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... will be returning soon, I promise. Not only do I still need to post the winners of the SWEET LIFE WITH STELLA MADISON giveaway contest, but I also have some new recipes of my own.

Because of some unexpected financial issues we ran into last month - me losing my winter class, Joe's car needing to be scrapped, the tank running out of home heating oil again, etc. - I've had to be pretty crafty in the kitchen. This means pulling recipes based around A) food we already have, B) food that's cheap, and C) food that's on sale and/or has good coupons. Some things I won't skimp on; for instance, I absolutely need to eat one carton of Chobani Greek Yogurt every day, and even though it's far pricier than it's non-Greek competitors, it's a great source of protein and calcium and all sorts of good stuff. I also won't give up my whole grain Wasa crackers, because one of those slathered with a tablespoon of peanut or almond butter makes a quick, nutritious, pre-workout breakfast.

But for the most part, I'm a grocery shopping ninja. I know, for instance, that I can get a big bunch of Swiss chard at the Newark Farmer's Market for around 99 cents, whereas I'd pay closer to $4 for it at Shoprite. Ooh, and here's a fun tip for those of you with BJs memberships: their coupons NEVER expire. There has only been one time in the two years since I discovered this secret that a checkout girl gave me grief; Joe and I repacked our cart, went through self-checkout, and used the coupon anyway. My mom also says that Shoprite's self-service lanes take expired coupons, but I feel a little weird about that because I know the grocery store won't be reimbursed the savings (whereas at BJs, it's a store coupon to begin with). Today I hit BJs for a few essentials - string cheese, milk, the big Chobani carton for at-home consumption, etc. - and I saved $9.50 in coupons. To be fair, $5 came off a $20 bottle of fish oil supplements for Joe, but the bottle had 180 capsules and the serving size was one capsule (instead of two, like a lot of the "cheaper" bottles), so really, I got half a year's worth of fish oil for $15.

Then, at Shoprite, I took advantage of their pre-Super Bowl Sunday meat/poultry sales. Everything Purdue was 50% off, so I picked up split chicken breasts and some thin breast filets (which were a bit of a splurge, esp. since leg quarters were going for 59 cents a pound) plus ground chicken and pre-formed turkey burgers. For red meat, I got a package of round cubes for beef stew, two top round London Broil steaks, and 2 lbs. ground sirloin. Pretty much everything else I needed was either on sale or had a great coupon - I got these gourmet dog treats for $1.70 with a $2 off coupon. A recipe I'm making this weekend called for one yellow bell pepper, but those are like $4/lb., so I bought one of the on-sale red bell instead. Oh, and here was the best: Dannon yogurts were on sale, 10 for $4, plus I had a 50 cent off store coupon for fruit on the bottom and another 50 cent off store coupon for the light version. In the end, I got 10 yogurts for $3.

Total Shoprite savings: $5 in coupons, and $18 in sales. There's enough meat in my freezer to get me through the next six months, and I walked away having spent $76 for everything. EVERYTHING. I felt like one of those women who write money saving articles for Women's Day!

Speaking of, did you know that Walgreens is running a deal now that if you transfer a prescription over to their store, they'll give you a $25 gift card? Yep. Actually, Rite Aid has a similar deal going on, but since our prescriptions are currently at Rite Aid, it doesn't do me much good.

For my birthday, I got an Olay Regenerist dermabrasion/peel kit. Earlier in the week, I'd picked up a bottle of the Regenerist serum, on sale at K-Mart for $18. The kicker? Olay was running a rebate deal with Regenerist for $15 back if you bought two products within a set time period. So I got about $58 worth of good skin care stuff for $30. The week of my b