See the details of my $200 a month grocery shopping trips and learn the things that I do to save and live well on a low budget with my family of five!
Some of you have wondered where I get my printable coupons. Here are the main coupon sites that I use: Coupons.com, Ibotta and Fetch Rewards. Manufacturer websites and Facebook pages are also great sources.
If you are new here and unfamiliar with my weekly What I Spent & Saved posts, it probably is helpful to understand a bit about how I shop. I do something called stockpile shopping. This simply means that when I see an item at rock bottom prices that I regularly use or know that I can use, I’ll buy several of it. This might seem kind of crazy, but it honestly saves me hundreds of dollars a year! Simply put, by buying 6 bags of frozen veggies when I can get them for $0.50/bag with a coupon and sale instead of paying the full price of $1.50, I save $6.00. This savings adds up pretty quickly! Want to know more about this kind of shopping? One of my readers wrote a great post for me there about 5 Tips to Spend Less but Get More.
I also buy meats and veggies in bulk. The meat I either can or freeze and then obviously have it on hand whenever I need it. I buy large quantities of fruits and veggies when they are in season and I can get them at really great prices. By canning or freezing them, I save a lot and we are able to enjoy great produce for less cost all year long. I do still buy some fresh fruits and veggies too. In fact, every 7 to 10 days I go to our local farmer’s market and get several heads of lettuce so that we can enjoy salads at least 4 times a week.
I hope that helps you make sense of some of this. I realize at first glance it can look like we eat rather strangely but I think we really eat quite well! Of course, if you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments! I’ll be more than happy to try to answer them.
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Whew, I did a lot of shopping this week! It was actually kind of fun because the deals weren’t complicated and so I was in and out of each store pretty quickly. At the same time, I’m rather glad that I don’t shop this much every week!
Before I jump into all the details of my grocery spending, I just want to say that if you experienced any issues with my site being down or not working correctly over the last several days, I am so very sorry! I won’t bore you with all the details, but basically I recently switched hosting companies and the new company didn’t give me correct instructions for how to do one of the key steps to complete the hosting transfer. As a result, my site was down for a while and I lost 2 ½ weeks worth of posts! Thankfully, after a lot of time, headache, tears and determination, I was able to finally get the lost posts up again, although I did lose some of your comments in the process. Anyway, this is life, right? Things just don’t always go like we wish. But still, I don’t like it and I’m sorry for the inconvenience if you were affected.
Now…on to happier, more fun things! 🙂
Favorite buys:
- Pampers for $4.08/pack
- Eight O’Clock coffee for $0.83/bag
- Eggs for $0.99
- Juice for $0.50
- Shredded cheddar cheese for $1.80/lb
Total Spent: $86.49
Total Saved with Coupons: $31.70
Total Saved with Sales: $42.74
Total Saved: $74.44
Giant: $3.97
Saved with Coupons: $21.00
Saved with Sales: $19.21
Giant frequently has Eight O’Clock coffee on sale for buy one, get one free which makes it $2.70 a bag, which is a great price. I like to watch for that sale and pair it with coupons if possible to get an even more awesome deal and that is what I did this week. I had $1.50 printable coupons plus there was an Ibotta offer too. So after all those savings, I ended up paying just $0.82/bag! We drink a fair bit of coffee- my husband likes it hot and I enjoy it in my homemade Caramel Frappes or Peppermint Mocha Frappes, so getting it for a great price like this really helps!
We don’t typically drink soda because it’s not only unhealthy, it also gets expensive quickly. But I say all things in moderation, right? 🙂 So when I can get it free, I do and then we enjoy it as something special for pizza night or a family game night. This week by pairing a coupon with a sale, I was able to get the 4 bottles of 7Up for totally free. I think it would also be good mixed with grape juice, so I might try that too for a homemade sparkling grape juice of sorts.
We go through tissues like crazy around here- it’s just part of life with little children, I guess. And the fact that a couple of us have had colds over the last couple of weeks hasn’t helped either. So I was happy to get some for $0.66 this week. I typically try to watch for good sales on them during the winter months and stock up then. But somehow the sales either didn’t happen or else I missed them over the time we were away because I never got stocked up.
The bananas cost me a whopping $0.03 after a Checkout 51 rebate. Our son has been ravenous lately when he gets home from school, so these will make a handy snack for him. And the Cerave soap? Well, I bought it because in the end, it’s going to be a big moneymaker. Let me see if I can explain. Several weeks ago, it was on sale as part of Giant’s gas reward deals- you got $12.50 in free gas when you bought 4. Unfortunately, they were out of stock, so I got a rain check. I keep looking every week, but they have not had them in stock until this week, and then they only had 2 in stock. The Giant I go to knows me well though, and they are super good about being helpful. So they allowed me to purchase 2 of them and then I’ll watch and get another 2 once they are in stock and at that point, they’ll give me the gas points too. I’m going to make around $9.50 on them though, because of the $7.00 coupon I used this week and the two $3.00 coupons I plan to use on the remaining two. I figured even if we ended up hating the soap (which I don’t expect we will), it was worth it if I got paid that much to buy them!
