Jill Cataldo

While I was writing this week's Deals up, I spotted these wall art plaques in the Meijer ad.

Read 'em. (And isn't that the truth!)

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms, people who have moms, and people who have acted as moms to others. You are loved and important... even if you're cleaning up other people's messes all the time. :) Have a great day!

If you shop at Meijer, you will want to take a look at their updated coupon policy. Reader Brittany11717 wrote that her store was handing out copies of the new policy yesterday in the store. You can view the policy online here. Worth noting: Mperks can no longer be stacked with paper coupons; transactions cannot be broken up, and Meijer is now accepting competitors' coupons for grocery, health & beauty and general merchandise, with guidelines and restrictions similar to what Walmart does with competitor coupons.

From the new policy:

• mPerks offers cannot be combined with paper coupons (manufacturer or Meijer) toward the purchase of a single item
• Transactions cannot be broken up to avoid coupon stacking restrictions
• Separate checklanes will not be opened or designated for customers with large coupon orders
• Meijer will accept coupons from major competitors in each store's trading area, for Grocery and or for Health and Beauty Care items
• Meijer will accept coupons from major competitors in each store's trading area for General Merchandise items only if the competitor's price point is included. The item must be the identical item on the coupon for the match to occur.
• Meijer does not accept competitor coupons for beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes, double and triple coupons, clearance, percent off, total trans- action discounts, special promotions, gift card promotions, limited quantity items, mail-in rebate offers, and going out of business sales
• Meijer reserves the right to limit coupon quantities and to determine the order of application of multiple coupons and/or promotions

You never know what you might find while clearance shopping, but this weekend, Meijer has been good! I went over to check out the new sales and spotted some great clearances at the Algonquin Meijer...

Near the back of the store, there was an entire endcap of high-threadcount bedsheets on clearance for bargain prices -- 75% off!

Full, Queen and King-size sets ranged in price from $10-$20, in 100% cotton, 300, 400, and 600 thread count. I picked up three sets for our King bed: a 300-count for $11.25, a 400-count for $15, and a 600-count for $17.50. The regular prices for these sheets were $44.99 to $70.

While I'm putting the finishing touches on the new Deals of the Week writeup for you, I thought I'd share something that made me laugh as I was deal-making and flipping through the flyers.

Lest you think I'm only picking on Dominick's this week, have you seen Meijer's flyer?

It says "One Stop. One SUPER Party! Save on everything you need for the Big Game."

Everything I need? I looked at this ad, and I just can't believe we forgot to buy this one item before the big game! How did we manage to get through the Super Bowl without this?

Over the past 24 hours I've spotted some great post-Halloween sales and summer clearance bargains around town that I thought I'd share! Last night we stopped at the Algonquin Meijer and found that Halloween costumes, decorations and housewares were already marked 75% off! That's a pretty nice, quick drop in price the day after Halloween -- typically things go 50% right away and take about another week to drop into the better-bargain range.

We picked up some Halloween costumes for next year at good prices -- Woody from Toy Story for one of my boys ($6.24, down from $24.99,) a "Graveyard Fairy" for my teenager (not quite sure what it IS, but she liked it! And, at $8.74 down from $34.99, it was hard to complain) and, on my husband's insistence, Daphne from Scooby Doo for me. (Also $8.74, with its Day-Glo orange wig and pink go-go boots, it was hard to resist... but the real question is, if I go as Daphne, will he be my Fred?)

As I touched on in Monday's Deals of the Week post, it's been a great week for clearance toy and clothes shopping all over town! Hope you've all been out bargain-hunting and enjoying your finds!

As I discuss at great length in my Super-Couponing classes, both January and late July/early August are when many stores slash prices on both toys and clothing. On Sunday, we picked up some clothes at the Old Navy 50% off clearance summer sale. Not all Old Navy stores dropped (it's not quite like the January Old Navy clearance where every single store drops at the same time) but Algonquin's clearance was running, and my husband got some nice work shirts in the under-$3 range, as well as a $1.97 shirts for our boys. Many readers posted reports of $2 swim trunks and children's clothes too.

I just got back from a shopping trip to the Algonquin Meijer, where two aisles of toys are marked up to 75% off! An employee was in the process of retagging everything while I was there, so they've just dropped. (I don't know if all Meijers are dropping today, but it may be worth a call.)

Here's how corporate determines which toys to drop. The employee I spoke with said that any toys that were brought in for Christmas and did not sell are currently at 50% off IF there are 5 or more of the same toy in inventory. If there are less than 5, the prices are dropping to 75% off.

How do you know what coupons a particular store takes? The answer lies in the store's coupon policy. Coupon policies are great tools for shoppers to know exactly where stores stand on what kinds of coupons they will accept.

Here are links to the most current coupon policies available at the time of this writing.

Jewel-Osco

Dominick's

Meijer

Hilander / Kroger