Okay, so this isn't something that was on my list, but it's something that I have really been reading up on a lot and really want to get good at! Last Sunday I bought two Sunday papers and clipped all the coupons for products that my family uses. I organized them by category in baseball card holders in a binder. I think this method is the one that will work the best for me. I then went through the sales fliers of 3 grocery stores near me as well as CVS and Walgreens and matched coupons with items already on sale or items that had store coupons offered as well.
I ended up going on Thursday night to do my grocery shopping. This was a mistake because the grocery store I went to ended up being sold out of a lot of the items I had coupons for the best deals on. Probably because they were doing super double coupons and doubling them up to $2.00 each. So, I'm sure a lot of other people had the same idea as I did ~ and they all beat me to it! Now, I know that I could get rain checks for the items they were sold out of, but this is the grocery store furthest from my house, and it just wasn't worth the drive all the way back over there for those few items. I'm sure the same good sales will come around again and next time I'll be more prepared!
Now, this was only my first week clipping coupons, so I didn't have a good base to pull from, but I think I still did okay. My total before coupons rung up at $214. I have to say that I was slightly panicked that I didn't calculate right and was going to end up paying close to $200 for groceries...BUT... after she scanned all of the coupons and they were doubled up to $2.00... it took ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN DOLLARS off of my total!!!! With tax I ended up paying $104 and change. I was totally shocked!
Of course my goal is to get to the point where I'm buying only $75 worth of groceries and paying around $35 or so. But I don't have a stock pile yet, so I'm working on that now. My current monthly grocery budget is $75 per week. Even though I spent $104 this past week, there is no way I would need to spend anything more than $25 on perishables (if that!) this upcoming week.
I took a picture of everything I got on my trip. The best part was all of the meat I got for practically nothing! I got 3 bags of frozen shrimp for the price of 1 (this was a HUGE contributing factor to the total price. Those bags of shrimp are normally $25 a piece) and I got 2 lbs of ground turkey at less than half price and I got 5 and a half pounds of chicken for the price of 1 and half pounds. I'm pretty pleased with myself. Pleased enough that I'm making tomorrow's item to cross off my checklist "Organizing the Pantry" because I need someplace to put everything and I need to have a good inventory of what I already have. I'll post before and after pictures of that as well... because that sucker is a TOTAL disaster!!!
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