I love recipes that are simple but end up with delicious results. But they are made all the more attractive when they are quick, cheap and include ingredients that most anyone has on-hand. Tonight I found a great one — Bacon Cheese Frittata.

I found the entree on Allrecipes.com, and as I always recommend, I read the reviews. There weren’t many changes offered (which is always a good sign), but I still tweaked it a bit, and it turned out perfectly. I was in a rush tonight to make dinner, and I had this one in the oven from start to finish in 15 minutes. To make it seem less “breakfasty,” I served with steamed broccoli and sliced fresh tomatoes topped with a drizzle of salad dressing. It was a colorful dinner — and cheap! I made the entire dinner for $4! Also, very healthy, in my opinion, and low, low (or even non-existent) on carbs.

Try it next time your stock is low in the fridge and you need a quick dinner.

Bacon Cheese Frittata

Ingredients

Directions:

In a bowl, beat eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Add onion, bell pepper, crumbled bacon and cheese, and stir. Pour into a greased 9 inch pie plate, cake pan or 8X8 square dish. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.

Notes:

This evening I did what I call “wham bam” grocery shopping. That’s when I run in one store, snag the sales and walk out with great deals. Tonight $23 in products at Vons turned into a final price of $2 — 91 percent off! Across the street at Ralphs, $37 in merchandise ended up being $7 — 81 percent off!

Here is the secret: You are not there to shop, you are there to buy. That means you don’t wander the aisles, you hit every deal and leave. That’s how I could turn $60 in merchandise into a total of $9.

Believe it or not, I also hit a third market — our local Hispanic store, Vallarta, which has great produce prices. This week I got 5.50 pounds of oranges for 92 cents! I had five items to buy and I was out in less than 10 minutes.

With drive time, I was done in less than 75 minutes. I think that’s reasonable for a weekly shop.

Now, some tips:

Yes, coupon shopping does take a small amount of time. I would say it takes about an hour to 90 minutes a week. But I just got $70+ in groceries for $12.50 tonight, and you can do it, too!

Thanks to This Frugal Life for tipping me off on this great deal — $10 in free merchandise at Medco with only 99 cents shipping! I just scored $9 in generic sleeping pills for only 99 cents — shipped!

They have lots of products — vitamins, lotions, soap, bath wash — load the cart on up. If you go over $10, they will take $10 off your total. If you’re $10 or under, everything is free!

Here’s all you do — go shop at Medco Health Store. Shop (and you can buy less than $10), then checkout and on the last screen apply this coupon code — FIRST10 (Updated code as of 6/5).

Now I don’t know how long they will offer this, so best to order quickly.

Thanks again to This Frugal Life – an excellent blog, especially for Southern California, and you can also fan her on Facebook.

Wee! This was a sweet deal!

There’s been an interesting sharing on Facebook on what we did when we had no money and needed to eat. It got me nostalgic, and I am curious what others did when “getting by” meant making meals of what you could find.

Thankfully, I always had enough food when I lived at home, but there were many lean years when I moved out, especially when I was unemployed and — literally — the only item I had in the pantry was a half-eaten box of saltines. I think that’s why I still always feel better when I open our pantry at home now. I feel like Scarlett O’Hara — “With God as my witness, I will never go hungry again.”

Times, again, are tight for us, but my shopping skills now with coupons allow us to enjoy plenty, and a variety, of foods.

But I am curious:

What did you do to get by when you had no money and were hungry?

I’ll start … when I was making $752 a month take-home and my rent was $400, my meals were pasta with Italian salad dressing, pork and beans with Yellow Wrap turkey wieners, and baked potatoes with blue cheese salad dressing. I lived for Tuesdays, when Whoppers were 99 cents!

So what did you eat to get by?

Holy cow! I don’t believe it — but Olay is offering another totally free rebate on its Quench Lotion, but it gets better than that — you can also score free Olay shower lotion this week at Walgreens and make $2 in the process! This is a killer, make-money deal!

Olay is offering to rebate you the full purchase price of its Quench lotion, when you purchase it between now and April 16. All you need to do is send in this simple form and follow the instructions (mail receipt with item and purchase price circled and complete the easy form).

But it gets better!

Walgreens has a special this week when you buy the Quench lotion, you get a free bottle of Olay shower lotion! Woo-hoo!

Oh, but wait, there’s more! If you saved your Proctor and Gamble coupon flyer from 3/7 (as you should with any coupon flyer), there is a $1 off Quench lotion coupon and $1 off Olay shower lotion.

Take those to Walgreens this week, and you will not only get a free Olay Quench Lotion, but also the Olay shower lotion and get $2 for your trouble! Is that cool, or what?

Now, this is a hot deal, so if you go to Walgreens and they are out, promise me you will get a raincheck from the clerk with this deal — Buy one Quench, get one Olay shower lotion for free. Then, just be sure and go back before April 16 to pick up your winnings.

