Curious how I save money on groceries? Here are all the details of my grocery haul for this week! Learn my tips for using coupons, shopping sales and building a grocery stockpile to save money on your own grocery bill!
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Some of you have wondered where I get my printable coupons. Here are the main coupon sites that I use: Coupons.com, Ibotta, Fetch Rewards and Checkout 51. Manufacturer websites and Facebook pages are also great sources.
Before I dive into the actual details of this week’s budget grocery shopping trip, I feel like there a few things that I should clarify about the way that I grocery shop, just so this post makes more sense.
A FEW DETAILS ABOUT USING COUPONS and HOW I SHOP:
* It pretty important 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? Check out my post on How to Start Building a Grocery Stockpile.
This is also why just by looking at the things I purchase here it might look a little strange and hard to imagine how I actually create decent, balanced meals. But remember, I have a small stockpile of lots of pantry, freezer and even fridge items that I purchased previously when they were a great price and I’m pulling from them to create our frugal menus too!
* I also buy a lot of meats and veggies in bulk. The meat I either can or freeze and then obviously have it on hand whenever I need it. I purchase 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.
* I live in an area where most grocery stores fully double all coupons up to $1.00. So anything $.99 or above will double, which is why the $0.75 coupons you see below note that they doubled to $1.50.
This definitely helps me get better deals, although I have to say that even before we moved Philadelphia and I shopped at stores that didn’t fully double, I still often got very similar deals. So getting great deals still is possible even without fully doubled coupons!
* The Load to Card coupons that you see mentioned below can be found on the grocery store’s website when you create an account with your store card. I think most major grocery stores have this option any more and it’s a great way to save a little extra.
I typically just go into my account and clip all the coupons, that way if I happen to buy something that I hadn’t planned on buying and it had a Load to Card coupon available, I’ll get the savings. And that has happened quite a few times!
* The best way to maximize your savings is to combine sales with coupons and to combine multiple coupons on the same product. But I want to be clear- you can only use one manufacturer coupon per item. In other words, say you have two printable coupons for Butterball ground turkey, you can only use one.
(You can easily tell if it’s a manufacturer’s coupon by looking at the top of the coupon for that wording. Almost all coupons are manufacturer coupons.)
To get the most savings, you can also combine a manufacturer coupon with a store coupon and/or coupon app offers from places like Ibotta, Fetch Rewards and Checkout 51 when available.
* Under no circumstances is it legal to photocopy a coupon. For printable coupons, most manufacturer’s let you print two coupons per computer and then your limit will be capped.
* Coupon availability changes all the time, so the links that I share below will soon be out of date and not take you to the exact coupon that I linked too. I’m sorry about that, but it’s just how coupons work!
Now on to the specifics…
Basically, I got ALL the groceries that you see below for just $62.54 total, after all coupons and savings! That’s over $150 worth of groceries for less than $65!
This is why I feel like it’s worth my time to use coupons. There is no other way that we’d be able to eat as well as what we do and keep our grocery budget this low. Yes, it takes time to shop this way, but for us it has been totally worth it!
Total Spent: $89.08
Total Saved with Coupons: $43.33
Total Saved with Sales: $18.06
Total Saved: $61.39 + an additional $20.00 in gas savings
Giant: $28.59
Saved with Coupons: $21.33
Saved with Sales: $7.14 + an additional $20.00 in gas savings
These Giant deals will be good through 3/7/19, so if you shop before that, you should be able to these same deals yourself.
No, we haven’t switched to almond milk. In fact, I don’t care for it at all! But this week a digital coupon made the Giant brand almond milk just $1.19. And when I can get almond milk for less than the cost of regular milk, I do. Because my husband and kiddos don’t mind the taste of it, and it helps the grocery budget!
The Ragu Simply was actually a money maker of $0.58 after coupons and sales. The Del Monte item was not something I would typically buy, but it was Giant’s load to card free offer of the week. And you know I rarely pass up free!
