Quick grocery post and birthday freebies - November 7, 2010

• A few days ago I went with a friend to Trader Joe's and spent about $25.
• Today we went to Publix and spent $64. I only used two coupons - a free kid meal coupon from Bzzagent (my review/thoughts to come) and $1 off Laughing Cow. When I checked my receipt at the car, I saw that Laughing Cow was on sale 2/$4 even though it wasn't marked, making it $1 after coupon. Score! Wish I'd known - I have four more coupons. Hopefully the deal will still be on the next time we go to the store.
• Birthday freebies so far - free Coldstone (used today), free Starbucks drink, BOGO at Sweet Tomatoes (I probably won't use this), $5 off at Jason's Deli, BOGO at Brusters. I should also get a free drink at Dunkin Donuts and a free burrito from Moe's. (My birthday is November 13.)
• I'm obsessing over/thinking strongly about buying a Keurig (or Cuisinart K-Cup machine) for my birthday. We were given a Tassimo years ago as a gift (we didn't request it) and I thought it was just OK, but I also didn't drink much coffee back then. The Tassimo is in storage, but we may bring it back out to see if that will scratch the itch. But I've found that there are more/better varieties of K-cups than T-discs, that K-cups are cheaper (via Amazon - the ones that are on subscribe and save are GREAT deals and I have free Prime through Amazon mom so they'd be free shipping...) and that you can make your own K-cups in a bunch of different ways. Do you have a Keurig? What are your thoughts? (Oh, and my friend has one and I love playing with it when I am at her house - mostly I make hot chocolate there, since I'm usually over in the evening, so I have no real experience with coffee with it. I did play with the coffee K-cups when my husband worked in an office that had Keurig machines long ago and found it just fine for my needs.)
• If you're wondering, I make coffee every day. Usually I use a French press and sometimes I make instant (using a bunch of instant coffee sticks I got for free - I'm almost out now). I love flavored coffee and I sometimes (rarely) treat myself to a coffee shop drink. Those are equally about the calories and the financial cost though. I have made some amazing iced coffee drinks with my Vitamix, but I always used instant for those. What if I could make fast brewed coffee and THEN dump it in the Vitamix....oooh.
• It's almost my birthday!