The Great Grocery Challenge Week Three

It's time for another grocery challenge update!  This week has been super busy with happy and sad news so my mind has been occupied with things besides blogging. Such is life!

Employee Discount amount= $9.72

Paper Coupons= $18.92

Ibotta Credit: $8.25 plus 1.50 in bonus for a total of $9.75 that I transferred to my PayPal. I'm going to use this towards my Christmas shopping. I just started so I won't accumulate a ton by the end of the year but every little bit helps. So far I have a total of $21.00 and that's just in two weeks!

TOTAL= $38.39  Now that's a nice amount for really very little work. I also stocked up on some items that I won't be needing now for awhile. Sometimes people find it hard to stock up during good deals because they look only at the weekly budget but you really have to take a longer range approach. Now I don't stock up TONS....like you see some people doing where they have to rotate their stock, watch expiration dates etc. However if there's a good deal and it will "keep me" in something for 3-6 months (or even weeks) I go for it,

I'll give you an example. It's not even the most profitable one I've ever done but its one from this week.

Excedrin is a product we use on a fairly regular basis. I know some of you don't and that's fine, I'm simply using it as an example (insert whatever product you use regularly).

This is $ 9.74 at Walmart for the 100 count bottle but they happened to have some bonus bottles where you get 25 extra tablets PLUS I had $2.50 cents off coupons that were good for this week only. Now who really wants to spend $7.24 on a bottle of Excedrin? No one really BUT if you know it is something you are going to use you might as well "fork over" the money when you can get a good deal (25% more in each bottle plus the $2.50 coupon). I had two....I bought two....quite a hefty investment but guess what? I don't have to worry about buying it again for a LONG time.

You have to invest money to make money or in couponing you have to invest money to SAVE money. It's a mind set that I've had to work on. You also have to balance it. I don't need to buy four or six or ten bottles of Excedrin....even if they don't expire....you know WHY? Because by the time I run out of these two bottles there will be another good deal. I don't have to take up valuable shelf space. I just have to be aware of my families needs and buy accordingly.

Here are a couple smaller and more short term items.

Clorox Bleach Spray. I use it a lot in my kitchen/counter tops etc. I had a 75 cents off coupon that was going to expire. That made it a good enough deal to buy even though currently I am not "out" of it.  Same with Resolve stain spray for laundry. I had a dollar off that was going to expire. I still have a half full bottle but I used the coupon and bought another. This isn't a great stock up deal but still worth it.  Let me also say there were coupons getting ready to expire that I decided not to use on some other items. I left them on the shelves for others to snag if they needed them.

Overall I think my grocery challenge is going very well.  I'm saving between $30-40 dollars a week. That adds up!!

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".

Move It Out and Repurposing

So it's another Move It Out Monday...the fun never ends!  I've been working this morning on cleaning out a couple drawers and my January through December files also.

I went through all of the January through December files and eliminated about 90% of the stuff in them. So the files are clear and ready for 2013! Yeah me!

The picture above shows a little antique wash stand that I decided to move from the living room into a corner of the kitchen. Some of my best decluttering occurs when I decided to MOVE something. So I've cleaned out the top drawer of you can not imagine...toys, crayons, old candles, papers, you name it and it was probably in there. Now it contains my coasters, some candle holders, and some party supplies. There's lots more room in the drawer but I plan to keep napkins and such in there. Now there are two more drawers in this little stand but I'm not sure when I will get to them. I have to say that the bottom drawer is pretty well clean and organized though.

I decided to place a little Valentine's (love) display on the stand to bring a little color into the kitchen.  I used my FREE printable Valentine's subway art, a red candle and a minature pitcher and glasses that I also have in red. I have talked a lot about repurposing and this is what I mean. Find some random pieces that you already have and create something cute!

