August Savings!

Well, it is time to look at how I did with my grocery budget for the month of August.

We are a family of 4. We have 2 growing preteens who enjoy snacks and eat more and more as they get older. They are especially active right now and are participating in 2 sports. So, there is a lot of calorie consumption going on in order to keep them fueled for these activities.

I have been using a grocery saving service called The Grocery Game. Check out my previous posts for information about this. It helps me create my grocery list, tells me where to find the coupons, and lets me know if this item is on sale for its lowest price. Using the grocery game has helped me save more money on groceries. Another way I have been able to save more money, is that I have forced myself to keep track of my grocery spending on an index card. By writing down what I spend every week, it helps me consider what I spend at each shop. This has really helped our family. I use to have grocery bills that were over 200 dollars each time I shopped.

I shop at 3 stores: Meijer, Kroger, and Aldi. This month I have not been to Aldi because I have been able to get all of groceries at Kroger and Meijer for less!!! Our Kroger and Meijer doubles coupons up to .50 cents.

8/4-8/10
spent 98.00
saved 65.00

8/11-8/17
spent 123.00
saved 81.00

8/18-8/24
Spent 56.00
Saved 44.00

8/25-8/31
spent 92
saved 74.00

Monthy total spent = $369
Monthy total saved = $255.00- $7.50=$247.50

Now, I have to deduct $7.50 from the saved amount because this is the cost for me to get 2 lists from the grocery game for the month. Not too bad!!! A $7.50 investment in order to save $247.50!!

I hope to keep our grocery bill under $400 for the month of September. Eventually, my goal will be $75.00 a week. I know this is possible because as I shop I am creating my stockpile and I am finding that I need to purchase less and less to get through each week.

Happy saving!!

Today's Meijer shop!

I am so excited!!! I am getting better and better at saving money and I am spending less and less every week!!

Today (Saturday), I finally managed to make it Meijer before this week's sale ended (which was today). I am back to work (I am a teacher) and it was a crazy week with my daughters' sports activities so it was a challenge to find time to grocery shop.

I was able to save $51.32 on my groceries today. I had over $24.00 in coupons! The remainder of the savings came from the items being on sale!

I was able to stock up on razors, shaving creme, canned chicken, kool-aid, salad dressing, yogurt, coke zero, bread, rice, milk, peaches, glass cleaners, salad, fruit snacks, microwave popcorn, and bananas.

I will have to go back next week to get the items that I received rainchecks for. I have a great stockpile of other items in my pantry that I will be able to fix dinner from this week!!

Yeah! I love it when my receipt is so long and yet my bill is so small!!!

I just love saving money and want to share what I have learned with everyone. My stomach just cringed for the lady ahead of me who purchased almost $300 dollars worth of groceries. Her cart was about 1/2 full and she had no coupons! I want everyone I know and who reads this blog to be able to save as much money as you can on your groceries. We all have other financial priorities and goals and groceries seems like such a simple place to save!

If you are just beginning this coupon journey, I recommend reading my blog from the beginning so you can learn some of the tricks that I have learned from experts! Happy couponing!

Rainchecks

As more and more people are finding ways to save money in their budgets, I am finding that many times the sale items are scarce! Today for example, I hit Meijer and was disappointed that I was unable to buy super pretzels, jennie-o ground turkey, wheat hamburger buns, goldfish, and paper towels. All of these items were for sale for great prices. Well, my community took advantage of the sale of these items and I was unable to find any of these in our store. So, after I made my purchases I headed over to customer service and they wrote me rainchecks for the amount of these items that I had planned to purchase. Hopefully next week when I do my shopping these items will be available again and I will be getting this week's sale price. So, don't forget to ask for a raincheck!!

Ebates!

