Thought I would share a cute picture of my kids!!Haleigh is 7 and a vampire...go figure
Austin is 6 and Thomas
Madison is 2 and is a kitty cat
Saturday, October 31, 2009
My Kid's
Thought I would share a cute picture of my kids!!Haleigh is 7 and a vampire...go figure
Austin is 6 and Thomas
Madison is 2 and is a kitty cat
Today's Savings!!
Smiths
Cost : $212.66
Savings : $144.03 67% savings
Spent : $68.63
(had 82 items so it averaged to $.81 per item!!)
A few highlights:
- Ricola's were FREE!!!
- Tylenol PM and Extra Strengths were $1.50 each
- Tylenol 8HR Aches & Pains were $.50 each
- Halls Drops $.15 each
- Evaporated Milk's were $.24 each
Commissary
Cost : $ 126.23
Saved : $32.15 - Coupons only 26%
Spent : $94.08
(I had 87 items so it averaged out to $1.08 per item)
The overall savings is more than that. The commissary doesn't figure in the store savings you get for items that are on sale this month.
Highlights were:
- Hamburger Helper for $.36 a box
- Chex Mix for $.75 each
- Scott Napkins FREE!!!
- Dinner Napkins for $.50 a pkg (they are stacked in the back on the right)
- Cheese for $.75 each
- Halloween Cereal was $.49 a piece....which I hear will be slashed again tomorrow morning
Now a bunch of the items in my pictures are for a Freezer Meal group I'm doing next week so I normally wouldn't have stocked up on some of those items. However, I was able to get them cheap to pass the savings on to the group.
Over all it was a great shopping day. I did venture into Walmart also and saved $8 on Halloween candy for tonight and got my pepsi for $1 yay!!
Hope everyone has a great week!! Let me know how you saved this week!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Budgeting
My husband and I have been following a pretty strict and detailed budget for about 5 year now. This has allowed us to be able to pay off almost all of our debt.
When I started Grocery Smarts our monthly "Grocery" budget was $600 a month for our family of 5 with one still in diapers and one that uses pull ups at night. Now our "Grocery" budget consisted of anything and everything we needed for the house....Soap, towels, food, drinks, socks, toilet paper...pretty much everything but our basic bills and gas.
I have been lazy this past month and have been stacking up my receipts in a pile on my desk...in an attempt to get organized I sat down and put them all into my spreadsheet and noticed that prior to July we did spend every bit of that $600 on groceries and always were struggling three days before payday to get milk, bread, and the essentials.
Here is what I've spent on groceries the past few months:
August $487.60
September $356.91
October $305.48
WOW I hadn't realized we had cut back to almost half what we normally spend!!! Because of this savings in September when I had to put two new tires on our Car I was able to go down with Cash to pay for them and I didn't drive away wondering how my family was going to eat for the rest of the month.
What a blessing this Couponing has been for my family!!!
I just wanted to share this with you guys and hopefully inspire you to look into ways you can save money for your family!
When I started Grocery Smarts our monthly "Grocery" budget was $600 a month for our family of 5 with one still in diapers and one that uses pull ups at night. Now our "Grocery" budget consisted of anything and everything we needed for the house....Soap, towels, food, drinks, socks, toilet paper...pretty much everything but our basic bills and gas.
I have been lazy this past month and have been stacking up my receipts in a pile on my desk...in an attempt to get organized I sat down and put them all into my spreadsheet and noticed that prior to July we did spend every bit of that $600 on groceries and always were struggling three days before payday to get milk, bread, and the essentials.
Here is what I've spent on groceries the past few months:
August $487.60
September $356.91
October $305.48
WOW I hadn't realized we had cut back to almost half what we normally spend!!! Because of this savings in September when I had to put two new tires on our Car I was able to go down with Cash to pay for them and I didn't drive away wondering how my family was going to eat for the rest of the month.
What a blessing this Couponing has been for my family!!!
I just wanted to share this with you guys and hopefully inspire you to look into ways you can save money for your family!
Albertsons
I'm so upset....I had all my items on the table ready for a picture and got side tracked....doesn't take much for me....and then I started organizing my freezer and pantry and put everything away....so guess what...I forgot to actually take the picture. I'm so bummed I had a lot of items.
Anyway here is a run down.
Cost $228.79
Savings $138.28
Spent $90.51
60 % Savings.
here is what I got for $90.51
- 6 Marie Callender Pot Pie's $1.55 each
- 10 Marie Callenders Pasta meals $1.38 each
- 3 Betty Crocker Cookie Mixes (17.5 oz) $.60 each
- 8 Betty Crocker Warm Delights $.50 each (OMG I'm in heaven these are the best!)
- 4 Betty Crocker Specialty Potatoes $.60 each
- 3 Cans Green Beans $.45 each
- 8 Pillsbury Crescent Rolls $.75 each
- 6 Pillsbury Grands Cinnamon Rolls $.80 each
- 8 Pillsbury Savorings $1.45 each (I like these for fast appetizers for parties)
- 8 Totinos Pizza Rolls (40 ct) $1.65 each
- 6 Mac & Cheese...not on sale but I needed them...Austin eats mac & cheese about every day lately.