BOUGHT:
- 2 Cerave cleansing soap $3.99 each (bought with rain check)
– used $7/2 coupon from Sunday newspaper coupon inserts - 4 7Up $1.00 each
– used four $0.55 printable coupons (doubled to $1.00 each) - 3 Scott tissues $1.00 each
– used 0.50/3 Scott coupon from Sunday newspaper coupon inserts - 4 Eight O’Clock coffee $2.70 each (bought with rain check)
– four $1.50 Eight O Clock printable coupons
– got back $1.50 via Ibotta - Bananas $0.28
– got back $0.25 via Checkout 51
OTHER COUPONS USED:
- $3.00 Catalina coupon (prints at register) earned on previous purchase- good on anything
CVS: $25.73
Saved with Coupons: $10.70
Saved with Sales: $15.73
I haven’t been to CVS in weeks. Maybe months, actually! Their deals haven’t been that great the last while, plus I had a lot on the go and so was being pickier about what deals I did.
Anyway, it was fun to shop there again. They had a deal where I was able to get Pampers diapers for just $4.08 plus 3 Dawn dish soap as well! Since my buy price for diapers is $5/pack, I definitely wanted to get these and add them to my stockpile. Actually, I wanted to give a pack of diapers as part of a baby gift too, so one of these will be used for that. (I’m crediting my grocery budget for the cost as you’ll see at the end of this post.)
I also finally used some rain checks that I had gotten way back over Black Friday sales and got the Green Giant corn for totally free and the Kraft Parmesan cheese for just $0.99! The Reese’s peanut butter egg was free too as Saving Star’s Freebie Friday offer. I’m actually not a fan of white chocolate, but they were out of the regular ones.
BOUGHT:
- 2 Green Giant corn $0.99 each
– bought with rain check - Kraft Parmesan cheese $3.99
– bought with rain check - 3 Pampers diapers $9.00 each
– used three $1.50 Pampers coupons from Sunday newspaper coupon inserts
– got back $0.25 via Ibotta (offer was good on any diapers) - 3 Dawn dish soap $0.99 each
– used $1/2 Dawn coupon from Sunday newspaper coupon inserts
– used $0.20 Dawn coupon from Sunday newspaper coupon inserts - Reese peanut butter egg $0.99
– got back $0.99 via Saving Star (was their Freebie Friday offer this week)
OTHER COUPONS USED:
- $5.00 in Extra Bucks coupons earned by purchasing items previously at CVS
GOT BACK:
- Two $1.00 Extra Bucks coupons for purchasing the Green Giant (can be used on next purchase of any item)
- $3.00 Extra Bucks coupon for purchasing the Kraft cheese (can be used on next purchase of any item)
- $10.00 Extra Bucks coupon for purchasing the Pampers/Dawn (can be used on next purchase of any item)
Walgreens: $5.94
Saved with Sales: $7.80
I guess because of Easter, Walgreen’s had eggs on sale for just $0.99! They had a limit of 6 dozen per customer, but I got as many as I could. I also had planned to get Walgreen’s brand diapers too since they were on sale, but they were out of stock on the sizes I wanted, so I got a rain check.
BOUGHT:
- 6 eggs $0.99 each
Aldi: $7.62
I had not planned to go to Aldi this week, but I ran to the mall one afternoon to use a $10.00 JCPenney coupon (anyone else get those?) and swung by on my way home to grab these things. We were having dinner guests that evening and because of some unexpected things that came up, I changed my menu last minute and decided to make something that I needed sour cream for. I also thought maybe I’d end up wanting the chips for that evening too, so I grabbed them as well.
BOUGHT:
- 2 sour cream $1.29 each
- 2 corn chips $0.89 each
Sharp Shopper: $32.23
Not pictured: 2 boxes tissues, apples, 5 lb. cheddar cheese
I got some fun deals this week at our local discount grocery store! Unfortunately, I must have accidentally deleted the picture of the other half of my purchase. Oops!
Anyway, I was really happy to find 5 lb. bags of shredded cheddar cheese for just $8.99! I didn’t really need it but I got it to put in the freezer because that price was just too good to pass up. And of course, we’ll use it eventually anyway. I also grabbed a couple of bags of string cheese for $1.99/lb. I don’t often buy it, but when it’s that cheap I will and then we use it for snacks when traveling or even the occasional snack at home. And as I said, our son must be going through a growth spurt because he is suddenly ravenous when he gets home from school, so these make a handy snack for him then too.
I also don’t often buy juice but will do it if I can get it for $1.00 or less. The bottle I got this week was just $0.50. And my husband loves lemonade, so when I saw this raspberry lemonade for just $0.99, I grabbed it. He enjoyed the surprise! 🙂 I know it might seem odd that those “little” things are treats to us. But honestly, that is part of the joy of doing without things sometimes. When you get to enjoy them, it’s way more fun and you actually appreciate it! Plus, I personally think that it’s being able to enjoy the little things in life that help make a person happy. (Not that I always do that well, though!)
