyone is sending me something free or discount coupons. Since today is officially one week of doing this I decided to take some pictures of my free stuff this week alone. The reason I am doing this is because if I read this I would say "yea right this is nonsense" but the proof is here in the pics. Keep in mind some companies like Colgate claim it takes 2 weeks to get stuff back from them so this is what I got so far.

Free Coupons:
Heinz Ketchup 46oz, ZipLoc Bags, Scrubbing Bubbles, Glade Wisp Flameless Candle Starter Kit, 2 Michelina's Entree's, Any Welch's Product, 2 Cans of B&M Beans, Hostess Product, Oscar Meyer Hot Dogs, 3 Lean Cusine Entree's, 2 Frito Lay Product

$ off Coupons:
Two .50c off welch's, Three $1 off pull ups, .50c off Hebrew National, Two .50 Healthy Choice, Two .50c off banquet, Two $1 off lean cuisine, two .50c del monte, Two .55c fresh express, Two .55c Zatarain's rice, Two .55c Crisco, and Three coupon books from ZipLoc with several off coupons in them totaling $9.55/each.

Total value for the first 7 days: $103.86!!!!!!!!!!

How I got started

How I got started doing this. I actually came up with this after reading about someone on the web that did a blog writing to companies asking for free stuff by snail mail, and seeing what he got for spending a roll of 100 stamps. I then took my love for the Iron Chef and put what I learned there to work. You may be thinking what does Iron Chef have to do with this, but let me tell you if haven't seen it on Food Network just watch it and you will understand. The show goes through some cooking for approx 50 min then they present the food they cooked to a panel of critics. This is the part that inspired me. They say off the wall stuff like "the soup was the best I have ever tasted however the texture of the carrot in the soup was lacking", or "this marmalade ice cream is fantastic but maybe something cold should not be served after goulash" . I would hear these "I like it but..." comments go on and the chef just nods his head in understanding. I said to myself what if I said stuff like this to Kraft, General Mills or any company for products I was using in my house. Well what has happened since I started on 6/22/09 has been so wildly successful I decided to share with anyone interested.