I’m going to put a plug out there for my favorite couponing website, hotcouponworld. There are lots of sites out there and I’ve tried several of them. I like hcw because of the way it is arranged and everything there is legit. On some other sites, I find them to be extremely disorganized, hard to follow, and sometimes you’ll see less than honest deals posted. When couponers participate in fraudulent deals, it hurts us all. Lots and lots of cashiers and managers already dislike couponers, when less than honest activity is going on, it gives them more reason to dislike us. Any deal that isn’t on the up and up on hcw is deleted quickly.

If, for no other reason, join hcw for the coupon database. If you’re wondering if there is a coupon out there to go with a deal, this is where to find it. In many of my posts, you know I’ll say “there are coupons out there for this” and you may be wondering where they are. The database will tell you what insert they were in, and you can check your inserts for it. The dates are listed on the side in very, very, very small font.

And peruse the boards, get used to the lingo and the format and join in on some discussions. It’s really a great board.

No bargains in this post, just a vent about food prices. First, I heard on the news in recent weeks that food prices were expected to rise 5%, more than the 3-4% they rose last year. Only 5%? Puh-lease. They have gone up much more than that. A loaf of wheat bread is regulary priced at $3.50 or $3.75 now, that’s more than double what I used to pay.

And I don’t know if you saw it–but I saw it both on ABC news local and national, and it was on NPR. This idea of ‘sticky prices.’ The general gist of the news stories were that-“hey, oil prices came down and then gas prices came down. We were told that food prices were going up due to high gas costs, so why aren’t food prices coming down with gas prices?”

Apparently there’s something called sticky pricing. An event, such as high oil prices, causes prices on some items to increase. But even though there was a justifiable cause, when that problem is resolved, the prices don’t come back down. Because manufacturers and retailers know that we’re just accustomed to paying these prices, so they leave them there! This phenomenon apparently will happen with groceries and air travel prices, but we can expect clothing and other items to come back down.

How annoying is that? Here is the wiki definition of sticky economics.

Well, here’s to more couponing and hoping that the retailers get more competitive with their deals.

It has been reported on several other websites that there is one variety of GUM toothbrushes that rings up at $1.25 and gives $3.99 back in ECBs. What a great deal. But I can confirm that neither Landenberg nor Jennersville has them. I haven’t checked Kennett and don’t plan to. Congrats to you if you do find them, it’s a full soft, and it says 590 on the front.