Shopping Day Saturday

I think Saturdays may become my normal shopping day. The store is a little more crowded but it just seems to fit in my schedule better for now. This week I just went to Kroger. I did not find that I needed anything at Walmart this week. Kroger's had a Mega Sale and it was full of really good deals, even if you did not have coupons for some of the items. Like Rotel- at 40 cents a can. You just can't beat that. We eat a lot of queso around here and love Rotel for things like enchiladas so I stocked up. Another item I stocked up on was Kraft cheese. I had 5 coupons for $1 off 2. That meant I got 10 bags for $1 each. Great deal. I had a BOGO for Always products- 2 of those. What was nice was she gave me the org price of $3+ for the second one so instead of the sale price of $2.49 for each first product I got them for an additional $1 off. Making 4 Always products $1.49 each. I was highly impressed. Another item I did really well on was I can't believe its not butter. I must admit I tend to be pretty loyal to brand. This is not one I would generally buy. However, it is really hard to pass up a sale for 99 cents on the two pack when you have a $1 off coupon.
I feel I did pretty good. I do not have pictures this week as honestly all but the cold food is still in the bags. We still do not have our side room finished so I can't even put all the food away. The table from last week still has last weeks food on it. I think we might try to just put it all in containers for now since my husband will probably have overtime all week and not get to it until next weekend. It is a pretty funny site to start a stockpile and have so much food and no where for it to all go. I miss the old days of having a pantry in my kitchen.
So the breakdown
I paid 105.27- included 2 papers
MFG savings 43.82
Bonus Coupons 4.00
Kroger Plus $85.05
Total Savings $132.87

Not too bad. I must admit my cashier was the best yet. I handed her this forever stack of coupons and she laid them in two piles and pulled them one at a time. She would even print the receipt- which she did three times to make sure coupons scanned. She was so highly impressed. However the very nice but young bagging person said even though I saved so much she would rather not go to all the work. I'd like to see her unemployed and with three kids then see how she feels :-) For me it is worth every penny we saved. I just hope I can get even better at it because I only had the $100 to play with this week due to a quilt sale. Normally our weekly budget for food is more like $20-40. Pretty hard to feed a family of five on that.

Oh and we bought $10 in rotel items so I will submit my receipt to get $25 in savings back from ConAgra Foods.

SnapFish Deal

I just purchased a planner. Nothing special really but I am always looking for a way to advertise my quilts. I was able to put 6 pictures on the front cover. I used a quilt, pillowcase, closeup of a print with embroidery, T-Shirt Quilt, burp rag and potholder/towel set. Not too bad, gives an idea of my items for now. I was able to get it for $1.61. Pretty cool. I chose for it to have lined paper. I want to track my orders using it. It is small enough to fit in my purse. A Big thank you to Frugal Coupon Living for the tip.
1 Notebook 9.99
6-photo collage
Cost of stationary gift 9.99
$10 Discount 9.99
Subtotal $0.00
S&H and Tax My cost $1.61

Small Town Store Trip

The last two stops I made were very quick. The first was Food Basket. They have a free item every week that we take advantage of. This week was a 4 pk of toilet paper. Then they had a coupon for 2 cans of Tuna- Starfish for .29 cents I believe. That is all I got..so my bill was .58 cents.
My friend Pam gave me one of these pages from the Chronicle Wed ad we get in the mail, so now I can send Paul in tomorrow with .60 cents to do it again. I am thankful he does not mind.


Last trip was another local store Brookshire Brothers. They had Trix cereal 2 for $4. I tried to price match at Walmart but it was not the same price, and Krogers was higher so- I made the stop. Its not far from the house, so not really a big deal. I had two coupons each $1 off. I paid exactly $2 for both boxes and then a coupon printed out for $1.50 off 3 boxes. I have a coupon right now for .55 cents so I will go back tomorrow and pick up 4 more boxes.. I like to store house cereal because I often cook things the kids will not eat.

Walmart Shopping Trip

This trip I made because I had some bagel coupons for $1 off the purchase of 2. They cost $1.37 normally. I also had a coupon for Kraft Cheese, always a wonderful find. Walmart has the cheapest price right now on that too. My friend Pam had given me a fish stick coupon, which is great because that is a meal Zekaryah wanted for his birthday week. Classico was also cheaper at Walmart, even cheaper this week then what I normally buy and I had one of those buy $2 get so much off on that as well. I was so excited to use so many printed coupons at Walmart. Usually I don't have much for there because the sale at Kroger's will cover the items I need. This week that was not the case. I even was able to get some dishwasher soap- which I will stretch out with the Borax and Washing Soda.
I did ask them to price match on the Progresso soups- Randall's had them for $1.11 - Walmart's price was $1.50 and I had coupons that varied for all the cans I purchased. She did that without hesitation. Then Paul needed green tomatoes so I asked her to match the price in produce. Again she was wonderful so we got the tomatoes, onion and jalapenos for 59 cents a lb instead of Walmarts price which was at least 30 cents more a lb.
So full price items on this trip were the chips, face scrub, milk, manicure set, green onions, cream cheese, limes, garlic, then two detergents, otherwise I used coupons.
My savings outside of price matching was $9.60 cents. Not great but not bad...money saved is money saved.

Kroger's Shopping Trip

I started with Kroger's this week because I had some coupons that worked with the 10 for $10 sale they were hosting this week. I also saw a couple things in the ad that I was interested such as Stayfree/Carefree for $2.49 and then I had a coupon for $1 off. I also had a couple coupons for Wheaties Cereal- the new one called Fuel, and they had it on sale. I am thankful to my friend Pam who gave me a couple of Pillsbury coupons. It helped me get 9 for less than I would have spent, as the only 10 for $10 this week were the smaller ones and I didn't have 3 coupons total for that. I took advantage of a couple of sales in addition to coupons and the 10 for $10 and did really well this week, not as good as a month ago though, I had so many more coupons on that trip.
Breakdown of how I did
MFG Cpn $14.05
Bonus Cpn $1.95
Kroger plus savings 26.41
Total coupons $42.36
I spent $62.86 more than i wanted to but I stocked up on some can soup and pineapple. Neither of which I had coupons for. Bummer as I did have Campbell's coupons a month ago, but they are now expired. :-( I was still pleased. I got one of the packages of Carefree for .19 plus tax...I had a coupon for $1 off a package I was buying that I already had a coupon for $1 for.. I just simply peeled it off that package, picked up a different one that was for $1.19 and then it came to .19 cents. A great find... one side note I did have to pay full price for two items- the cranberry juice. I didn't have juice coupons and I really do like the Cran-Straw that Kroger's sells- they are the only place I can ever find it. So for me I am willing to fork over the 1.99 each. Then I also did pick up a Sunday Paper so that was an additional $2. I need to look into getting that cheaper somewhere.