I typically buy my oatmeal at a local bulk food store and it’s about $0.10/lb. less than this store has it. But the bulk food store is in an area that I don’t get to very often and it didn’t seem to make sense to driveway out of the way just to save that little bit of money. So I ended up getting it here this time. We go through quite a bit of oatmeal since we eat a lot of homemade granola and baked oatmeal.
Oh, and I also wanted to mention the crushed Oreos. 🙂 I love Oreos and they are the only cookie that I’ll actually buy because you just can’t make a homemade version that tastes like them, at least not that I’m aware of! Anyway, I enjoy making cheesecakes occasionally that have an Oreo cookie crust, so these already crushed Oreos are not only cheaper than buying the packs of Oreos, it also saves me a step in the process of making my crusts. And if you’ve ever crushed Oreos, you know that it’s kind of a messy process too. So I was pretty happy about this find. Plus, they also make a delicious ice cream topping, too! 😉
- juice $0.50
- lemonade $0.99
- 5 lb. cheddar cheese $8.99
- 2 cheesesticks $2.99 each
- 2 oatmeal @ $0.62/lb.- $8.57 total
- 2 tissues $0.99 each
- apples $0.99/lb.- $1.63 total
- Oreos, crushed $0.99/lb.- $0.82 total
- 2 pepperoni $1.00 each
Misc.: $15.00
I withdrew cash to use to pay for produce that I purchase at our local farmer’s market. I mainly buy lettuce there, but occasionally I’ll get a few other things too.
Credits: $4.00
As mentioned above, one of the packs of diapers that I purchased I actually gave away as a gift. So since that isn’t actually a grocery purchase, I’m crediting that amount here.
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Rebecca
We bought a 2nd fridge at an appliance repair place last year when our other extra (which came with the house we purchased) quit to use for overflow items. This fridge is ALWAYS slam packed full!! We got the 2nd fridge for $200 with a warranty. So it worked out well!
ThriftyFrugalMom
Oh, I’d love to have a second fridge! Even just a really small extra one would be awesome. Most of the time I’m fine, but sometimes when I stock up on something like eggs or in the summer when I have lots of produce or when I’m making food for guests, it’s then that I really could use a bit of extra space. You definitely got a great deal, wow!
Rebecca
the CVS down the street from my office has eggs for $1.19 a dozen every day with a limit of 3. I stop in at least once per week and get the 3 dozen. You need to check Walgreens again because they still have eggs for .99 cents a dozen in case you might need more. Aldi is my favorite grocery store. I like to give my dogs denta stix and Sams had a bulk pack of 51 for $13 with an elite member’s card (which my mom has) so we got 102 for $26 where I usually get 18 for $12 so that was a steal for me. Also the same shopping trip to Sam’s they had the 4lb block of cheese for $2.99 with the elite card so we got 8 blocks of cheese for the price of 4 at reg price.
ThriftyFrugalMom
Oh, thanks for the Walgreen’s tip, Rebecca! I don’t really “need” eggs, but when I can get them for that cheap, I often will get them anyway and then we just eat lots of quiche or breakfast food. Plus, eggs keep for a long time so as long as I have room in my fridge…. 🙂 Wow, sounds like you got some great deals at Sam’s. We only have Costco and BB’s around here and so far I haven’t felt like it’s worth getting a membership for them. But if I ever stop couponing, I’d need to do the math again to see what I think then.
Rebecca
I read on another site that you can forego memberships to Costco by shopping with a Costco gift card. They apparently let you shop with the giftcard without the membership.
I do the same thing with eggs, when I find them for a good price I buy 10-12 dozen and refridgerate, they do keep for a long time. Usually when this happens I can buy enough to make it til they are on sale again!
ThriftyFrugalMom
Oh, well that is good to know! I may have to check into that. My biggest thing with stocking up on eggs is the fridge space. But I do it as much as I can!
J @ A Hot Southern Mess
Wow! Thanks for sharing this! I read this, and I get so inspired to save more on groceries! In fact, when I read your post title, I muttered to myself, “wow, this woman is my hero!”. I am going to dissect your post a little more and then form a plan of action with my own grocery spending. It’s gotten out of hand. Once again, thanks for the inspiration! 🙂
ThriftyFrugalMom
So glad that you are inspired, since that is the total goal of these posts! Not sure about being your hero though, cause I’m really pretty human. 😉 Hope that you can figure out some things that will work at helping get your spending back where it needs to be. It’s so easy to just let it gradually slip and before you know it, bam, you are spending way more than you want to be!
Tracy
I totally scored on the Walgreen’s diapers! They were BOGO free, plus I had coupons for $1.50 off. They’re not supposed to take a coupon on the free item which is perfectly fine with me because that’s still a great deal, but the cashier said as long as the register would accept it she would use it. I ended up getting them for $2.65 a pack!
ThriftyFrugalMom
Oh, that is awesome Tracy! That is exactly the deal that I had hoped to do, but I didn’t know that they don’t typically take coupons for the free item. I’m pretty sure the store here has done that for me in the past, so hopefully they will again and I’ll be able to get the same great deal as you. I’m not always a fan of store brand diapers, but the Walgreen’s ones are great! And you definitely can’t beat the price!