Economic Endeavors

As I mentioned in my previous post, I do the bulk of my grocery shopping at Aldis every two weeks. However, each week I make at least one trip to Publix to stock up on the items I can get for free or nearly free after coupons. This week was a great week, I was able to get $86 worth of groceries for $1.20.

Here's how I did it:

First, I went to the Publix thread at hotcouponworld.com. I clicked on the thread for this week's sales ad and looked it over for any items I could get for free or nearly free after coupons. All of the coupons I used this week were printed from the internet.

The items that caught my attention were:

Post Cereal, Assorted Varieties, Selects, 13 to 16-oz, or Grape Nuts Flakes, 18-oz BOGO $3.99
-$2/1 PRINT (if trail mix crunch included)
-$2/1 PRINT(if Pecan bunches included) (I couldn't get this coupon to print, or I would have gotten 8 boxes of this cereal as well)

Kellogg's Pop-Tarts, Assorted Varieties, 8-ct, 14 to 15.2-oz box BOGO $2.39 **Fuel For School Rebate Eligible Item
-$.75/1 Target IP PRINT
-$.55/1 Blueberry Muffin PRINT

Kraft Velveeta Shells & Cheese Dinner or Rotini & Cheese or Kraft Deluxe Mac & Cheese, 9.4 to 14-oz box, Assorted Varieties BOGO $1.99
-$1.50/2 PRINT


I have two laptops at home, and my neighbor also has 2 laptops at her house that she lets me use to print coupons (I pay her $10 every time she needs her ink cartridge filled, every couple of months, and it's worth it for all the money the coupons I print at her house saves me at the grocery store!). Typically I can print 2 coupons per computer, so that gives me 8 coupons for each product to use.

Because Publix takes competitors coupons, using the target coupon for the pop tarts in conjunction with the printable manufacturers coupon made each box free plus some overage.

So my shopping list looked like this:

• 8 boxes PopTarts Blueberry Muffin flavor, B1G1 @ $2.39, Use 8 $0.55/1 coupon and 8 $0.75/1 Target coupons, ($1.68 overage on 8)

• 8 boxes Kraft Deluxe Mac n Cheese, B1G1 $1.99, use 4 $1.50/2 coupons, $1.96 for 8 boxes

• 8 boxes Trail Mix Crunch, B1G1 $3.99, use 8 $2/1 coupons, ($0.04 overage for 8 boxes)

• 1 lb Chicken $2.99

• 1 bag salad mix $2.00

• 1 DiGiorno Flatbread Melt (I had a coupon that was mailed to me from a promotion a while back that made this item free).
  

$38.47 before coupons

$5.23 for whole order after coupons

I also used a $5/$30 CVS printable coupon which made the chicken and salad mix free, but added on a bag of Funyons and a some M&Ms for my two daughters at the checkout, and my total was $1.20 after coupons. One of my best trips to Publix yet!

Playing the matching game with sales and coupons each week allows me to stockpile groceries for my family and keep down my weekly grocery budget. It only takes me about an hours time of planning and printing, and it really is a lot of fun to me to see the total come down at the register as each coupon is scanned.

Here's a pic of all my loot (and my adorable 3 year old, who couldn't resist sneaking into the picture!).

Every two weeks, I go grocery shopping at Aldi for the next two weeks' groceries. The nearest Aldi is about a 45 minute drive for me, which is why I only go bi-weekly.

Before going, I make up a menu plan for two weeks and then write up my grocery list. I include approximate prices from my Aldi Price Sheet, so when I go to the store I know a ball park figure of how much I'm spending before going in.

My grocery budget for 2 weeks is $15o, including diapers, baby wipes, and all the household supplies. I very rarely spend all of that, usually I come in right around $100, and we use the remaining to go out to eat during that two weeks, as a treat.
I started a special diet 10 days ago, so unfortunately I am spending more on groceries this week because of special foods I need to buy for it. But this week, I got everything on my list for $126, which is $63 per week. Not bad for our family of 5!