Now the metal basket I already had from a flea market find but I wasn't sure what to put in it. I wanted to make some Valentine's balls using ribbon but when I went to buy the styrofoam balls at Walmart they were $4.67 for TWO of them. I wanted four so I wandered around and happened over to the Christmas clearance, where I found the gold balls you see in the basket. They were missing a little gold and they are really ornaments but for 25 cents a piece the price was right! I turned them so you can't see the top of the ornaments and they look just like the "fancy" balls you see...which cost a lot more than 25 cents each!

I know it's not fancy smancy....but it makes me smile every time I see it in the kitchen corner. I'll try to post each time that I swtich out the items so you can take a peek at my kitchen corner too!

It's Frugal Friday: Halloween Countdown

It's A Halloween Countdown made with Hershey's kisses!  Cute and affordable!  Details over at Infarrantly Creative.

Wild Card Wednesday: Repurposing for Easter

Super cute use of baby food jars from: Good Housekeeping.

 Soft stripes....jars from: Woman's Day!

 

Easter Egg Garland made from paint chips. Idea from: Blue Velvet Chair

I couldn't remmber if I featured the paint chip garland before or not...and it's such a great idea I'm including it in this post just in case I missed using it before!

See you on Frugal Friday!! .

Frugal Friday: Easter Centerpiece Idea

It's Thrifty Friday and today I'm featuring a centerpiece idea from over at: BaerHome Design.
This is just one of them, there are several over on the blog so be sure to hop over and take a look!  I love the little peeps in this one....and the wonderful colors...who knew...some jellybeans, peeps, and flowers could transform a glass bowl into a pretty display! 

Little vs Big Sizes

So here are six little bottles of Wisk laundry detergent I bought at Walgreens. Each one cost .99 and does 12 loads for a total of 72 loads. Right beside these little gems was a larger bottle of Wisk that did 48 loads....on sale for 6.99 minus a dollar register reward so 5.99.....Hmmm....seems in this case the little gems are the better deal PLUS.......

Each of those hang tags have a $1.50 coupon on the back, good for a larger size bottle thorugh July. BONUS! 

Now I will say I have a 2.00 off coupon so I might take another look at that larger sized bottle...bringing it down to 3.99 it might be a thrifty buy! :)

Coupons and Savings

When my children were little I did a lot of couponing and refunding to make ends meet but gradually over the years drifted away from it. Now with the economy the way it is and retirement looming. I decided it was worth another look. It's a whole new world out there with the internet and the ability to actually google and print specific coupons. It's still a challenge to find ones for products I actually use but it's like a treasure hunt. There are couple sites I really like. One is CouponDivas. They do a really good job of keeping track of coupons that are pritnable on other sites and they also mathc the coupons up with weekly sales at places like Walgreens, Krogers, Walmart and Target. For printing coupons RedPlum usually has a lot to offer. Most of the times they have printable versions of coupons that came in the Sunday paper so you can pick and choose to print extras of ones you know you will use by the expiration date. Coupon Cat has a list of coupons available so you can read the list and click on ones to print at other sites. Coupon Mom is a good source also along with Smart Source

So now that you have some great sources for coupons how do you store them and use them? I am setting up a binder. I actually want one of those large binders that zip shut but for now I am using a smaller one that I had on hand. The plactic inserts are actually baseball card holders. You can usually pick them up in the office supply section of Walmart pretty cheap. They are designed for baseball card collectors but work well for coupons. In the past I always just used a little file box...but that's a pain when you are digging for coupons. This way I can see them at a glance. If they are large I fold them so the expiration date/product is visible. You can also purchase similar protective sheets that are set up for photos and they are bigger slots on them.

The Bed

Here's a picture of the bed I bought at the flea market for 85 dollars. It was black but I spray painted it white! I really like it! The picture doesn't show the quilt as clearly as I'd like because I took it with my phone...it has lavendar flowers with also green and yellow in it.

Update on Grocery Project

Well as I wrote earlier...I am trying to make it until August 23rd before I take another trip to the Budget store...last time we used Save a Lot but this month it will be a trip back to Aldis. Most of our canned goods are still in good shape. I must say that my weekly trips have been somewhat less but not down to the level I'd like. So I will continue to work on that.