See how coupon shopping can be fun?

Man, this is a hot deal! First 25,000 people to sign up will get a $5 rebate off any Jennie-O turkey product. Routinely, they have these as “buy one get one free,” which can make for an excellent deal — and free! Hold onto the form and wait for the sale to come — the rebate is good through the end of May!

This is one of those high-value coupons/rebates that make for mega-good grocery deals.

Thanks to these wonderful blogs for tipping me off — For the Mommas and Making Cents with Sense.

Click here to sign up. Just do it fast!

Hopefully you will never need this information, but I did this week, when my wallet was stolen from my car. Sure, it’s a pain — new driver’s license, re-ordering credit cards, etc., but it’s also an easy way in which to get your “identity” stolen.

Think about it — the bad guy has your name, address, birth date, and probably a lot more personal information. It would be simple to take that and order items online, open new accounts or even order a new cell phone (as happened to a friend of mine).

But there is a simple way to protect yourself.

The police officer who took the burglary report advised me to contact all three major credit bureaus — Trans Union, Experian and Equifax — and instruct them to put what is known as a “fraud alert” on my name and aspects of my identification.

This is a free service, and provides you with so much protection. The fraud alert was instantaneous, flagging my personal information for 90 days of the possibility of fraud. If someone now attempts to gain credit with my name, I will be called to verify that it is indeed me.

I completed the process online, as well as through automated services for two of the other credit bureaus. It took all of about 15 minutes, but it was a small price to pay in terms of time that I would not be a crime victim again in the future.

Feel free to share this information. I never knew, and am glad I know now.

I’ve been using coupons with a vengence for about three years now, and am saving thousands of dollars every year and have more food and sundry items than ever before. In this time, I learned that couponing is a skill that can save a lot of money, and requires only a little bit of knowledge and about an hour to 90 minutes a week in prep time.

I am always surprised when people don’t think it’s worth their time to use coupons. Look at this shop from today. I spent only $22.86! That was 71 percent off! Among other items, this included 4 pounds of boneless chicken breasts, 2 pounds of ground turkey, 5 Healthy Choice entrees, a nearly 2 pound bag of frozen Taquitos, Progresso soup, etc. If I had just shopped the specials — without coupons — this same shop would have cost $47.17 — more than 50 percent more. (By the way, I got the Quaker snacks, Gatorade, and Yakasobi noodles for free. The Progresso soups were only 27 cents each for three cans!)

I’ve learned over the years that the newspapers flyers give you some great coupons, but if you want to net the big savings, you need to add in three more venues for high-value coupons — the Internet, Facebook, and online saving specials.

Let me explain these areas:

Anyone who wants to save money or who is facing tough times should use coupons. I literally save more than $3,000 a year for a family of two. Doesn’t make any difference? Wouldn’t that help you pay off a credit card, or maybe help a lot on a car payment?

I hope these tips help you to refine your skills so you can save even more. I tell you, it’s fun! Even the cashier today told me how good I did. You can do it, too, see the “Coupon Shopping” and Grocery Store Tactics” link on my web site for more.

I know a lot of people have yet to jump on the couponing bandwagon (even though it is easy with sites, such as Couponmom and saves a lot of money), but anyone can benefit from the new wonder — E-coupons.

Look at this haul from tonight, including two gallons of milk, two Coffeemates, four boxes of Cherrios, Olay lotion, potatoes, carrots, cheese slices, snacks, a frozen pizza and even a frozen dinner entree. $85 in groceries for … $29! That’s a $55 savings!

I used my standard strategies, which is to combine store specials, with store coupons, with manufacturer coupons (both newspaper and Internet). But I started adding in one more saving strategy — E-coupons tied directly to your store club card.

The best news is now the stores are adding E-coupons available on their web sites! So before the shop, I stopped by my store’s site (Vons.com), added its E-coupons onto my Club card, and then went on over to Shortcuts.com, Cellfire.com and P&G.com for Proctor and Gamble savings. The best part is I never needed to leave the store’s web site — the links were right there under “coupons.” Now this is no-brainer savings!

To use them is nothing. Slide your card at checkout, and the savings is automatically deducted (usually noted as “Manufacturer E coupon”). The store makes it easy to remember what you loaded, by offering a printable shopping list on its web site.

Just with e-coupons (which take nothing to load), I saved $6.05. Adding them with regular coupons and the rebate, and my total coupon savings was $32.61 — more than what I spent!

But when you combine E-coupons with and/or store specials, store coupons and paper and Internet coupons, you can net some dang good deals!

How about these steals tonight:

Martha Stewart wants to give you something — a free tote bag. Her web site is offering a free Aveeno tote bag just for filling out this form.

Mine is supposed to arrive in 6-8 weeks. It’ll be great for the grocery store runs.

Gotta love getting free stuff in the mail.

Thanks again to Making Sense with Cents for the great tipoff.