Grocery Shop Analysis

Just got back from the grocery store, let's see how I did!

I spent $53.20, which was higher than I wanted. But on the positive side, $50 is the threshold to get another ten gas points so I'm now up to 70 cents off per gallon next time we fill up. Also, more will come back to me from Savingstar.

$50 a week for the two of us is not terrible, but this trip didn't include any meat and so I don't think it's representative. A couple of things pushed the number up higher than I wanted. For example, I bought $10 worth of Redpack cans of tomato to get $3 back at Savingstar. I don't need those this week and that was a ton of diced tomatoes, but I do use canned tomato frequently and I always like to have it on hand.

My bread deal went through as I had hoped. Nature's Own 100% Wheat Bread was on sale for buy one/get one and I had two coupons (one for each loaf) for 55 cents, which doubled. $3.59 was the regular price ($7.18 for both) and I got two for $1.39! That is 0.69 cents EACH! I am SO happy with that one!

The cereal was good too. Would have been even better if it was on sale but oh well. It was $3.19 (I got a slightly smaller box which wasn't as good a unit price but it came with a Skylander's thing and no I don't have kids, but I love that game! lol). I had a Weis e-coupon for 50 cents, which I think may have doubled and I had a manufacturer's coupons for 50 cents, which doubled. I'll also get 50 cents back on Savingstar. So the box came down to 0.69 cents too (Or if the one didn't double it was $1.19)

I got the 18 count eggs which were a little on sale for $2.49 (usually $3.09) and I got a 25 cent employee discount because they were Weis brand eggs, so $2.24 for 18 eggs.

Two spaghetti squash and a basket of apples were expensive (though I had 75 cents off the apples with a store coupon) and so were a couple of yams that I forgot to put on my grocery list. Milk didn't have any deals on it. Slices of provolone cheese were expensive too. And the cauliflower.

I also decided to try using baby food pouches for snacks as suggested on FLOliving.com. They're easy carry packs and they're full of nutritious fruits and veggies! I got $1 off 4 Gerbers Graduates Grabbers but I still spent $5.76 on them ($1.44 each)

The only other thing was a tomato. I picked up the free Jiffy corn meal mix from Savingstar last night.

So I'm waiting on about $4 from Savingstar, which will make my total $49.20 (but if that had been my total in store I wouldn't have gotten the gas points!)

And I just realized that I forgot pepperoni. that could be expensive too.

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Now I'm cooking my bulgogi for lunch and I'm going to work on making the apple cheese snacks to pack in my lunchbox for work later (along with one of the baby food pouches and Waldorf salad)

Coupon Victory!

I started using coupons a couple of years ago because of the show Extreme Couponers. I saw it on TLC and was inspired. I had never used a coupon before. I hadn't seen my family ever use coupons. I didn't know the first thing about it!

But I got out my notebook and I took notes while I watched the show.

I can't do the crazy shopping trips they do with getting $600 of groceries for pennies or free. But I do have some great moments with coupons.

I started out by subscribing to The Grocery Game because she does a lot of the work for you. You just need to get a source of coupons (subscribing to the Sunday paper usually costs $1-2 a week and pays for itself). The Grocery Game costs money but also usually pays for itself. I used that as training wheels until I was ready to do it on my own.

This week I scored a couple of great deals and I wanted to share my excitement with you!

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At my Weis store I saw Mucinex Allergy medication in the clearance rack. My husband takes allergy medicine every day and Mucinex is a brand he likes. Allergy medicine is super expensive so I knew I wanted those but I wondered if I could get them even cheaper.

I went home and googled for recent Muscinex coupon and found one for $2.00 off any one product through their Facebook page. We each have a Facebook account so I printed it twice.

Even though I only had coupons for two of them I still bought all the packages they had, which was six. Each box had ten pills in it, so this was 60 allergy pills.

The original regular cost would have been $68.94 (and my coworker who was ringing me up was shocked that I would spend so much on allergy medicine!)

As soon as my card was scanned the price dropped to the clearance price. Then I added my coupons and the end result was a cost of $30.47 for all six boxes. That made them $5 per box (usually $11.49) and just 50 cents per pill.

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On top of that I also needed some hair dye. I went gray at 20 and I dye my hair back to its original black. I don't do it too often but it's looking really bad right now! 

I got a paper coupon for $2.00 off a Clariol hair dye product and I went ahead and loaded an identical coupon onto my Weis card at the ecoupon center. I wasn't sure if these coupons would stack but I thought it was worth a try.

They did and I bought a box that was also on sale. So I got a $7.49 box of hair dye for $2.99 

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Next I took advantage of a Big G cereal sale. I can't eat my beloved Lucky Charms anymore because that's a lot of both white sugar and simple carbs. But my husband can eat them.

There was a special at Weis for an instant $6 off 4 boxes of Big G cereal. 

I downloaded a coupon from MyPoints.com for 50 cents off a box of Lucky Charms. It doubled at the register to a dollar and I'll get 20 points (usually ten but there's a special) to my My Points account that I can later cash out.

Then there's also a SavingStar.com coupon for 50 cents back on a box of Lucky Charms (I've found that when one site has a coupon for a product, most of the other sites have it too).

So we got 4 boxes of Lucky Charms that are usually $3.99 each and got $7.50 back. So $15.96 minus $7.50 is $8.46 for all four and that makes them $2.11 per box. (I usually try to get cereal under $2 before I buy it but this was not bad).

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The last thing was Dole frozen treats. They've got frozen chocolate covered fruit and smoothie fruit mixes. They were on special at Weis for $5 off instantly when you bought $20 worth. 

At SavingStar they had save $4 when you spend $12. 

So we bought $23 worth and got $9 back.