I am considering adding paper products and laundry detergent as well as some other monthly supplies to the Aldis list this go round and see how that works. Honestly it seems like I go down several aisles in Walmart without picking up anything so I always hope for bigger savings. I am just wondering if grocery prices are up that much. I estimate that I am saving about 25 weekly with the monthly shopping trip but I'd like to increase that to a 50 dollar savings.

I also need to clean out the pantry...AGAIN...so I can make the rest of August and into September's menus...then I will be using up some items I stocked up on but honestly I have been working most of the stuff into our menus pretty regularly.

I am not giving up however...I figured at least six months to really fine tune the project and then see is it continues to make it worth while. I must say regardless of savings...it is nice to be stocked up and just to open the cabinet for something!

Grocery Budgeting

Okay with this wild upward swing in gas prices...the price of everything else goes up too....so I am searching for ways to be more thrifty. We spend WAY too much for groceries and so this is an area that I have been working on. So here is my little adventure in a nutshell ....reduce my weekly grocery bill by 25%....wow...quite a challenge! Can I do it? We shall see. Now you may find it outrageous to know that I spend about $175.00-$200.00 a week on groceries. This does however include everything from shampoo to laundry detergent...and of course the randon things that just seem to make it into the cart while at Walmart. It is also for 4 adults and sometimes 5 at a meal. So regardless of whether it is more or less than you spend...it is what it is...and I plan on cutting it by 25%

Action Plan:

1. Shop once a month at an Aldis or Save A Lot store to stock up on ALL things except...meat, milk, eggs, and fresh fruit and veggies and maybe the occassional bag of chips! LOL. Also not included will be laundry detergent, shampoo, paper products etc...more about those later. Once a month shopping budget $200.oo

2. Weekly: Go to which ever local store has the best weekly sales for above mentioned food products...with a weekly total of no more than $100.00 I actually would like to shoot for $75.00 because the other $25.00 can be used for paper products, laundry detergent etc...bought once a month at Walmart. This however will take some time to fine tune and see what is what!

So if this calculates out:

$200.00 once a month at a discount food place
$75.00 once a week at regular grocery store = $300 for the month
$100.00 once a month at Walmart or other store for laundry detergent, shampoo, paper products etc.

So that drops my monthly bill from $800.00 to $600...a savings of 25%
I am thinking I might even be able to do a little better over time but this is a work in process so there are a lot of unknowns and tracking to do for it to work. My husband is working with me on "the plan" and so getting those monthly menus in place are even more important than ever! I'll be back later to give you my menu plans for July.

Kitchen Chatter

Okay tomorrow....I will be back to add July's menu plans and talk a bit about how I am going to try saving grocery money by shopping once a month. I'm going to be posting monthly lists, money totals, and how I'm doing over the next few months to see if this approach actually saves me money. Everyone's grocery budget is different so you may find mine crazy...but I will start with the basic amount I generally spend and then try to reduce it...more about all this later!!

Shopping in the Pantry

Okay today I am using a little technique I learned over at Cindy's Porch

I learned about Cindy's Porch from JackFrosty's Blog where she says she learned about it from CanadianJingles, another Magical Holiday Home member. Wow, the sharing just goes on and on, like a ripple when you throw a stone in the pond!

Anyway, this snow day is causing me to ramble! Cindy's Porch is a site with lots of tips for frugal living and getting out of debt. A big goal for most of us I assume. I am following her principle for a CASH CHRISTMAS 2008 and have my change jar all ready with the cute label she has to share on the site.

Anyway back to the topic of this post "shopping in the pantry". Since I need to get my March menu plans finalized AND Thursday's "to do" list room is the KITCHEN. I am straightening the pantry and as I discover ingredients that got sort of tucked away or lost or just ignored.....I am weaving them into my menu plans for March. Honestly I need to do this more often but busy weeks do not always allow for this! So I'm not gonna fret about all the "should dos"....I'm doing it today and its like a treasure hunt.

I'll try to get my March Menu Calendar up later today when the treasure hunt is finished!!