About
Hi and welcome to “Beltway Bargain Mom!” My name’s Laura and I’m a native of the Washington, DC metro area. I’m a busy mom of two, who happens to coupon, teach workshops, home school and blog – I wear many different hats and keep uber-busy… Typical Washingtonian!
About Me:
I’ve always enjoyed finding a good deal, but trust me, I haven’t always been as frugally-minded as I am now. My 8th Grade Budget Project - in which I budgeted more for clothes than food in one month’s time – is a prime example! Although I was blessed to not accumulate any debt during my college years and young professional career, I really didn’t have a budget or any guidelines to keep me financially on track. Six months after I married the man of my dreams, we found out we were expecting our first baby, and that was when I started to get serious about saving money. It was my desire to see if we could pinch pennies so we could comfortably live on one income. Couponing, implementing money-saving strategies, and lots of prayers *not in that order* enabled us to do just that!
About this blog:
After years of couponing, I started up my own blog in January 2009 called “Frugal Friends in Northern Virginia” – sharing local deals and my family’s own adventures in frugality. There have been many triumphs and frugal fails along the way! In May 2011 I changed my name to Beltway Bargain Mom which I thought was more catchy and better encompassed my blog’s purpose. BeltwayBargainMom.com is aimed to “Keep you in the loop” on DC-area deals.
Beltway Bargain Mom is all about sharing local deals available here in our nation’s Capital, featuring money-saving tips, and instilling community among couponers and savvy shoppers in our area. On my site you’ll find everything from grocery store deals, valuable coupons, free food offers and frugal family events.
Connect with me:
I recommend you sign up for my free email newsletter which is a daily digest of my posts here. I’d also love to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook. If you love fun photos & interesting recipes, you can find me on Instagram & Pinterest too. If you have a question, feel free to email me. Thanks for reading and joining me on my frugal adventures!
Photo by Amber Seat Photography
{ 12 comments }
I never see Bottom Dollar on any of the websites for VA. I think I’m the only one who uses them.
This week they have boneless, skinless chicken breast on sale for $1.77
Snow Crab clusters for $3.97/lb
Ground Chuck for $1.68/lb
Baby back ribs for $2.47/lb
Russet potatoes for $2.97/10 lb bag
Cap’n Crunch $1.88/box
Peaches 1.49/lb
Thanks for commenting again Nicole!
I think you’re right. I don’t see many of the Nova/DC Metro local frugal blogs list out Bottom Dollar or another favorite store of mine: Aldi.
Thanks for passing along the info on the sales at Bottom Dollar this week.
We used to have two Food Lions in my city and then one got replaced by a Bloom and the other got replaced by a Bottom Dollar. So I have a plethora of stores in my area to choose from. Usually when I need a staple item that doesn’t have coupons I’ll head over to Shoppers, Aldi or Bottom Dollar. There have been some great sales at Safeway, Giant and Super Target so I have been quite dispersed in my grocery shopping trips lately!
Aldi is about 15 min away, so I don’t get there as often as I’d like and I try to avoid Target unless I have my husband there b/c otherwise no matter how hard I try not to, I’ll take a stroll around the perimeter and fall for all the huge markdowns. LOL sad but true.
I agree with you about Bottom Dollar! I’ve been looking around and trying to find out what Bottom Dollar’s coupon policy. Do you know?
Hi Holly,
Your question made me wonder, so I called up Bottom Dollar’s customer service line 1-866-685-1180 and was told by a friendly rep. named Melissa that they accept internet printable coupons with no maximum value limit (some stores only accept IP’s up to $1) but that the store and manager have the right to deny any IP coupon if they think it is fraudulent.
I asked if there was a formal coupon policy in writing somewhere, and she told me she would request that a letter stating their policy be mailed to my home address. I’ll let you know if/when I get it! The rep. confirmed on the phone that they do not automatically double manufacturer coupons under 50 cents or 99 cents (like some other stores do).
I checked out your blog and really like your master list of Store Coupon Policies for NOVA/DC stores http://holly.luddite.net/store-coupon-policies/
That’s a pretty thorough list! If you get a chance to add CVS, Super Target, and Magruders, those would be great additions to your list too.
Thanks Laura!
I just added CVS and the Bottom dollar policy that you sent me. Thanks again! That is great!
Maybe we can get some ladies to get together like Nicole to create coupon matchups for Bottom Dollar.
Regards,
Holly
Thanks so much for the link to my blog yesterday! Your blog is fantastic!
You’re welcome Laura! I first found your blog from a comment you made on Mrs. Moneysaver and found out about the Smokey Bones coupon on one of your recent posts. Actually, I think you were also on that Live Q&A with Mrs. Moneysaver last night or at least someone with the name “afrugalchick” was too. So nice to *meet* another wonderful frugal blogger with such a beautiful name
Keep up the great work on your blog!
Hi Laura!
I just discovered your site through becentsable.blogspot.com. I look forward to visiting your blog, as you have several really good deals that you post about! I’ve linked to your blog from mine at Blue Ridge Coupons (Charlottesville, VA).
Thanks!
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment Laura!
I just added your blog to my page with Virginia blogs here. Nice to meet another frugal Laura in VA!
Take care,
Laura
Hi Laura-
I read your interview in the Washingtonian (I kind of stumbled upon it) and it introduced me to the Ebates website. I want to say you referred me so you get the referral credit but I can’t find what address I should use so you get the credit! I tried searching your blog but came up empty.
Hi Becky, Thanks for the comment and I’m glad to hear you stumbled upon my blog from the Washingtonian article!
Thanks for asking about my eBates referral code. If you’ haven’t signed up yet you can use my referral code here:
http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=18rHCMJkXJpf2DondTjc8Q%3D%3D. eBates is great!
Take care,
Laura
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