I thought I would post my list, for anyone who is interested in seeing how I shop. In a follow up to this post, I'll show you how shopping the sales at Publix each week using coupons allows me to stockpile items that I can get for free or close to free and how that helps to keep my grocery budget down.

Here is my menu for the next two weeks:

Dinners:

• spaghetti, peas

• tacos & yellow rice, corn

• salsa chicken (chicken breasts, salsa, shredded cheddar, and sour cream cooked in the crockpot and then shredded and served over elbow noodles), corn

• chicken and dumplings (I add carrots and celery to mine), green beans

• porcupine balls (ground turkey seasoned with salt and pepper and mixed with minute rice and shaped into balls, then simmered in spaghetti sauce until cooked through), peas

• chili cheese burgers (cooked ground turkey,mixed with a can of chili and a cup of cheese, heated through and served on hamburger buns, sloppy joe style), curly fries, corn

• augratin taco bake, green beans

• brown sugar ham (a $4 turley ham cooked in the crockpot with a can of pineapples and juice and a cup of brown sugar), rice

• spaghetti, peas

• middle eastern rice, green beans

• salisbury steaks (store bought frozen family size meal with gravy), over white rice, corn

• veggie burgers (cooken ground turkey mixed with a can of condensed vegetable soup, served over hamburger buns, sloppy joe style), mac and cheese, green beans

• chicken ceasar salad pasta (I mix mine with half a bottle of store bought ceasar dressing, rather than making my own as she instructs in the recipe), corn

Breakfasts are cereal or pop tarts (stockpiled) or peanut butter toast.
Lunches are PB&J sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, or leftovers from dinner, and fruit.

And here is my Aldi list:

6.87 3 gallons milk
1.18 3 cans biscuit dough
0.99 sour cream
1.99 shredded cheddar
4.00 ham
2.98 3 bags salad mix

0.99 veg oil
1.10 garlic powder
1.10 onion powder
1.10 chili powder
1.10 cumin
1.10 basil
1.99 corn meal
2.97 spaghetti sauce 3
1.59 spaghetti
1.69 elbow noodles
0.99 egg noodles
3.38 2 boxes cereal
1.98 yellow rice 2
1.49 salsa
0.99 augratin potatoes
3.00 canned chili 2
3.00 bullion cubes
0.90 diced tomatoes2
0.95 vegetable soup 2
1.50 ramen noodles
9.73 7 chunky soup
4.90 corn 4, peas 2, green beans 4
1.99 pineapples
2.00 zucchini
4.00 2 oranges
5.97 3 apples
7.50 5 tomatoes
1.58 2 hamburger buns
0.99 bread

3.98 salisbury steak 2
celery carrots
11.90 ground turkey 10
16.47 chicken 3

120.84

Some of the prices above weren't listed on my price sheet, so I estimated what I thought they would cost. I always estimate high. I forgot to add diapers ($5.49) to the list, and baby wipes. Even after adding those at the store, my total was only $126, because I estimated high on the things I didn't know the cost of.

So that's how I do my grocery shopping. Be sure to read the follow up to this post and see how I got over $80 worth of groceries at Publix this week for only $1.20!

Here's my tip for this week's Frugal Friday post over at Crystal's blog!

I have been considering buying reusable shopping bags to take with me when grocery shopping. I have seen them around and I do like to do my part to help keep our earth clean. I have been looking around for some to buy that are cheap and that will last a while, preferably with flat bottoms to make it easier to bag the groceries.
While at Kroger this week, I found an idea that, for me at least, is even more economical than buying reusable bags, and saves me money on my groceries as well!
There was a rack by the U-Scan machines with reusable bags for sale, and while I was looking at them, the cashier overlooking the U-Scans started a conversation. She told me that Kroger pays you $0.05 off of your grocery order for every bag you bring in and reuse. This includes the regular plastic grocery bags! So from now on, I plan to always keep at least 15 clean used plastic grocery bags, put inside each other, in the trunk of my car, so I always have them when I need to stop at Kroger. I typically use at least 8 bags, which would be $0.40 each trip, and I shop once a week. Bringing in my own bags could potentially save me $20 a year on my groceries. Hey, every little bit counts, right?
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