Grocery Shopping

I did my main "payday" grocery shopping yesterday and found several really good deals. I haven't been budgeting, couponing, ad-watching and deal finding as well as I should have been over the last year and I intend to change that. I have been inspired by a great blog call Money Saving Mom. I encourage anyone that is looking for budgeting help to check it out.

In total I spent $117 for $158 in groceries. I could have done better I am sure, but mega buying usually takes a month or 2 before supplies in the pantry are high enough to only be able to by the GREAT deals. I look forward to that time coming. When I worked really hard at my deal-watching and coupon clipping before I almost never spent more than $50 on groceries each week and that included all household items, dog food, tolietries and diapers. I would love to hit that mark again.

Family Dollar
We made a special trip to this store for 1 item. Normally I probably wouldn't have done this, but it was on the way and you will understand why in a minute. We needed Snausages (a dog treat) for Sadie (we didn't need them, but she loves them). They are $3-4 at Walmart and Kroger for 1 bag. They are a $1 a bag at Family Dollar and I had a $1 off coupon so we paid $.07 for her dog treats. I think that made it well worth the 5 minutes that it took to stop there.

Walgreens
I really think that Walgreens is the best store to shop at when you are deal shopping. I bought a 16 pack of Kotex pads for $3.19. I used a $1 off store coupon and a $2 off manufacturers coupon so I paid $0.19 for them. I bought a 20 count bottle of Advil PM for $3, minus the $2 manufacturers coupon for that, so I paid $1 for that. I also bought a fancy toothbrush for full price ($3.99) but I will get a full rebate on that. So I paid $5.50 and received $2 in register rebates, a $1 coupon for another bottle of Advil PM and I will get $3.99 rebated later. So, they actually paid me about $1 to shop at their store :) Cool huh???

Walmart
Here is what I bought for $78.02. I used a $1.50 coupon for diapers and $1 coupon for cereal.
10 lbs. ground beef
2 boxes of margarine
1 tub of margarine
44 lb bag of dog food
2 24pks of water
1 gallon of milk
1 small bag of cough drops
1 bag of Honey Nut Scooters (small one)
1 jumbo bag of newborn Pampers
1 flannel pj set for my hospital bag

Kroger
Here is what I bought for $34.75. I used a coupon for the Tyson Chicken Breasts. I saved $25.02 by shopping for only sale items.

5 cans Grands biscuits (98 cents each)
10 Banquet dinners (59 cents each)
6 2 liter bottles of Pepsi ($1 each)
Tyson chickens breasts ($1.77 lb)
10 bags of Lipton rice or noodles ($1 each)
3 lbs of red seedless grapes ($1.28 a lb)

I hope that this encourages someone else to work and lower their grocery budget as much as possible. Lowering your grocery budget doesn't mean that you have to eat beans and rice or that you have to make everything from scratch. I love to buy our favorite convenience foods at a greatly reduced price so that we can enjoy our busy lives :)

Blessings and have a great weekend!
Carie