Give Blood in Powder Springs, Get Gifts

We're all watching our family budgets these days. Whether shopping with coupons or looking for two-for-one deals, we're taking advantage of all sorts of offers and savings that help us make our dollars as valuable as possible.

Here are some that hopefully will stretch your dollars to the max:

1. Blood Drive Prizes

Deal:   in Powder Springs is set to host an American Red Cross blood drive on Wednesday. To schedule an appointment, use the access code "nhmb-ps" at the American Red Cross website.

Anyone donating blood or platelets by June 30 may enter a drawing to win 1 of 2 pairs of roundtrip Delta Air Lines tickets. Also, all donors at the church's drive will receive a free gift.

Type O negative blood is in especially high demand since it can be used with any person. As a Type O negative donor, you also may be eligible to be a double red cell donor, meaning you can donate two units of red blood cells during one donation. A special machine separates and collects two units of red cells, then safely returns the remaining blood components, plus some saline, back to you through the same arm. 

Hours: 2 to 7 p.m., Wednesday

Location: 4192 Brownsville Road, Powder Springs

Contact: 1-800-733-2767

2. Summer Movie Specials

Deal: Regal's Summer Movie Express continues with $1 movies at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at nearby cinemas in Austell and Douglasville. These movies are rated G or PG.

An ongoing special is free refills on large popcorns and large soft drinks.

Good through: Aug. 3

Locations: Regal Stadium 22, 2480 East-West Connector in Austell; Arbor Place Stadium 18, 6600 Douglas Blvd. in Douglasville

Contacts: 770-439-9336, Austell; 678-838-0041, Douglasville

3. $5 Tuesday Movies

Deal: Out of all the Regal cinemas in Georgia, Austell's is the only one where you can view any movie at any time for $5 only on Tuesdays. Regal Value Days involve extra charges, however, for 3D movies. Also, holidays may be excluded. 

Good through: Ongoing

4. Free Museums for Military Families

Deal: This summer, Blue Star Families and the National Endowment for the Arts—along with more than 1,300 museums across America—are offering free admission to families with a parent or spouse serving in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their goals: help children who have had at least one parent deployed, and to offer the families a chance to visit museums this summer when many will have limited resources and limited time to be together. Up to five family members, including spouses and children, may enter with each military ID.

More than 1,300 museums in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and American Samoa are participating as Blue Star Museums. A list of participating museums may be found by clicking here. Blue Star museums in metro Atlanta are: 

• A Southern Trilogy (the three historic house museums of Roswell)
• Atlanta History Center
• The Breman Jewish Heritage and Holocaust Museum, Atlanta
• Centers for Disease Control / Global Health Odyssey Museum, Atlanta
• Center for Puppetry Arts, Atlanta
• Heritage Sandy Springs Museum
• High Museum of Art, Atlanta
• Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Atlanta
• Margaret Mitchell House, Atlanta
• Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University, Atlanta
• The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA), Atlanta

Good through: Sept. 5

5. Coupon Mom Free Videos and Operation Expiration for Military

Deal: Attached to this article are two videos on how to coupon from Atlanta's Stephanie Nelson, who is nationally known as "The Coupon Mom." Her website is free, listing weekly grocery and drugstore specials. Her 4 million members save money every week with her 7 national store lists and 44 grocery store lists that are updated each Wednesday.

All grocery store deals that are 50 percent or higher may be found in her Extreme Grocery Deals list by state. (These lists cannot be seen unless you sign up for your free membership.)

She saves you the work of clipping a lot of coupons by showing you which newspaper circular (weekly for SmartSource and RedPlum and monthly for Procter & Gamble) contains the coupons you may want.

Eighty percent of grocery coupons come from the Sunday newspaper. Then about 15 minutes is needed to cut out your coupons when using the Coupon Mom list. (This system also works when using the also-free SouthernSavers.com.)

With your expired coupons, you can help the U.S. military by mailing them to those listed on Nelson's Operation Expiration list. Organizers request that participants send coupons that are expired by only a month or two, and sort them into categories.