- Banana's
It was a good trip I did multiple transactions and it did pay off in the end. I need to find the perfect time to go to Albertsons when they are not too busy. Doing coupons like this is fun and worth it but can be very frustrating if the store is busy or if you feel rushed at the check out. I'm starting to run into the same cashiers so that helps because they know what I'm doing when I come up.
I hope you guys enjoy my posts. I'd love to hear about your great deals!!
Let me know if you want to find out how you can save over 60% on your grocery bill!!
Anyway here is a run down.
Cost $228.79
Savings $138.28
Spent $90.51
60 % Savings.
here is what I got for $90.51
- 6 Marie Callender Pot Pie's $1.55 each
- 10 Marie Callenders Pasta meals $1.38 each
- 3 Betty Crocker Cookie Mixes (17.5 oz) $.60 each
- 8 Betty Crocker Warm Delights $.50 each (OMG I'm in heaven these are the best!)
- 4 Betty Crocker Specialty Potatoes $.60 each
- 3 Cans Green Beans $.45 each
- 8 Pillsbury Crescent Rolls $.75 each
- 6 Pillsbury Grands Cinnamon Rolls $.80 each
- 8 Pillsbury Savorings $1.45 each (I like these for fast appetizers for parties)
- 8 Totinos Pizza Rolls (40 ct) $1.65 each
- 6 Mac & Cheese...not on sale but I needed them...Austin eats mac & cheese about every day lately.
- Banana's
It was a good trip I did multiple transactions and it did pay off in the end. I need to find the perfect time to go to Albertsons when they are not too busy. Doing coupons like this is fun and worth it but can be very frustrating if the store is busy or if you feel rushed at the check out. I'm starting to run into the same cashiers so that helps because they know what I'm doing when I come up.
I hope you guys enjoy my posts. I'd love to hear about your great deals!!
Let me know if you want to find out how you can save over 60% on your grocery bill!!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Learning as I go
I've been doing Grocery Smarts since July now and it has been wonderful!! I had to adjust to shopping every week instead of twice a month but that has gone pretty well.
I did learn a lesson this month though. Because of an unexpected financial expense we hadn't planned for I didn't go shopping the last two weeks of September because of lack of Money. We had plenty of food in the house but because of that bill I wasn't stocking up on the sale items those two weeks. Well come this week I needed so many staple items just for us to make it thru the week I ended up spending almost double what my weekly budget usually is to get caught up.
Not a big deal I haven't gone over my grocery budget but did spend more than I would have liked to this week. Lesson learned!!! Shopping every week and only getting the 4 and 5 star items really does save you money not only on a weekly basis but a monthly basis too. Some of the items I bought this week were on sale last week but I didn't have the funds to get them.
On a positive note we had an unexpected Financial expenses and we were able to pay that bill and still eat for two weeks even though we didn't have money to go get more groceries. Having a stocked pantry really takes some of the stress out of an already stressful financial situation. Unexpected things are going to come up and usually a financial blunder leads to a grocery blunder and it just trickles down. This time we had a financial blunder but I didn't have to stress about how I was going to feed my family until the next pay day.
God is Good and I am truly blessed to have found Grocery Smarts and found a way to be better stewards of the money he has entrusted to us!!
I did learn a lesson this month though. Because of an unexpected financial expense we hadn't planned for I didn't go shopping the last two weeks of September because of lack of Money. We had plenty of food in the house but because of that bill I wasn't stocking up on the sale items those two weeks. Well come this week I needed so many staple items just for us to make it thru the week I ended up spending almost double what my weekly budget usually is to get caught up.
Not a big deal I haven't gone over my grocery budget but did spend more than I would have liked to this week. Lesson learned!!! Shopping every week and only getting the 4 and 5 star items really does save you money not only on a weekly basis but a monthly basis too. Some of the items I bought this week were on sale last week but I didn't have the funds to get them.
On a positive note we had an unexpected Financial expenses and we were able to pay that bill and still eat for two weeks even though we didn't have money to go get more groceries. Having a stocked pantry really takes some of the stress out of an already stressful financial situation. Unexpected things are going to come up and usually a financial blunder leads to a grocery blunder and it just trickles down. This time we had a financial blunder but I didn't have to stress about how I was going to feed my family until the next pay day.
God is Good and I am truly blessed to have found Grocery Smarts and found a way to be better stewards of the money he has entrusted to us!!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Smiths
Well it's pay day and off to Smiths I went.
Cost : $156.72
Saved : $62.56
Spent : $94.16
40% savings
Not the best trip I've done but still good. I picked up Strawberries, pull ups, diapers, pop tarts, and my husbands favorite spaghetti sauce without coupons so that didn't help my totals at all.
I still will have to make a trip to the commissary this evening for a few essentials that I couldn't get at smiths.
Cost : $156.72
Saved : $62.56
Spent : $94.16
40% savings
Not the best trip I've done but still good. I picked up Strawberries, pull ups, diapers, pop tarts, and my husbands favorite spaghetti sauce without coupons so that didn't help my totals at all.
I still will have to make a trip to the commissary this evening for a few essentials that I couldn't get at smiths.
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