We don’t eat a lot of pasta because of all the carbs, but this Dreamfields pasta is a lower carb pasta and I find I don’t feel as yuck when I eat it. I was able to get these boxes for just $0.49 each, which made me happy! I’ve been hungry for my Creamy Italian Sausage and Pasta Soup and looks like I can make it now! Also, if you watch the Dreamfields website, they frequently have coupons for this pasta if you are interested.
I was down to one container of peanut butter left from my last peanut butter stock up, so I was pretty happy when I realized that I could get the Peter Pan brand this week for $0.83 after coupons, sales and gas rewards. That’s cheaper than Aldi’s price for natural peanut butter, so I consider that a win!
I love using rain checks to help save me money on groceries! This week, I purchased both the Scotties tissues and the Huggies wipes using a rain check. The Scotties were just $0.63 each after coupons and sales, which is a great price, especially for such a large box (230 ct.)! The Huggies wipes were actually a money maker of $3.56! Can’t beat that!
The advantage of rain checks is that you can save them until you have coupons that make them an even better deal, which is what I did with the Huggies wipes. When I saw that Coupons.com had $0.50 Huggies wipes coupons available, I immediately printed them to use with the rain check!
BOUGHT:
- $2.69 Giant brand almond milk
– used $1.50 Giant brand almond milk load to card digital coupon - Ragu Simply pasta sauce $1.67
– used $0.75 Simply Pasta Giant load to card digital coupon
– used $0.75 Simply Pasta printable coupon(doubled to $1.50) - Delmonte Veggie & Bean Blend $1.79
– used FREE Delmonte Veggie & Bean Giant Load to Card digital coupon ($1.79) - 3 Dreamfields pasta $1.99 each
– used (3) $0.75 Dreamfields pasta printable coupons (doubled to $1.50 each)
– this coupon is no longer available, there is a $0.75/2 instead - 6 Peter Pan peanut butter $2.50 each
- 4 Scotties facial tissue $2.00 each
– bought using a raincheck
– used $0.75 Scotties Giant load to card digital coupon
– used (2) $1.25/2 Scotties printable coupons (no longer available)
– submitted for (3) $0.75 Ibotta Scotties offers - 6 Huggies wipes $1.99 each
– bought using a raincheck
– used (4) $0.50 Huggies wipes printable coupons (doubled to $1.00 each)
– used $1.00/2 Huggies printable coupon
– used $0.50 Huggies Giant load to card digital coupon
GOT BACK:
- $0.10 Ibotta any receipt offer
- 119 pts. (the equivalent of $0.19) via Fetch Rewards for purchasing the Huggies
- $10.00 in gas reward savings for purchasing the Peter Pan peanut butter
- $10.00 in gas reward savings for purchasing the Huggies wipes
ShopRite: $17.53
Saved with Coupons: $22.00
Saved with Sales: $10.92
*We already had consumed 4 apples before I got this picture taken…so there should be another 4 shown!*
These Shoprite deals will be good through 3/9/19, so if you shop before that, you should be able to these same deals yourself.
The Cape Cod potato chips ended up being $1.00 each after coupons. I was sad that they only had one bag of the salt and vinegar flavor since that’s our favorite! The $1.00 coupon came from the Savory magazine which is a free magazine that Giant offers each month. I typically just take one magazine, because that’s only decent and respectful to all the other shoppers who want one, right?
But this past month they still had rackfulls of the February magazine at the end of the month, so I went ahead and grabbed a few extra, mostly because I was pretty sure that Cape Cod coupon might help me get a good deal on potato chips. And I was happy to be right about that!
The Pop Chips Nutter Puffs are not something that I typically buy. I actually don’t think they are that good. But I have a daughter that discovered she really liked them the last time I was able to get them when they were free, so since they were a moneymaker of $1.01, I decided to get them.
More almond milk for less than the cost of regular milk! This Silk brand was only $0.99 each after coupons and sales.
The Sargento cheese was a great buy! It ended up being $1.00 a bag, which comes to $2.00/lb., the buy price I typically try to wait for.
The Johnson’s baby wash and Bic razors were both free after coupons and sales. Yay!
The bananas, carrots and apples were all simply items that I needed and were decently priced too.
