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This blog is my own little version of organization central. We touch on just about every aspect of home, family, and holiday organization here. It is my hope that by blogging my experiences, I can grow as an individual and perhaps inspire others to try new things and think about everyday life a little differently. So please join us in organizing for life every month of the year!

Thursday, July 17, 2014

The Great Grocery Challenge

It's time for an update on the Great Grocery Challenge. This month the goal is to save 20 dollars a week with coupons, with an overall goal of cutting our grocery bill by 15%. When I look at it week to week it is hard to calculate the 15% so I am going to save that calculation for August and do it at the end of the month by totaling all bills and seeing if I met this goal.  The reason for this is some weeks I buy more (if there are good deals) and I really don't see the savings for those until future weeks (when I don't have to buy as much.)


This week I went to both Schnucks and Walmart. The goal is 20 dollars saved with coupons so let's take a look at that first. And remember I can't cheat and just buy something to count the coupon savings!

Schnucks: $5.40
Walmart    $9.50
Justin's Employee Discount: $6.21

Total: $21.11

I know not every one has an employee discount but my son does and so as immediate family we are entitled to use it. He has had it for years and I only started using it in the last 8-9 months. It is not good on food but it is good on pet products, personal hygiene etc. It is good on food from Thanksgiving till New Years Day which was a HUGE savings this past year.

Before we examine the Schnucks receipt let me say that Schnucks can be expensive. Honestly, most things are cheaper at Walmart (and of course you can price match). However the problem I am seeing increasingly at Walmart is they are slowly shifting over to carrying predominately Great Value products. I do use Great Value at times but I'd also like some variety and some choices which Walmart is quickly eliminating. I would roughly estimate that about 75% of what is in our local store is Great Value.  They profit twice (from me shopping their store and by me buying their Great Value brand). I don't want to live in a Walmart Only World and I think we are coming to that if something doesn't halt the corporate giant from gobbling up every other store out there.

Now let's examine that Schnucks' receipt. When going there I try to shop only sales, coupons, and special deals. If you have some self control you can get out of the store with quite a bit of product and at a good price. Here's how it breaks down:

Combo Savings $3.00. This was a cereal deal with THREE big boxes of General Mills cereal for $7.00 (regularly 10 hence the three dollar savings). I also had a dollar off coupon for two boxes so the final price ended up being 3 bucks a box. That's not ultra cheap but they were big boxes and will last us 4-6 weeks.

Meat Deal: 20.67  The deal this week was five dollar packages of selected meat. The savings you see listed is the extra amount it would have cost without the sale. You had to buy at least three for the five dollar a pack deal to kick in. I bought 8. (Two hamburger, One premade fresh hamburger patties, One bag of hamburger patties (frozen), Two bags of boneless skinless chicken breasts and Two boxes of Gorton's fish.)  Although Schnuck's meat can be higher than Walmart, I made sure I checked out prices and am sure the 5.00 a package was a good deal. There were other types of meat too but these are the ones I decided on.

Reduced Price Savings: $34.66  These are items that were on sale or marked down.

Bunny Bread 1.49 plus I had a 25 cents coupon that doubled making it a dollar/ (save 1.50 plus coupon savings)
Three Lean Cuisine Meals marked down to 2.00 a box (save 6.57)
One Stouffers meal marked down to 2.00 (save 1.79)
Red Cherries on sale (saved $2.46)
GoGurt Sale (save 1.96 on two)
Ajax Dish Soap (saved 60 (on two) (also used coupons that doubled so saved another 1.00)
Iced Coffee (saved .49) Used coupon so saved another dollar)
Yoplait Yogurt (on sale 10 for 4.00 saved 3.00) Plus 40 cent coupon that doubled for another .80 in savings)
Totinos pizza rolls 10 for 8.00 (saves 13.40 which I knows a little jacked up because the price was higher than it might have been elsewhere but they still came out to .80 cents a box which is a good price)

The rest of the receipt shows the MFR coupons and the ones they doubled. It wasn't a huge haul but with the meat I already have in the freezer we are set for the next 3-4 weeks. So even though I didn't see substantial savings this week this trip will provide savings over the next 3-4 weeks when I'm not buying meat.

I'm not going to post my grocery deals every week...I mean that might get a bit boring...but I'll provide you with updates every now and then. This week I walked away with 30 dollars of my budget to tuck away for "fun trips".

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