Mashup Mom in 2017 -- and beyond
Please take a few minutes to read about changes to Mashup Mom, now and into the New Year -- I'd like to take a moment to explain why I'm making these changes, and what to expect. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and for being a part of the Mashup Mom community! I truly do feel thankful, grateful, and blessed for all of you.
Mashup Mom turns 8 in January 2017
Call this a belated seven year itch...
It's been a crazy 8 years, and those of you who have stuck around since 2009 have been through some pretty significant changes in the art of couponing since then. While we still see the occasional great deal, these are fewer and further between -- and they're not, by and large, deals I'm picking up myself any longer.
The changes you'll see on Mashup Mom over this coming year largely reflect the changes in my own shopping patterns and interests. Where 5 years ago I might have trekked to three different Walgreens to clean up on a Register Rewards deal, now I'm more likely just to keep us stocked with toothpaste and toiletries by visiting CVS every 2-3 weeks to roll ECB. Where 5 years ago it was fun to play the grocery game between Jewel and Dominick's, now I'm more likely to hit ALDI and Pete's Market without coupons and call it a day. Where 5 years ago I'd stockpile with high value coupons and cyclical sales + promos, now I'm more likely to stock up on household basics with Amazon's subscribe & save and be grateful for deliveries to my door at decent prices.
When I'm more excited about $.59 avocados at ALDI than free toothpaste at CVS, I'm not necessarily the right person to keep telling you about free toothpaste. It's making less sense to keep talking about chasing after an ever shrinking number of deals, and moving to talking about how to shop and live frugally as an overall lifestyle is much more interesting to me. There's an opportunity cost to anything we do, and all that time spent chasing deals is time we no longer have available to spend with our families, with friends, on hobbies.
I hope you stick around on the journey towards reclaiming some of that time.
You've probably already noticed some changes lately
Sorry about that...
I apologize for starting the changeover and moving around menu items before writing up an explanation and announcement. I know that resulted in Who Moved my Cheese moments for some of you, and that wasn't my intention. Please be aware that you will be seeing more changes to the menus and sidebar as these evolve to reflect the shift in content on the site.
Hope you're enjoying the newer features
The weekly ALDI meal plan, Work-at-Home Saturday, and other newer features will continue into 2017. Older features, such as Frugal Homemade, will also be making a more regular comeback.
What you will see on Mashup Mom in the New Year
Moving forward, Mashup Mom will focus on frugal living rather than strictly couponing and deals
What does that mean? Here's what you'll see more of:
- Meal planning
- Frugal homemade how-tos
- Make it or buy it?
- Recipes
- Healthier eating on a budget
- Frugal living tips
- Fitting frugality into a busy lifestyle
- Chickens and bees and gardening and organizing
- Thrifting
- Book reviews
With a sprinkling of Amazon deals, because I enjoy them so, as well as a roundup of some of the day's best deals each morning. 😉 Overall: You'll see more longer posts, more reflection, and more "evergreen" tips and topics as opposed to one time deals.
Time to evolve or fade away
I was recently going through some old PowerPoint slides from talks I use to give to librarians... way back in a different lifetime... 🙂 I ran across this "Perfect is the enemy of the good" slide, and it pretty much sums up the last year of this site. I've been waiting to make changes until I could get everything "just right," but life doesn't work that way. The evolution of Mashup Mom in the New Year will be a process, and I don't expect it will look exactly the same by the end of 2017 as it will at the beginning. I look forward to making this journey with you!
What you won't see on Mashup Mom in the New Year
Matchups are going away
The biggest change here: This is the last day for matchups on Mashup Mom.
Where can I find matchups now?
- Find CVS matchups at Hip 2 Save.
- Find Jewel matchups on Jill Cataldo's site.
- Find Meijer matchups at The Shopper's Apprentice.
- Find Menards matchups at Jill Cataldo or The Shopper's Apprentice (see above).
- Find Target matchups at Totally Target.
- Find Walgreens matchups at Wild for Wags.
One shot deal posts are largely going away
One shot deals are by their nature ephemeral, and Mashup Mom will be focusing more on evergreen topics in the new year.
Where can I find deals now?
- You'll find a little roundup of some of the best deals in the Morning Mashup post every day.
- You'll find additional deals, including some of the one shot deals that used to appear here as separate posts, in the Hot Deals group on Facebook.