BOUGHT:
- 2 Cape Cod potato chips $2.50 each
– used (2) $1.00 Cape Cod coupons from Savory magazine
– submitted for $1.00 Fetch Rewards offer - Pop Chips Nutter Puffs $1.99
– submitted for $3.00 Checkout 51offer - 3 Silk almond milk $1.99 each (had to buy 3 for this price)
– used (3) $1.00 Silk printable coupons - 4 Sargento shredded cheese (8 0z.) $2.00 each
– used $1.00/2 Sargento cheese Super Saver coupon in the Shoprite ad
– used $1.00/2 Sargento ShopRite load to card digital coupon
– used (2) $1.00/2 Sargento printable coupons - Johnson’s baby wash $2.99
– used $2.00 Johnson’s printable coupon
– used $1.00 Johnson’s ShopRite load to card digital coupon - Bic razors $5.99
– used $2.00 Bic ShopRite load to card digital coupon
– used $4.00 Bic printable coupon - 5 lb. carrots $2.99
- 2.34 lb. bananas $1.38
- 2.24 lb. apples $2.22
Aldi: $42.96
*Forgot to include a bag of spinach and 1 lb. Spring mix in the picture.*
I did an Aldi stock up run this week. I ended up freezing most of the milk because of all the almond milk that I bought. But I was hoping to not need to stop at Aldi for a week or two and since the milk there is cheaper than a regular grocery store and better quality too (no growth hormones), I figured I’d get it and just freeze it to have whenever I needed more.
I noticed that Aldi is changing their spices and herbs. The new containers are a lot smaller (the new cinnamon container is half the weight the old ones are!) and not much cheaper- $0.95 versus $1.19. So I grabbed a couple of seasonings that I use a lot and knew it was safe to buy extra of since I figured it would save me money in the long run and wasn’t too much of a risk!
Also, kind of a side note, but if you have several Aldis in your area, it’s worth comparing prices. I have three Aldis closeby and have discovered that one is significantly cheaper than the other two. For instance, brown sugar is $1.69 at the two more expensive stores, if I remember correctly. Ranch dressing $1.19 or $1.29. Tortilla chips $1.69. And well, you get the picture. Even sale prices vary some. So for me, it’s worth always making sure that I stop at the less expensive one if at all possible!
BOUGHT:
- 2 gallon 2% milk $3.58 each
- gallon whole milk $3.84
- sour cream $1.24 each
- 2 cream cheese $0.79 each
- 3 flour tortillas $0.99 each
- 4 black beans $0.49 each
- brown sugar $1.29
- pure vanilla $3.65
- semi-sweet chocolate chips $1.69
- ranch dressing $0.89
- mayonnaise $1.89
- cinnamon, parsley, chili powder $1.19 each
- 2 corn chips $0.79 each
- tortilla chips $0.89
- 3 lb. onions $1.89
- 4 lb. oranges $2.19
- 1 lb. organic spring mix $3.49
- spinach $1.19
Lindsey
I live in the Philadelphia area, as well. Can you share which Aldi location you have noticed is cheaper? I know that I stop at the Collingswood, NJ location when I am nearby, and it has higher prices on milk and eggs than the one in Philadelphia on Girard Ave. (I figure that the state minimum for those items may be higher in NJ than in PA?)
ThriftyFrugalMom
Sure, Lindsey! The one that has consistently been cheaper for me has been the one at 7900 Roosevelt Blvd. I have family that lives in South Philly and it seems like the one they shop (I think it’s the one on Front street) tends to be cheaper too. It’s so crazy how the prices vary so much! It’s a $0.50 difference on some items that I regularly buy!
Lindsey
I was down in Glassboro, NJ for a party today and stopped in that Aldi, and eggs there were $1.24 cheaper than at the Collingswood Aldi! Anyway, thanks for the heads up, I’ll try to make it to the Roosevelt Blvd. location!
ThriftyFrugalMom
Glad that it could help! Even if you can stock up on a few things occasionally when you are in the cheaper areas, it will help, right?