Super Savings Saturday

I had an incredible shopping trip again today! I went to Bennington, VT to Price Chopper and was able to get $167.00 in groceries for $68.00!!! I saved almost $100.00!!!

On the left you can see Carolina Rice Mixes- they were on sale for $.99 ea, and I had coupons for $.75 off 2- so I bought 10 of them for 24 cents each!!! It is hard to see but I was able to buy 3 24 packs of Nestle Pure Life water, on sale for $3.49, with $1 off coupons-so $1.49 each! The 4 Ken's Spray Dressings were free with $1 off coupons from last week's paper that were doubled, The Ronzoni Smart Taste pasta was free also, and the 2 boxes of Kashi Go Lean Waffles were $.49 cents each after coupons!!! The Eggo Waffles were $1.39 each, all of the yogurt was free! Most of the money I spent was on Meat-I bought some steaks and some lean ground beef to bulk up my bill so that I did not reach the 50% coupon rule again- that is the rule where once you have saved 50% on your bill they no longer double them. Normally I would only buy what I had coupons for, but I decided to get the meat while I was there and it worked! I only had 4 coupons that did not get doubled, I think they were for the Soymilk, which is not pictured, they needed to go into the refrigerator fast!

Grocery Trip April 5th

Ok, I just came back from a grocery shopping trip that has knocked me off my feet! I took my GPS and drove over to Bennington VT, about 40 minutes or less from my house, because they double coupons up to $1.00 in value! What a great trip I had! The picture above is of just a few things because I forgot to take one before I put them away-I am sorry-I always love to see people's pictures and marvel about how little they spent for a ton of food! (I am a geek, I know). Ok, so here is the deal and a few rules I learned-aren't you glad you have me to be marvelous and test these things out for you? I bought $158.93 worth of groceries for $62.88!!!!! Around $20.00 of that is Advantage Card Sale Savings. I bought 53 items-and my last 3 coupons did not double- the receipt says coupon rule- 50% of order reached. I am a bit confused as to what that means- since I bought about 5 products that I did not have coupons for- and I had 39 coupons, so I am guessing once you save 50% of your bill they stop doubling? Kind of lame but I will take it for the savings I did get. This is the best we can do here in Upstate NY so I think I will continue to make a trip once or month or so to stock up on good deals and snacks. I saw no difference in prices from the local area Price Chopper Stores.

Some of my best deals were Fiber One Yogurt for 79 cents a 4 pack; Green Giant Boxed Vegetables are 10 for $10 -I bought 6 and used 2 $1 off 3 coupons so I bought 6 boxes for $2; Quaker Mini Delights were $1.29 after $1 off coupons; Del Monte Superfruit Cups 50 cents after $1 off coupons! I also scored 6 bags of Bird's Eye Steamfresh Brown Rice for $1.94!!!!!!!!! They were on sale for 99 cents ea., and I bought 6, and used 2 $1 of 3 coupons!

Ok, so round trip including shopping time was about 2 hours and 45 minutes. I saved $96.05!!!! I "earned" $34.00 per hour and used about 1/4 tank of gas- about $7.50. I think it will be worth my time to take a trip over there and stock up once a month or so. I went alone today, but it was a nice drive to take with my husband next time, and we have family about 10 minutes from there, and you can't beat visiting the fam too! Also, gas is about 10 cents a gallon cheaper there! Check it out!!!

Grocery Hopping

How do I "grocery hop?" Let me count the stores....I visit Super Wal-Mart, Aldi's, Price Chopper, Hannaford, Target (ours is not a SuperTarget), Freihofer outlet, Walgreens and CVS. Those are the bargain shopping stores in my area (and some are usually not a bargain). One of the downers of the Great Northeast (besides a snowstorm every other week) is stores that double coupons are few and far between! Sales like those I've been reading about in the mid-Western states do not occur here very often. Thank goodness for the drugstore game because it is hard to save a lot on food. Luckily, we are able to save a lot on our household goods and health & beauty items by shopping at CVS and Walgreen's.
So, do I visit 7 stores every week? Are you kidding? Do you want me to have a nervous breakdown? LOL. Do I get every deal every week? No, I'm only one human mommy. So here's my strategy...first I check out the fliers and I shop my main grocery stores, Price Chopper or Hannaford for my meat. When it's cheap I stock up. For example, ground beef has not been on sale in either store for over a month. This week PC has a sale for 80% lean for $1.99/lb. That's actually a deal in our area! So I've been holding out for the last month, haven't had any ground beef in almost a month and will stock up this week. I make a note of other loss leaders at this store before I go and pick up those items and try to stay away from impulse items.
Then I hop on over to Wal-Mart or Aldi's to pick up my staples - flour, sugar, Sunny D for my kids (they don't really like the Aldi brand so they're actually kind of weaning off of the large doses they normally drink), lunch meat, rice, pasta sides, milk, eggs, frozen waffles, frozen veggies, etc. If I'm shopping at Wal-Mart this is where I use the most coupons for food items. In our area, a brand name at Wal-Mart with a good coupon is usually cheaper than a no-name brand at Aldi's.
Of course I go to CVS and Walgreen's for the majority of cleaning products,paper products, pull-ups, and health & beauty items + they also usually have a couple of good food items (like name brand cereal) that ends up being much cheaper using coupons and ecb's than it is for the generic in the grocery stores. I usually get to CVS at least once every other week. I usually only make trip - and I often have my kids with me - so it can be done with careful planning!
I am not a brand-name snob - but I do enjoy getting brand-name items (like Cheerios, Tampax, Pull-ups) for cheaper than the store brand when I can. I try to stock up then so that I can hold off buying until the next sale. That's how you start a stockpile. If you watch the sale fliers at Rite Aid, Walgreen's, and CVS, you'll notice that they have many of the same items on sale at the same time or in the weeks following each other. So I may have gotten 2 bottles of Pantene at CVS this week and next week, I will grab 2 bottles at Walgreen's. (By the way, since starting this whole coupon game, I have not spent more than $1 per bottle on Pantene Shampoo/Conditioner - cuz that's what fine-haired people have to use).
In a nutshell:
Little by little, I stock up from the best sales of each week at each store (called shopping the loss leaders), rotating which weeks I shop at which stores. I hope this made sense and helps you simplify your bargain hunting so you can save money and save your sanity, too!
Got Shopping Tips to share? We love to hear 'em!
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