I understand that some of you are not Facebook fans, and I respect that. This is the easiest way, however, for me to continue providing some deal content (and for you to share deals and photos) as we move into the New Year, and to build on the nascent community in the group. I hope to see more of you over there to continue the community that's grown up around Mashup Mom.
Yes, this is a shift in direction
Time to face the strange ch-ch-changes...
I truly do hope that many of you stick around through these changes -- I'm excited about bringing you new content and features in the New Year, and I treasure the community you've helped build over at Mashup Mom. Thanks for listening, and now: Onward!
I have noticed the same trends you mentioned. The days of going to three or four grocery stores to glean loss leaders seem to be over. I too, am shopping at Aldi's mostly. I also occasionally shop at Trader Joe's, Costco and Amazon's subscribe and save. I would rather spend time with my family than chase after 20 free toothpastes. Thank you for all your doing to help us save money and remember what's most important our time with others.
I do believe I found you on CW back in its heyday, and yours is the only blog I've continually followed daily since. My habits have changed, too. I use to run around for hours some days getting the hot deals. My couponing has tapered off dramatically the last couple of years too. 6 months ago I moved 1200 miles to where I no longer have a Jewel, Ultra, or Meijers, but I still followed you mainly for Amazon and CVS plus whatever random deals I would see. In some ways you were like an old friend. I've probably bought 2 to 3 newpapers with coupon inserts in the 6 months since my move. I don't know how I feel about the change to the site - but I understand it. My best wishes to you as you move in this new direction.
43,000,000 people are still on food stamps. 42,000,000 are considered living in poverty in the US. Health care & taxes are still sucking the life out of people working part-time jobs who the government says are no longer part of the unemployment statistics. Most families are still getting squeezed. That being said.
Stores work on thinner margins, more than ever before. Digital coupon is taking over. Policies have changed. The cashier informed me at Tony's last night, they might not take internet printables in 2017 & there is a meeting on it this week, especially black & white printed coupons. Walgreens accepting only 2 similar coupons or the register beeps. CVS changing it's policy 4 months ago. Target adjusting coupons & gift cards. Jewel not training cashier properly. Stores working closer with the companies they sell products for & coordinating sales & coupons better, making it harder for match-ups. Coupons with shorter expiration dates. It's just all getting harder to shop & more time & effort is now needed. I'm not saying you can't get deals, but it's a lot of extra work. I will miss your Butera, Tony's, Caputos matchups the most. You'd catch a lot of other deals for the major stores other blogs would miss. In the not too distant past when you'd post coupons & have people switch the zip codes, I avoided posting her due to conflicts with my employer. But after you pretty much stopped doing that, I was glad to participate & share. I've been a lurker for years to the local blogs of yours, Jills, Alli's, & Chris's. There are nice blogs of national chains, but you had the best for the smaller stores in the West & NW suburbs. Thanks for all you've done. I'm sure many like me will have to step it up a bit to find the deals at the smaller local chains. And many thanks to people like Feelgood & Jane, & the rest on here who've contributed, without everyone on here, we'd all have missed 1000s of deals we all would have otherwise have missed.
To many families, every penny really does count. It all adds up. Many coupon to save for things like college. I loved those scenes in the Eddie Murphy movie Mr. Church about couponing & sent the kid to college with couponing funds!
I'm also assuming your blog became a more of a burden at times trying to keep up & interfering with family functions as most entrepreneurs encounter. Kudos to you for making your more in tune with what you enjoy. We only get one life. Enjoy it!!!
At least we can still read about the new path MUM is on & still read about Mr. & Mrs. G, JHG (or is is HSG now? I lost track), # Mr. 8...and the chickens! Love it!!!
Just wanted to say thank you & there really is no way to repay you for what you've done & helped all of your readers.
-Mark
Thanks for taking the time to write all that out, Mark -- and thanks to everyone else for the kind words!
Wow- I'm still trying to process this new announcement. This blog has really become a habit for me....and since saving money is such a great habit to have, I am going to have withdrawal! I know we can all still match up our deals on our own, it was just so much better when we had this place to share what we found. I'm sure you were reading posts from the other jane along with mine Mark, we both have been posting quite a bit for sometime now! MUM is not the only place I make a pest of myself! Rachels is just the BEST one in my opinion. It still will be! A couple years ago when Rachel was looking for an assistant, my friends told me I should do it because they know how dedicated (and obsessive!) I am about couponing. I told them I do it because it is fun for me and a hobby of sorts. If I did it for a "job" like Rachel does, I may not feel the same way. If there are deadlines and demands to meet, that is called "work".....and my husband and I are RETIRED! I hate change but fully understand it. We can still all share our cooking and gardening tips and if we want more on the other stuff, we can get on Facebook. I will miss all of the regular posters on here though, it just isn't the same on other blogs (too complicated) That is the beauty of having your own blog though. You can try new things and see what works. Have fun doing it, because that way it doesn't really seem like work!
