Jill Cataldo

Kroger and Hilander shoppers: Did Santa bring you a .50, $1, $2 or $5 coupon?

On Thursday, December 16th, between 12:00pm and 4:00pm (CST,) log onto Cellfire.com to find out!

EVERYONE with a Kroger/Hilander card who logs in will receive either a .50, $1, $2 or $5 ecoupon for your next shopping trip at these stores! Yes, that's free money (our favorite kind.)

If you don't already have a Cellfire account, you can click here to register for a new account... and then don't forget to come back and load your special Santa Savings coupon at this link at noon!

Safeway and Betty Crocker have launched a FREE online game that Fresh Values cardholders can play to win FREE Betty Crocker products! Play every day from now through January 15, 2011.

Visit BakeSweetMemories.com to play. The game is like a cookie slot machine... if three of the same cookie line up, you win FREE Betty Crocker baking products.

Last week, I posted news that had been circulating around the grocery blogs -- Safeway stores, which dropped support for Cellfire electronic coupons last month, were also dropping support for ShortCuts and PGEsaver ecoupons as well. As many of us were still able to load ecoupons to their cards from the latter two sites, but word around the blogosphere was that the ecoupons were being dropped at any store offering the new Just For U ecoupons, I wanted to get something official to post for everyone. Here's the response I received from Dominick's:

For Dominicks, you can no longer load offers from Cellfire. Any offers previously loaded and still valid should be processed correctly at the register.

For AOL Shortcuts - you can still load offers to card but this will be changing at the end of November - at that point you will no longer be available to load offers from Shortcuts to a Fresh Values card. Again, any previously loaded offers that are still valid should be honored at checkout.

For P&G eSaver you can still load and redeem offers from their site.

File this one under "What is Dominick's thinking now?"

Over the past few weeks, Cellfire subscribers received emails notifying them that Dominick's has decided not to participate in Cellfire ecoupons anymore. From the wording in the email, it seemed that this was a temporary situation, as Cellfire hoped that they'd be available to Dominick's shoppers again soon. A press release I received from Cellfire echoed the same sentiment -- this was a temporary decision on Dominick's part.

Apparently, though, it's not temporary. And not only is Cellfire not coming back, PGEsaver and Shortcuts ecoupons may now be off the table too. Dominick's is apparently putting all of their eggs in the "Just For U" basket.

Here's a special deal for my Hilander and Kroger-affiliate shoppers only... Cellfire has added three special ecoupons to load to your card:

• $1 off Pillsbury Holiday Cookies
• .75 off Betty Crocker Supreme Brownie Mix
• .30 off Pillsbury Refrigerated Grands

If you load and use any ONE of these ecoupons between August 5th and August 8th, you'll receive one BONUS $1 ecoupon for your next shopping trip! Add coupons, and you're looking at a potentially nice deal here!

We're in the third and final week of our Cellfire $100 Gift Card giveaway! Contest ends June 30!

LAST CHANCE TO ENTER! You've got a chance to win a $100 gift card for the Cellfire-affiliated grocery store of your choice. (In Illinois, that would be Dominick's or Kroger/Hilander.)

All you need to do to enter is reply to this post. On July 1st, I'll choose a poster at random to win the $100 gift card! It's that easy!

It's also a great time to check out the e-coupons on Cellfire, if you haven't already -- there are always some great ones to use each week, like...

Save $1 on Starbucks VIA coffee

In addition to the wonderful coupons we find in our newspaper inserts and online, many stores are also offering electronic coupons as well! These coupons can be loaded onto your shopper's card for your store, and you automatically receive the savings at checkout.