Grocery Savings

I've talked about this before in my blog and people have asked about it in conversation, but I am a big saver when it comes to shopping. My friend Christy introduced me to The Grocery Game about a year and a half ago and I have become a sale nazi. My kids have learned that if it is not in the house then it is not on sale! It has helped us tremendously with our grocery budget and has made me aware of what are good prices and what are not. I used to be the person who just bought everything at Walmart because it was the cheapest or just bought generic. Well, Walmart has us all fooled because they are definitely not the cheapest if you pay attention, and if you watch sales, you don't always have to buy generic.

The basic concept of The Grocery Game is that you choose the store or stores that you are going to shop at, and each weekend, they publish the sale list from that store. Along with that, they list all the coupons that are out that correspond with those items on sale so that you can stock up while things are at the low prices. These coupons are from the newspaper as well as from internet sites. When I first started, I was all about stocking up as much as I could but found that I was still spending a lot. Yes I was getting everything on sale but my bill was still high because I was buying more of everything. After a few weeks, I realized I needed to set my weekly budget and then stay within that range. My budget stays around $50 a week, sometimes less sometimes more, if there are sales on some bigger items (i.e. toilet paper and paper towels). I have the Sunday paper delivered every week for the coupons but also get several off the internet. My friend Christy who introduced me to this, gets several papers so that she can have multiple coupons and stock up more, but she also has a larger family and this works for her. I haven't found a need for that yet.

Some items that I keep stocked are definitely cereal because we eat a lot of it. We have had as many as 12 boxes at once and I never spend more than a $1.50 a box (that is the high end...usually it is around $1 or less). Condiments, spaghetti/sauce, snacks, rice, brownies, canned goods, are some of the things I regularly have because they go on sale often and cheap.

When I went shopping this week, I decided to take a picture of all that I bought just to show the amount that I was able to buy for our weekly groceries for a great price. There are people out there that get even lower than I do, and I am working to figure out all the secrets. But for now, we are saving a ton of money and I enjoy doing it.

First of all this was my greatest savings of the week. 12 big rolls of Bounty paper towels and 24 rolls of Charmin toilet paper are anywhere from $14.99-17.99 depending on the week and where you shop. This week at Randalls they were on sale for $9.99 if I bought two things listed (meaning I could have bought two paper towels, two toilet paper, mix and match, or one with something else on the list.) On top of that already good price, I had a $3 coupon for each one from pgesaver.com (Proctor and Gamble website) which made them $6.99 and then a .25 coupon for each which is tripled to .75 which made them $6.24. I also had a dollar coupon for the Charmin which I got in the mail so the toilet paper was $5.24. Instead of spending a total of $32.98 (Randalls regular price), I spent 11.48! That is a 66% savings!

Above is everything I bought this week at Randalls and Kroger. 9 boxes of cereal, 2 Eggo waffles, two boxes of Nature Valley Granola Bars, 2 bottles of Lea and Perrins Worchestershire Sauce, Sara Lee Bread, 2 Dole 4 packs of peaches, 3 boxes of Crest toothpaste, 4 bars of Oil of Olay soap, 2 bottles of Old Spice Body Wash, a Jennie-O turkey loin, milk, 2 16 oz containers of strawberries, a pint of blueberries, 6 granny smith apples, 3 peaches, a container of cherry tomatoes, grapes, broccoli, 6 cucumbers, 24 pack of water, 2 packs of Orbit gum, and of course the paper towels and toilet paper. Total cost, full price would have been $141.88. I paid $69.68! That is a 51% savings!

That is more than I would normally spend but I restocked all my cereal because we were down to 1 box and then of course I had the toilet paper and paper towels which are something I get every 6 weeks or so. The sale on the cereal was not as good as it can be but we were low so I got what I could for as little as possible. I also bought a lot of fruit because we all eat a lot being home this summer. I have included two more pictures a little more close up so that you can see what I got.

So here was a little view into one of my hobbies I guess you could call it. I have learned a lot and would love to share with anyone who is interested.