*and PLEASE KEEP THE CAT PICTURES posing next to your hauls on the tabletop coming!!!??? I would rather see that than a store matchup sometimes!
I'm a workaholic. Retirement is a ways off with being only 50. I coupon to keep current (as well as the deals). When you work in the industry, you want to keep on top of what going on in the stores & make things better for the retails you work with. I will try & keep up on facebook, but will use Jill's for the Jewel matchups for sure. (I like posting on her blog, even though there is no notifications under each matchup when someone posts a new entry). Her old message board rocked! And the ones on the side will roll off after a few posts. Maybe Christy on TheShopperApprentice.com (hint hint) will resurrect her matchups from other stores like Butera... Which the 1400 E. Algonquin (next to the post office) store is closing soon. Christy & Jill hit the some of the same stores since they live in the same area, which kinda is great if you live far NW burbs, you get double coverage. I'm still going to look on MUM for those eBay gift card deals, since I don't search every day. Gift card deals make every purchase with them just that much better.
Facebook. That's for old people as my nephew says. All the kids are on IG.
-Mark
Good for you to write about what inspires you! I'm sure you will provide plenty of helpful tips for living frugal! I look forward to Ewing the new content and hope you will consider some with organic and natural foods and household products as that is the direction my family has gone towards in the past couple of years! Health first!
Good luck to you in the new year. I always came to your site to print through coupons.com so I could support the site. Will you still have this feature? I can go back to Jill's site and try to figure out where to print but your site was so much easier. "So long, and thanks for all the fish." ? I mean deals. ? I will still come check it out in the new year.
Yes, I will keep the link to print coupons. The menus will be rearranged a bit more, but I'll do a post on where everything has moved to and it should be pretty clear where to find. 🙂
Beautifully said Mark ,you always did have a gift for words .
Joan
Thanks! 🙂
Amazon Oddity - OMG I hope and wish this has ran its useful life. I love all you do but fail to see the value in that, especially daily.... Anyone else feel this way?
Yes, agree Don 100%
I also agree!
Blogs are not free.
Many blogs are sources of income to people who could be making much more in the real world, but decided to stay home, and raise a family, & maybe enjoy life a bit more.
Amazon has taken over the world.
And pays for referral traffic, especially when you buy higher priced items.
I'd have every other post about something on Amazon from mid Oct - early Jan if I had time for a blog.
I love the reviews on things like the Banana Slicer, TSA Lego Set, etc...
Or some of these odd ball items Rachel posts.
One of my older laptops freezes up from some of the annoying ads that are many blogs, but it was another device I could get more prints from. Printing coupons does not pay as much as it used to to bloggers. Many companies cut back on what they used to pay bloggers to advertise.
The world evolves.
Things change.
Be thankful for what you've saved over the years.
& without people like Rachel, & the rest, we all would be financially worse off since we've all saved a bunch!
-Mark
I enjoy Amazon Oddity. I have never bought one but I get a chuckle every time. It's great to start my day with a laugh!
Sorry, Don -- Amazon Oddities stay because *I* get a kick out of them, and have fun picking something funny each night to post in the morning. From comments on those posts, I think enough others do that it's worth keeping. 🙂
I had no idea the number of folks enjoying that post..... maybe since I never see likes or comments on that post..... eh, what do I know..... fair enough
I heart Amazon Oddities! It doesn't mean I always post on them. But I usually at least click the link.
I think this will be a great change. I've been following your page for just about all eight years, and I've changed my couponing in many of the ways you have, so I'm looking forward to the "new" mashup mom! Thank you for what you do!
I will definitely miss the matchups, esp. for jewel, CVS & Wags/ We all have limited time, so probably won't be spending as much time here as before. I dislike having to go to several different websites to get the same info that I was getting here. I have been coming here daily or more frequently for a long time. Will have to see how this works out for me. Love you Rachel!
If you go to CVS on Sunday morning to shop will you still post your trip to the blog?
Yes please!!! Happy New Year:)