Grocery Results

I have been so busy this week! I went shopping on Monday and here it is Thursday and I'm just reconciling my receipts with my budget.

Here's how I did:

Walgreens:

Trans #1
5.99 Tide
-.50 coupon for Tide
.89 Reynolds wrap foil (raincheck from last week)
.89 again
3.29 Colgate toothpaste
-.75 coupon for Colgate
14.99 Blink Tears

Total: 26.84 w/tax
This transaction had all kinds of problems. First they rang up the eyedrops @ the wrong price, and the coupons that would have given me the foil for free the cashier wouldn't accept. Oh well, still a good price.

Rec'd $4.29 RR's



Trans #2 (fixing the eyedrops)
Refund 14.99
7.99 Eyedrops

Rec'd back $8.00 RR + 14.99 cash

Out of Pocket for those 2: $6.30

Trans #3
1.99 2pks of Ritz crackers (b1g1)
1.99 2pks of Ritz crackers (b1g1)
-2.00 Ritz coupon (so four pks of Ritz for 1.99!)
3.29 Colgate
-.75 Colgate coupon
5.99 Tide
-.50 Tide coupon

Total $10.94 w tax
Rec'd back $4.29 RR's
Out of Pocket: $6.65

free toothpaste (plus 1.50 towards my other purchases)
and 4.99 for the Tide is a good price
The only thing I didn't do great on is the foil...but .89/ea isn't a BAD price, I just know I could have done better, but didn't want to hold up the line or have them take it off.
Total OOP: $12.95

Dillons
2 Tortilla chips $1/ea
2 Wheat Bread .88/ea
10# bag potatoes 2.99
3 Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls 2.29/ea
-.55 coupon doubled to $1
-30 coupon doubled to .60 x2
2 Dole pineapple chunks $1/ea
-.75 coupon doubled to $1 x2
2 Kraft American Singles $2.50 ea
-.49 x2
Total Out of Pocket $26.49

So total for the day: $39.44 well within my $80/wk limit

The Grocery Plan

The mission...
To get the deals, not overspend the budget and to get the most for the money each and every week.

The obstacles...
The grocery store is riddled with traps to grab the ill-prepared customer.

The weapons...
A menu plan for the week, including THE LIST of items needed as priority one, the list of great deals that can be picked up as loss leaders this week as priority two, thoroughly researched ads and clipped coupons, and a shopper who is not in a hurry. Remember that comparing prices (and the prices of store brand vs coupon) is crucial to being successful at this mission.

If you choose to accept this mission...
Your grocery budget will be maximized helping your family to eat nutritious and fabulous meals at the fraction of the cost that other families are paying for less nutritious or even (gasp!) takeout meals...which is highway robbery!

This message will self destruct in five seconds...

Don't worry, I'm not going to blow up your computer. I would, however, like to tell you about my mission this week and then report back later with the results at how I did with my weekly shopping report.


Kmart

I'm just going into Kmart for the free toothpaste. Yes, I said free toothpaste.

Colgate Total Advance normally $2.00
on sale this week 1/$1 + $1 off coupon = free!!

Walgreens

Pepsi 5/$15.00
Doritos 2/$5
(spending $20.00 on these items to get back $10.00 in register rewards)

Also checking out the Special K 2 pk for $4.99
It is supposed to have a $1.00 peelie and if that does turn into 2 cereals for 3.99 I'll take them!


Aldi's

Potatoes 5lb bag of bakers $1.99
Onions 3lb bag .79ea
Going to price check the cereal here for deals
also look for manager specials in meat and clearance
Price checking chili before I buy the 10/10 at Dillons

Dollartree

Using my allowance money for February birthday cards/greeting cards. It was another of my resolutions to be more organized in this area. I am buying cards a month at a time the last (or close to last) week of the month to send out as needed with my bills. So far, so good! At Dollartree the cards are affordable, only .50/each.

Dillons

They are supposed to be having a mega meat sale. I'll check it out.

Chops & Roast advertised 1.99/lb
thin sliced steak 2.99/pk (didn't specify size, etc)
Avacados 10/10
Salad 10/10
Stagg Chili 10/10
Frozen Veggies 10/10
Sour cream 10/10
Cheerios (GM cereal) 3/$8 + $1 off 3 coupon = 3/$7 (2.33/ea for brand name cereals)
Fast Fixin Chicken (Chicken nuggets, strips, etc) 10/10
Kroger OJ concentrate 10/10
Kroger Toaster Tarts 10/10
Kroger Pretzels/Tortilla Chips 10/10

They are also having a DVD sale. We will go browse this, but probably won't get anything unless we see a great bargain and still have money left over.



Ok, I will report back in the afternoon after we've had our day of shopping to give you the results of our trip.

How did your shopping trip go? Please let me know about the deals you got this week in the comments. Have a great Monday!

Grocery Results

Yesterday Abby and I went for our weekly shopping and errand trip. We first dropped off a jacket at the drycleaners, dropped off some paperwork to an office for Jason and then we went to the DAV (Disabled Veterans thrift store) to look around for anything that we might want or use. I picked up a canning tool for 29 cents. It would retail for probably 12-15 bucks. Abby found an absolutely essential ziploc bag full of My Little Ponies for a dollar. Something unusual that happened was when we were in line, a woman behind me asked, "now what is that thing that you have there?" I would have thought because of her age (60s?) she would have known. I realize that canning is something alot of people don't do anymore, but I would have thought that someone from my parents generation would have at least grown up around it.

Then we went to Walgreens to pick up their pepsi deal, total $16.06 and ($5.00) register reward=$11.06. Jason drinks at least two pepsi's while he's at work so instead of paying .50/ea from the machine, I paid $2/12pk. That makes them $.18/ea (inc. tax). Next we went to the discount bread store. I got two loaves of bread, some cereal and snack/lunch items for $11.29. Abby loves our grocery trips because I will always stop at McDonald's and let her have a happy meal and play on the playground. She gets her happy meal for less than $3 and I will get a large drink for a dollar more. I usually bring something to work on while she's playing with the other kids on the equipment, paperwork I need to fill out, an article I've intended to read but haven't gotten around to, etc. This week I finished cutting out the coupons from Sunday's paper and organizing them into my coupon binder.

After the lunch break, it was time for the serious shopping...Dillons. When I compared my coupons with store deals this week, I only ended up using one coupon. The .55 off Healthy Choice soup (Jason's lunch), it was doubled so I only paid .69. My grand total this week was $74.89 (Kroger savings $9.31). I also get .10 off my gas for each $100 I spend there. I haven't even tracked that savings at all. I should, after I get this coupon tracking down. After the boy helped me out with the groceries, we filled up our gas tank (saving .10/gallon) and headed home.

Totals to grocery budget:
(74.89) Dillons
(11.29) discount bread store
(16.06) Walgreens
5.00 Register Rewards
97.24 for trip 3



$450.00 Budgeted Amount
(115.16) trip 1
(126.00) trip 2
( 97.24) trip 3
$ 111.60 left to use for remainder of month