Smith's and Albertson's in one Day!

I don't have pictures but I had to drop into both Smith's and Albertson's for a few deals before we leave on our trip.

Smith's
Cost : $24.65
Saved : $12.60
Spent : $12.05 51% savings

Got
4 boxes swiss ms hot chocolate
2 boxes fruit snacks
6 2lts of Pepsi
1 box pop tarts
(all things that will be going on our trip with us...well maybe not all of it...)

Albertsons
Cost : $19.95
Saved : $15.00
Spent : $4.95 75% savings

5 boxes of Tyson Chicken appetizers - 3 wings and 2 chicken fries
(these will be easy dinner tonight or tomorrow before we leave)

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!! I will be back to couponing hard core in January. I am however taking my coupons with me in case I can find some good deals while I'm in Michigan!!

Today's Savings!!

Smiths

Cost $44.89
Saved $24.54
Spent $20.35

The cupcakes, buddy bars, and baby food were all FREE!!!

Today's Savings!!

Walgreens

Cost $78.80
Saved $57.67
Spent $21.13 plus I have $2 in rewards to use on my next trip

Giving Back to Others

I love this Thanksgiving / Christmas time of year!! Being able to give to others seems to be the focus of this time of year. As I try to give to others year round I have noticed a change this year in my own life.

God has blessed me in so many ways with Grocery Smarts and one of those ways is I am able to donate more this season.

There is a Military Family on our base that had a house fire this week. Typically when things like this come up my family doesn't have the money or extra food to donate because we were living so pay check to pay check that there wasn't room to do what in my heart I wanted to help other families. Not this year!!! I'm going to be able to go to my pantry and collect a few bags of food for this family in need and still have more than enough food for my family!!

God's blessing keep coming and sometimes he blesses me and my family by allowing us to be able to bless others!!

Have a blessed week and take a few moments to bless someone in your life this week!!

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!

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!