I think it is time to remind you about ebates. I had written about this in previous post. Ebates is a website that pays you to shop. If you are an internet shopper or a person who is trying to save money on gas, ebates is for you. They have over 900 stores that as long as you shop through their site you will earn money back. The way this works is you will earn a percentage back. After 3 months of earning money, they will send you a check. So far our family has earned $48.00 buying things that we would have bought anyways, but also receiving a refund. We recieved our first ebates check last week. I was thrilled! I also decreased my mileage as most of these purchases earned free shipping and saved our family gas money!!

Many of you may be hesistant and think that it isn't worth the money to shop online, because of the shipping charges. Most of the time I am able to find a free shopping coupon online. There is a great website http://www.freeshipping.org/ . This website will give free shipping codes for online stores. You may find that you save more money because you don't buy extra items you would if you were in the store. You may also find that you have a wider selection. Many times I know that I have gone to the store and found that they didn't have the size, color, or style I wanted but was able to find it online.

There is another website that I also pair with freeshipping.org. It is called http://www.retailmeknot.com/ . This website consists of additional codes that that allow you to apply an additional discount to your purchase. Sometimes it is a percentage off or a flat dollar amount. This is what you would enter during checkout and it is the promotional code that I always wished that I had.

So check out ebates!!! Use my link at the side of this page and see how many stores you can shop and enjoy saving money!!

Kroger 8/24

Again, if you haven't checked out The Grocery Game I highly recommend it.

I shopped of their list for Kroger today and saved 46%.

I purchased 24 items for $26.48 and saved $22.46

Yeah!

Check out my other posting about The Grocery Game for the nitty gritty. I showed my sister how this worked and she signed up yesterday and loves it!! She has already shopped at Meijer and Jewel and is looking forward to giving Walgreens a try.

Remember it only costs a $1.00 to try it for a month. Give it a try and I think you will be thrilled with the savings.

Ann Taylor Loft

There is a sale this weekend at The Loft.

This is one of my favorite stores. I recommend that you register to receive emails from them. Today, I received an email about a great sale this weekend.

For every $50 you spend, you will get 2 - $25 cards that can be used at a future date. Also, they are offering 25% off coupon.

So, I recommend that you check them out this weekend!!

Meijer sale this week....

Another great sale at Meijer this week.....I didn't go to Kroger this last week because there wasn't much that was on sale and it didn't seem worth it to go for just a few items. However, this week's sale that started yesterday looks really good. They have a lot of $1.00 items.

I finally made it to the grocery store this week. It has been crazy since everyone in my home is now back to school.

I just got a few things that we needed and some things that we will use later that are on sale.

I spent $38.75 and saved $24.03 = a 39% savings....

I bought 12 Yoplait yogurts, 3 mac and cheese, 2 pkg. english muffins, 3 edy's yogurt ice cream, 3 pkg. of 2 magic erasers, 3 marinade, 3 bags pretzels, 1 orange juice, 1 milk, 1 lb turkey breast, and 6 ramen noodles.

I had $8.84 worth of coupons. Some of my friends have asked me how I have gotten these coupons, especially when I have multiples. For this shop, most of my coupons came from the coupon clippers. I bought the Edy's yogurt coupons from them, 2 of the magic eraser coupons, and the 3 marinades. The total I spent on coupons for these items was less than a $1.oo total but I saved 8.84. So my $1.00 investment was worth the money. I have been using the coupon clippers for coupons for items that I will always use and always need. The items that I used these coupons for were also on sale; therefore saving me even more money. The only down side to the coupon clippers is to make sure you use your coupon by the expiration date. There have been a few times when I have let a coupon expire. For coupons that I get in the Sunday paper it doesn't stress me out, but for coupons that I had to pay for....I want to make sure that I use them.

I saved almost $15.00 buying items that were on sale. Again, I am amazed at my savings now that I pay attention to what is on sale and then apply coupons to those sale items. I remember the days of going up to cashier with a full grocery cart and having my groceries cost over 200.00.

I am so glad that I found the grocery game and the grocery gathering!!